"A woman, neither old, nor young..." -my mom

I walk at sunset, east along the road. There are no houses in that direction, except the abandoned one where the wild plums grow, white with bloom in springtime. Folks call the road lonely, because there is no human traffic and human stirring. Because I have walked it so many times, and seen such a tumult of life there, it seems to me one of the most populous highways of my acquaintance. I have walked it in ecstasy, and in joy it is beloved. Every pine, every gall berry bush, every passion vine, every joree rustling in the underbrush, is vibrant. I have walked it in trouble, and the wind in the trees beside me is easing. I have walked it in despair, and the red of the sunset is my own blood dissolving into the night’s darkness. For all such things were on earth before us, and will survive after us, and it is given to us to join ourselves with them and to be comforted.
-Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Do you ever reread something and find in it the long-forgotten origins of some aspect of yourself? If I am wondering why I have to do something, like get up in the morning or love people, the line that goes through my head is: that is what is given to us to do. I like the construction of the sentence because the giver is not specified. The nature or existence of a giver is not predetermined, and in fact may only exist in the sense that we find ourselves with some things given. I’ve always kind of thought I stole the line from somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where.

The first night I was at Linda and Topper’s new house in Port Clyde, I found that passage from Cross Creek. I knew Linda liked it so I had printed it out and illustrated it with pencil drawings for a Christmas present when I was 14; Linda has it hanging on the wall. And there it is—those words that I have been speaking to myself ever since.
I loooove alligators. Meghan and Lindsay met this one in Florida just a few weeks ago. Did you know alligators hiss if you throw things at them? Totally true.