We were awash in tiny attentions. Small gestures, words, empathies thought to be extinct came to life... We discovered the color of each other's eyes.
Jerry SpinelliIโm erased. Iโm gone. Iโm nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowlโฆ. Andโฆ I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. Iโm not outside my world anymore, and Iโm not really inside it either. The thing is, thereโs no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.
Jerry SpinelliOne of the best things about life is friends. We all agree on that. And yet our shyness with strangers often prevents friendship from ever gaining a foothold. If only we would realize that the other person is probably just as shy as we are and is simply waitingโand hopingโfor us to make the first move.
Jerry SpinelliShe laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.
Jerry SpinelliThe earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then - maybe - the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.
Jerry SpinelliThe desert seems to be a brown wasteland of dry, prickly scrub whose only purpose is to serve as a setting for the majestic saguaros. Then, little by little, the plants of the desert begin to identify themselves: the porcupiny yucca, the beaver tail and prickly pear and barrel cacti, buckhorn and staghorn and devil's fingers, the tall, sky-reaching tendrils of the ocotillo.
Jerry Spinelli