Hallie didn't believe she was invulnerable. She was never one of those daredevil types; she knew she could get hurt. What I think she meant was that she was lucky to be on her way to Nicaragua. It was the slowest thing to sink into my head, how happy she was. Happy to be leaving.
We'd had one time of perfect togetherness in our adult lives, the year when we were both in college in Tucson-her first year, my last-and living together for the first time away from Doc Homer. That winter I'd wanted to fail a subject just so I could hang back, stay there with her, the two of us walking around the drafty house in sweatshirts and wool socks and understanding each other precisely. Bringing each other cups of tea without having to ask. So I stayed on in Tucson for medical school, instead of going to Boston as I'd planned, and met Carlo in Parasitology. Hallie, around the same time, befriended some people who ran a safehouse for Central American refugees. After that we'd have strangers in our kitchen every time of night, kids scared senseless, people with all kinds of damage. Our life was never again idyllic.
I should have seen it coming. Once she and I had gone to see a documentary on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was these Americans who volunteered without our government's blessing to fight against Franco and Hitler in the Spanish Civil War. At that point in U.S. history fascism was only maybe wrong, whereas communism was definitely. When we came home from the movie Hallie cried. Not because of the people who gave up life and limb only to lose Spain to Franco, and not for the ones who came back and were harassed for the rest of their lives for being Reds. The tragedy for Hallie was that there might never be a cause worth risking everything for in our lifetime. She was nineteen years old then, and as she lay blowing her nose and sobbing on my bed she told me this. That there were no real causes left.
Now she had one-she was off to Nicaragua, a revolution of co-op farms and literacy crusades-and so I guess she was lucky. Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain. Almost no one really gets the chance to alter the course of human events on purpose, in the exact way they wish for it to be altered.
I keep hoping some guy with 'Ron' or 'Andy' stitched on his pocket and a gas pump in his hand will step up and tell me where I'm headed.
Barbara KingsolverThe obstinate practicality of old women pierces and fortifies these families like the steel rods buried in walls of powdery concrete.
Barbara Kingsolver...we sang in church "Tata Nzolo"! Which means Father in Heaven or Father of Fish Bait depending on just how you sing it, and that pretty well summed up my quandry.
Barbara KingsolverTag: humor
Beene-beene. The truest truth.
Barbara KingsolverIllusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.
Barbara KingsolverLusa turned to Crys, her eyes shining. "That was a luna."
Crys shrugged. "So?"
"So? So what? You want it should sing, too?
The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.
Barbara KingsolverTag: friendship
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Mexico admits you through an arched stone orifice into the tree-filled courtyard of its heart, where a dog pisses against a wall and a waiter hustles through a curtain of jasmine to bring a bowl of tortilla soup, steaming with cilantro and lime. Cats stalk lizards among the clay pots around the fountain, doves settle into the flowering vines and coo their prayers, thankful for the existence of lizards. The potted plants silently exhale, outgrowing their clay pots. Like Mexico's children they stand pinched and patient in last year's too-small shoes.
Barbara KingsolverMostra la citazione in tedesco
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The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.
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