coming-of-age

It was not about the sea or the sand, but burying her feet there had seemed to cure what had worried her...

I left Hairball to his manic mantric singing. I walked toward the house and stopped to rub some white pine needles on my fingers. The evergreen smelled fresh and alive. The needles were long and soft to the touch. I looked back at Hairball. The moon had risen higher and Little Meadow was even brighter. The windpicked up Hairball__ singing and blew it away. By the time I got up to the house he had become a silvery ghost dancing in the moonlight, a nowhere man longing to live on the moon.

It's okay to be happy.

You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you__l see someday.

I love you when you__e happy. I love you when you__e sad. I love you if you__e angry,And I love you if you__e bad. No matter how you feel, I love you all the time.Oh my sweet, dear baby, I love you all the time.

There exists an oasis where inspiration bursts forth like black gold from the fertile loam and every odd bellbird chirps a melody worth remembering. There__ no bloody map or nautical chart that can deliver you there, but you know the instant you__e arrived because you never ever want to depart.

I couldn't believe it.Something wasn't right.I thought, "Batman smokes cigarettes."I couldn't believe it. "Batman smokes fucking cigarettes."I walked away and saw that Batman was just this stupid guy dressed up in a rubber suit, just as afraid as I was, and that I lived in a lost place inside my own heart, where even Batman couldn't help me.

It was a sacrifice worthy of her and dreams are made to be killed.

And scars will lighten, they'll pale unless you keep rubbing at them...wait long enough, they'll fade.

Mama and I sat on a burping bus full of chickens in cages, and round-eyed babies on round mothers' laps. (The Pinata-Maker's Daughter)

I__l be like Esther. Your daughter.___ou ain__ that strong.

Hush now, __is time to sleep and dream secrets of long ago.

A hothouse flower trained to bloom out of season and in the wrong climate. I do not belong.

Bittersweet: it's what life tastes like. And if you can handle the bitter, the sweet will come later. ~ Klyde, in Piranhas Like S'mores.

They drove back to her house in silence. Terrance pulled the car into the driveway and turned off the engine. Turning toward her, he said, __hadejah, I really like you a lot and I don__ want to hurt you. But I__ not a virgin and I like to have sex. If we__e going to keep seeing each other, you__e got to make a decision, because if I can__ get it from you I__l get it from someone else._ He looked her straight in her tear-filled eyes. __ need to know whether to get a room for after the concert. Let me know tomorrow._ He reached over and opened her door. Khadejah didn__ say a word. She got out of the car and went into the house.Terrance sat there for a few minutes wondering if he was being fair. She had to know that he was having sex. Damn, I should feel honored that she__ still a virgin, he thought. Shit, I__l just have my cake and eat it, too.Ten minutes later, Terrance was knocking on Adrienne__ door. __ey, can I come in?

But like all moments trapped in time, that moment would end and Joey Boldt, as all the greats before him did, would begin to understand that clinging too tightly to anything results in Time and Fate shaking you until you can't hold on any longer. And then, when you are knocked for a six and lose your grip, they allow you to spiral into a freefall where men are broken and legends are made.

Sometimes I get the feeling [my parents have] asked me to hold this big invisible secret for them, like a backpack full of rocks--all these things they don't want to know about themselves. I'm supposed to wear it as I hike up this trail toward my adulthood. They're already at the summit of Full Grown Mountain. They're waiting for me to get there and cheering me on, telling me I can do it, and sometimes scolding and asking why I'm not hiking any faster or why I'm not having more fun along the way. I know I'm not supposed to talk about this backpack full of their crazy, but sometimes I really wish we could all stop for a second. Maybe they could walk down the trail from the top and meet me. We could unzip that backpack, pull out all of those rocks, and leave the ones we no longer need by the side of the trail. It'd make the walk a lot easier. Maybe then my shoulders wouldn't get so tense when Dad lectures me about money or Mom starts a new diet she saw on the cover of a magazine at the grocery store.

It__ a neighborhood where every dad has at least one job and where parents often end conversations with the words: no guts, no glory.