2
" I never knew him. We both knew this place,
apparently, this literal small backwater,
looked at it long enough to memorize it,
our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved,
or its memory is (it must have changed a lot).
Our visions coincided--'visions' is
too serious a word--our looks, two looks:
art 'copying from life' and life itself,
life and the memory of it so compressed
they've turned into each other. Which is which?
Life and the memory of it cramped,
dim, on a piece of Bristol board,
dim, but how live, how touching in detail
--the little that we get for free,
the little of our earthly trust. Not much.
About the size of our abidance
along with theirs: the munching cows,
the iris, crisp and shivering, the water
still standing from spring freshets,
the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese. "
― Elizabeth Bishop , Geography III
3
" It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she’d scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launchtime.
He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of a kind who didn’t. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together.
She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal.
At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. ‘You’re my girl,’ he said.
And Lena knew she was. "
― , The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Sisterhood, #1)
6
" When did my house turn into a hangout for every grossly overpaid, terminally pampered professional football player in northern Illinois?" " We like it here," Jason said. " It reminds us of home." " Plus, no women around." Leandro Collins, the Bears' first-string tight end emerged from the office munching on a bag of chips. " There's times when you need a rest from the ladies." Annabelle shot out her arm and smacked him in the side of the head. " Don't forget who you're talking to." Leandro had a short fuse, and he'd been known to take out a ref here and there when he didn't like a call, but the tight end merely rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. " Just like my mama." " Mine, too," Tremaine said with happy nod.Annabelle spun on Heath. " Their mother! I'm thirty-one years old, and I remind them of their mothers." " You act like my mother," Sean pointed out, unwisely as it transpired, because he got a swat in the head next. "