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Aspen Matis Quotes

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Famous Aspen Matis Quotes

“In the small hours of a cold February dawn, Justin and I walked to the Pacific, high cliffs eroding over the ocean, crashed and crashed by lapping salty waves. Their spray misted us in day’s young purple air, exhilarating. Walking the Golden Gate Bridge, our world receding, pale gold sunrise lit thin fog, morning coloring us like a faded fairy tale.”

DawnFairy TaleSunriseFogCliffsWavesFebruaryErosionPacific OceanWaves Of The Ocean
Book:Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir
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“I began a new project: a photo-essay about the Occupy Wall Street movement that was overtaking Manhattan. Inspired, I snapped hundreds of photographs, wanting to document this singular moment in New York’s pulsing body, watching people flooding the sidewalks like human rivers, converging at the green park as one ocean. I took shots of the sharpest signs and strangest masks; the angry bankers in their crisp blue button-downs; the lines of bored-faced cops, slouching with thick arms crossed. And peering through my viewfinder, I learned the skill of noticing more deeply; I felt a thrill—a new civil affinity budding in my dreams and in the brick-and-mortar city, simultaneously: that we, the people, were awakening to the truth that a bundle of twigs is inconceivably strong.”

New York CityManhattanMasksOccupy Wall StreetPhotographsStrength In NumbersSocial MovementPhoto Essay
Book:Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir
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“If I could mark clearly, convincingly and consistently what was good for me and also what was bad — if I could say yes and also no, as if it were the law — it would become my law. It finally had to. I understood that it wouldn’t be easy, it would be very hard; I’d need to resist the habit I had developed long ago – with conviction. I’d have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and sometimes awkward. But if I could commit, all that discomfort would add up to zap predatory threats like a Taser gun. I’d stun them. They’d bow to me. I’d let my no echo against the mountains. And better to feel bad for a moment saying no – and stop it – than to get harmed.”

BoundariesSurvivorHealing InsightsBoundaries QuotesNo Means No
Book:Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
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“Walking downtown in a cool October drizzle, Justin and I were offered an umbrella by a middle-aged stranger in an olive bowler hat. “It’s extra,” he said, bowing down slightly. “I brought it because I knew someone would need it.” A palpable force seemed to be unifying the people of the city, the sudden camaraderie of solidarity. Arriving in the Financial District, we saw a tent city in Manhattan’s heart. A thousand people were gathered on the grass of Zuccotti Park, wielding cardboard signs with powerful reminders: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” and “We are the 99%.” Chatting with the campers, individuals who strongly reminded us of thru-hikers from the trail, we learned that this patchwork rally was a coordinated response to our country’s growing wealth gap.”

StrangerGenerosityNew York CitySolidarityUmbrellaCamaraderieUnifyingOccupy Wall StreetWealth GapFinancial District
Book:Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir
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“I had feared this end, wondered where I would go from it, from the moment I first stepped on this footpath in the desert. But I found I was not afraid of reaching it now. I was happy. I hadn't found every answer for where I was going, but I now had all I needed to take these next steps. I knew I would do what I needed to become a writer now.”

LifeWoodsMemoirWriterHikingAspen MatisYoung GirlHiking The Pct
Book:Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
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“I was passive by nature. I had always been. Arguing felt unnatural and uncomfortable. I was always agreeing even when I didn’t really, instinctively looking for ways to forfeit power, to become more dependent, to be taken care of. I realized how intensely Icecap reminded me of Jacob. They were similar, both diligent and harsh in their judgments—and my big brother’s sureness had always comforted me. But as I ran on sore legs to keep up with Icecap, my tendency toward silence stressed me.”

NatureMemoirHikingAspen MatisPct
Book:Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
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“If I couldn't find the trail before dark, I could wake tomorrow disoriented and desperate, without having even made any new miles; my loss of the PCT should have distressed me, but a new instinct led me forward. In this moment of despair I was refusing to stop fighting. I asked the mountains for some guidance, the strength to get myself out of here, and pulled wild power from within myself I'd never known I'd had. I was no longer following a trail. I was learning to follow myself.”

IdentitySearchingPctPacific Crest Trail
Book:Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
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“That night in our tent, Justin told me how, ten thousand years ago, human beings were migrant—we were like the birds. The average human would see only about a hundred people in her lifetime and would know each one profoundly, deeply bonded. Today, humans in cities will see a hundred beings in just minutes, naming them strangers, a dehumanizing designation. The next morning, I woke to wet rocks glittering in the slanted light, the day’s warmth shining in bars through the sparse canopy of maples. Happy here, I began to fear our next destination, hectic Manhattan—a surreal flip to witnessing ten thousand people a day. In these deep thickets, we walked a path that was streamlined, simple and clear.”

LifetimeIntimacyHikingBirdsStrangersBondingBackpackingTentMigrantDehumanizing
Author:Aspen Matis
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“Yet as our North Bay strolls grew longer, sometimes wandering felt like pacing, adrift. I had no direction, only a romantic wish: to become a professional writer. But whatever terrain existed between my body and a body of work I might create seemed mysterious and vast, unknown. Most days, the sky was satin, markless blue. But below, fog hung like a suspended field of snow that never melted, the boundless dampness muting San Francisco’s lights. And the path to that summit of composing even one novel was invisible.”

CreativityDreamsAmbitionWriterSan FranciscoNovel WritingWanderingAdriftStrollDirectionless
Book:Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir
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“I hated my inability to explain my life on the trail to her and my mother’s inability to comprehend. I hated her consistent need to know the list of different foods I’d eaten that day. I remembered how she’d asked me if I’d had a good dinner in the same phone call when I’d told her I’d been raped. I considered, tomorrow night, not calling her.”

Aspen MatisGirl In The WoodsHiking Pct
Book:Girl in the Woods: A Memoir
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