“
I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, with each other, whenever and however it happened.
”
”
Rachel Cohn (Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (Dash & Lily, #1))
“
Alexander, you broke my heart. But for carrying me on your back, for pulling my dying sled, for giving me your last bread, for the body you destroyed for me, for the son you have given me, for the twenty-nine days we lived like Red Birds of Paradise, for all our Naples sands and Napa wines, for all the days you have been my first and last breath, for Orbeli- I will forgive you.
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Summer Garden (The Bronze Horseman, #3))
“
Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here.
So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.
Live.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Why is luge a sport? You dress up like a giant sperm and go sledding really fast. That’s hardly athletic. Phallic and sexy, yes. But hardly athletic.
”
”
Jessica Park (Flat-Out Love (Flat-Out Love, #1))
“
It is a well-known fact that of all the species on earth Homo sapiens is among the most adaptable. Settle a tribe of them in a desert and they will wrap themselves in cotton, sleep in tents, and travel on the backs of camels; settle them in the Arctic and they will wrap themselves in sealskin, sleep in igloos, and travel by dog-drawn sled. And if you settle them in a Soviet climate? They will learn to make friendly conversation with strangers while waiting in line; they will learn to neatly stack their clothing in their half of the bureau drawer; and they will learn to draw imaginary buildings in their sketchbooks. That is, they will adapt.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
Always in the dream, it seemed as if there were a destination: a something--he could not grasp what-that lay beyond the place where the thickness of snow brought the sled to a stop. He was left, upon awakening, with the feeling that he wanted, even somehow needed, to reach the something that waited in the distance. The feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant. But he did not know how to get there.
”
”
Lois Lowry (The Giver (The Giver, #1))
“
Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms.
”
”
Annie Dillard (The Writing Life)
“
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
”
”
Jeff Valdez
“
Things will get really screwed up, right?"
"Erm...maybe."
"Maybe, like how?"
"Ever wanted to go sledding in the Mojave Desert?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron Daughter (The Iron Fey, #2))
“
A leader is the one who is pulling the sled hardest.
”
”
Jeffrey Fry
“
On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offense to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement.
”
”
Jack London (White Fang)
“
There is a pain you can’t think your way out of. You can’t talk it away. If there was someone to talk to. You can walk. One foot the other foot. Breathe in breathe out. Drink from the stream. Piss. Eat the venison strips. And. You can’t metabolize the loss. It is in the cells of your face, your chest, behind the eyes, in the twists of the gut. Muscles, sinew, bone. It is all of you.
When you walk you propel it forward. When you let the sled and sit on a fallen log and. You imagine him curling in the one patch of sun maybe lying over your feet. Then it sits with you, the Pain puts its arm over your shoulders. It is your closest friend. Steadfast. And at night you can’t bear to hear your own breath unaccompanied by another and underneath the big stillness like a score is the roaring of the cataract of everything being and being torn away. Then. The Pain is lying beside your side, close. Does not bother you with sound even of breathing.
”
”
Peter Heller (The Dog Stars)
“
Would you still like to go ice skating?"
"Yes!" she burst out. "But---" She tried not to glance down at his injured leg.
A grin tugged at his mouth. "We saved the world, Scrivener. We'll figure out a way."
She relaxed. He was right. They would figure out a way.
"Even if you have to pull me on a sled," Nathaniel went on.
"I am not pulling you on a sled!"
"Why not? I dare say you're strong enough."
She sputtered.. "It would get in the papers."
"I hope so. I'd want to save a clipping.
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (Sorcery of Thorns (Sorcery of Thorns, #1))
“
... Come on Hulk on Wheels!" Meryn plopped down on Jaxon's lap to
his astonishment.
"Mush!" She pointed to the media room.
Elizabeth looked to the ceiling. "Meryn! Do not treat your minion like a sled dog!" She
stopped abruptly. Had that just come out of her mouth?
Meryn erupted in giggles and Jaxon laughed.
”
”
Alanea Alder (My Protector (Bewitched and Bewildered, #2))
“
It must've been Albert's military background, because man, when he dropped a bomb the entire country shook. I was still jittery as a hurricane survivor in New Orleans, and I was sure that somewhere in Alaska some poor Inuit had just taken a tumble from his sled for the very same reason.
”
”
Jennifer Rardin (Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Jaz Parks, #1))
“
Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land....
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)
“
In advance of the dogs, on wide snowshoes, toiled a man. At the rear of the sled toiled a second man. On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again.
”
”
Jack London (White Fang)
“
I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
Life is like a dog sled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
”
”
Lewis Grizzard
“
He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs.
”
”
Jack London (The Call of the Wild)
“
The way a love letter longs to be read
I long for you.
The way the poor Kane longs for his sled
I long for you.
The way the moon longs for the dark of night
I long for you.
The way a nestling bird longs for flight
I long for you.
I am blessed
and I am cursed.
I have waited for so long.
I need you to come to me.
And remind me
of who I was once.
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
I am not pulling you on a sled!”
“Why not? I dare say you’re strong enough.“
She sputtered. “It would get into the papers.”
“I hope so. I’d want to save a clipping. I could put it in my scrapbook,...
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (Sorcery of Thorns (Sorcery of Thorns, #1))
“
Ollie-O was in a semicatatonic state, uttering nonsensical phrases like "This is not biodegradable - the downstream implications are enormous - the optics make for rough sledding - going forward -" before getting stuck on the words "epic fail," which he kept repeating.
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
I run into trees all the time when I go sledding
”
”
Geoffrey Rogers
“
The snails on the pink sleds of their bodies are moving
among the morning glories
The spider is asleep among the red thumbs
of the raspberries.
”
”
Mary Oliver (New and Selected Poems, Volume One)
“
A year in Vermont, according to an old saw, is "nine months of winter followed by three months of very poor sledding.
”
”
Bill Bryson
“
I don't know why anyone likes sledding in the first place." I said. "Life goes downhill enough without speeding the process along.
”
”
Lemony Snicket
“
For adults, summer was different-- flatter, the way everything became flatter when you grew old, like the hills you once sledded and stood on your pedals to climb, like the Christmases and birthdays you once anticipated, even after you discovered they disappointed, again and again, until you became numb to their disappointment.
”
”
Dana Cann (Ghosts of Bergen County)
“
It doesn’t matter what the end looks like—what matters is that it came. Bam, you’re done. But life, Axi? There are degrees of life. You can live it well or half-asleep. You can go sledding down a sand dune, or you can spend your life in front of the TV. And I don’t mean to sound like a stupid after-school special, but you have to keep living the way we did these last weeks. Risk, Axi. That’s the secret. Risk everything.”
I nodded, trying not to cry again. “Okay. But I might not keep stealing cars.”
“That’s all right,” he said.
”
”
James Patterson (First Love)
“
Dogs are dim creatures, do not speak to me of their good sense--have you ever heard of a team of tomcats hauling a sled across the frozen wastes?
”
”
John Banville (The Infinities)
“
It was after the big ice storm. They got the boats up on the ice and because airboats only have big fans on the back and no rudders or anything underneath they can just slide along like big sleds." Leo grinned. "I mean, it looked like hell of a good time.
”
”
Erin Nicholas (Say It Like You Mane It (Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild, #5))
“
The philosopher Stephen Schwartz has argued that there are only four differences between born and unborn humans, and none of the differences justifies depriving unborn humans of the right to life.143 Schwartz uses the acronym SLED to summarize these differences: Size Level of development Environment Degree of dependency
”
”
Trent Horn (Persuasive Pro Life: How to Talk about Our Culture's Toughest Issue)
“
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
”
”
T.S. Eliot
“
Do you know that i paid two dollars for [Doxocology] thirty-three years ago? Everything was wrong with him, hoofs like flapjacks, a hock so thick and short and straight there seems no joint at all. he's hammerheaded and swaybacked. He has a pinched chest and a big behind. He has an iron mouth and he still fights the upper. with a saddle he feels as thought you were riding a sled over a gravel pit. He can't trot and he stumbles over his feet when he walks. I have never in thirty-three years fond one good thing about him. He even has an ugly disposition. He is selfish and quarrelsome and mean and disobedient. to this day I don't dare walk behind him because he will surely take a kick at me. when I feed him mush he tries to bite my hand. And I love him.
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
After a time, my hand had become as skilled as my eyes. So if I was drawing a very fine tree, it felt as if my hand was moving without me directly it. As I watched the pencil race across the page, I would look on it in amazement, as if the drawing were the proof of another presence, as if someone else had taken up residence in my body. As I marveled at his work aspiring to become his equal, another part of my brain was busy inspecting the curves of the branches, the placement of mountains, the composition as a whole, reflecting that I had created this scene on a blank piece of paper. My mind was at the tip of my pen, acting before I could think; at the same time it could survey what I had already done. This second line of perception, this ability to analyse my progress, was the pleasure this small artist felt when he looked at the discovery of his courage and freedom. To step outside myself , to know the second person who had taken up residence inside me, was to retrace the dividing line that appeared as my pencil slipped across the paper, like a boy sledding in the snow.
”
”
Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul: Memories and the City)
“
Think of a globe, a revolving globe on a stand. Think of a contour globe, whose mountain ranges cast shadows, whose continents rise in bas-relief above the oceans. But then: think of how it really is. These heights are just suggested; they’re there….when I think of walking across a continent I think of all the neighborhood hills, the tiny grades up which children drag their sleds. It is all so sculptured, three-dimensional, casting a shadow. What if you had an enormous globe that was so huge it showed roads and houses- a geological survey globe, a quarter of a mile to an inch- of the whole world, and the ocean floor! Looking at it, you would know what had to be left out: the free-standing sculptural arrangement of furniture in rooms, the jumble of broken rocks in the creek bed, tools in a box, labyrinthine ocean liners, the shape of snapdragons, walrus. Where is the one thing you care about in earth, the molding of one face? The relief globe couldn’t begin to show trees, between whose overlapping boughs birds raise broods, or the furrows in bark, where whole creatures, creatures easily visible, live our their lives and call it world enough. What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is a possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.
”
”
Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)
“
Poverty is its own cruel trap but still raises questions about whether we own our possessions or are owned by them. Somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania we saw a man who had tied the handle of a snow shovel to his belt and then piled all his belongings onto the blade, which sledded along behind him. Depending on your perspective he was either the freest man in the country or just the poorest.
”
”
Sebastian Junger (Freedom)
“
Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river trees.
”
”
Jack London (The Call of the Wild)
“
In Greenland there is no ownership of land. What you own is your house, your dogs, your sleds and kayaks. Everyone is fed. It is a food-sharing society in which the whole population is kept in mind--the widows, elderly, infirm, and ill are always taken care of. Jens said, "We weren't born to buy and sell, but to be out on the ice with our families.
”
”
Gretel Ehrlich (Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is)
“
live in sound, always in noise. Perhaps because it is so constant, the art of listening to them falls off, and so many things they say are not heard, are swallowed in the overall
”
”
Gary Paulsen (Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers: Reflections on Being Raised by a Pack of Sled Dogs)
“
But somehow the small red-painted sled had become a symbol of courage and hope.
”
”
Lois Lowry (Messenger (The Giver, #3))
“
How could it be winter without snow?I appreciated every season, but winter was my favorite.I loved when it was time to pull out my thick sweaters.I loved the smell of a wood fire.I loved skiing and snow boarding and sledding, when i could find the time-although time was in a short supply when school was in session.I even enjoyed the cold, wintry weather, it was great for snuggling.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (Suite Dreams)
“
Director Steven Spielberg bought the only remaining Rosebud sled from Citizen Kane (1941) for $55,000 at auction at Sotheby’s. He called the sled ‘a symbolic emblem of quality in the film business’.
”
”
Anupama Chopra (100 Films to See before You Die)
“
I have seen their humor and anger expressed in natural terms and learned more about them as dogs and not just extensions of human training.
”
”
Gary Paulsen (Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers: Reflections on Being Raised by a Pack of Sled Dogs)
Gary Paulsen (Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers: Reflections on Being Raised by a Pack of Sled Dogs)
“
The Tintin look-alike who had sauntered into that California café, who said to her “Sound like a plan?” whose memories of lobster summers and sledding winters seemed like they’d come straight out of an American film at Cinema Metropole, soothed her.
”
”
Marjan Kamali (The Stationery Shop)
“
We’re almost there, Gabriel,” he whispered, feeling quite certain without knowing why. “I remember this place, Gabe.” And it was true. But it was not a grasping of a thin and burdensome recollection; this was different. This was something that he could keep. It was a memory of his own. He hugged Gabriel and rubbed him briskly, warming him, to keep him alive. The wind was bitterly cold. The snow swirled, blurring his vision. But somewhere ahead, through the blinding storm, he knew there was warmth and light. Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill. Numbly his hands fumbled for the rope. He settled himself on the sled and hugged Gabe close. The hill was steep but the snow was powdery and soft, and he knew that this time there would be no ice, no fall, no pain. Inside his freezing body, his heart surged with hope. They started down. Jonas felt himself losing consciousness and with his whole being willed himself to stay upright atop the sled, clutching Gabriel, keeping him safe. The runners sliced through the snow and the wind whipped at his face as they sped in a straight line through an incision that seemed to lead to the final destination, the place that he had always felt was waiting, the Elsewhere that held their future and their past. He forced his eyes open as they went downward, downward, sliding, and all at once he could see lights, and he recognized them now. He knew they were shining through the windows of rooms, that they were the red, blue, and yellow lights that twinkled from trees in places where families created and kept memories, where they celebrated love. Downward, downward, faster and faster. Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they were waiting for him; and that they were waiting, too, for the baby. For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.
”
”
Lois Lowry (The Giver (The Giver, #1))
“
Researching Alaska, I loved the blurred line between history and Inuit folklore. This is an old land where the sun permanently sets for months on end, where dogs pull sleds across hundreds of miles of snow and ice, and where colorful sheets of light dance in the sky--the facts already feel magical.
”
”
Marie Lu (A Tyranny of Petticoats (A Tyranny of Petticoats, #1))
“
Our favourite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In places the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's edge. Down these steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on our toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we went! Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, swooping down upon the lake, we would shoot across its gleaming surface to the opposite bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine!
”
”
Helen Keller (The Story of My Life)
“
Several factors besides skill are more significant in professional writers than in most amateurs. One is love of the surface level of language: the sound of it; the taste of it on the tongue; what it can be made to do in virtuosic passages that exist only for their own sake, like cadenzas in baroque concerti. Writers in love with their tools are not unlike surgeons obsessed with their scalpels, or Arctic sled racers who sleep among their dogs even when they don't have to
”
”
Alice W. Flaherty
“
Humanitarian Benefits of Cadaver Research on Injury Prevention,” Albert King calculated that vehicle safety improvements that have come about as a result of cadaver research have saved an estimated 8,500 lives each year since 1987. For every cadaver that rode the crash sleds to test three-point seat belts, 61 lives per year have been saved. For every cadaver that took an air bag in the face, 147 people per year survive otherwise fatal head-ons. For every corpse whose head has hammered a windshield, 68 lives per year are saved.
”
”
Mary Roach (Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers)
“
If you meet directly with tough sledding circumstance, play your trump card to turn up trumps and live in comfortable circumstances.
”
”
Anyaele Sam Chiyson (The Sagacity of Sage)
“
I even got out my old sled and my old scarf. There is something cozy about that for me.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
I'm sorry. I was just running them. Running the dogs." I swallowed more soup and looked at the sky. The cold air was so clear the stars seemed to be falling to the ground. Like you could walk right. . . over . . . there and pick them up just lying on the snow. "I couldn't come back.
”
”
Gary Paulsen (Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod)
“
The physical domain of the country had its counterpart in me. The trails I made led outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also. And from the study of things underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the land. In time the two became one in my mind. With the gathering force of an essential thing realizing itself out of early ground, I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing—to put away all thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back. Whether on foot, on snowshoes or by sled, into the summer hills and their late freezing shadows—a high blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind find me if it could.
”
”
John Haines
“
The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it’s a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality. The professional steels himself at the start of a project, reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the sixty-yard dash. He conserves his energy. He prepares his mind for the long haul. He sustains himself with the knowledge that if he can just keep those huskies mushing, sooner or later the sled will pull in to Nome.
”
”
Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
“
Everything is a tool - a boot, a sled, a dog - and a hand, an arm, even a man! If it breaks down you throw it away and you march on! It's brutal, yes! And it's ugly. But anything else is sentiment and it will kill you.
”
”
Ted Tally (Terra Nova)
“
With my big 80s hair, my cut off jean shorts, and my roller skates, I’m going to look sexy on my way to work in the snow this winter. And I just got sled dogs, though I plan on pulling them without putting them on the sled first.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Then it resumes, the twin wands of its horns extending, dragging its whorled shell atop the sled of its body. What do you seek, little snail? Do you live only in this one moment, or do you worry like Professor Aronnax for your future?
”
”
Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
“
There is a siren that sounds in our small town to announce the curfew. At noon and at 10 p.m. Every time the siren sounds all the sled dogs howl, and I imagine that they think there is a large, loud god dog that rules the land howling. I equate this with religion. A short-sighted and desperate attempt for humans to create reason and order in a universe we can't possibly comprehend. The simple truth is that we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe.
”
”
Tanya Tagaq (Split Tooth)
“
The Inuit, at the time I visited Igloolik, had no tradition of keeping animals as companions. A sled dog was more or less a piece of equipment. When I told Makabe Nartok that I had a cat, he asked, “What do you use it for?” In America, pets are family, never fare.
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
And the sleds! (Or, as the Williamsburg children called them, the sleighs.) There was a child’s dream of heaven come true! A new sled with a flower someone had dreamed up painted on it—a deep blue flower with bright green leaves—the ebony-black painted runners, the smooth steering bar made of hard wood and gleaming varnish over all! And the names painted on them! “Rosebud!” “Magnolia!” “Snow King!” “The Flyer!” Thought Francie, “If I could only have one of those, I’d never ask God for another thing as long as I live.” There
”
”
Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
“
till, silently
without one peep, the angels come, their watch to keep.
They'll hold you safe while dreaming deep. The pillow cool beneath your head,
all star lit is your feather bed which glides the moonbeams like a sled,
above towns which glitter blue and red.
”
”
Dixie Dawn Miller Goode (Moonrise)
“
Remember the start of 2001: A Space Odyssey? Bunch of monkeys collecting bones. What‘s that got to do with space? They don‘t even have lasers!
Cut that shit.
And what about Citizen Kane? If they‘d wanted to gross some dollar, they should‘ve called it Dude, Where‘s My Sled?
”
”
Richard Ayoade (The Grip of Film)
“
Mid-December then and still no snow. Strange Chicago crèches appeared in front yards: Baby Jesus, freed from the manger, leaned against a Santa sled half his height. He was crouching, as if about to jump; he wore just a diaper. Single strings of colored lights lay across bushes, as if someone had hatefully thrown them there. We patched the roof of a Jamaican immigrant whose apartment had nothing in it but hundreds of rags, spread across the floor and hanging from interior clotheslines. Nobody asked why. As we left, she offered us three DietRite Colas.
”
”
George Saunders (In Persuasion Nation)
“
In a 1995 Journal of Trauma article entitled “Humanitarian Benefits of Cadaver Research on Injury Prevention,” Albert King calculated that vehicle safety improvements that have come about as a result of cadaver research have saved an estimated 8,500 lives each year since 1987. For every cadaver that rode the crash sleds to test three-point seat belts, 61 lives per year have been saved. For every cadaver that took an air bag in the face, 147 people per year survive otherwise fatal head-ons. For every corpse whose head has hammered a windshield, 68 lives per year are saved.
”
”
Mary Roach (Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers)
“
As I took my children sledding this morning, I watched them fly down the hill - aiming for the jump and flying in the air. Getting the wind knocked out of them as they landed hard then climbing up to do it again - relentless and brave.
I took a moment to be happy they are young and innocent and appreciate the simple thrill of going fast down a hill. I pushed my own nervous inclination aside and instead of saying "Be careful!" I said "Aim Straight!" Then I let them go down the jump again and again because in this world, we need to be relentless and brave and I need to be sure they don't unlearn it.
”
”
Elizabeth Tambascio
“
What's the number of times that someone tried to assassinate you?'
He gives a one-shouldered shrug, his attention on the tableau below. 'Hard to know, but I'd guess there were a few dozen attempts since my sister came to power.'
That would be more than twice a year for every year since I met him. And that scar on his neck suggests that someone got very, very close.
I think of him as he was in the woods at thirteen, wanting to run away. Angry and afraid. I think of him lying on the sled this morning.
I poison everything I touch.
Every time I feel as though I know him, it seems there is another Oak underneath.
”
”
Holly Black (The Stolen Heir (The Stolen Heir Duology, #1))
“
I hate this little town. It's so small, too small. Everything about it is small. The people here have small ideas, small dreams; they all want to marry each other and live here forever.'
'What do you want to do?' I asked.
'I want to leave as soon as I can. I think I was born with a suitcase.'
...
'Where do you want to go?' I asked.
'Everywhere. I want to walk on the Great Wall of China, I want to walk to the top of the pyramids in Egypt, I want to swim in every ocean, I want to climb Mount Everest, I want to go on an African safari, I want to ride a dog sled in Antarctica. I want all of it; every single piece of everything.
”
”
Sherman Alexie
“
I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over.
The door was locked.
“I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!”
Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights.
“Dad!” I said, throwing my arms around his waist. He let me keep them there, but all I got in return was a light pat on the back.
“You’re safe,” he told me, in his usual soft, rumbling voice.
“Dad—there’s something wrong with her,” I was babbling. The tears were burning my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to be bad! You have to fix her, okay? She’s…she’s…”
“I know, I believe you.”
At that, he carefully peeled my arms off his uniform and guided me down, so we were sitting on the step, facing Mom’s maroon sedan. He was fumbling in his pockets for something, listening to me as I told him everything that had happened since I walked into the kitchen. He pulled out a small pad of paper from his pocket.
“Daddy,” I tried again, but he cut me off, putting down an arm between us. I understood—no touching. I had seen him do something like this before, on Take Your Child to Work Day at the station. The way he spoke, the way he wouldn’t let me touch him—I had watched him treat another kid this way, only that one had a black eye and a broken nose. That kid had been a stranger.
Any hope I had felt bubbling up inside me burst into a thousand tiny pieces.
“Did your parents tell you that you’d been bad?” he asked when he could get a word in. “Did you leave your house because you were afraid they would hurt you?”
I pushed myself up off the ground. This is my house! I wanted to scream. You are my parents! My throat felt like it had closed up on itself.
“You can talk to me,” he said, very gently. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I just need your name, and then we can go down to the station and make some calls—”
I don’t know what part of what he was saying finally broke me, but before I could stop myself I had launched my fists against him, hitting him over and over, like that would drive some sense back into him. “I am your kid!” I screamed. “I’m Ruby!”
“You’ve got to calm down, Ruby,” he told me, catching my wrists. “It’ll be okay. I’ll call ahead to the station, and then we’ll go.”
“No!” I shrieked. “No!”
He pulled me off him again and stood, making his way to the door. My nails caught the back of his hand, and I heard him grunt in pain. He didn’t turn back around as he shut the door.
I stood alone in the garage, less than ten feet away from my blue bike. From the tent that we had used to camp in dozens of times, from the sled I’d almost broken my arm on. All around the garage and house were pieces of me, but Mom and Dad—they couldn’t put them together. They didn’t see the completed puzzle standing in front of them.
But eventually they must have seen the pictures of me in the living room, or gone up to my mess of the room.
“—that’s not my child!” I could hear my mom yelling through the walls. She was talking to Grams, she had to be. Grams would set her straight. “I have no child! She’s not mine—I already called them, don’t—stop it! I’m not crazy!
”
”
Alexandra Bracken (The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, #1))
“
As a kid, snow served the useful purpose of closing schools. As an adult—it shuts down any activity a decent, suntanned person over the age of thirty-five enjoys. I don’t do snow forts, snowballs, snow angels, snowmen, snowmobiles, or snowshoes. I don’t like to walk in it, drive in it, ski on it, or sled on it. Other than that, snow is just ducky.
”
”
Michael Holbrook (Sublimity's Treasure: A Tale of Peculiar Findings, Discovery, & Hope)
“
As time passed and Harry flew and flew and flew, he forgot all about the fog, the city below him, and just about everything. Nothing in the world seemed to matter but wings, and sky, and motion. The free and endless kind of motion that people are always looking for in a hundred different ways.
Flying was the way a swing swoops up; and the glide down a slide. It was the shoot of a sled downhill without the long climb back up. It was the very best throat-tightening thrills of skis, skates, surfboards and trampolines. Diving boards, merry-go-rounds, Ferris wheels, .roller coasters, skate boards and soap-box coasters. It was all of them, one after the other, all at once and a thousand times over.
”
”
Zilpha Keatley Snyder (Black and Blue Magic)
“
Winter-Time"
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.
Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.
Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.
”
”
Robert Louis Stevenson
“
There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I though that some days those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
Mary Hepburn was meanwhile murdering herself up in her room, lying on her bed with the polyethylene sheath of her "Jackie dress" swapped around her head. The sheath was now all steamed up inside, and she hallucinated that she was a great land tortoise lying on its back in the hot and humid hold of a sailing ship of long ago. She pawed the air in perfect futility, just as a land tortoise on its back would have done.
As she had often told her students, sailing ships bound out across the Pacific used to stop off in the Galàpagos Islands to capture defenseless tortoises, who could live on their backs without food or water for months. They were so slow and tame and huge and plentiful. The sailors would capsize them without fear of being bitten or clawed. then they would drag them down to waiting longboats on the shore, using the animals' own useless suits of armor for sleds.
They would store them on their backs in the dark paying no further attention to them until it was time for them to be eaten. the beauty of the tortoises to the sailors was that they were fresh meat which did not have to be refrigerated or eaten right away.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Galápagos)
“
The Donald Fraser of The Story Girl was Donald Montgomery, and Neil Campbell was David Murray, of Bedeque. The only embroidery I permitted myself in the telling of the tale was to give Donald a horse and cutter. In reality, what he had was a half-broken steer, hitched to a rude, old wood-sled, and it was with this romantic equipage that he hied him over to Richmond Bay to propose to Nancy!
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career)
“
Run. Eat. Drink. Eat more. Don't throw up. Instead, take a piss. Then take a crap. Wipe your butt. Make a phone call. Open a door. Rid your bik. Ride in a car. Ride in a subway. Talk. Talk to people. Read. Read maps. Make maps. Make art. Talk about your art. Sell your art. Take a test. Get into a school. Celebrate. HAve a party. Write a thank-you note to someone. Hug your mom. Kiss your dad. Kiss your little sister. Make out with Noelle. Make out with her more. Touch her. HOld her hand. Take her out somewhere. Meet her friends. Run down a street with her. Take her on a picnic. Eat with her. See a movie with her. See a move with Aaron. Heck, see a movie with Nia, once you're cool with her. Get cool with more people.. Drink coffee in little coffee-drinking places. Tell people your story. Volunteer. Go back to Six North. Walk in as a volunteer and say hi to everyone who waited on you as a patient. Help people. Help people like Bobby. Get people books and music that they want when they're in there. Help people like Muqtada. Show them how to draw. Draw more. Try drawing a landscape. Try drawing a person. Try drawing a naked person. Try drawing Noelle naked. Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Okay, it's gay, whatever, skip.
Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserved them because you chose them. You could have left the all behind but you chose to stay here.
So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.
Live.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
If humans are ever to understand one another, they will have to come to terms with the concept, and the reality, of relativity. In essence, that’s what the Earthgame is about. They will have to see how things look compared to other things. Once you understand that nothing exists without its opposite, you understand nothing is good and nothing is evil, that opposites actually hold each other up.
”
”
Chris Crutcher (The Sledding Hill)
“
It doesn't matter what the end looks like- what matters is that it came. Bam, you're done. But life? There are degrees of life. You can live it well or half-asleep. You can go sledding down a sand dune, or you can spend your life in front of the TV. And i don't mean to sound like a stupid after-school special, but you have to keep living the way we did these last weeks. Risk. That's the secret. Risk everything
”
”
James Patterson (First Love)
“
I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
Albert King calculated that vehicle safety improvements that have come about as a result of cadaver research have saved an estimated 8,500 lives each year since 1987. For every cadaver that rode the crash sleds to test three-point seat belts, 61 lives per year have been saved. For every cadaver that took an air bag in the face, 147 people per year survive otherwise fatal head-ons. For every corpse whose head has hammered a windshield, 68 lives per year are saved.
”
”
Mary Roach (Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers)
“
When Netsilik Eskimos must either undergo a long migration or starve, the number of dogs they can feed limits what they can carry on their sleds and how fast they can travel. If there are old people too infirm to carry their own weight, they cannot be put on a sled at the expense of equipment that is necessary to a family's survival. Generous feelings based on nepotism or altruism must be set aside; these unfortunates are sadly allowed to freeze to death (Balikci 1970).
”
”
Christopher Boehm (Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior)
“
Captain Tervitt had been a real captain, for many years, on the lake boats. Now he had a job as a special constable. He stopped the cars to let the children cross the street in front of the school and kept them from sledding down the side street in winter. He blew his whistle and held up one big hand, which looked like a clown's hand, in a white glove. He was still tall and straight and broad-shouldered, though old and white-haired. Cars would do what he said, and the children, too.
”
”
Alice Munro (The Love of a Good Woman)
“
As I looked at the matted bedsheets twisting around this boy and me, snaking across his naked waist, curling around my exposed chest, a draft rushes through the room, bringing a fresh chill with it.
That must be it. It’s chilly. It’s cold. It’s January.
Maybe it was snowing. We went sledding, I took a spill, changed out of my ice-cold clothes and then crashed here in Carver’s room.
No, it’s Carter.
Definitely Carter.
I’m naked in bed with a boy and I can’t even get his name right.
”
”
Daisy Whitney (The Mockingbirds (The Mockingbirds, #1))
“
How can you, through my plain and simple words, possible experience the joy i felt when Robinson jumped into that Los Angeles pool, sledded on the golden sand of the Great Dunes, or kissed me in an ancient temple? How can you understand what Robinson meant to me? His laugh was like a peal of bells. He really did consider Slim Jims to be their own food group. When he played the guitar and sang, whether it was in the cancer ward or in Tompkin's Square Park, everyone stopped to listen. He was magic
”
”
James Patterson (First Love)
“
The sleds accelerated quickly as they glided effortlessly over the smooth ice. We had never before experienced such a quick, easy slide. usually we wished we could push ourselves to make our sleds go faster. But not this time. The crystals of ice started flying past at an incredible rate of speed. No longer aware of where my sister and her sled were, all I could see was raw ice whizzing by ten inches under my chin at a rate of speed I never imagined I would experience on a sled. I felt like I was flying!
”
”
Daniel Boerman (The Flying Farm Boy)
“
She whirled, intending to head back down the stairs. Carter caught her wrist. “You can ride down with me.” More heat flooded her face, and the afternoon sun seemed to pour down with greater intensity. She considered walking away, but the pain in her backside predicted a less than ladylike gait. He’d see her waddle, and her humiliation would double. But riding down the toboggan run with him? “Carter, I’m not sure.” His eyes darkened. “Is it because of earlier?” “Aw, ease up on her, Stockton.” Ducky stepped forward. “It’s not her fault if she doesn’t want to be around a cad like you. Walking into ladies’ bathhouses and all.” Comfortable teasing laced his voice. “She can take my toboggan, and I’ll ride down with you.” He flopped the toboggan down on the deck and held out his hand. “Will that work, Miss Graham?” “Yes, thank you very much.” She took his hand and gingerly seated herself. Picking up the reins on the toboggan, she turned to nod to Ducky to release her. Instead, she found Carter. Her eyes widened. “Hold on.” The smile had crept back into his voice. “You’re about to go on the ride of your life.” The sled lunged forward and her stomach lodged in her throat—not from the ride as much as the unspoken promise Carter’s words seemed to hold.
”
”
Lorna Seilstad (A Great Catch)
“
Kyle says (with glee), “Addicted to breathing? I can fix that. Get on the rower and give me two thousand meters, all out, and vomit! Vomit your guts!—quick, down on the floor, forty push-ups, crack your spine!—quick! Quick! Bench two hundred pounds to muscle failure—die slowly!—burst your clotted chest!—give me one hundred squats in one hundred seconds—no resting, Conte!—pull that five-hundred-pound sled back and forth the length of the floor and stop making those noises! Did I see you eye-fuck the clock? Would you like the Suicide Stairs? Hurry! Hurry! Slam that thirty-pound medicine ball, not on the floor but through it, twenty times, penetrate that floor, Conte, rape it hard and explode your evil heart and balls.
”
”
Frank Lentricchia (The Dog Killer of Utica: An Eliot Conte Mystery)
“
Tell me something else instead. Tell me what you’re looking forward to most about going to school here.”
“You go first. What are you most excited about?”
Right away, Peter says, “That’s easy. Streaking the lawn with you.”
“That’s what you’re looking forward to more than anything? Running around naked?” Hastily I add, “I’m never doing that, by the way.”
He laughs. “It’s a UVA tradition. I thought you were all about UVA traditions.”
“Peter!”
“I’m just kidding.” He leans forward and puts his arms around my shoulders, rubbing his nose in my neck the way he likes to do. “Your turn.”
I let myself dream about it for a minute. If I get in, what am I most looking forward to? There are so many things, I can hardly name them all. I’m looking forward to eating waffles every day with Peter in the dining hall. To us sledding down O-Hill when it snows. To picnics when it’s warm. To staying up all night talking and then waking up and talking some more. To late-night laundry and last-minute road trips. To…everything. Finally I say, “I don’t want to jinx it.”
“Come on!”
“Okay, okay…I guess I’m most looking forward to…to going to the McGregor Room whenever I want.” People call it the Harry Potter room, because of the rugs and chandeliers and leather chairs and the portraits on the wall. The bookshelves go from the floor to the ceiling, and all of the books are behind metal grates, protected like the precious objects they are. It’s a room from a different time. It’s very hushed--reverential, even. There was this one summer--I must have been five or six, because it was before Kitty was born--my mom took a class at UVA, and she used to study in the McGregor Room. Margot and I would color, or read. My mom called it the magic library, because Margot and I never fought inside of it. We were both quiet as church mice; we were so in awe of all the books, and of the older kids studying.
Peter looks disappointed. I’m sure it’s because he thought I would name something having to do with him. With us. But for some reason, I want to keep those hopes just for me for now.
“You can come with me to the McGregor Room,” I say. “But you have to promise to be quiet.”
Affectionately Peter says, “Lara Jean, only you would look forward to hanging out in a library.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooners, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; all this was thrilling.
”
”
Ishmael
“
You have heard about the reindeer that pull old Santa's sled.
But mostly I hate Rudolph and wish that he were dead.
With his nose of red which we all know just can't be true.
I wish someone would just kill him, that someone could be you.
He is Santa's favorite and to the front he can be found.
Instead of his red nose, "I" think it should be brown.
He believes that Santa likes him and thinks that he's a winner.
But Santa Claus has other plans he wants Rudolph for his dinner.
Old Saint Nick is greedy this I know without a doubt.
What else do you think happens to all the great toys we go without?
He takes them and he breaks them be cause he doesn't care a bit.
To me it doesn't matter, Why, he can keep his "Schict".
Yes' it's true that I hate Santa too, dressed in his suit of silk.
That's why this year with the homemade cookies,
I'm going to leave some poison milk.
”
”
Mark W. Boyer
“
Tři síly ztvárnily krajinu mého života. První dvě rozdrtily polovinu světa. Ta třetí byla docela nepatrná a dokonce neviditelná: bylo to male tiché ptáče, které se uhnízdilo v mém hrudním koši kousek nad pátým žebrem. Čas od času, obyčejně v těch nejneočekávanějších chvílích se ptáče probudilo, zvedlo hlavu a zatřepotalo křídly jako u vytržení. A tehdy jsem I já zdvihla hlavu, protože na ten prchavý okamžik mne pokaždé pronikla naprostá jistota, že láska a naděje zmohou nekonečně víc než nenávist a zloba a že někde ve světě, snad hned za hranicí mého obzoru, existuje skutečný život, nezničitelný, vždycky vítězný.
Ta první síla byl Adolf Hitler. Ta druhá Josef Vissarionovič Stalin. Jejich působením se z mého života stal mikrokosmos, v němž se obrazil a zhustil sled událostí, který po sedmadvacet let tvořil dějiny mé rodné země. Třetí síla, to tiché ptáče, mě udržela na živu. Snad proto, abych jednou vypověděla, co tenkrát bylo.
”
”
Heda Margolius Kovály (Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968)
“
Mendel Kaelen, a Dutch postdoc in the Imperial lab, proposes a more extended snow metaphor: “Think of the brain as a hill covered in snow, and thoughts as sleds gliding down that hill. As one sled after another goes down the hill, a small number of main trails will appear in the snow. And every time a new sled goes down, it will be drawn into the preexisting trails, almost like a magnet.” Those main trails represent the most well-traveled neural connections in your brain, many of them passing through the default mode network. “In time, it becomes more and more difficult to glide down the hill on any other path or in a different direction. “Think of psychedelics as temporarily flattening the snow. The deeply worn trails disappear, and suddenly the sled can go in other directions, exploring new landscapes and, literally, creating new pathways.” When the snow is freshest, the mind is most impressionable, and the slightest nudge—whether from a song or an intention or a therapist’s suggestion—can powerfully influence its future course. Robin Carhart-Harris’s theory of
”
”
Michael Pollan (How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence)
“
And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name"
You can’t say it that way any more.
Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the open, into a clearing,
And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you
Is OK. To demand more than this would be strange
Of you, you who have so many lovers,
People who look up to you and are willing
To do things for you, but you think
It’s not right, that if they really knew you . . .
So much for self-analysis. Now,
About what to put in your poem-painting:
Flowers are always nice, particularly delphinium.
Names of boys you once knew and their sleds,
Skyrockets are good—do they still exist?
There are a lot of other things of the same quality
As those I’ve mentioned. Now one must
Find a few important words, and a lot of low-keyed,
Dull-sounding ones. She approached me
About buying her desk. Suddenly the street was
Bananas and the clangor of Japanese instruments.
Humdrum testaments were scattered around. His head
Locked into mine. We were a seesaw. Something
Ought to be written about how this affects
You when you write poetry:
The extreme austerity of an almost empty mind
Colliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate
Something between breaths, if only for the sake
Of others and their desire to understand you and desert you
For other centers of communication, so that understanding
May begin, and in doing so be undone.
”
”
John Ashbery (Houseboat Days)
“
Since Alexander came back, Tatiana had become fixated on his hands, and on her own by contrast. His hands were like the platter on which he carried his life. They were large and broad, dark and square, with heavy palms and heavy thumbs, but with long thick flexible fingers—as if he could play the piano as well as haul lobster trawls. They were knuckled and veined, and the palms were calloused. Everything was calloused, even the fingertips, roughened by carrying heavy weapons over thousands of miles, hardened by fighting, burning, logging, burying men. His hands reflected all manner of eternal struggles. You didn’t need to be a soothsayer, or a psychic or a palmreader, you needed not a single glance at the lines in the palms but just one cursory look at the hands and you knew instantly: the man they belonged to had done everything—and was capable of anything. And then take Tatiana and her own square hands. Among other things, her hands had worked in a weapons factory, they had made bombs and tanks and flamethrowers, worked the fields, mopped floors, dug holes in snow and in the ground. They had pulled sleds along the ice. They had taken care of dead men, of wounded men, of dying men; her hands had known life, and strife—yet they looked like they soaked in milk all day. They were tiny, unblemished, uncalloused, unknuckled, unveined, palms light, fingers slender. She was embarrassed by them— they were soft and delicate like a child’s hands. One would conclude that her hands had never done a day’s work in their life—and couldn’t!
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Summer Garden (The Bronze Horseman, #3))
“
My cold-weather gear left a lot to be desired: black maternity leggings under boot-cut maternity jeans, and a couple of Marlboro Man’s white T-shirts under an extra-large ASU sweatshirt. I was so happy to have something warm to wear that I didn’t even care that I was wearing the letters of my Pac-10 rival. Add Marlboro Man’s old lumberjack cap and mud boots that were four sizes too big and I was on my way to being a complete beauty queen. I seriously didn’t know how Marlboro Man would be able to keep his hands off of me. If I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the feed truck, I’d shiver violently.
But really, when it came right down to it, I didn’t care. No matter what I looked like, it just didn’t feel right sending Marlboro Man into the cold, lonely world day after day. Even though I was new at marriage, I still sensed that somehow--whether because of biology or societal conditioning or religious mandate or the position of the moon--it was I who was to be the cushion between Marlboro Man and the cruel, hard world. That it was I who’d needed to dust off his shoulders every day. And though he didn’t say it, I could tell that he felt better when I was bouncing along, chubby and carrying his child, in his feed truck next to him.
Occasionally I’d hop out of the pickup and open gates. Other times he’d hop out and open them. Sometimes I’d drive while he threw hay off the back of the vehicles. Sometimes I’d get stuck and he’d say shit. Sometimes we’d just sit in silence, shivering as the vehicle doors opened and closed. Other times we’d engage in serious conversation or stop and make out in the snow.
All the while, our gestating baby rested in the warmth of my body, blissfully unaware of all the work that awaited him on this ranch where his dad had grown up. As I accompanied Marlboro Man on those long, frigid mornings of work, I wondered if our child would ever know the fun of sledding on a golf course hill…or any hill, for that matter. I’d lived on the ranch for five months and didn’t remember ever hearing about anyone sledding…or playing golf…or participating in any recreational activities at all. I was just beginning to wrap my mind around the way daily life unfolded here: wake up early, get your work done, eat, relax, and go to bed. Repeat daily. There wasn’t a calendar of events or dinner dates with friends in town or really much room for recreation--because that just meant double the work when you got back to work. It was hard for me not to wonder when any of these people ever went out and had a good time, or built a snowman.
Or slept past 5:00 A.M.
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Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)