“Why didn't I just keep my stupid mouth closed? Why didn't I shake my head and apologize with a hint of tears in my voice and slink off to bed with the memory of the Blue Door with a secret talisman in my pocket? Because I was seven, and stubborn, and didn't yet understand the true cost of stories.” ChildhoodLiesWordsInnocence Book:The Ten Thousand Doors of January Source: The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“Dusk settled over our shoulders like a damp purple blanket. The river- the churn and clank of boat traffic, the shush of water, and the tangy smell of catfish and mud- was slowly beaten back by honeysuckle and cicadas and some bird that cooed the same three syllables in a lilting circle. It was all so familiar and so foreign. I pictured a young girl in a blue cotton dress running down this same road on cinnamon-stick legs. Then I pictured another girl, white and square-jawed, running before her. Adelaide. Mother. I would've missed it if I hadn't been looking: a narrow dirt drive crowded on either side by briars and untrimmed boughs. Even once I'd followed the track to its end I was uncertain- who would live in such a huddled, bent-back cabin, half-eaten by ivy and some sort of feral climbing rose? The wooden-shake shingles were green with moss; the barn had collapsed entirely.” HomeMotherChildhoodCountrysideKentuckyNatures BeautyCottage Book:The Ten Thousand Doors of January Source: The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“I won't tell you everything she told me, for two reasons: because there's a good chance you'd die of boredom. She told me stories about my mother's first steps and the time she climbed into the barn loft and jumped out because she thought she could fly; about her hatred of sweet potatoes and her love of fresh honeycomb; about the perfect June evenings the Larson women spent watching her cartwheel and careen through the yard. Second, because they are each precious and painful to me in some secret way I can't explain, and I'm not ready to show them to anyone else yet. I want to hold them for a while in the quiet undercurrents of myself, until their edges are worn smooth as river stones.” StoriesMotherChildhood Book:The Ten Thousand Doors of January Source: The Ten Thousand Doors of January