1
" Our brains resist change, they rail against it, our amygdala will always want the safe bet. But are the obstacles truly insurmountable? Is it a brick wall? Or is it a sliding door, which, once you decide to approach it, begins to swish open? Because even though our brains prefer safety in the short run, in the long run they crave meaning, challenge, and novelty. "
― , Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife
2
" It had started snowing, a thick wet layer of slush that won't stick. There are no cars on the road, nothing but big white flakes falling onto our faces, erasing the buildings around us, and the low swish of our feet on the road as we try to keep our footing, a soft wheeze humming from the bottom of my lungs from too much smoking.In the middle of Nation Road, Mazzie turns to me without any warning. She grabs my arm and we both fall down, and then we're sitting there in the middle of the bare road, and for a few seconds we just sit there, quite, listening to the eerie silent noise of snow falling against land.Snow covers Mazzie's eyelashes, making her look like a tiny ice princess– the closest she will ever come to wearing makeup." You look pretty," I say." Shut up. "
7
" And at night the river flows, it bears pale stars on the holy water, some sink like veils, some show like fish, the great moon that once was rose now high like a blazing milk flails its white reflection vertical and deep in the dark surgey mass wall river's grinding bed push. As in a sad dream, under the streetlamp, by pocky unpaved holes in dirt, the father James Cassidy comes home with lunchpail and lantern, limping, redfaced, and turns in for supper and sleep.
Now a door slams. The kids have rushed out for the last play, the mothers are planning and slamming in kitchens, you can hear it out in swish leaf orchards, on popcorn swings, in the million-foliaged sweet wafted night of sighs, songs, shushes. A thousand things up and down the street, deep, lovely, dangerous, aureating, breathing, throbbing like stars; a whistle, a faint yell; the flow of Lowell over rooftops beyond; the bark on the river, the wild goose of the night yakking, ducking in the sand and sparkle; the ululating lap and purl and lovely mystery on the shore, dark, always dark the river's cunning unseen lips, murmuring kisses, eating night, stealing sand, sneaky.
'Mag-gie!' the kids are calling under the railroad bridge where they've been swimming. The freight train still rumbles over a hundred cars long, the engine threw the flare on little white bathers, little Picasso horses of the night as dense and tragic in the gloom comes my soul looking for what was there that disappeared and left, lost, down a path--the gloom of love. Maggie, the girl I loved. "
― Jack Kerouac , Maggie Cassidy
8
" What - what - what are you doing?" he demanded." I am almost six hundred years old," Magnus claimed, and Ragnor snorted, since Magnus changed his age to suit himself every few weeks. Magnus swept on. " It does seem about time to learn a musical instrument." He flourished his new prize, a little stringed instrument that looked like a cousin of the lute that the lute was embarrassed to be related to. " It's called a charango. I am planning to become a charanguista!" " I wouldn't call that an instrument of music," Ragnor observed sourly. " An instrument of torture, perhaps." Magnus cradled the charango in his arms as if it were an easily offended baby. " It's a beautiful and very unique instrument! The sound box is made from an armadillo. Well, a dried armadillo shell." " That explains the sound you're making," said Ragnor. " Like a lost, hungry armadillo." " You are just jealous," Magnus remarked calmly. " Because you do not have the soul of a true artiste like myself." " Oh, I am positively green with envy," Ragnor snapped." Come now, Ragnor. That's not fair," said Magnus. " You know I love it when you make jokes about your complexion." Magnus refused to be affected by Ragnor's cruel judgments. He regarded his fellow warlock with a lofty stare of superb indifference, raised his charango, and began to play again his defiant, beautiful tune.They both heard the staccato thump of frantically running feet from within the house, the swish of skirts, and then Catarina came rushing out into the courtyard. Her white hair was falling loose about her shoulders, and her face was the picture of alarm." Magnus, Ragnor, I heard a cat making a most unearthly noise," she exclaimed. " From the sound of it, the poor creature must be direly sick. You have to help me find it!" Ragnor immediately collapsed with hysterical laughter on his windowsill. Magnus stared at Catarina for a moment, until he saw her lips twitch." You are conspiring against me and my art," he declared. " You are a pack of conspirators." He began to play again. Catarina stopped him by putting a hand on his arm." No, but seriously, Magnus," she said. " That noise is appalling." Magnus sighed. " Every warlock's a critic." " Why are you doing this?" " I have already explained myself to Ragnor. I wish to become proficient with a musical instrument. I have decided to devote myself to the art of the charanguista, and I wish to hear no more petty objections." " If we are all making lists of things we wish to hear no more . . . ," Ragnor murmured.Catarina, however, was smiling." I see," she said." Madam, you do not see." " I do. I see it all most clearly," Catarina assured him. " What is her name?" " I resent your implication," Magnus said. " There is no woman in the case. I am married to my music!" " Oh, all right," Catarina said. " What's his name, then?" His name was Imasu Morales, and he was gorgeous. "
12
" What if this was a sign? Maybe I’m not supposed to be an Outsider.
He surprised her by taking her hand and threading his fingers through hers. “You already are an Outsider. You fit everywhere. You just don’t see it yet.”
She stared at their hands. He’d never done that before.
Roar gave her a droll look. “It’s just odd having you lay your hand on my arm all the time,” he said, responding to her thoughts.
Yes, but this feels intimate. Don’t you think it does? I don’t mean that I think we’re being too intimate. I guess I do. Roar, sometimes it’s really hard to get used to this.
Roar flashed a grin. “Aria, this isn’t intimate. If I were being intimate with you, trust me, you’d know.”
She rolled her eyes. Next time you say something like that, you should toss a red rose and then leave with a swish of your cape. "
― Veronica Rossi , Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky, #2)