they say in the old tales that when a man and woman exchange looks the way we did, their spirits mingle. their gaze is a rope of gold binding each other. even if they never meet again, they carry a little of the other with them always. they can never forget, and they can never be wholly happy again

Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon.

Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.

Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified. 'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it.

That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness.

I walk out of the room, lurching under the weight of the lesson I've learned less than one hour into wifehood: How quickly the sweetest love turns rancid when it isn't returned. When the one you love loves someone else.

I liked his voice, rich and unself-conscious even when he forgot words and hummed to fill in the gap. What I didn't understand, I imagined, and thus it became a love song.