With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind. Here’s a thought experiment. Consider this brutal bit of magic: A human grows a second human in a space inside her belly; she grows a second heart and a second brain, second eyes and second limbs, a complete set of second body parts as if for use as spares, and then, after almost a year, she expels that second screaming being out of her belly and into the world, alive. Bizarre, isn’t it?
Karen Thompson WalkerI had grown into a worrier, a girl on constant guard for catastrophes large and small, for the disappointments I now sensed were hidden all around us right in plain sight.
Karen Thompson WalkerSome say that love is the sweetest feeling, the purest form of joy, but that isn't right. It's not love--it's relief.
Karen Thompson WalkerMy grandfather liked any story in which the unlikely turned out to be true.
Karen Thompson Walker. . . perhaps the reasons for a man to leave his life were too obvious for him to name.
Karen Thompson WalkerHow much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.
Karen Thompson WalkerTags: life time possibilities hopes
Later, I would come to think of those first days as the time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things: the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, West Nile and swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.
Karen Thompson WalkerTags: future disaster fears catastrophes worries
This was middle school, the age of miracles, the time when kids shot up three inches over the summer, when breasts bloomed from nothing, when voices dipped and dove. Our first flaws were emerging, but they were being corrected. Blurry vision could be fixed invisibly with the magic of the contact lens. Crooked teeth were pulled straight with braces. Spotty skin could be chemically cleared. Some girls were turning beautiful. A few boys were growing tall.
Karen Thompson WalkerI've become a collector of stories about unlikely returns: the sudden reappearance of the long-lost son, the father found, the lovers reunited after forty years. Once in awhile, a letter does fall behind a post office desk and lie there for years before it's finally discovered and delivered to the rightful address. The seemingly brain-dead sometimes wake up and start talking. I'm always on the lookout for proof that what is done can sometimes be undone.
Karen Thompson WalkerBut doesn't every precious era feel like fiction once it's gone? After a while, certain vestigial sayings are all that remain. Decades after the invention of the automobile, for instance, we continue to warn each other not to 'put the cart before the horse'. So, too, we do still have 'day'dreams and 'night'mares, and the early-morning clock hours are still known colloquially (if increasing mysteriously) as 'the crack of dawn'. Similarly, even as they grew apart, my parents never stopped calling each other 'sweetheart'.
Karen Thompson WalkerTags: inspirational
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