First of all, what a thoughtful cover. You never really see great covers anymore, and this one I love. Now onto my favourite parts of the book!
“The flower smelled like a fancy candle, and even though I’d smelled honeysuckle before, its scent pleasure-stung me anew, and I laughed a bit and said, “Unbelievable.” She knew I was talking about the gentle shock you can feel about how straightforward nature is in its generosity, its dizzying intricate offerings.”
Her paragraphs on the inexplicability of makeup: “…and so I put skin-colored paint all over my face and I dab pasty red pigment on my lips and swish peachy powder on my cheeks and I take a pencil and draw an eye-shaped line around my eye so that people know where my blinkers are.”
Maybe my favourite line in the whole book: “I like the sound of bugs talking to each other outside in the night.”
“I couldn’t feel anyone’s heart pointed even in my direction, let alone anyone loving me or wanting me to be around. Very boring, very lonely, very tired, again. It was hard to feel anything, except I am not one of the creatures who will experience anything precious.”
There was an entire chapter devoted to one vacation that she took with some female friends and I loved everything about it. How freeing and perfect that world is to be in, temporarily.
“As the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love.”
There’s an entire chapter on what it feels like to have your birthday at the beginning of spring (we’re born a few days apart from each other) and I looooove it, obviously.
“The pretty things gathered to live just as I arrived.”
“I was born and everything in nature seemed like arms reaching out. I was born and the wildness from outside put itself inside of me.”
Sound ideas:
“Write a note of encouragement to yourself and put it in a drawer that you use a lot. Later in the day, when you go to get a spoon or a sweater, there it will be, looking up at you, saying something like, “You are a little sweetheart, aren’t you?” or something like that. It will be good to feel a little embarrassed by the heightened emotion of the note. It will be good to have a treat and a non-gross secret like this note.”
“Turn your head to the side and give yourself a little kiss on the shoulder.”
Talking about drinking in airports: “The slightest things can tip me into nonspecific sadness when I am alone. A glass of white wine would be devastating, for example, if I were alone. A pint of beer just keeps everything steady. Hello, I am just a beer drinking, in neutral transit.”
Describing being on a plane: “And then, because it was the thing to do, I prepared to sleep, fully clothed and sitting up next to a stranger while we shot through the evening sky.”
There’s a chapter about having the types of flowers that would stick to the face of her dog and it’s so hard to get into how lovely it was, so it’ll be much easier for me to just ask you to read the Kathleen/Dog-Flower-Face chapter on page 131 the next time you’re in a book store. It’s wonderful.
The thought of, “If the whole world knows who you are then it is harder to get lost out there.”
Such a great, brave, revealing book. You really do feel like you know her once you’ve completed it, it’s wild. Definitely a great first book to read in 2020.