“Any family could have lived in that room, filling the shelves with bought or borrowed books that eventually overflowed to the short glass coffee table. Porcelain ballerinas and clowns, cartoonish and threatening in their amplified emotions, must have been gifts from doting great-aunts. Three living succulents—I touched them, to check for falsity and perpetual longevity—were equally spaced in front of a thick copy of Elizabeth Bishop’s collected works. My family could not have lived in that room; I could not have lived in that room.”
Book:A Good Happy Girl