It was hard to feel the right emotions at the right times. They didnโt come at all when you set a place for them, and they sacked when you werenโt ready, when you were just innocently flossing your teeth, for example, or eating a bowl of cereal.
Ann BrasharesI love that blurry place where lifeโs transitions are made without you even knowing it.
Ann BrasharesOnce Paul told her that the beach was like him because it changed every day but it never made any progress. Later she remembered thinking that a normal person might have begun by saying that he was like the beach.
Ann BrasharesIt was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldnโt obsessively reread what youโd written after youโd sent it. You couldnโt attempt to un-send it. Once youโd sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what youโd said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.
Ann Brashares