Writers & Lovers

One conversation can destroy my whole morning

Like many parents, my father wanted to give me what he didn’t get, then he wanted me to get what he couldn’t reach.

. I can’t follow a thought. I feel like crying, but nothing comes.

When I was visiting her a few years ago she hugged me and said, ‘Tomorrow after you leave I will stand here at this window and remember that yesterday you were right here with me.’

And now she’s dead and I have that feeling all the time, no matter where I stand.

The hardest thing about writing is getting in every day, breaking through the membrane. The second-hardest thing is getting out.

Marriage is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, my mother said.

They say women have intuition, but men can smell a competitor across state lines.

‘He just blasted me apart. I don’t even know where to find the bolts and screws. I always thought that if ever there came a time when I didn’t hold anything back and just laid my heart on the table—’ I have to squeak out the rest. ‘Which I did. I did that this time. And it still wasn’t enough.’

I understood then how guarded I’d been before with men, how little of me I’d let them see.

It was strong, whatever was between us, thick, like the wet air and the smell of every green thing ready to bloom. Maybe it was just spring. Maybe that’s all it was.