say it once, out loud, and see if it's still true.
the bloomington used bookstore, day one. she said it about a paperback she was deciding on. it worked on my entire life instead.
a crush is just a rumor your nervous system is spreading about someone.
back when i would not stop talking about a certain plain hero i had just met. she diagnosed me in one sentence.
grief is love doing inventory.
the week i re-alphabetized the west headstones and cried at the letter g. she mailed it to me on the back of a receipt.
you don't have to water every plant that looks at you sad.
the weekend i tried to fix three people's lives at once and got soil on everything, emotionally speaking.
tea doesn't fix anything. tea builds a small room where fixing can sit down.
a quiet night at the cottage at root. seth put the kettle on without asking. it was already warm. it is always somehow warm.
an apology with a “but” in it is a receipt, not a refund.
delivered during a formal court dispute between two ravens. don't ask. the ravens settled.
most emergencies are just feelings running late.
3am, when i was fully convinced the kingdom was ending. it was tuesday. the kingdom was fine. the feeling arrived around noon, apologized, and left.
any decision that needs a spreadsheet already told you no.
the month i almost outsourced the weeping rosarium to a very persuasive gnome consortium. i had four tabs open. she had one sentence.
sleep is just letting tomorrow have a turn.
found written in the margin of a book she lent me. i stole the margin. the book went back, the margin stayed.
keep the receipt in the book and the book remembers the day you bought it.
her whole bookmark philosophy, explained once and never repeated because it didn't need to be. every book in her cottage holds its own receipt.
never make a big decision in a mirror before noon.
arrived on a postcard the exact morning of a haircut i did not, in the end, get. the postcard knew.
the hill is not impressed by your hurry. the hill has never once been impressed.
borrowed for skyla, who was trying to jog a feeling off somewhere on the long green.
half of loneliness is soup deficiency. start with the soup.
a bad week in november. i argued with her about it for a full day, then made soup. she was right. it was soup.
a boundary is just a door you finally admit you own.
when i kept letting a certain ghost linger past visiting hours. said it once at the gate of pretty things. the iron approved.
you can't hold every book. you can hold one. start there.
overwhelm, generally. the codex was young and i wanted it finished by friday. friday did not want that. nobody asked friday.
love is not a weather event. it's a schedule you keep on purpose.
she said it years before she ever heard of seth. then i watched broadcast #001 become broadcast #766, one sunset at a time, and counting. the quote was early. she usually is.