Scarf Day Quotes

Kizzy was so busy wishing she was Sarah Ferris or Jenny Glass that she could scarcely see herself at all and she was certainly blind to her own weird beauty: her heavy spell-casting eyes too-wide mouth wild hair and hips that could be wild too if they learned how. No one else in town looked anything like her and if she lived to womanhood she was the one artists would want to draw not the Sarahs and Jennys. She was the one who would some day know a dozen ways to wear a silk scarf how to read the sky for rain and coax feral animals near how to purr throaty love songs in Portuguese and Basque how to lay a vampire to rest how to light a cigar how to light a man's imagination on fire.

I didn’t want you to remember this day because of the scarf. So I thought instead you could remember it as the day your Granny broke into a zoo—” “And escaped from a hospital,” Elsa says with a grin. “And escaped from a hospital,” says Granny with a grin. “And threw turds at the police.” “Actually, it was soil! Or mainly soil, anyway.” “Changing memories is a good superpower, I suppose.” Granny shrugs. “If you can’t get rid of the bad, you have to top it up with more goody stuff.

Now, we ain't got nothing to do with God's business," she says, sitting back in her seat. She adjusts herself and straightens her scarf, contenting herself with whatever the day has in store.

My mother taught me to knit when I was seven. I forgot about knitting until one day I saw Marion at the counter with hers and confessed that I knew how. Confessed is the right word. In those days, in the early 1980s, knitting was not a hobby a preteen would readily admit to. But Marion, every enthusiastic, pounced upon me and insisted that I show her something I'd made. I did -- a misshapen scarf -- which she priased exravagantly. she lent me a raspberry-colored wool for another project, a hat for myself. Since then I've been knitting pretty continuously. It's addictive and it's soothing, and fora a few minutes anyway, it makes me feel closer to my mother.

My first morning back, and I’m in such a terrific mood that I start the day off right by blasting Nappy Roots in the kitchen while I scarf down some cereal. The loud strains of “Good Day” draw the others from their bedrooms, and Garrett is the first to appear, clad in boxers and rubbing his eyes. “Morning, Sunshine,” he mumbles. “Please tell me you made some coffee.” I point to the counter. “Go nuts.” He pours himself a cup and plops down on one of the stools. “Did cartoon chipmunks dress you this morning?” he grumbles. “You’re scarily chipper.” “And you’re scarily grumpy. Smile, dude. It’s our favorite day of the year, remember?

As we grown-ups talked and speculated, my five-year-old daughter looked intently out of the window. Suddenly she turned around and shouted, "Mommy, Mommy, he is not dead! Women are still wearing their scarves." I always associate Khomeini's death with Negar's simple pronouncement—for she was right: the day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution. Until then, we would continue to live with him.

Throughout the month of May, every night, in that poor, wild garden, under that shrubbery, each day, more perfumed and dense, two human beings composed of every chastity and every innocence, every flowing with all the felicities of Heaven, closer to archangels than men, pure, honest, intoxicated, radiant, glowed for each other in the darkness. It seemed to Cosette that Marius had a crown, and to Marius that Cosette had a halo. They touched, they gazed at each other, they clasped hands, they pressed close together, but there was a distance they did not pass. Not that they respected it; they were ignorant of it. Marius felt a barrier, Cosette’s purity, and Cosette felt a support, Marius’ loyalty. The first kiss was also the last. Since then, Marius had not gone beyond touching Cosette’s hand, or her scarf, or her curls, with his lips. Cosette was to him a perfume, not a woman. He breathed her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was happy, and Marius was satisfied. They were living in that ravishing condition that might be called the dazzling of one soul by another. It was that ineffable first embrace of two virginities within the ideal. Two swans meeting on the Jung Frau.

The finest scarf or collar made To keep a woman warm By night or day or sea or land Is still a lover's arm.

The sun rises bright and beautiful as if it feels no pain. It must not see, it must not hear, it can't possibly or it would not be able to overcome so defiantly. My bed creaks and whines when I leave it behind. I don't know why it tries so hard to hold onto me but yet I continue to try and overcome. I put on my shirt, my pants that fit me, find my socks and glue my heel back to my boot. My gloves are lost, my coat is torn but my scarf still keeps me warm and so I continue to try and overcome. Work has no pride, no place for me but I have no other place to be. My broken dreams continue to rise, my hopes continue to fade but still I try to overcome. A broken window and a gas tank on E, it's not Friday so I have to walk each day for at least another three. And so I walk while the world cries and pleas and tries to swallow me but still I continue and try to overcome. My lock on my door only turns halfway, but I don't have anything to steal anyway. My fridge is bare but my cabinet still holds three so I continue to try and overcome. The news haunts me, the weather threatens to rain down on me but another day has gone by. And I have overcome, I have overcome … I have overcome - the sun has nothing on me.

I’d consider it profession enough to have streaky bleached hair, to wear a green scarf, to spill spicy teas, to walk (slightly) unevenly on high heels. What more is there to give to the world than that? I realize this sentiment of mine is currently considered appalling, but these days I find the popularity of ideas even more meaningless than ever before.

In those days we saw every sort of object as though it were one of those tiny handkerchiefs from which a conjuror can produce silk scarfs, streamers, flags, and yards of ribbon. A cup of coffee became a kaleidoscope in which we could spend ages watching the mutable reflections of ceiling or chandelier.

When you reach a certain age, you see that time is all we have. By which I mean, moments like those springing deer this morning, and watching your mother be born, and sitting at the dining room table here waiting for the phone to ring and announce that a certain baby (you) had been born, or that day when all of us hiked out at Point Lobos. That extremely loud seal, your sister's scarf drifting down, down to that black, briny boulder, the replacement you so generously bought her in Monterey, how pleased you made her with your kindness. Those things were real. That is what (that is all) one gets. All this other stuff is real only to the extent that it interferes with those moments.

From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward Pierre and began knitting a striped scarf for him.

Fire, fire! The branches crackle and the night wind of late autumn blows the flame of the bonfire back and forth. The compound is dark; I am alone at the bonfire, and I can bring it still some more carpenters' shavings. The compound here is a privileged one, so privileged that it is almost as if I were out in freedom -- this is an island of paradise; this is the Marfino "sharashka" -- a scientific institute staffed with prisoners -- in its most privileged period. No one is overseeing me, calling me to a cell, chasing me away from the bonfire, and even then it is chilly in the penetrating wind. But she -- who has already been standing in the wind for hours, her arms straight down, her head drooping, weeping, then growing numb and still. And then again she begs piteously "Citizen Chief! Please forgive me! I won't do it again." The wind carries her moan to me, just as if she were moaning next to my ear. The citizen chief at the gatehouse fires up his stove and does not answer. This was the gatehouse of the camp next door to us, from which workers came into our compound to lay water pipes and to repair the old ramshackle seminary building. Across from me, beyond the artfully intertwined, many-stranded barbed-wire barricade and two steps away from the gatehouse, beneath a bright lantern, stood the punished girl, head hanging, the wind tugging at her grey work skirt, her feet growing numb from the cold, a thin scarf over her head. It had been warm during the day, when they had been digging a ditch on our territory. And another girl, slipping down into a ravine, had crawled her way to the Vladykino Highway and escaped. The guard had bungled. And Moscow city buses ran right along the highway. When they caught on, it was too late to catch her. They raised the alarm. A mean, dark major arrived and shouted that if they failed to catch the girl, the entire camp would be deprived of visits and parcels for whole month, because of her escape. And the women brigadiers went into a rage, and they were all shouting, one of them in particular, who kept viciously rolling her eyes: "Oh, I hope they catch her, the bitch! I hope they take scissors and -- clip, clip, clip -- take off all her hair in front of the line-up!" But the girl who was now standing outside the gatehouse in the cold had sighed and said instead: "At least she can have a good time out in freedom for all of us!" The jailer had overheard what she said, and now she was being punished; everyone else had been taken off to the camp, but she had been set outside there to stand "at attention" in front of the gatehouse. This had been at 6 PM, and it was now 11 PM. She tried to shift from one foot to another, but the guard stuck out his head and shouted: "Stand at attention, whore, or else it will be worse for you!" And now she was not moving, only weeping: "Forgive me, Citizen Chief! Let me into the camp, I won't do it any more!" But even in the camp no one was about to say to her: "All right, idiot! Come on it!" The reason they were keeping her out there so long was that the next day was Sunday, and she would not be needed for work. Such a straw-blond, naive, uneducated slip of a girl! She had been imprisoned for some spool of thread. What a dangerous thought you expressed there, little sister! They want to teach you a lesson for the rest of your life! Fire, fire! We fought the war -- and we looked into the bonfires to see what kind of victory it would be. The wind wafted a glowing husk from the bonfire. To that flame and to you, girl, I promise: the whole wide world will read about you.

I wanted to sip my daily Starbucks coffee as I got to work early (no later than 11:00 am), have a late lunch (1:00-4:00), and work late (5:01) every day (except Thursdays and Fridays). I wanted a life so good even Scarface would want to scarf it up.

The newspapers and radio were full of the campaign to “Destroy the Four Olds.” The campaign had been expanded to eliminate personal possessions. “If we do not completely eliminate the roots, the plant will grow back,” we heard. “We must eradicate these relics of the past.… We must not allow the reactionary forces to hoard their treasures.…” And every day we heard the drums and gongs that meant the Red Guards were ransacking the houses of class enemies to find and confiscate their hoarded possessions.

It has been a profitable three days. In the time to knit a fairly long scarf, I have learned about the universe.

he did miss scarfing garnachas at odd hours of the day.

An open car drove by, fleeing into the country. The car was overfilled with people bound for a picnic. There was a jumble of bright sweaters, and scarfs fluttering in the wind; a jumble of voices shrieking without purpose over the roar of the motor, and overstressed hiccoughs of laughter; a girl sat sidewise, her legs flung over the side of the car; she wore a man's straw hat slipping down to her nose and she yanked savagely at the strings of a ukelele, ejecting raucous sounds, yelling 'Hey!' These people were enjoying a day of their existence; they were shrieking to the sky their release from the work and the burdens of the days behind them; they had worked and carried the burdens in order to reach a goal -- and this was the goal.

The school year progressed slowly. I felt as if I had been in the sixth grade for years, yet it was only October. Halloween was approaching. Coming from Ireland, we had never thought of it as a big holiday, though Sarah and I usually went out trick-or treating. For the last couple of years I had been too sick to go out, but this year Halloween fell on a day when I felt quiet fine. My mother was the one who came up with the Eskimo idea. I put on a winter coat, made a fish out of paper, which I hung on the end of a stick, and wrapped my face up in a scarf. My hair was growing in, and I loved the way the top of the hood rubbed against it. By this time my hat had become part of me; I took it off only at home. Sometimes kids would make fun of me, run past me, knock my hat off, and call me Baldy. I hated this, but I assumed that one day my hair would grow in, and on that day the teasing would end. We walked around the neighborhood with our pillowcase sacks, running into other groups of kids and comparing notes: the house three doors down gave whole candy bars, while the house next to that gave only cheap mints. I felt wonderful. It was only as the night wore on and the moon came out and the older kids, the big kids, went on their rounds that I began to realize why I felt so good. No one could see me clearly. No one could see my face.

I was exhausted, and even though I knew it’d be my last night in my own bed, I fell asleep right away and didn’t wake up until Mother called me at five-thirty the next morning. Fortunately, it wasn’t as hot as Sunday; a warm rain fell throughout the day. The four of us were wrapped in so many layers of clothes it looked as if we were going off to spend the night in a refrigerator, and all that just so we could take more clothes with us. No Jew in our situation would dare leave the house with a suitcase full of clothes. I was wearing two vests, three pairs of pants, a dress, and over that a skirt, a jacket, a raincoat, two pairs of stockings, heavy shoes, a cap, a scarf and lots more. I was suffocating even before we left the house, but no one bothered to ask me how I felt.

You are perfect for Los Angeles, you know. You’re like the lady whom everyone’s in love with but they hate themselves for it because you’re all wrong. They don’t have anything to go on with you. No precedents. You’re voluptuous and too smart and too kind and too mean, and you give everyone just what they want and then you get sad and bland . . . I used to wonder why you dressed the way you did—one minute I see you in those old shirts and that scarf! . . . and the next you’re at some art thing and I see women look at you when you don’t know it and they’re all wondering how in the hell you did it. You glow.

The news cycle never let me breathe anymore. 9/11 happened last fall, two weeks into my freshman year, and a couple of weeks later two dudes attacked me while I was walking home from school and the worst part—the worst part—was that it took me days to shake off the denial; it took me days to fathom the why. I kept hoping the explanation would turn out to be more complex, that there’d turn out to be more than pure, blind hatred to motivate their actions. I wanted there to be some other reason why two strangers would follow me home, some other reason why they’d yank my scarf off my head and try to choke me with it. I didn’t understand how anyone could be so violently angry with me for something I hadn’t done, so much so that they’d feel justified in assaulting me in broad daylight as I walked down the street. I didn’t want to understand it. But there it was.

She smiled, tapped on her book, and said, “I’m just going to read for a few more minutes.” Frank, however, seemed to have been storing up speeches all day, and, undeterred, he prattled nonstop as he took off his hat and scarf.

By December 1975, a year had passed since Mr. Harvey had packed his bags, but there was still no sign of him. For a while, until the tape dirtied or the paper tore, store owners kept a scratchy sketch of him taped to their windows. Lindsey and Samuel walked in the neighboorhood or hung out at Hal's bike shop. She wouldn't go to the diner where the other kids went. The owner of the diner was a law and order man. He had blown up the sketch of George Harvey to twice its size and taped it to the front door. He willingly gave the grisly details to any customer who asked- young girl, cornfield, found only an elbow. Finallly Lindsey asked Hal to give her a ride to the police station. She wanted to know what exactly they were doing. They bid farewell to Samuel at the bike shop and Hal gave Lindsey a ride through a wet December snow. From the start, Lindsey's youth and purpose had caught the police off guard. As more and more of them realized who she was, they gave her a wider and wider berth. Here was this girl, focused, mad, fifteen... When Lindsey and Hal waited outside the captain's office on a wooden bench, she thought she saw something across the room that she recognized. It was on Detective Fenerman's desk and it stood out in the room because of its color. What her mother had always distinguished as Chinese red, a harsher red than rose red, it was the red of classic red lipsticks, rarely found in nature. Our mother was proud of her ability fo wear Chinese red, noting each time she tied a particular scarf around her neck that it was a color even Grandma Lynn dared not wear. Hal,' she said, every muscle tense as she stared at the increasingly familiar object on Fenerman's desk. Yes.' Do you see that red cloth?' Yes.' Can you go and get it for me?' When Hal looked at her, she said: 'I think it's my mother's.' As Hal stood to retrieve it, Len entered the squad room from behind where Lindsey sat. He tapped her on the shoulder just as he realized what Hal was doing. Lindsey and Detective Ferman stared at each other. Why do you have my mother's scarf?' He stumbled. 'She might have left it in my car one day.' Lindsey stood and faced him. She was clear-eyed and driving fast towards the worst news yet. 'What was she doing in your car?' Hello, Hal,' Len said. Hal held the scarf in his head. Lindsey grabbed it away, her voice growing angry. 'Why do you have m mother's scarf?' And though Len was the detective, Hal saw it first- it arched over her like a rainbow- Prismacolor understanding. The way it happened in algebra class or English when my sister was the first person to figure out the sum of x or point out the double entendres to her peers. Hal put his hand on Lindsey's shoulder to guide her. 'We should go,' he said. And later she cried out her disbelief to Samuel in the backroom of the bike shop.

His consolation prize was a hat. A battered fedora that looked as if it had blown off of Humphrey Bogart during the filming of Key Largo. Sucked up into the atmosphere during the movie’s hurricane, it had ended up here, on the other side of the world, sixty years later. On his head. Even though it had been enshrined in a closet inside the house, it kind of smelled as if it had spent about three of those decades at the bottom of a birdcage. Yesiree. It was almost as fun to wear as the brown leather flight jacket. Which really wasn’t fair to the flight jacket. It was a gorgeously cared-for antique that didn’t smell at all. And it definitely worked for him, in terms of some of his flyboy fantasies. But the day had turned into a scorcher. It was just shy of a bazillion degrees in the shade. He needed mittens or perhaps a wool scarf to properly accessorize his impending heat stroke. “Today, playing the role of Indiana Jones, aka Grady Morant, is Jules Cassidy,” he said, as he slipped his arms into the sleeves. Was anyone really going to be fooled by this? Jones was so much taller than he was.

the knight is described as a man capable of living up to an ideal all his life. That sort of thing is not to be found every day among the men of our times. In the poem it is not stated exactly what the ideal was, but it was evidently some vision, some revelation of pure Beauty, and the knight wore round his neck, instead of a scarf, a rosary.

I stared at the large sheet of paper spread out in front of me, wondering what to write. It was strange. When I had read the newspaper, I had been enraged by the revisionist educational system that had been poisoning our youth for so many years. But now that I actually had to criticize the teachers who taught us every day, I could not find anything really bad to say about any of them.

And what do you do with these stars?" "What do I do with them?" "Yes." "Nothing. I own them." "You own the stars?" "Yes" "But I have already seen a king who--" "Kings do not own, they reign over. It is a very different matter." "And what good does it do you to own the stars?" "It does me the good of making me rich." "And what good does it do you to be rich?" "It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, if any are ever discovered." "This man," said the little prince to himself, "reasons a little like my poor tippler..." Nevertheless, he still had some more questions. "How is it possible for one to own the stars?" "To whom do they belong?" the businessman retorted, peevishly. "I don't know. To nobody." "Then they belong to me, because I was the first person to think of it." "Is that all that is necessary?" "Certainly. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get an idea before any one else , you take out a patent on it: it is yours. So with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever though about owning them." "Yes, that is true," said the little prince. "And what do you do with them?" "I administer them, " replied the businessman. "I count them and recount them. It is difficult. But I am a man who is naturally interested in matters of consequence. The little prince was still not satisfied. "If I owned a silk scarf," he said, "I could put it around my neck and take it away with me. If I owned a flower, I could pluck that flower and take it away with me. But you cannot pluck the stars from heaven..." "No. But I can put them in the bank." "Whatever does that mean?" "That means I write down the number of my stars on a little paper. And then I put this paper in a drawer and lock it with a key." "And that is all?" "That is enough," said the businessman. "It is entertaining," thought the little prince. "It is rather poetic. But it is of no great consequence." On matters of consequence the little prince had ideas which were very different from those of the grown-ups. "I myself own a flower," he continued his conversation with the businessman, "which I water every day. I own three volcanoes, which I clean out every week (for I also clean out the one that is extinct; one never knows). It is of some use to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them. But you are of no use to the stars..." The businessman opened his mouth, but he found nothing to say in answer. And the little prince went away.

But I’ll never forget. On the day of the Festival of Pure Brightness, I take off all my bracelets. I remember the day when I finally knew a genuine thought and could follow where it went. That was the day I was a young girl with my face under a red marriage scarf. I promised not to forget myself. How nice it is to be that girl again, to take off my scarf, to see what is underneath and feel the lightness come back into my body!

The hotel was a chain, crisp and white on the outside, warm and beige on the inside, with green neon announcing its name and function. There was a small crowd in the lobby. Maybe nine people, not exactly in line for the desk, mostly just standing around, either talking on cell phones, or looking frustrated, or both. Two equipment failures earlier in the day had caused chaos. Reacher was not a frequent flier, but he recognized the signs. The clerk at the reception desk beckoned them closer. She was a young woman in a fitted jacket, with a scarf around her neck. There was some kind of secret urgency in her gesture. She said, “Sir, madam, I have one room left. If you need it, you should probably grab it now.” Chang said, “Only one room?” “Yes, ma’am, because the airlines had a problem today.” “Is there another hotel?” “Not in the airport.” Reacher said, “We’ll take the room.

We were in Julie’s room one night, my eldest daughter and I, maybe a decade ago now. I wanted to show her how the canvas painting she had carefully labored over for her little sister's Christmas gift was framed and hung on the wall. I said, gazing at her masterpiece with no small amount of motherly pride, “Now it looks like a real work of art”. Bella looked at me quizzically, wondering yet again how her mother could possibly understand so little about the world. “Mama, every time you make something, or draw something, or paint something, it is already real art. There is no such thing as art that is not real” And so I said that she was right, and didn’t it look nice, and once again, daughter became guru and mother became willing student. Which is, I sometimes think, the way it was meant to be. ~~~~~ art is always real. all of it. even the stuff you don’t understand. even the stuff you don’t like. even the stuff that you made that you would be embarrassed to show your best friend that photo that you took when you first got your DSLR, when you captured her spirit perfectly but the focus landed on her shoulder? still art. the painting you did last year the first time you picked up a brush, the one your mentor critiqued to death? it’s art. the story you are holding in your heart and so desperately want to tell the world? definitely art. the scarf you knit for your son with the funky messed up rows? art. art. art. the poem scrawled on your dry cleaning receipt at the red light. the dress you want to sew. the song you want to sing. the clay you’ve not yet molded. everything you have made or will one day make or imagine making in your wildest dreams. it’s all real, every last bit. because there is no such thing as art that is not real.

So, a few years ago, while I was presenting at a conference in Europe, my wife called and insisted that the walls of our laundry room were throbbing. That was the word she used. Pulsing, like the wall itself was alive. She described a hum, an energy, that she could feel as soon as she walked into the room. I suggested it was a wiring problem. She became … let’s just say, agitated at that point. Three days later, just before I was due to come back, she called again. The problem was getting worse, she said. There was an audible hum now, from the wall. She couldn’t sleep. She could hear it as soon as she walked in the house. She could feel it, the vibration, like something unnatural was ready to burst forth into our world. So, I flew home the next day, and found her extremely upset. I understood immediately why my suggestion of a wiring problem was so insulting—this was the sound of something alive. Something massive. So, even though I was exhausted, jet-lagged and just completely dead on my feet, I had no other thought than to go out to the garage, get my tools and peel off the siding. Guess what I found.” I didn’t answer. “Guess!” “I’m not sure I want to know.” “Bees. They had built an entire hive in the wall, sprawling from floor to ceiling. Tens of thousands of them.” His face was lighting up with the telling of his amusing anecdote. Why not? He was getting paid to tell it. “So I went and put on a hat and gloves and wrapped my wife’s scarf around my face and sprayed the hive, I killed them by the thousands. Only later did I realize that the bees are quite valuable and a local beekeeper actually came and carefully removed the hive itself at no charge. I think he’d have actually paid me if I hadn’t killed so many of them at the start.” “Hmm.” “Do you understand?” “Yeah, your wife thought it was a monster. Turned out to just be bees. So my little problem, probably just bees. It’s all bees. Nothing to worry about.” “I’m afraid you misunderstood. That was the day that a very powerful, very dangerous monster turned out to be real. Just ask the bees.

I’ve been allowed to read more grown-up books lately. Eva’s Youth by Nico van Suchtelen is currently keeping me busy. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between this and books for teenage girls. Eva thought that children grew on trees, like apples, and that the stork plucked them off the tree when they were ripe and brought them to the mothers. But her girlfriend’s cat had kittens and Eva saw them coming out of the cat, so she thought cats laid eggs and hatched them like chickens, and that mothers who wanted a child also went upstairs a few days before their time to lay an egg and brood on it. After the babies arrived, the mothers were pretty weak from all that squatting. At some point, Eva wanted a baby too. She took a wool scarf and spread it on the ground so the egg could fall into it, and then she squatted down and began to push. She clucked as she waited, but no egg came out. Finally, after she’d been sitting for a long time, something did come, but it was a sausage instead of an egg. Eva was embarrassed. She thought she was sick. Funny, isn’t it?

Nor could I fail to recall my friendship with Howard K. Beale, professor of American History at the University of North Carolina. There he was, one day in 1940, standing just outside my room in the men’s dormitory at St. Augustine’s, in his chesterfield topcoat, white silk scarf, and bowler hat, with his calling card in hand, perhaps looking for a silver tray in which to drop it. Paul Buck, whom he knew at Harvard, had told him to look me up. He wanted to invite me to his home in Chapel Hill to have lunch or dinner and to meet his family. From that point on we saw each other regularly. After I moved to Durham, he invited me each year to give a lecture on “The Negro in American Social Thought” in one of his classes. One day when I was en route to Beale’s class, I encountered one of his colleagues, who greeted me and inquired where I was going. I returned the greeting and told him that I was going to Howard Beale’s class to give a lecture. After I began the lecture I noticed that Howard was called out of the class. He returned shortly, and I did not give it another thought. Some years later, after we both had left North Carolina, Howard told me that he had been called out to answer a long-distance phone call from a trustee of the university who had heard that a Negro was lecturing in his class. The trustee ordered Beale to remove me immediately. In recounting this story, Beale told me that he had said that he was not in the habit of letting trustees plan his courses, and he promptly hung up. Within a few years Howard accepted a professorship at the University of Wisconsin. A favorite comment from Chapel Hill was that upon his departure from North Carolina, blood pressures went down all over the state.

I landed on my side, my hip taking the brunt of the fall. It burned and stung from the hit, but I ignored it and struggled to sit up quickly. There really was no point in hurrying so no one would see. Everyone already saw A pair of jean-clad legs appeared before me, and my suitcase and all my other stuff was dropped nearby. "Whatcha doing down there?" Romeo drawled, his hands on his hips as he stared down at me with dancing blue eyes. "Making a snow angel," I quipped. I glanced down at my hands, which were covered with wet snow and bits of salt (to keep the pavement from getting icy). Clearly, ice wasn't required for me to fall. A small group of girls just "happened by", and by that I mean they'd been staring at Romeo with puppy dog eyes and giving me the stink eye. When I fell, they took it as an opportunity to descend like buzzards stalking the dead. Their leader was the girl who approached me the very first day I'd worn Romeo's hoodie around campus and told me he'd get bored. As they stalked closer, looking like clones from the movie Mean Girls, I caught the calculating look in her eyes. This wasn't going to be good. I pushed up off the ground so I wouldn't feel so vulnerable, but the new snow was slick and my hand slid right out from under me and I fell back again. Romeo was there immediately, the teasing light in his eyes gone as he slid his hand around my back and started to pull me up. "Careful, babe." he said gently. The girls were behind him so I knew he hadn't seen them approach. They stopped as one unit, and I braced myself for whatever their leader was about to say. She was wearing painted-on skinny jeans (I mean, really, how did she sit down and still breathe?) and some designer coat with a monogrammed scarf draped fashionably around her neck. Her boots were high-heeled, made of suede and laced up the back with contrasting ribbon. "Wow," she said, opening her perfectly painted pink lips. "I saw that from way over there. That sure looked like it hurt." She said it fairly amicably, but anyone who could see the twist to her mouth as she said it would know better. Romeo paused in lifting me to my feet. I felt his eyes on me. Then his lips thinned as he turned and looked over his shoulder. "Ladies," he said like he was greeting a group of welcomed friends. Annoyance prickled my stomach like tiny needles stabbing me. It's not that I wanted him to be rude, but did he have to sound so welcoming? "Romeo," Cruella DeBarbie (I don't know her real name, but this one fit) purred. "Haven't you grown bored of this clumsy mule yet?" Unable to stop myself, I gasped and jumped up to my feet. If she wanted to call me a mule, I'd show her just how much of an ass I could be. Romeo brought his arm out and stopped me from marching past. I collided into him, and if his fingers hadn't knowingly grabbed hold to steady me, I'd have fallen again. "Actually," Romeo said, his voice calm, "I am pretty bored." Three smirks were sent my way. What a bunch of idiots. "The view from where I'm standing sure leaves a lot to be desired." One by one, their eyes rounded when they realized the view he referenced was them. Without another word, he pivoted around and looked down at me, his gaze going soft. "No need to make snow angels, baby," he said loud enough for the slack-jawed buzzards to hear. "You already look like one standing here with all that snow in your hair." Before I could say a word, he picked me up and fastened his mouth to mine. My legs wound around his waist without thought, and I kissed him back as gentle snow fell against our faces.

I knew how easily it could happen, the past at hand, like the helpless cognitive slip of an optical illusion. The tone of a day linked to some particular item: my mother's chiffon scarf, the humidity of a cut pumpkin. Certain patterns of shade. Even the flash of sunlight on the hood of a white car could cause a momentary ripple in me, allowing a slim space of return. I'd seen old Yardley slickers—the makeup now just a waxy crumble—sell for almost one hundred dollars on the Internet. So grown women could smell it again, that chemical, flowery fug. That's how badly people wanted it—to know that their lives had happened, that the person they once had been still existed inside of them.

In her younger years, Ginger had dressed in ordinary, drab clothing so she wouldn't call attention to herself. She'd even tried to hide her bright pink hair with a scarf. Her goal in those days had been to blend in and not be recognized as the daughter of the Candy Witch, because even a whispered mention of the word "witch" made people unnerved. But now, as a student at Ever After High, she'd come to realize that she was more than her legacy. She was her own person, and her passion was baking scrumptious treats, not wicked treats as her mother did. She began to dress the way that pleased her, adorning herself with cheerful colors, candy accents, and swirls, as if decorating a cake or cookie.

We turned off the path then, following a line of red, cup-shaped wildflowers that I had not seen before. And then abruptly, we came to a door-- an actual door, because the Folk are maddeningly inconsistent, even when it comes to their inconsistencies--- tucked into a little hollow. It was only about two feet tall and painted to look like the mountainside, a scene of grey-brown scree with a few splashes of green, so realistic that it was like a reflection on still water. The only thing that gave it away was the doorknob, which looked like nothing that I can put into human terms; the best I can do is compare it to a billow of fog trapped in a shard of ice. "It has the look of a brownie house," Wendell said. "But perhaps I should make sure." He shoved the door open and vanished into the shadows within--- I cannot relate how he accomplished this; it seemed for a moment as if the door grew to fit him, but I was unable to get a handle on the mechanics as not one second later he was racing out again and the door had shrunk to its old proportions. Several porcelain cups and saucers followed in his wake, about the right size for a doll, and one made contact, smashing against his shoulder. Behind the hail of pottery came a little faerie who barely came up to my knee, wrapped so tightly in what looked like a bathrobe made of snow that I could see only its enormous black eyes. Upon its head it wore a white sleeping cap. It was brandishing a frying pan and shouting something--- I think--- but its voice was so small that I could only pick out the odd word. It was some dialect of Faie that I could not understand, but as the largest difference between High Faie and the faerie dialects lies in the profanities, the sentiment was clear. "Good Lord!" Rose said, leaping out of range of the onslaught. "I don't--- what on--- would you stop?" Wendell cried, shielding himself with his arm. "Yes, all right, I should have knocked, but is this really necessary?" The faerie kept on shrieking, and then it launched the frying pan at Wendell's head--- he ducked--- and slammed its door. Rose and I stared at each other. Ariadne looked blankly from Wendell to the door, clutching her scarf with both hands. "Bloody Winter Folk," Wendell said, brushing ceramic shards from his cloak. "Winter Folk?" I repeated. "Guardians of the seasons--- or anyway, that is how they see themselves," he said sourly. "Really I think they just want a romantic excuse to go about blasting people with frost and zephyrs and such. It seems I woke him earlier than he desired." I had never heard of such a categorization, but as I was somewhat numb with surprise, I filed the information away rather than questioning him further. I fear that working with one of the Folk is slowly turning my mind into an attic of half-forgotten scholarly treasures.

Pure? What does it mean? The tongues of hell Are dull, dull as the triple Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable Of licking clean The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin. The tinder cries. The indelible smell Of a snuffed candle! Love, love, the low smokes roll From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel, Such yellow sullen smokes Make their own element. They will not rise, But trundle round the globe Choking the aged and the meek, The weak Hothouse baby in its crib, The ghastly orchid Hanging its hanging garden in the air, Devilish leopard! Radiation turned it white And killed it in an hour. Greasing the bodies of adulterers Like Hiroshima ash and eating in. The sin. The sin. Darling, all night I have been flickering, off, on, off, on. The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss. Three days. Three nights. Lemon water, chicken Water, water make me retch. I am too pure for you or anyone. Your body Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern—— My head a moon Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive. Does not my heat astound you! And my light! All by myself I am a huge camellia Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush. I think I am going up, I think I may rise—— The beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I Am a pure acetylene Virgin Attended by roses, By kisses, by cherubim, By whatever these pink things mean! Not you, nor him Nor him, nor him (My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats)—— To Paradise.

Tadpoles. Crickets. Toads. Centipedes. Mice. Rats and scorpions. We eat anything. As we till the earth, we look upon bugs as buried treasure. Our eyes scan the soil, tucking any edible treat in a waistband, a pocket, tied into a scarf. Later the prize is retrieved, skewered on a stick, and stuffed into the fire. Those who haven’t caught anything watch, their begging eyes following each move. We must ignore them, and also ignore what we eat. There is no revulsion. Food is food. Anything, everything tastes good—even the smell of roasting crickets makes stomachs rumble with desire. Yet even the smallest creatures, the rodents, the insects, are becoming scarce. Some days, our meals for the entire day consist of boiled leaves. Our lives are reduced to a tight circle. Each day revolves around what we can find to eat for the following day. And until it comes, we think about food. All day. All night. Hunger owns us.

It can be beneficial to reflect on what you used to accept as normal. Consider your first paycheck—how big it seemed then. Or your first apartment, with its own bedroom and bathroom and the ramen you gladly scarfed down in the kitchen. Today, as you’ve become more successful, these conditions would hardly feel sufficient. In fact, you probably want even more than what you have right now. Yet just a few years ago those paltry conditions were not only enough, they felt great! When we become successful, we forget how strong we used to be. We are so used to what we have, we half believe we’d die without it. Of course, this is just the comfort talking. In the days of the world wars, our parents and grandparents made do with rationed gas, butter, and electricity. They were fine, just as you have been fine when you had less. Remember today that you’d be OK if things suddenly went wrong. Your actual needs are small. There is very little that could happen that would truly threaten your survival. Think about that—and adjust your worries and fears accordingly.

What? Oh, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to come on so jaded. What scene? This one, the rain, those geese up there with their hard-luck stories . . . this, this same world. They all tried to do something with it. Dante did his best to build himself a hell because a hell presuppose a heaven. Baudelaire scarfed hashish and looked inside. Nothing there. Nothing but dreams and delusion. They all were driven by the need for something else. But when the drive was over, and the dreaming and the deluding worn out, they all ended up with the same dull old scene. But, look, you see, Viv, they had an advantage with their scene, they had something we’ve lost . . .” I waited for her to ask what that something was, but she only sat silently, her hands folded on the black overcoat. “. . . They had a limitless supply of tomorrows to work with. If you didn’t make your dream today, well, there was always more days coming, more dreams full of more sound and fury and future: what if today was a hassle? There was always tomorrow to find the River Jordan, or Valhalla, or that special providence in the fall of a sparrow . . . we could believe in the Great Gettin’-up Morning coming someday because if it didn’t make it today there was always tomorrow.” “And there isn’t any more?” I looked up at her and grinned. “What do you think?

She knew the effort it took to keep one’s exterior self together, upright, when everything inside was in pieces, broken beyond repair. One touch, one warm, compassionate hand, could shatter that hard-won perfect exterior. And then it would take years and years to restore it. This tiny, effeminate creature dressed in velvet suits, red socks, an absurdly long scarf usually wrapped around his throat, trailing after him like a coronation robe. He who pronounced, after dinner, “I’m going to go sit over here with the rest of the girls and gossip!” This pixie who might suddenly leap into the air, kicking one foot out behind him, exclaiming, “Oh, what fun, fun, fun it is to be me! I’m beside myself!” “Truman, you could charm the rattle off a snake,” Diana Vreeland pronounced. Hemingway - He was so muskily, powerfully masculine. More than any other man she’d met, and that was saying something when Clark Gable was a notch in your belt. So it was that, and his brain, his heart—poetic, sad, boyish, angry—that drew her. And he wanted her. Slim could see it in his hungry eyes, voraciously taking her in, no matter how many times a day he saw her; each time was like the first time after a wrenching separation. How to soothe and flatter and caress and purr and then ignore, just when the flattering and caressing got to be a bit too much. Modesty bores me. I hate people who act coy. Just come right out and say it, if you believe it—I’m the greatest. I’m the cat’s pajamas. I’m it! He couldn’t humiliate her vulnerability, her despair. Old habits die hard. Particularly among the wealthy. And the storytellers, gossips, and snakes. Is it truly a scandal? A divine, delicious literary scandal, just like in the good old days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald? The loss of trust, the loss of joy; the loss of herself. The loss of her true heart. An amusing, brief little time. A time before it was fashionable to tell the truth, and the world grew sordid from too much honesty. In the end as in the beginning, all they had were the stories. The stories they told about one another, and the stories they told to themselves. Beauty. Beauty in all its glory, in all its iterations; the exquisite moment of perfect understanding between two lonely, damaged souls, sitting silently by a pool, or in the twilight, or lying in bed, vulnerable and naked in every way that mattered. The haunting glance of a woman who knew she was beautiful because of how she saw herself reflected in her friend’s eyes. The splendor of belonging, being included, prized, coveted. What happened to Truman Capote. What happened to his swans. What happened to elegance. What truly was the price they paid, for the lives they lived. For there is always a price. Especially in fairy tales.

March 12 Dear Stargirl, Hey, you're a big girl now. Stop being such a baby. You think you're the only one who's ever lost a boyfriend? Boyfriends are a dime a dozen. You want to talk loss, look at all the loss around you. How about the man in the red and yellow plaid scarf? He lost Grace. BELOVED WIFE. I'll bet they were married over 50 years. You barely had 50 days with Leo. And you have the gall to be sad in the same world as that man. Betty Lou. She's lost the confidence to leave her house. Look at you. Have you ever stopped to appreciate the simple ability to open your front door and step outside? And Alvina the floor sweeper-she hates herself, and it seems she's got plenty of company. All she's losing is her childhood, her future, a worldful of people who will never be her friends. How would you like to trade places with her? Oh yes, lets not forget the footshuffling guy at the stone piles. Moss-green pom-pom. What did he say to you? "Are you looking for me?" It seems like he hasn't lost much, has he? Only...HIMSELF! Now look at you, sniveling like a baby over some immature kid in Arizona who didn't know what a prize he had, who tried to remake you into somebody else, who turned his back to you and left you to the wolves, who hijacked your heart and didn't even ask you to the Ocotillo Ball. What don't you understand about the message? Hel-loooo? Anybody home in there? You have your whole life ahead of you, and all your doing is looking back. Grow up, girl. There are some things they don't teach you in homeschool. Your Birth Certificate Self, Susan Caraway

I remember once, on a family skiing trip to the Alps, Dad’s practical joking got all of us into a particularly tight spot. I must have been about age ten at the time, and was quietly excited when Dad spotted a gag that was begging to be played out on the very serious-looking Swiss-German family in the room next door to us. Each morning their whole family would come downstairs, the mother dressed head to toe in furs, the father in a tight-fitting ski suit and white neck scarf, and their slightly overweight, rather snooty-looking thirteen-year-old son behind, often pulling faces at me. The hotel had the customary practice of having a breakfast form that you could hang on your door handle the night before if you wanted to eat in your room. Dad thought it would be fun to fill out our form, order 35 boiled eggs, 65 German sausages, and 17 kippers, then hang it on the Swiss-German family’s door. It was too good a gag to pass up. We didn’t tell Mum, who would have gone mad, but instead filled out the form with great hilarity, and sneaked out last thing before bed and hung it on their door handle. At 7:00 A.M. we heard the father angrily sending the order back. So we repeated the gag the next day. And the next. Each morning the father got more and more irate, until eventually Mum got wind of what we had been doing and made me go around to apologize. (I don’t know why I had to do the apologizing when the whole thing had been Dad’s idea, but I guess Mum thought I would be less likely to get in trouble, being so small.) Anyway, I sensed it was a bad idea to go and own up, and sure enough it was. From that moment onward, despite my apology, I was a marked man as far as their son was concerned. It all came to a head when I was walking down the corridor on the last evening, after a day’s skiing, and I was just wearing my ski thermal leggings and a T-shirt. The spotty, overweight teenager came out of his room and saw me walking past him in what were effectively ladies’ tights. He pointed at me, called me a sissy, started to laugh sarcastically, and put his hands on his hips in a very camp fashion. Despite the age and size gap between us, I leapt on him, knocked him to the ground, and hit him as hard as I could. His father heard the commotion and raced out of his room to find his son with a bloody nose and crying hysterically (and overdramatically). That really was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I was hauled to my parents’ room by the boy’s father and made to explain my behavior to Mum and Dad. Dad was hiding a wry grin, but Mum was truly horrified, and I was grounded. So ended another cracking family holiday!

I woke up as the first light began to bring an orange glow to the tops of the whispering pines (and sky) above me at 5:43 but lay still to avoid waking Hope for another half-hour. She had suffered through a tough and mostly sleepless night, and I wanted to give her every second I could as the next week promised to be very stressful for her (and me), and that was if everything went according to plan. At a few minutes after six, she either sensed the growing light or my wakefulness and shifted to give me a wet kiss. We both moved down towards the slit in the bottom of my Hennessy hammock and dropped out and down onto the pine needles to explore the morning. Both of us went a ways into the woods to take care of early morning elimination, and we met back by the hammock to discuss breakfast. I shook out some Tyler kibble (a modified GORP recipe) for me and an equal amount of Hope’s kibble for her. As soon as we had scarfed down the basic snack, we picked our way down the sloping shore to the water’s edge, jumped down into the warm water (relative to the cool morning air at any rate) for a swim as the sun came up, lighting the tips of the tallest pines on the opposite shore. Hope and I were bandit camping (a term that I had learned soon after arriving in this part of the world, and enjoyed the feel of), avoiding the established campsites that ringed Follensby Clear Pond. We found our home for the last seventeen days (riding the cooling August nights from the full moon on the ninth to what would be a new moon tonight) near a sandy swimming spot. From there, we worked our way up (and inland) fifty feet back from the water to a flat spot where some long-ago hunter had built/burned a fire pit. We used the pit to cook some of our meals (despite the illegality of the closeness to the water and the fire pit cooking outside an approved campsite … they call it ‘bandit camping’ for a reason). My canoe was far enough up the shore and into the brush to be invisible even if you knew to look for it, and nobody did/would/had. After we had rung a full measure of enjoyment out of our quiet morning swim, I grabbed the stringer I had anchored to the sandy bottom the previous afternoon after fishing, pulled the two lake trout off, killed them as quickly/painlessly/neatly as I could manage, handed one to Hope, and navigated back up the hill to our campsite. I started one of the burners on my Coleman stove (not wanting to signal our position too much, as the ranger for this area liked morning paddles, and although we had something of an understanding, I didn’t want to put him in an uncomfortable position … we had, after all, been camping far too long in a spot too close to the water). Once I had gutted/buttered/spiced the fish, I put my foil-wrapped trout over the flame (flipping and moving it every minute or so, according to the sound/smell of the cooking fish); Hope ate hers raw, as is her preference. It was a perfect morning … just me and my dog, seemingly alone in the world, doing exactly what we wanted to be doing.

Teacher Wei’s situation was very bad. She was a junior high school math teacher, and before the Cultural Revolution she had been a Model Teacher. Her study wall was covered with certificates of merit. Now she was called a black model, and because her father was a capitalist and her mother had committed suicide, she was criticized all the more. The Red Guards at her school held struggle meetings to criticize her almost every day. During those struggle meetings they beat her and whipped her with their belts.

I went a day. Spent that evening standing at the window lighting one cigarette off the last, after she’d gone, to keep myself from sitting and writing out the scene as freshly recalled. One week, thirty packs of cigarettes. Weeks. Without spooling out more of a tale, creating more to burn, knitting away at the front of the long knotted scarf that will have to be unraveled at the back. How helpless I feel before this flood of words, how ridiculous. A hundred times trying to shut off the flow. Under orders from Mother. From Frida and Diego, arms crossed, feet tapping, stop it. In the name of the law. Stop writing down everything, it makes me nervous. And something inside the boy cries out, Those are the only two choices: read, or dead.

It had been often commented upon that Vibe offspring tended to be crazy as bedbugs. ‘Fax’s brother Cragmont had run away with a trapeze girl, then brought her back to New York to get married, the wedding being actually performed on trapezes, groom and best man, dressed in tails and silk opera hats held on with elastic, swinging upside down by their knees in perfect synchrony across the perilous Æther to meet the bride and her father, a carnival “jointee” or concessionaire, in matched excursion from their own side of the ring, bridesmaids observed at every hand up twirling by their chins in billows of spangling, forty feet above the faces of the guests, feathers dyed a deep acid green sweeping and stirring the cigar smoke rising from the crowd. Cragmont Vibe was but thirteen that circus summer he became a husband and began what would become, even for the day, an enormous family. The third brother, Fleetwood, best man at this ceremony, had also got out of the house early, fast-talking his way onto an expedition heading for Africa. He kept as clear of political games as of any real scientific inquiry, preferring to take the title of “Explorer” literally, and do nothing but explore. It did not hurt Fleetwood’s chances that a hefty Vibe trust fund was there to pick up the bills for bespoke pith helmets and meat lozenges and so forth. Kit met him one spring weekend out at the Vibe manor on Long Island. “Say, but you’ve never seen our cottage,” ‘Fax said one day after classes. “What are you doing this weekend? Unless there’s another factory girl or pizza princess or something in the works.” “Do I use that tone of voice about the Seven Sisters material you specialize in?” “I’ve nothing against the newer races,” ‘Fax protested. “But you might like to meet Cousin Dittany anyway.” “The one at Smith.” “Mount Holyoke, actually.” “Can’t wait.” They arrived under a dourly overcast sky. Even in cheerier illumination, the Vibe mansion would have registered as a place best kept clear of—four stories tall, square, unadorned, dark stone facing looking much older than the known date of construction. Despite its aspect of abandonment, an uneasy tenancy was still pursued within, perhaps by some collateral branch of Vibes . . . it was unclear. There was the matter of the second floor. Only the servants were allowed there. It “belonged,” in some way nobody was eager to specify, to previous occupants. “Someone’s living there?” “Someone’s there.” . . . from time to time, a door swinging shut on a glimpse of back stairway, a muffled footfall . . . an ambiguous movement across a distant doorframe . . . a threat of somehow being obliged to perform a daily search through the forbidden level, just at dusk, so detailed that contact with the unseen occupants, in some form, at some unannounced moment, would be inevitable . . . all dustless and tidy, shadows in permanent possession, window-drapes and upholstery in deep hues of green, claret, and indigo, servants who did not speak, who would or could not meet one’s gaze . . . and in the next room, the next instant, waiting . . . “Real nice of you to have me here, folks,” chirped Kit at breakfast. “Fellow sleeps like a top. Well, except . . .” Pause in the orderly gobbling and scarfing. Interest from all around the table. “I mean, who came in the room in the middle of the night like that?” “You’re sure,” said Scarsdale, “it wasn’t just the wind, or the place settling.” “They were walking around, like they were looking for something.” Glances were exchanged, failed to be exchanged, were sent out but not returned. “Kit, you haven’t seen the stables yet,” Cousin Dittany offered at last. “Wouldn’t you like to go riding?

washed her face and dressed in a plain cotton day dress, wrapping a scarf around her butchered hair as she went downstairs. Vianne sat on the divan, knitting, an oil lamp lit beside her. In the ring of lamplight that separated her from the darkness, Vianne looked pale and sickly; she obviously hadn’t slept much this week, either. She looked up at Isabelle in surprise. “You’re up early.” “I have a long day of standing in lines ahead of me. Might as well get started,” Isabelle said. “The first in line get the best food.” Vianne put her knitting aside and stood. Smoothing her dress (another reminder that he was in the house: neither of them came downstairs in nightdresses), she went into the kitchen and then returned with ration cards. “It’s meat today.” Isabelle grabbed the ration cards from

The car was overfilled with people bound for a picnic. There was a jumble of bright sweaters, and scarfs fluttering in the wind; a jumble of voices shrieking without purpose over the roar of the motor, and overstressed hiccoughs of laughter; a girl sat sidewise, her legs flung over the side of the car; she wore a man’s straw hat slipping down to her nose and she yanked savagely at the strings of a ukelele, ejecting raucous sounds, yelling “Hey!” These people were enjoying a day of their existence; they were shrieking to the sky their release from the work and the burdens of the days behind them; they had worked and carried the burdens in order to reach a goal—and this was the goal.

Aelin shot him a look of pure flame. Good—let the prince deal with her wrath. Even days after the claiming that had left everyone pretending they didn’t notice the two puncture wounds on Rowan’s neck or the delicate, vicious scratches over his shoulders, the Fae Prince still looked like a male who had barely survived a storm and had enjoyed every wild second of it. Not to mention the twin wounds on Aelin’s neck this morning. He’d almost begged her to find a scarf.

Our beloved Chairman Mao had started the Cultural Revolution in May. Every day since then on the radio we heard about the need to end the evil and pernicious influences of the “Four Olds”: old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. Chairman Mao told us we would never succeed at building a strong socialist country until we destroyed the “Four Olds” and established the “Four News.

I hear Mrs. Roble say, “You know, I’ve seen this happen before with the Muslim kids. I push those girls—they’re so bright. Then one day they come in with a head scarf, and they say their marriage has been arranged and they’re not going to college after all.

I take it you have some sort of plan going? Something that calls for you to be arrested?" "There, now, you see? I told Drake you'd grasp the gist of things right away, but he had his doubts." "Drake?" I straightened up. "Is Gabriel with him? Did he get my message?" "Of course he got your message. That's why I'm here. Is there no chair?" she asked, frowning around the empty room. "No. I hate to let down the team and all, but what exactly are you doing here? Is Gabriel going to be able to get me out of being sent to the Akasha? Is he going to appeal the conviction?" "Better than that," she said with smile, glancing around quickly before leaning in closely, her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "We're going to bust you out of here." "Bust me..." I closed my eyes for a moment. "You've been watching too many old westerns. No one conducts jailbreaks these days. Especially not when the jailers are the L'au-dela committee." "That's why this plan is so incredibly cunning," she said, giving my arm a little squeeze. "They're all expecting you to try to escape-they'll never expect us to break you out of here." "Oy," I said, sliding down the wall to the floor. "This has 'doomed from the start' written all over it. You didn't think up this plan yourself, did you?" I asked suspiciously. She looked offended. "No, I didn't, and you can stop being such a negative Nelly. Gabriel thought up the plan, and Drake and I are helping. I'm the decoy, you see." "Of course you are. What, exactly, is this grandiose escape plan?" Her mouth set in a prim manner. "I can't tell you." "Why not?" "There could be bugs. We don't want them to know our plans." "If they were listening in, you just told them there's a plan, so they'll be expecting something to happen," I pointed out. "Yes, but they won't know what," she said, pulling off her jacket. Her shirt followed almost immediately, as did her jeans, shoes, and the sparkly pink socks that she was so prone to wearing despite the fact they would look more at home on a twelve-year-old. I watched her striptease with confusion for a moment before a thought struck me. "You don't mean-" "Shhh," she said, waving a vague hand around as she pulled off the scarf she wore to confine her bangs. "Bugs, remember?" I bit back an obvious reply, thought for a moment, then decided that although the plan Gabriel had come up with was too I Love Lucy for words, I didn't have any alternative. I stripped.

Don’t save it for later. Wear the scarf now. Craw’ll knit for you. He’ll knit until his fingers shrivel, and when he can’t knit, I’ll knit, and Ariadne’s baby’ll knit. But don’t save love because it’s ‘too special’ to wear. You wear love every day, and it’ll never wear out.” Oh, he believed that. With every touch of his father’s hand to his mother’s face, he believed that about love.

And those bigger bodies run hot. Eoconodon and its mammalian neighbors are endotherms. They maintain their body heat at a high, constant temperature, generated from the inside. The mammals do not need to lie out in the sun to warm up each morning like the crocodiles or the little crunchy lizards Eoconodon sometimes nabs as the reptiles go about their sluggish morning routine. The mammals are always quick, always ready, but maintaining such an active state requires more fuel. Simply scarfing down any plants in the vicinity won’t do. Mammals need energy-rich foods that provide more nutrition for each chew, and they need to find them every day. Gorging might hold over the likes of Eoconodon for a day or two, but the fuel goes fast. Without sufficient salad in the surrounding environment, the possibilities of growing larger would stay closed.

contained a suture kit, more water purification tablets, Russian aspirin, blood-clotting gauze, an Israeli-style wrap bandage, tweezers, six Russian-style Band-Aids of varying sizes, two antibacterial wipes, a small tube of antiseptic ointment, and an electrolyte drink mix. The fourth and final pouch in the ditch kit was emblazoned with words Harvath didn’t know. Opening it up, he looked inside. As soon as he saw the signal mirror, he knew exactly what this bag was—a SERE kit. In addition to the mirror, there was a compass, a whistle, more stormproof matches, more water purification tablets, a small notebook and pen, a silk scarf printed with panels containing survival instructions, more hextabs, a flint and striker, a packet of sunscreen, and some mosquito wipes. Opening the flare gun case, he examined its contents. In keeping with similar setups from the Soviet days, the kit included the pistol itself and four flares, beneath which was a conversion tube. When inserted into the barrel, it allowed for firing of .45 or .410 ammunition. Two cardboard boxes with five rounds of each

I’m going to call you Motherwort,” I whispered, petting the baby fur as she scarfed down the food. “Wort for short, because motherwort is so good at healing girls, and this one right here”—I jabbed my thumb at myself—“has had a day.

Dan knew from a young age that he was always going to struggle not to tidy up the world. He always wanted to tell strangers if their coat was buttoned up wrongly, or if their scarf didn’t lie just so, but his shyness stopped him. So it made him anxious instead.

We were looking for the kind of person who runs after a stranger on the street to return a dropped scarf, who stops by with a plate of cookies to welcome a new family to the neighborhood, or who offers to help carry a stranger’s heavy stroller up the subway stairs. The kind of truly hospitable person, in other words, who wants to do good things, not for financial gain or some sort of karmic bump, but because the idea of bestowing graciousness upon others makes their own day better.

Once my life had been defined by my goals: to be a da-dui-zhang, to participate in the exhibition, to be a Red Guard. They seemed unimportant to me now. Now my life was defined by my responsibilities. I had promised to take care of my family, and I would renew that promise every day. I

The sun had risen as usual, but nothing else about the day was the same as the day before.

It was strange. When I had read the newspaper, I had been enraged by the revisionist educational system that had been poisoning our youth for so many years. But now that I actually had to criticize the teachers who taught us every day, I could not find anything really bad to say about any of them.

February 22: Pat Newcomb arranges a Mexico City press conference. Wearing a green Pucci dress and green mull (cotton) scarf, she provides a witty performance while sipping champagne.

The Red Guards at her school held struggle meetings to criticize her almost every day. During those struggle meetings they beat her and whipped her with their belts.

Ian opens the box and moves the polystyrene strips to uncover a matryoshka. He’s astonished when he sees that it’s his face painted on it. "But...," he says. "Is it me?" He looks at Andrea, puzzled. "You’re very good." The look is from a photo of him at a party, before he knew him personally, that he found on the internet. He’s in a gray suit and has a cane, like a count from the olden days. "That's the Count," he says, and Ian looks at him and swallows. Andrea smiles. His gift holds a deep meaning that only the two of them understand. Ian opens the first doll and inside there is another. He gasps on seeing it. "That’s Dorian," says Andrea. He has painted Ian as he had looked on the night of his first event. When he wore the white Versace suit and Borsalino fedora. His hand trembling, Ian opens the doll to see the next one inside. "That's Ian," Andrea smiles, as does Ian when he sees himself portrayed with the black linen scarf and white sweater that he was wearing when they had met for the first time in Clusone. He has a serious look in the previous dolls while here he is cheerful. Ian shakes the doll a little and hears the wood rattle. He looks at Andrea, doubtful: they both know that their rapport finishes here. Andrea hasn’t discovered his innermost layer and sounderstands his perplexity. Ian seems to have to pluck up courage and then opens again. Inside there is the last, smallest doll, made from a single small piece of wood and known as the "seed". It dances in a large empty space, given that the doll above it is missing. It’s golden and doesn’t have a face. "That’s the soul," says Andrea. "One’s missing. That's why there's that little table with brushes in my room. I hope to do it soon. As soon as I can." Ian takes the little piece of wood and holds it in his fist. "Thank you, Andrea. It’s a wonderful gift," he says, tightening his jaw. "I eagerly await the last." He’s

Montreal October 1704 Temperature 55 degrees “Remember how in Deerfield there was nobody to marry? Remember how Eliza married an Indian? Remember how Abigail even had to go and marry a French fur trader without teeth?” Mercy had to laugh again. It was such a treat to laugh with English friends. “Your man doesn’t have teeth?” “Pierre has all his teeth. In fact, he’s handsome, rich and an army officer. But what am I to do about the marriage?” Sarah was not laughing. She was shivering. “I do not want that life or that language, Mercy, and above all, I do not want that man. If I repeat wedding vows, they will count. If I have a wedding night, it will be real. I will have French babies and they will be Catholic and I will live here all my life.” Sarah rearranged her French scarf in a very French way and Mercy thought how much clothing mattered; how changed they were by what they put on their bodies. “The Catholic church won’t make you,” said Mercy. “You can refuse.” “How? Pierre has brought his fellow officers to see me. His family has met me and they like me. They know I have no dowry, but they are being very generous about their son’s choice. If I refuse to marry Pierre, he and the French family with whom I live will be publicly humiliated. I won’t get a second offer of marriage after mistreating this one. The French family will make me a servant. I will spend my life waiting on them, curtseying to them, and saying ‘Oui, madame.’” “But surely ransom will come,” said Mercy. “Maybe it will. But what if it does not?” Mercy stared at her feet. Her leggings. Her moccasins. What if it does not? she thought. What if I spend my life in Kahnawake? “What if I stay in Montreal all my life?” demanded Sarah. “A servant girl to enemies of England.” The world asks too much of us, thought Mercy. But because she was practical and because there seemed no way out, she said, “Would this Frenchman treat you well?” Sarah shrugged as Eben had over the gauntlet, except that when Eben shrugged, he looked Indian, and when Sarah shrugged, she looked French. “He thinks I am beautiful.” “You are beautiful,” said Eben. He drew a deep breath to say something else, but Nistenha and Snow Walker arrived beside them. How reproachfully they looked at the captives. “The language of the people,” said Nistenha in Mohawk, “is sweeter to the ear when it does not mix with the language of the English.” Mercy flushed. This was why she had not been taken to Montreal before. She would flee to the English and be homesick again. And it was so. How she wanted to stay with Eben and Sarah! They were older and would take care of her…but no. None of the captives possessed the freedom to choose anything or take care of anyone. It turned out that Eben Nims believed otherwise. Eben was looking at Sarah in the way every girl prays some boy will one day look at her. “I will marry you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I will be a good husband. A Puritan husband. Who will one day take us both back home.” Wind shifted the lace of Sarah’s gown and the auburn of one loose curl. “I love you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I’ve always loved you.” Tears came to Sarah’s eyes: she who had not wept over her own family. She stood as if it had not occurred to her that she could be loved; that an English boy could adore her. “Oh, Eben!” she whispered. “Oh, yes, oh, thank you, I will marry you. But will they let us, Eben? We will need permission.” “I’ll ask my father,” said Eben. “I’ll ask Father Meriel.” They were not touching. They were yearning to touch, they were leaning forward, but they were holding back. Because it is wrong? wondered Mercy. Or because they know they will never get permission? “My French family will put up a terrible fuss,” said Sarah anxiously. “Pierre might even summon his fellow officers and do something violent.” Eben grinned. “Not if I have Huron warriors behind me.

You won’t tell her I told you about not being able to read, will you? She hides it really well.” He inhales deeply. “I already knew. I’ve seen her read to Hayley.” He looks into my face. “Is that why you spoke to her?” I went eight years without saying a word. And she made me want to talk again. I nod. “She couldn’t read what I wrote down.” “You talked to her all along didn’t you?” He smiles, but it’s only a half-smile. “Pretty much from the day that I met her,” I admit. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I feel bad now. I went years without speaking. “You guys all made it really easy for me to retreat and not speak since you all learned to sign.” “You’re fucking deaf, dumbass. What else were we going to do?” A lot of deaf families never learn sign language. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “It was easier being quiet.” “She doesn’t make anything easy for you, does she?” “What? She makes everything easy for me. I didn’t even choose to talk. It just happened.” I smile. She turns me inside out. “I love her so fucking much.” “I know you want to be a man about this, but her father’s going to fight you the whole way.” “I know.” I wish that wasn’t the case. “But I feel like I need to be open with him.” “You’re going to get a fat fucking headache from banging your head against that wall.” “She had to wear a scarf to school today to cover up her neck.” “Fucker,” Paul swears.

One day, I would be in charge of something, a store or a family. Literally anything. I dreamed of firm decisions, impeccable in their correctness. In

My own family wasn’t dirt poor. Nothing so romantic. We were city poor, meaning that I was invisible every single day of my young life. Invisible on the street, in school, at home. Invisible, except when creditors came looking for my parents: Mr.

A lot of new entrepreneurs tell me they’re hustling, and then they’ll ask me if I liked the last episode of Ballers. They’re trying to get a business off the ground and they’ve got time to watch TV? It’s like wanting to lose weight and sneaking away to scarf down a Big Mac. It’s just not going to work. I’m twenty years into my career with two businesses under my belt and the only time I take to watch TV is when the Jets are on. There is so much hustle in my day I don’t even have a second to spare to “hang out” and catch up with the people around me when I’m at work. It may not be ideal for most, but I love it because it allows me to get the things done that I seek to accomplish. You

What are you doing behind my cornstalks? There was to be no pumpkin-pie-eating for you,” said the angry voice of the spirit that lived in the scarecrow. Shaking with fear, Angus turned to face the scarecrow, and the pie fell to the earth. “I…I was hungry and didn’t think Mom would mind,” said Angus. But Angus’s excuse only made the spirit angrier, and he shouted at Angus. “You were told to go to bed and to eat no pie.” And swinging the great scarf he wore like long arms flapping in the wind, the scarecrow turned Angus into a little dog. “Because you now have fur the color of fallen leaves, you will be called Autumn,” the scarecrow said as he made another swirl of his great scarf. “And because you stole and ate your mother’s pie, every night you will climb the ladder to the barn loft and guard a magic pumpkin until a forgiving soul carves it and releases the power to change you back to a boy.” The scarecrow spirit spoke in a voice as chilling as the cold which ruffled the cornstalks standing beneath him. As Autumn ran back to the farm he tried to think of a way to get someone up to the loft to carve the magic pumpkin. But thinking is not easy when you have just been changed into dog. So no ideas came to him. Great sadness now fell over the farm and the daily tasks were done with little joy. “Maybe Angus just ran away,” Angus’s mother said in a voice full of sorrow. “Or maybe he’s been taken over the fields by an angry spirit,” said his father. “Well, at least we have him,” the mother said, pointing to the playful little dog that had suddenly come to the farm and during the day always kept her company. But when evening came Autumn slipped away and sadly climbed the steep ladder to the barn loft. There he lay with his head next to the magic pumpkin, guarding it through the night. Sometimes he thought he could almost hear sounds from deep within the pumpkin. As if messages from the sun and the moon somehow entered through the pumpkin’s stem to rest among the silent seeds.

Aren’t our dresses exquisite?” Performing a few happy waltz steps, Corinna turned in a circle. “Um, yes. Pull your sleeves up, Juliana, will you?” She tugged at them, but the dress was designed to be off the shoulder. “They won’t go.” He eyed their dresses’ high waistlines and scooped necklines, designed to accentuate the bust. “You’re all going to cover”—at an apparent loss for words, he patted his own chest—“with one of those scarf things, right?” “A fichu?” Madame sniffed. “I think not. These are evening gowns, my lord.” “They don’t look like the pictures my sisters showed me.” “The pictures were but a starting point, my lord. By the time the fashion plates make it here from France, they’re already beginning to pass out of style.” “We shall not be caught in last month’s fashions,” Juliana added. “These gowns are the thing.” “Not in this house, they aren’t!” “Griffin. Good news. The foundry will have the new part cast by the end of the day.” Tris walked in, scanned the room with a low whistle, and settled on Alexandra. “By George, you ladies will put every other girl to shame.” “My sisters won’t be wearing these dresses,” Griffin said. “Of course they will.” Tris tore his gaze from Alexandra and turned to his friend. “While I take apart the pump, you’ll want to head out to the vineyard and see that work on the new pipeline is resumed.” “Very well.” Griffin turned to leave, then swiveled back. “I’m not paying for those dresses,” he warned. “Not until they’re made decent.” Madame Rodale gave a little French-sounding “hmmph.” Tris laughed. “Listen to yourself, old man. You’ve been on campaign far too long. Don’t you want men to find your sisters appealing? Irresistible? Marriageable?” “Not if they’re men like…” “Like us?” Tris suggested helpfully. Griffin’s “hmmph” put the mantua-maker’s to shame. “I need to get to the vineyard,” he muttered and left. “Madame

Well, bring a scarf, or better yet a small blanket, with you tomorrow. In the meantime, here.” Annie untied the lace scarf around her neck. Bowen stiffened and Elsie gasped as they stared at Annie’s neck. It was covered in scars, as if someone had taken a knife to her and cut just enough to make marks, but not to kill. “Oh!” Elsie exclaimed. “How … er, what happened to …?” “We all have scars, dear,” Annie said softly. “Mine have made me who I am today.” Tears formed in Elsie’s eyes. “I’m so sorry! I can’t imagine what it must be like …” “To have these? Mine are visible, that’s all. They’re a reminder of a part of my life that was indeed horrible. But what kind of person would I be without them? My life might have been better, perhaps, but I wouldn’t understand the healing love of the Lord or of the people in this town.” She smiled again and put a hand on her neck. “One day I’ll tell you the story behind these. But right now, we need to practice.” She turned, strode up the aisle to the front of the church, and gathered the three wise men together to inspect their costumes.

I gripped hold of that scarf like my life depended on it. Still to this day I inhale it every night, despite what has happened over the years. I don’t blame her now for not waiting. For all she knew, I wouldn’t return. But to marry him, god, she could have done so much better.

sounded like another language entirely. I felt relieved, momentarily, to be a relatively worldly Lubavitcher, even if I didn’t entirely fit in with the Crown Heights crowd. — Much to my disappointment, Miri was rarely to be seen. Most days she left the apartment around ten in a giddy rush and returned in the early evening with armloads of shopping bags, only to leave again for dinner with her friends. But one morning, when Leah was otherwise engaged, I was finally recruited for shomeres service. We were going to Ratfolvi’s, in Flatbush, to pick up the sheitel that Miri would be required to wear as a married woman. Pulling up to a residential building, we let ourselves into Mrs. Ratfolvi’s wig shop/apartment and sat down in the reception area, where four or five women were chatting away on a damask sofa and chairs. While we waited our turn, I examined the rows of wigs on display: there were various shades of brunette, blonde, and ginger; short, teased bouffants and glamorous, shoulder-length falls; wigs encased in rollers and wigs that were fully styled, needing nothing more than a final shpritz of hair spray. They were set upon Styrofoam heads complete with turned-up noses, high cheekbones, and luscious lips that looked like they could come alive at any moment. I longed to get my hands on a brush and a pair of scissors so that I could create my own visions of tonsorial loveliness. I did this from time to time to my dolls, to my mother’s great irritation, and here was a whole wall of victims. When Miri’s name was called, she plunked herself into the salon chair and pulled the silk scarf off her ponytail. I stood as close as I could without getting in the way. From conversations that I’d overheard between my mother and her sisters, I knew that Mrs. Ratfolvi was considered “the best,” and I was eager to watch her at work. The “rat” in her name had led me to expect someone old and unattractive, but she was actually a nicely put-together middle-aged woman. The receptionist brought over a plastic case about the size of a chubby toddler. In one expert motion, Mrs. Ratfolvi clicked it open, withdrew the fully styled wig on its Styrofoam head

I hear her smiling when she describes her outfit: “I made myself fashionable. And diplomatic. They all took my picture. The BBC, Voice of America, and Tolo TV. I had the turquoise scarf—the one you saw the other day. You know it. And the black jacket.” She pauses. “And a lot of makeup. Big makeup.” I breathe in deeply. I am the journalist. She is the subject. The rule is to show no emotion.

Those we love don't go away; they walk beside us every day," a deep voice says, startling me. It's the man with the scarf, but I can't tell if he's speaking to me or to the grave. His voice is resonant, and his accent sounds British. “Unseen, unheard, but always near. Still loved, still missed, and very dear.

She wore a tan robe and headscarf, the clothes of a local... but didn't feel like a market regular. She moved slowly and gazed at everything with a child's wonder. Her eyes were large and clear, her hair as black as midnight. She had a warm smile on her pretty lips and was obviously murmuring 'hellos' and 'excuse mes' to people who really didn't care or want to talk. She walked with the grace of a cloud in the wind, like her body weighed nothing at all, and held her head high with easy dignity. Easy. Aladdin felt his heart contract. He had never seen her- or anyone like her- before. When the girl adjusted her scarf, she revealed an intricate diadem in her hair that had a ridiculously sized emerald in it. 'Ah, a rich girl, out for a day of shopping in the market without her servants. Living dangerously, playing hooky.

Some may get religion, then they’re all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real. Even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it’s there—ready! Respectable countrywomen keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’ That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—‘blight the genial bed.’ Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny housewifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run round being harmful, or to run round being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led.

My thoughts are on Brux. The alien I never thought I’d see again. My hero. My savior. The alien who won me my freedom. Five years ago, I worked for an old mesakkah—one of the blue aliens with horns. He was the meanest son of a bitch, and spent all his time pinching and hitting me if I didn’t work fast enough. That old alien was a scrapper, too, and he taught me a lot. His hands didn’t work as well as they did when he was younger, so he used me to do the delicate repair work on things. And he starved me and kicked me and treated me like the worst junkyard dog. I’m told that humans are expensive, so I’m not sure why he wanted one if he was just going to beat the crap out of me and abuse me, but maybe he wanted to make sure that whatever slave he got he could beat up on without fear of reprisal. That was my life, dodging slaps and trying frantically to work fast enough to avoid the next hit. Trying to “behave” so I’d get fed that day. Brux showed up at the scrapper’s junk hole one day. I’m not even sure what he was looking for. But he watched the old guy beat up on me while I tried to work and then turned around and left. Which made my owner hit me even harder. Neither of us had counted on Brux returning, though. He did. Threw a bag of credits onto the counter and demanded my price. My owner didn’t even haggle. Just named some astronomically high price and Brux shoved the bag of credits across the counter and unlocked my collar. He led me to a hotel that night and ordered food. I scarfed everything down and showered, and cried I was so happy. The moment I got out of the shower and in Brux’s oversized tunic, I sat next to my new owner and let him know just how happy I was. I seduced him. Brux declined my advances, like any decent guy would. But I had a full belly and I was away from that old monster, and at this point, anything would be better. I put my mouth all over him, ignoring his attempts to brush me aside, and sat myself down onto his lap—and his cock. For all that he’s an enormous alien with tree trunks for arms and legs, his cock was the perfect size. Better than that, he was exceedingly gentle with me and made sure that I wasn’t hurting or scared. He came, I didn’t, but it didn’t matter to me. It was about connection, and gratitude, and just celebrating that my circumstances had changed. But I think it made Brux feel weird about things. Because in the morning, he took me directly to the doorstep of Lord va’Rin and left me there.

Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know the shit I’ve seen? Do you think sharing my feelings and knitting a fucking scarf is going to make me forget that I held my best friend’s dead, rotting body in my arms for seven fucking days while rats ate pieces of him?

in June 1799 Woodforde wrote: ‘Very cold indeed again to day, so cold that Mrs Custance came walking in her Spenser with a bosom-friend.’ 27 He meant that she had a large handkerchief or scarf at her throat to keep her warm, a fashion that arose because of the low necklines and acquired the name ‘bosom-friend’.

You divide every piece of time into tiny portions and you tell yourself, I can survive just this small portion. That's how you get through a day. No past, no future. Just this moment.

Journalists recall how in those days this bunch of men made fools out of eager journalists working with Western media outlets who came in droves to document the ‘rebellion’ against the Indian state. One day, a journalist would ask his local contact, usually a stringer, to arrange an interview with a JKLF commander. So, the JKLF would ask a sympathizer from Kashmir University who could speak in broken English to cover his face with a Palestinian scarf and pose as a JKLF commander and give an interview, since its own men knew no English. The next day, the same student would change his scarf and pose for another journalist as a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen.

At a table, in a public library, on a winter Saturday, and yet I felt as if I'd arrived home. That house in North Bennington, another winter ten years earlier, and I as young as a girl could be and yet as old as any other Mother Earth, and I had learned what it was to love. How to be loved and how to provide love, and how to be of service as a gesture to the gods. Had I known how fast it would all go, how little it would amount to, would I have lived each day more consciously? Ah, me. I don't have the faintest idea.

scarf in green and priced

His dick is so massive that the head of it has probably only seen the balls in pictures. I could probably wrap it around my neck like a scarf if I wasn’t afraid it would get hard and strangle me. Like a helicopter, it could probably seat six. When he flies commercial, he probably has to check that thing as baggage. Hell, he could probably bench my entire body with his dick alone. He most definitely accidentally sits on that thing at least once a day. How the fuck does he wear pants?

How come scientists could cure limp dicks but we still had nothing to combat middle-aged weight gain, fatigue, or hot flashes? We were told to better control our diet and exercise more because goddess knows that fistful of raisins I’d scarfed mid-day while helping my son set up his dorm room was the height of indulgence.

Few people care that it took you three days to knit that ugly scarf; it’s still ugly and no one wants it. It doesn’t matter if the yarn is really expensive (since making it required someone else to do the work of hiking to the Andes to procure the fleece, which had to be washed, carded and

and I remembered Sami when he was a baby, the way he used to fall asleep with Afra’s nipple in his mouth, his little hand still clutching the material of her scarf. It’s amazing, the way we love people from the day we are born, the way we hold on, as if we are holding on to life itself.

With a rose garden blanket thrown on her legs that matched her roosari, her scarf, she ran her liver-spotted hand across her left arm and said, “A hunter in Lorestan was hunting for wild goats. He spots one and chases it into a cave. He waited outside until the goat came out of the cave. When the goat finally comes out, he shoots it in the head and it dies on the spot. He approaches the goat and sees it had a wet goatee. He immediately knew there was water in the cave. So he went inside and after a fifteen-minute drop to the bottom he discovers a carved room filled with gold. There was so much gold that he could build an entire house with it. He starts to go back to the cave day by day to collect the gold. The people in his village figured there was something suspicious going on with the hunter so a few of them followed him once. They then discovered the hidden gold too. They all agreed that since he never shared it with the rest of the tribe, he should be killed. They killed him and started to take the gold themselves. Eventually all of the villagers dispersed throughout the country and the gold was nowhere to be found. Some say it is abroad and some say it is scattered all over the country. But what do I know? I never saw it because I lost both my eyes during the war.

I realized that I hdd my promise to them - to everyone in my family - long ago. I had promised during the days that Grandma and I had hidden in the park; I had promised when I had not testified against Dad; I had promised when I had hidden the letter. I would never do anything to hurt my family and I would do everything I could to take care of them.

We’ll sacrifice most anything for speed and convenience. When researchers noticed that cereal sales were going down, they did a study to figure out why. It turns out millennials don’t eat as much cereal because it’s too much trouble to wash the bowl. They grab protein bars or yogurt cups and scarf them on the way to work. Cooking shows are more popular than ever—you can find Bobby Flay putting meat on a fire twenty-four hours a day—but it seems like people are watching instead of cooking, in the same way people watch Fixer Upper a lot more than they fix anything up. The proof is on the shelves. The stuff you used to find in the 7-Eleven is now in the grocery store: Lunchables, protein packs, quickie meals packed in plastic clamshells. Life, to go.

Just the daily experience of walking down the halls proved liberating. Young women from Africa came to school wearing floor- length skirts in bright orange or hot pink, with contrasting head scarves in electric blue. Their counterparts from Southeast Asia showed up wearing hijabs adorned with sequins. Young men from Southeast Asia sometimes wore stripes of yellow paint on their cheeks as a form of blessing. Female students from the Middle East did their hair in elaborate updos and then draped wool scarves over their big coiffures, but wore jeans and American T- shirts. One day, I saw an Iraqi student wearing a black head scarf and a gray T- shirt that said I KNOW THAT GUAC IS EXTRA. You could be anything at all and register as gorgeous— you knew this, if you walked the hallways of this school. It was a place that eroded prejudices and expanded ideas of beauty.

Sharp-eyed Kadife, on the other hand, had worked it all out by the end of her first day in the city; her only real motivation for associating with the head-scarf girls was to get closer to Blue. Ïpek, who’d been living with Kadife’s jealousy since childhood, was not blind to her interest in Blue; it was only on seeing the fickle Blue returning Kadife’s affection that Ïpek’s own feelings cooled. And she saw opportunities: If Kadife was to become involved with him, Ïpek would be free of him; and once her father moved to Kars too, she was able to keep her faithless lover at bay.

As soon as I said it, I realized that I had made my promise to them—to everyone in my family—long ago. I had promised during the days that Grandma and I had hidden in the park; I had promised when I had not testified against Dad; I had promised when I had hidden the letter. I would never do anything to hurt my family, and I would do everything I could to take care of them. My family was too precious to forget, and too rare to replace.

The drinking became a little more of a problem when I went to university. My parents had never been particularly present while I was growing up, so one might presume if I was going to go off the rails, why not do it at home, but I saved it for when I went away. I was enough of a disappointment to my father. I didn’t need to give him yet another excuse to help me understand I was not the daughter he wanted. My mother had left her native America when she fell in love with my dad while working for a year as an au pair in Gerrards Cross. She seemed happy when I was very young, then spent most of my teenage years in what I have always thought must have been, albeit undiagnosed a deep, and possibly clinical, depression. I can understand why. What I couldn’t understand is how she ever ended up with my father in the first place. He was handsome, and I suppose he must have been charming when they were young, but he was so damned difficult, I used to think, even when I was young, that we’d all be much happier if they got a divorce. I would sit with friends who would be in floods of tears because their mother had just found out their father had been having an affair, or their parents had decided they hated each other, or whatever the myriad of reasons are that drive people apart, and these friends would be crying at the terrible fear of their families breaking up, and all I could think was: I wish my parents would get divorced. It seemed to me that if ever there were two people on the planet who should not have been together, it was my parents. My mother is laid-back, funny, kind. She’s comfortable in her skin and has the easy laugh you expect from all Americans. She was brought up in New York, but her parents died very young, after which she went to live with her Aunt Judith. I never knew Aunt Judith, but everything about those days sounds idyllic, especially her summers in Nantucket. You look at pictures of my mum from those days and she was in flowing, hippie-ish clothes, always smiling. She had long, silky hair, and she looked happy and free. In sharp contrast to the pictures of her with my dad, even in those early days, when they were newlyweds, supposedly the happiest time of a relationship. He insisted she wear buttoned-up suits, or twinsets and pearls. Her hair was elaborately coiffed. I remember the heated rollers she kept in the bathroom, twisting her hair up every morning, spraying it into tight submission, slicking lipstick on her lips, her feet sliding into Roger Vivier pumps. If my father was away, she left her hair long and loose, wrapping a scarf around her head. She’d wear long gypsy skirts with espadrilles or sandals. I loved her like that most of all. I used to think it was her clothing that changed her personality,