Stray Kids Quotes

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

You're doing well. When things are hard I'll run with you, don't worry.

I'm only running forward, lighting up the dark within

My mother tells me that when I meet someone I like, I have to ask them three questions: 1. what are you afraid of? 2. do you like dogs? 3. what do you do when it rains? of those three, she says the first one is the most important. “They gotta be scared of something, baby. Everybody is. If they aren’t afraid of anything, then they don’t believe in anything, either.”I asked you what you were afraid of. “spiders, mostly. being alone. little children, like, the ones who just learned how to push a kid over on the playground. oh and space. holy shit, space.” I asked you if you liked dogs. “I have three.” I asked you what you do when it rains. “sleep, mostly. sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain droplets race. I make a shelter out of plastic in my backyard for all the stray animals; leave them food and a place to sleep.” he smiled like he knew. like his mom told him the same thing. “how about you?” me? I’m scared of everything. of the hole in the o-zone layer, of the lady next door who never smiles at her dog, and especially of all the secrets the government must be breaking it’s back trying to keep from us. I love dogs so much, you have no idea. I sleep when it rains. I want to tell everyone I love them. I want to find every stray animal and bring them home. I want to wake up in your hair and make you shitty coffee and kiss your neck and draw silly stick figures of us. I never want to ask anyone else these questions ever again.

Put on some new shoes, yeah we're ready at the start line.

The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

She felt like Lady in Lady and the Tramp, one of Hanna's favorite movies as a kid. When Jim Dear and Darling had a new baby, they kicked Lady to the curb. Except Hanna didn't even have a scruffy bad-boy stray she could run off with because her supposed boyfriend was going to be hundreds of miles away soaking up sunshine on a nude beach with a skank.

But no one laughed. No one would. The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

Every day is like a kid's drawing, offered to you with a strange mix of ceremoniousness and offhand disregard, yours for the keeping. Some of the days are rich and complicated, others inscrutable, others little more than a stray gray mark on a ragged page. Some you manage to hang on to, though your reasons for doing so are often hard to fathom. But most of them you just ball up and throw away.

Ugh... Kids these days. I don’t know where they’re getting these messages. But they all get the crazy idea that whoever has the most friends wins. One is enough. Just find that one, irreplaceable someone.

But no one laughed. No one would. The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

I was her daughter, but more. I was Karen, Cheryl, Leif. Karen Cheryl Leif. KarenCherylLeif. Our names blurred into one in my mother’s mouth all my life. She whispered it and hollered it, hissed it and crooned it. We were her kids, her comrades, the end of her and the beginning. We took turns riding shotgun with her in the car. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask us, holding her hands six inches apart. “No,” we’d say, with sly smiles. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask again, and on and on and on, each time moving her hands farther apart. But she would never get there, no matter how wide she stretched her arms. The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve.

jeogiyo noona hokshi namjachingu isseoyo?

Lee Know: Everything tastes good when fried. Even a shoe

I don’t think I like that boy.” He growled, glaring for effect, just in case I hadn’t figured out his oh-so-subtle interpersonal cues. “He’s a sweet kid,” I insisted, folding the gray blazer over my arm. “He’s a teenage boy,” Cal said, his dark eyes narrowed. “They’re all sexual deviants under the surface. I should know. I was a teenage boy once.” “Thousands of years ago,” I countered. “Times may change, but testosterone does not.

Let me get back to the fact that the universe speaks to us constantly. And this little puppy barks loudly. Guard this with your life because in the right hands, it is your life and your death. You’ve bled in this book, and it is the most personal of possessions you’ll ever have. A master wizard, witch, upper-level demon, or any number of other entities can use it to control or destroy you. In fact, guard every possession you have. Every stray hair. Every particle of skin and clothing. Let no one near anything you have ever owned or will own. You’re special, kid. In ways you can’t conceive, and you will have to guard your back every second you want to keep breathing.” – Death “Aren’t you just Mary Sunshine?” – Nick

My mother tells me that when I meet someone I like, I have to ask them three questions: 1. what are you afraid of? 2. do you like dogs? 3. what do you do when it rains? of those three, she says the first one is the most important. “They gotta be scared of something, baby. Everybody is. If they aren’t afraid of anything, then they don’t believe in anything, either.” I asked you what you were afraid of. “spiders, mostly. being alone. little children, like, the ones who just learned how to push a kid over on the playground. oh and space. holy shit, space.” I asked you if you liked dogs. “I have three.” I asked you what you do when it rains. “sleep, mostly. sometimes I sit at the window and watch the rain droplets race. I make a shelter out of plastic in my backyard for all the stray animals; leave them food and a place to sleep.” he smiled like he knew. like his mom told him the same thing. “how about you?” me? I’m scared of everything. of the hole in the o-zone layer, of the lady next door who never smiles at her dog, and especially of all the secrets the government must be breaking it’s back trying to keep from us. I love dogs so much, you have no idea. I sleep when it rains. I want to tell everyone I love them. I want to find every stray animal and bring them home. I want to wake up in your hair and make you shitty coffee and kiss your neck and draw silly stick figures of us. I never want to ask anyone else these questions ever again.

Han: You like Spicy food? Lee Know: Yes I do. Han: He doesn't eat it with me. Changbin: Lee Know doesn't feel pain much as he gets older. Lee Know: Have you been beaten until you don't feel pain?

We were her kids, her comrades, the end of her and the beginning. We took turns riding shotgun with her in the car. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask us, holding her hands farther apart. “No,” we’d say, with sly smiles. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask again, and on and on and on, each time moving her hands farther apart. But she would never get there, no matter how wide she stretched her arms. The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve….She was optimistic and serene, except a few times when she lost her temper and spanked us with a wooden spoon. Or the one time when she screamed FUCK and broke down crying because we wouldn’t clean our room. She was kindhearted and forgiving, generous and naïve. She dated men with names like Killer and Doobie and Motercycle Dan…

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding.

Let’s all die naturally, in a healthy way.

My life is walking through a dark tunnel at the bottom of a cliff.

People usually find a good place for stray dogs, or for the elderly when they can no longer go up stairs or use a can opener. Finding a good place for a kid seems like a much bigger challenge.

Longing on a large scale is what makes history. This is just a kid with a local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the unseen something that haunts the day—men in fedoras and sailors on shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game.

Lee Know: What are you doing? Sleeping? No it's just... I missed you that's why I called. Hyunjin: What are you!?!? Lee Know: What?! Changbin: What are you doing?! HEY! Lee Know: I'm their EX Boyfriend #1!!! Han: I'm EX BOYFRIEND 4! Changbin: I'm 2!!! Hyunjin: I'm EX BOYFRIEND 3!! Han: I'm 4!!! Lee Know: AND I'M 1!!! (bangs on wood) Lee Know: PLEASE BE QUIET!! (SHOUTING)

And so should I give up But really can I give up We live in a time and space A world full of blinds It makes me wanna give up But then again no I shouldn't give up I feel it inside don't wanna give up/We live in a time and space A world full of blinds Now I've had enough

But no one laughed. No one would. The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding.

The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back. I

But no one laughed. No one would. The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back. I really did have only one boot.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you. When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t ‘mean anything’ because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes. The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming. One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life. Say thank you.

we must help ourselves. That after destiny has delivered what it delivers, we are responsible for our lives. We can choose to fling our kids into the grass or we can take deep breaths and walk up and down the hall.

Maybe we keep giving animal stuff to kids because their imaginations innately brim with animals, but maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe we long to see children and animals together—free creatures living in an innocence we’ve strayed from.

I watched it bounce - it was lightning fast and in slow motion all at once - and then I watched it tumble over the edge of the mountain and down into the trees without a sound. I gasped in surprise and lurched for my other boot, clutching it to my chest, waiting for the moment to reverse itself, for someone to come laughing from the woods, shaking his head and saying it had all ben a joke. But no one laughed. No one would. The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

But Cheryl wasn’t just trying to shock some callow kid into greater compassion. She was announcing the nature of her mission as Sugar. Inexplicable sorrows await all of us. That was her essential point. Life isn’t some narcissistic game you play online. It all matters—every sin, every regret, every affliction.

We were magical and alive - we cared about music and conversation, sex and spit and blood, holding on tight to the space between youth and adulthood. When I look back at that time, my nostalgia can be blinding. Because we weren’t night dwellers, vampires who would live forever. We were a bunch of kids playing at being Lost Boys, looking for our version of Neverland.

I'm doddering around like an old bumblebee, I'm all tangled up in the air, Ah sees it, I ain't tellin' things in the right order, what about it! You'll excuse me somewhat, kidding about my memories, digressing from rhyme to reason, jabbering away about my friends instead of showing you around!...Let's go! and let's keep going!...Let me show you around nicely...straying neither right nor left!...

You say your marriage is “loveless” and perhaps you’re correct that your relationship has come to its natural end, but I’d like you to consider the notion that you aren’t the best judge of that right now. You’re a psychologically distressed drug addict with four kids, no health insurance, uncertain business prospects, and a pile of bills. I wouldn’t expect your marriage to be thriving. I doubt you’ve been

Like I said earlier, Jase was the only one of our four sons who stayed the course and never deviated to the right or left. He always looked straight ahead; he never drank, never cursed, and always lived his life the way God wanted him to live. I think one of the reasons Jase and Willie never strayed too far is because they were so involved in the youth group at White’s Ferry Road Church. Willie’s only problem was that he believed he was a ladie’s man until he met Korie. He was always jumping from one girl to the next until he settled down. It really made an impact on both of them. Jase was always looking out for his brothers. Even though Jase and Willie were very competitive growing up, Jase always had Willie’s best interest at heart. One time, Willie and Jase were at a friend’s house in high school. Jase walked into the basement and found Willie playing strip poker with some other kids. “What are you doing?” Jase asked him. “Playing strip poker,” Willie replied. “You’ve stripped enough,” Jase told him. “Let’s go.

Raquel laughed, and David joined her. They sounded slightly manic. “You’re free now,” he said. “Of all of it,” she answered, and I looked up to see them locked in a gaze I’d previously only observed between actors on Easton Heights—one filled with all the things unspoken over the years, all the betrayals and fears and pain left behind in favor of overwhelming love. It was beautiful. Oh, who am I kidding, it was awkward as all heck and I didn’t have time for it. “Okay! So, you may have noticed Lend is in the kitchen.” “Mmm hmm,” Raquel answered, reaching up to smooth down a stray piece of David’s hair. “Yeah, that’d be the big faerie curse.” “Farie curse?” She actually turned toward me; David took both her hands in his. “Yup. Really funny one, too. See, any time Lend and I are in the same room or can see each other or could actually, you know, touch, he falls fast asleep.” “Oh,” Raquel frowned. “So I need your help. You know all the names of the IPCA controlled faeries, right?” She nodded, her frown deepening. “Well, it was a dark faerie curse, so I figure we need a dark faerie to undo it. So you call an Unseelie faerie, we give him or her a named command to break the curse, ta-da, we can double-date!” “Wait, who can double-date?” Lend asked. “I’ll let your dad tell you. So. Faerie?” Raquel heaved a sigh, along the lines of her famous things never get easier, do they? sign, and, boy, I agreed with her. “To be honest, I don’t know which court most of the faeries belong to.” “You don’t? How can you not know? It seems like pretty vital information to me. You know, ‘Are you a member of the evil court kidnapping humans and plotting world domination, or a member of the moderately less evil court who just wants to get the crap off the planet?’ sort of a survey when you get them.

PROCRASTINATION The day after tomorrow, yes, only the day after tomorrow ... Tomorrow I’ll start thinking about the day after tomorrow, Maybe I could do it then; but not today ... No, nothing today; today I can’t. The confused persistence of my objective subjectivity, The sleep of my real life, intercalated, Anticipated, infinite weariness— I’m worlds too weary to catch a trolley— That kind of soul ... Only the day after tomorrow ... Today I want to prepare, I want to prepare myself for tomorrow, when I’ll think about the next day ... That’d be decisive. I’ve already got the plans sketched out, but no, today I’m not making any plans ... Tomorrow’s the day for plans. Tomorrow I’ll sit down at my desk to conquer the world; But I’ll only conquer the world the day after tomorrow ... I feel like crying, I suddenly feel like crying a lot, inside ... That’s all you’re getting today, it’s a secret, I’m not talking. Only the day after tomorrow ... When I was a kid the Sunday circus diverted me every week. Today all that diverts me is the Sunday circus from all the weeks of my childhood ... The day after tomorrow I’ll be someone else, My life will triumph, All my real qualities—intelligent, well-read, practical— Will be gathered together in a public notice ... But the public notice will go up tomorrow ... Today I want to sleep, I’ll make a fair copy tomorrow ... For today, what show will repeat my childhood to me? Even if I buy tickets tomorrow, The show would still really be the day after tomorrow ... Not before ... The day after tomorrow I’ll have the public pose I will have practiced tomorrow. The day after tomorrow I’ll finally be what I could never be today. Only the day after tomorrow ... I’m sleepy as a stray dog's chill. I’m really sleepy. Tomorrow I’ll tell you everything, or the day after tomorrow ... Yes, maybe only the day after tomorrow ... By and by ... Yes, the old by and by ...

Turns out, I learned a lot from not being able to go to France. Turns out, those days standing on the concrete floor wearing a hairnet, a paper mask and gown, goggles, and plastic gloves, and- with a pair of tweezers- placing two pipe cleaners into a sterile box that came to me down a slow conveyor belt for eight excruciating hours a day taught me something important I couldn't have learned any other way. That job and the fifteen others I had before I graduated college were my own personal "educational opportunities." They changed my life for the better, though it took me a while to understand their worth. They gave me faith in my own abilities. They offered me a unique view of worlds that were both exotic and familiar to me. They kept things in perspective. They pissed me off. They opened my mind to realities I didn't know existed. They forced me to be resilient, to sacrifice, to see how little I knew, and also how much. They put me in close contact with people who could've funded the college educations of ten thousand kids and also with people who would've rightly fallen on the floor laughing had I complained to them about how unfair it was that after I got my degree I'd have this student loan I'd be paying off until I was forty-three. They made my life big. They contributed to an education that money can't buy.

Most people don’t cheat because they’re cheaters. They cheat because they are people. They are driven by hunger or for the experience of someone being hungry once more for them. They find themselves in friendships that take an unintended turn or they seek them out because they’re horny or drunk or damaged from all the stuff they didn’t get when they were kids. There is love. There is lust. There is opportunity. There is alcohol. And youth. There is loneliness and boredom and sorrow and weakness and self-destruction and idiocy and arrogance and romance and ego and nostalgia and power and need. There is the compelling temptation of intimacies with someone other than the person with whom one is most intimate.

I’d never set foot on the AT, but I’d heard much about it from the guys at Kennedy Meadows. It was the PCT’s closest kin and yet also its opposite in many ways. About two thousand people set out to thru-hike the AT each summer, and though only a couple hundred of them made it all the way, that was far more than the hundred or so who set out on the PCT each year. Hikers on the AT spent most nights camping in or near group shelters that existed along the trail. On the AT, resupply stops were closer together, and more of them were in real towns, unlike those along the PCT, which often consisted of nothing but a post office and a bar or tiny store. I imagined the Australian honeymooners on the AT now, eating cheeseburgers and guzzling beer in a pub a couple of miles from the trail, sleeping by night under a wooden roof. They’d probably been given trail names by their fellow hikers, another practice that was far more common on the AT than on the PCT, though we had a way of naming people too. Half the time that Greg, Matt, and Albert had talked about Brent they’d referred to him as the Kid, though he was only a few years younger than me. Greg had been occasionally called the Statistician because he knew so many facts and figures about the trail and he worked as an accountant. Matt and Albert were the Eagle Scouts, and Doug and Tom the Preppies. I didn’t think I’d been dubbed anything, but I got the sinking feeling that if I had, I didn’t want to know what it was.

One day when I called child protective services I asked the woman who answered the phone to explain to me exactly why no one was protecting the children and she told me that there was no funding for teenagers who were not in imminent danger because the state was broke and so the thing the child protective services did was make priorities. They intervened quickly with kids under the age of twelve, but for those over twelve they wrote reports when people called and put the reports in a file and put the child’s name on a long list of children who someone would someday perhaps check up on when there was time and money, if there ever was time and money. The good thing about teens, she told me confidentially, was that if it got bad enough at home they usually ran away and there was more funding for runaways.

Jules's eyes begin to close, and her head slowly descends to the table. "Is she okay, Lyns?" I ask, pointing at the bizarre sight. "She's fine," Lynsey replies, waving me off as she asks Kate for the eighty-seventh time how many Mason jars she needs to paint for the centerpieces. "She doesn't look fine," I add as Julianna's forehead rests on the table. Lynsey stops talking long enough to pull Julianna's head up. She holds her hand in front of her mouth and nods. "She's breathing, she's fine. It's just a sugar crash. It happens." My head jerks back because Julianna's eyes are slightly rolled back into her head, and that does not look normal. Suddenly, Julianna comes to. "Mo dony!" she bellows, and her tiny finger reaches out to press down on a stray sprinkle on the table. She puts the sweet into her mouth before lowering her head and falling fast asleep again. Fuck me, that was a disturbing sight. I've never been gladder not to have kids.

Every mother has a different story, though we tend to group them together. We like to think that partnered moms have it good and single moms have it rough, but the truth is that we’re a diverse bunch. Some single mothers have lots of child-free time because their kids are regularly in the custody of their fathers. Some seldom get a break. Some partnered mothers split child-care duties with their spouses in egalitarian ways; others might as well be alone. Some mothers of both varieties have parents, siblings, and friends who play active roles in their children’s lives in ways that significantly lighten the load. Others have to pay for every hour another person looks after their kids. Some mothers, single or partnered, can’t afford to pay anyone for anything. Some can and do. Others can and won’t. Some are aided financially by parents, or trust funds, or inheritances; others are entirely on their own. The reality is that, regardless of the circumstances, most moms are alternately blissed out by their love for their children and utterly overwhelmed by the spectacular amount of sacrifice they require.

So what brought you here?” Emilio asks. I don’t set the icing bag down, because it’s nice to have something to do with my hands, although they’re suddenly shaking. “I wanted to talk to you about Peck.” “What about her?” “I wanted to see if you’d have any objections to me asking her to marry me.” I hear a whoop from the other room. Emilio rolls his eyes. “Why do you want to marry her?” Why do I want to marry her? She’s just Peck. And I feel like she was made for me. “Um…” “The answer is no, if that’s the best you can do.” He points to the cupcakes. “Ice them,” he says. I ice quietly for a few minutes, trying to gather my thoughts. “Didn’t expect you to give up quite so easily,” he suddenly says. I look up. “Oh, I’m not giving up. I’m just thinking.” “You about done with that?” I shake my head. “Not yet.” “Keep icing.” Suddenly, Marta strolls into the room. There’s purpose in her stride and I back up against the wall, because I’m afraid I’m her target. But I quickly see I’m not. She goes for Emilio, but he must be used to this. He runs around the corner of the center island and she chases him. She picks up a rolling pin and runs, but he runs a little bit faster. Suddenly, she stops and blows a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “Stop tormenting the poor boy,” she says. She shakes the rolling pin at him. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he breathes. “I was having fun with it!” He grins. Then he sobers completely. “Did Peck tell you about the day we met?” “Yes, sir,” I tell him. “What she didn’t tell you was my side of it.” He rubs at the back of his hand. “I had been hanging out in the boys’ ward at the home, and one of the little assholes bit me on the back of the hand, so I was in a bad mood. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. I walked around the corner, trying to find Marta, and I saw her sitting beside a little girl. I took one look at that kid and I said to myself, She’s my daughter.” He takes a deep breath. “I know it sounds stupid, and I suppose it should. But she was sitting there on the edge of the bed and she wouldn’t speak. But when she looked at me, she said a million words with her eyes.” Marta wipes a tear from her cheek. “I have loved that little girl from the minute I met her. I never doubted that she belonged to us, and neither did she.” He waits a beat. “The first time she spoke to me was when she had a set of drumsticks in her hand.” He looks at me. “Do you know what she said?” I shake my head, and swallow past the lump in my throat. “She took my hand and said, ‘I’m glad you’re my dad.’ It was one big stutter, and I loved every syllable. She makes me so fucking proud.” He points a finger at me. “She’s fucking perfect, so if you so much as make her cry, I will find you and jam her drumsticks so far up your ass that you’ll taste them ten years from now. Do you understand?” “Yes, sir.” I swallow again. “So, yes, you can marry my daughter. And you better make her happy every day for the rest of her life, because I will be watching. Understand?” “Yes, sir.” He points to the cupcakes. “Keep icing.” “Yes, sir.” I grin. Marta lays a hand on my shoulder. “Did you get a ring yet?” “No, ma’am. I wanted to get permission first.” She looks at Emilio and quirks a brow. He nods. She disappears into a bedroom and comes back a minute later with a box. “It was my mother’s,” Emilio says. “Peck used to try it on all the time when she was small, and she loves it. So you can use it if you want to.” He’s grumbling, but I can tell he’s serious. I pop open the box and stare down at a beautiful antique ring. “It’s lovely. Are you sure it’s okay if I use it?” He nods. He points to the cupcakes. “Keep icing.” “Yes, sir.” I smile.

You always were the hot head. You got a temper in you that can't be tamed, yet you also got a soft spot for stray dogs, kids in trouble and damsels in distress. See why folks label you a complex conundrum.

Ryan sat on a big, gnarly, half-buried root under the naked oak tree that stood in front of school. When his bus pulled up, he didn’t try to make eye contact with anyone. He knew the other kids were too afraid to look his way. A long-haired boy from the sixth grade made the mistake of sitting in the seat in front of him. Ryan kept pulling stray hairs from the back of his head, only stopping when tears streamed down the boy’s face. It was his own fault for having a mullet, Ryan told himself. He got off the bus and waited for Alyssa Abbot. She’d made him swear not to speak to her until the bus was out of sight. Ryan knew she wouldn’t even walk home with him if her parents didn’t force her to. “I guess you’re not going to bother writing a letter to Santa. Seeing how you want him dead and all,” Alyssa said, eyes fixed ahead on the black smoke billowing from the underside of the bus. “You’re the only dork in our class still writing letters to

It wouldn’t be long before I’d learn another lesson that was a real turning point. I saw a dog scrounging around in the school parking lot, a dirty and scrawny mutt that had evidently been on his own for a while. Some of the kids and I shared a bit of food with the dog at recess. By the time classes were starting again we had befriended the poor thing. I suddenly felt an unusual responsibility toward the stray. I didn’t feel it was enough just to give it something to eat and say that I’d helped it, and then move on. I needed to make sure that dog was in a safe place. “We’ve got to do something to help,” I said to my teacher. “The school’s already called animal control,” my teacher explained. She assured me that if the owners were looking for the stray, they would have the best chance of finding it through animal control. I was stubborn. “But after a period of time, if the dog isn’t claimed, they’ll put it to sleep, right?” My teacher nodded reluctantly. “I suppose.” “So that’s not good enough.” My teacher sighed, giving me an I-haven’t-got-time-for-this look. “There aren’t really any other options, Terri.” And that was that. What happened to the stray dog, I’ll never know. But with the fierce determination of a child to right injustice, I resolved that when I grew up, I would no longer turn a blind eye and walk past a problem. I would stop and fix it. I remember that episode very clearly as a defining moment in my life. Neither the stray dog nor the ducklings were huge events, just minor incidents in the life of a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest. But they formed two vital threads in the fabric of who I am today: When you help an animal, do your absolute best to make sure you don’t harm it at the same time, and Never walk past a problem with an animal--fix it. These were the lessons I remembered when I encountered a sick, emaciated cougar in a plastic pet cage.

I’d barely closed the door behind me and tossed my keys into the little dish by the door when my phone rang. Not my cell phone, which was silent in my bag, but the old-school landline attached to the wall in the kitchen. It didn’t have caller ID, but I knew who it was. There was only one person in my life who had the number. “Hey, Mom.” “Hi, honey, I heard your car. Did you have dinner? We just finished eating, but I can fix you a plate.” “No. No, I’m fine. I ate when I was out.” I slid my little leather backpack off my shoulders, the buttery blue leather bag I’d bought just as Faire had ended—I hadn’t been kidding about the retail therapy—and dropped it onto my kitchen table. “I’m kind of tired; it’s been a long day. I think I’ll watch a little TV and turn in.” See? Semi-independence. Mom didn’t call every night, but often enough to remind me that in some ways—in most ways—I still lived at home. I loved my parents, but it was getting old. Hell, I was getting old. I was almost twenty-seven, for God’s sake. That feeling of getting older without really being allowed to grow up lingered, and that feeling combined with the sight of Emily’s engagement ring. I’m gonna miss her. Now that stray thought made sense. Getting married, becoming a wife. And what was I doing? Going out to Jackson’s every Friday night and posting the same selfies on Instagram. I needed to get a life. I needed another glass of wine.

stray dog or a cat?” “Maybe. Kids like water. Maybe she came around front and went to play by the creek.” A small creek ran all the way through town about a half block from Main Street. It cut right through the Monroes’ front yard. “There are people all around the creek, Caroline. If she was there, somebody would have found her.” Not only were there people all around the creek, there were people everywhere. The news about Lindsay was out, and

Even if kids had time left after all of this regulation, they’re increasingly unable to partake in the world outside their schools and homes anyway. The 1950s hunter-gatherer childhood of Gray’s memory is partly a nostalgic myth in the spirit of Thoreau, for one part. For another, kids are largely prohibited from meandering on their own or in groups today. Writing in the Daily Mail, David Derbyshire contrasts a contemporary eight-year-old schoolboy (Edward), with his great-grandfather (George) of the same age.5 In 1926, George was able to meander some six miles to a pond to fish. Eighty years later, Edward is driven everywhere, even to safe, predetermined venues for bike riding. This shift didn’t happen all at once. Edward’s grandfather Jack was afforded a mile of freedom from his house at age eight, in the 1950s. His mother, Vicky, was allowed to wander about a half-mile away, to the local pool, in the late 1970s. By 2007, little Ed was permitted to stray less than three hundred yards from his door, as far as the end of the street.

As Regina McGowan pulled her silver Volvo SUV into the driveway in front of the huge, farmhouse-style home, all Megan could see was boys. Boys everywhere. All seven of them plus their dad, running and laughing and shoving each other around on the front lawn, engaged in what appeared to be a full-contact, tackle version of ultimate Frisbee. They were playing shirts and skins. Shirts and mighty-fine-lookin’ skins. Megan’s pulse pounded in her ears. Forget evil, laughing little monsters. These guys had been touched by the Abercrombie gods. They were a blur of toned, suntanned perfection. For a few seconds, Megan had trouble focusing on any one of them, but then one of the skins scored a goal and jumped up, arms thrust in the air, whooping in triumph as he clutched the Frisbee in one hand. His six-pack abs were dotted with sweat and a couple of stray pieces of torn grass. His smile sent shivers right through Megan’s core. He had shaggy blond hair, a square chin, and the most perfect shoulder muscles Megan had ever seen. One of his brothers slapped him on the back and pointed toward the Volvo. He turned around and looked right at Megan. The rest of the world ceased to exist. “Well, here we are,” Regina said, killing the engine. “Megan?” He smiled slowly--a perfect, open, happy smile. “Megan?” Something touched Megan’s arm. “Oh! Uh…yeah?” Megan whipped her eyes away from Mr. Perfection and blushed. Regina’s brown eyes twinkled with amusement and sympathy. “You can live in the car if you want to, but they’ll find a way to get to you anyway.” “Oh…uh…” God, did she just catch me drooling all over one of her kids? Gross! “Don’t worry. They promised me they would be on their best behavior,” Regina said, unbuckling her seat belt. She swung her long dark hair over her shoulder as she got out of the car and leaned down to look at Megan. “My advice? Just be yourself. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Megan managed to smile and Regina slammed the car door. Be myself. Yeah. Right. Because that’s gotten me so far in the past.

Wriggling out of his grasp she braced herself on his shoulders and tried to stand. Next thing she knew, he had her around the legs and took her down to the mattress in some sort of super-fast ninja move. She screamed and laughed, and he was laughing every bit as hard as he came down on top of her. And, oh God, his laughter was a sweet and sexy rumble that lit her up inside. “You fight dirty, Easy,” she said around her chuckles. “I haven’t had this much fun in so long.” She caressed his face with her fingers. “Me neither. Between overloading on classes and my epilepsy, I often feel like a little old lady trapped in the body of a twenty-year-old. All I need is some cats.” “Cats are awesome,” he said. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak stray cats into the house, just for a night or two. I’d keep them in my room and bring up bowls of milk and cans of tuna for them.” “Aw, you were a sweet little boy, weren’t you?” she asked, loving how he was opening up to her. The closeness, the sharing, the way his big body was lying on her legs and hips, leading him to prop his head up on her lower stomach—both her heart and her body reacted. “Maybe for about five minutes.” He winked. “Mostly, I was a hell-raiser. Growing up, we didn’t live in the best neighborhood. Drug dealers on the corner, gang activity trying to pull in even the younger kids, crack house one block over. All that. Trouble wasn’t hard to find.” He shrugged. “Army straightened me out, though.” “Well, we lived in a nice neighborhood growing up and here my father was the freaking drug dealer on the corner. Or close enough, anyway.” Jenna stared at the ceiling and shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get serious.” His thumb stroked along her side, sliding the cotton of her borrowed shirt against her skin in a way that almost tickled. “Don’t apologize. Our histories are what they are, you know?” She nodded and gave him a little smile. “Yeah.” Shifting off her, Easy stretched out alongside her and propped his head up on his arm. “I’m thirty, Jenna,” he said out of nowhere. And he was telling her this because? He thought their age difference was too great? He thought she was too young? He was worried she would think he was too old? Probably D) all of the above. Thing was, all she saw when she looked at Easy was a guy she really freaking liked. One who’d saved her life, helped make her sister safe, and gave her a sense of security she hadn’t felt in years. He was hot as hell, easy to talk to, and one of the kindest guys she’d ever known. Maybe some of that was because he was older. Who knew? “And I need to know this because?” she asked, resting her head on her arm. The muscles of his shoulders lifted into a shrug, but his face was contemplative. “Because there’s clearly something going on between us.” Heat rushed across her body. She held up a hand, and he laced his fingers between hers. “When I look at you, I don’t see a bunch of differences, Easy.” “What do you see then?” Warmth flooded into Jenna’s cheeks, and she chuckled. He’d said that she was beautiful, after all, so why couldn’t she give him a compliment in return? “A really hot guy I’d like to get to know more.” A smug smile slipped onto his face, and she might’ve rolled her eyes if it weren’t so damn sexy. “Really hot, huh?” “Well, kinda hot, anyway.” “Nuh-uh,” he said, tugging her hand to his chest. “Can’t take it back now.” Cheeks burning and big smile threatening, she rolled onto her side to face him. They lay there, side by side, her chest almost touching his, looking at each other. Tension and desire and anticipation crackled in the space between them, making it hard to breathe. “What do you see when you look at me?” she whispered, half-afraid to ask but even more curious to hear what he’d say. Did he mostly see someone who was too young for him? Or a needy girl he had to save and babysit?

You used to walk across town in the pouring rain to use our encyclopedias. We're pretty confident that we can get your kid to click and drag." I think it was the kid's walk in the rain that constituted the real education, at least of the senses and the imagination., Perhaps the child with the CD-ROM encyclopedia will stray from the task at hand, but wandering in a book or a computer takes place within more constricted and less sensual parameters. It's the unpredictable incidents between official events that add up to a life, the incalculable that gives it value. Both rural and urban walking have for two centuries been prime ways of exploring the unpredictable and the incalculable, but they are now under assault on many fronts.

Aunt Ellie is like that. Nothing is a big deal to her. Not stray dogs or cats, not ghosts, not divorces, and especially not kids who are homeless.

When I first encountered Fred, though, and ever since then, he had a way of reminding me of the little kid inside me. It was a thing only a dog could do. Fred was naturally confident and carefree. He lived in the moment. He even looked like he was smiling. After we both came home, he helped restore those qualities in me at a time when it was especially difficult.

I am virtuous. Kind. In control. That I am attractive enough to my husband so he won’t stray. That I am good in bed—a whore behind closed doors. That I eat right and have my weight and carbs under control. That I am an accomplished businesswoman and also bake nice cookies and volunteer at my kids’ school and take my kids to swimming lessons and make sure they understand their faith.

Practice: Mindful Everyday Activity We already looked at how to eat mindfully. Now let’s use the example of washing dishes, something most of tend to do on autopilot because of how mundane it can be. But doing the dishes can be both satisfying and grounding. Wash the dishes slowly. Feel the warm water on your hands. Pay attention to the sounds of the plates and cups. Notice the shape of the suds. Let yourself enjoy the experience of making something dirty clean again. When you think about other things, you can acknowledge that your mind has wandered, then refocus on your washing. Focus solely on the doing. Zen master, mindfulness leader, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh explains this task beautifully in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975, p. 85): “Wash the dishes relaxingly, as though each bowl is an object of contemplation. Consider each bowl as sacred. Follow your breath to prevent your mind from straying. Do not hurry to get the job over with. Consider washing the dishes the most important thing in life.” What activity will you choose to practice mindfully? Choose one habitual task that you do every day on autopilot. It could be your shower, walking from your car to your office, nursing your child, or whatever is in your routine.

River's long-standing dream was to use his money to buy land and set up a sanctuary for damaged children, "all sorts of homeless kids and kids from foster homes or kids who have been in and out of mental institutions" He envisioned a farm, so the children could help grow their own food, also populated by stray cats and dogs. "The kids would be assigned to an animal of their own and they would have this cycle of caring for something. The farm would have solar panels and be self-sufficient. It wouldn't be isolated because it would be a whole community in itself. There would be room for individual expression and creativity. It would be really wonderful.

Wash the dishes relaxingly, as though each bowl is an object of contemplation. Consider each bowl as sacred. Follow your breath to prevent your mind from straying. Do not hurry to get the job over with. Consider washing the dishes the most important thing in life.

When the guide led the others upstairs, they strayed behind. Michele looked frustrated at the velvet ropes blocking the doors to the rooms. "We've got to get in those closets!" she said urgently. Overhead she could hear the footsteps of the people proceeding from one side of the house to the other. She wondered which room had the head. She wanted to be the one to find it. "We don't have much time," Brian said, as the muffled footsteps clomped into another room. "Oh, you take the study, I'll take the dining room," Michele said uncertainly. Brian ducked under one rope and Michele did the same in the other room. She tiptoed carefully past a table covered with fragile-looking china. They were really trespassing, she worried, hoping Brian was being careful too. If they accidentally broke something, she guessed their allowance forever would never begin to pay for a priceless antique. She pulled the small door open just enough to slip inside. She looked down at the floor, assuming the head would be sitting in the corner, maybe in a box or something. But instead of a head, she saw two feet. Michele jumped and looked up at a head and squealed in surprise. "Brian! You scared me to death!" "You sure you're brave enough to find the pirate's missing head?" he teased. She could tell he was tickled to have scared her so. "You're in my closet," she admonished. "No, you're in mine," Brian said, motioning behind him towards the door to the study. "There are two entrances to this chimney room." "Look," he said, tapping on the window. Below, waving at them were Michael and Jo Dee. Brian made silly faces back at them.

In the fringes of our yard, daffodils await their triumphant chorus. The golden bells have just opened on our forsythia, and clusters of hyacinth flowers await flourish in purple blooms. By aesthetic standards, any of these blossoms would have outshone the fistful of yellow spikes my little boy offered. In the coming months, dozens of its cousins, cast away as weeds, will meet an untimely end beneath the blades of a lawnmower. Their brazen head will be lopped off, their awkward petals demolished and scattered. They will be declared a nuisance, expendable. Yet when gripped within Pip's fingers, how perfect, how precious became this paltry bloom. He had put aside the torrent of irritability and overwhelm that trouble him hourly, and found grace in a spiral of petals. Through a humble weed, love had broken through. God works this way. He does great things with the meager, and beautiful things with the misshapen. He chooses the smallest, the humblest, the most broken as his servants. (1 Sam 16:10-12, Numbers 12:3, 1 Tim 1:15) He works for good through the greatest calamity. (Gen 50:20) With his most beloved broken and crushed, he reaches through the firmament, and in love makes things new. (Rev 21:5) Where we see weakness, he offers grace. (2 Cor 12:9) He shatters pride, so new blossoms can burst forth. I've spent the past few months wrestling with God. After Pip's evaluation, as we clumsily felt out life with special needs, the questions of why wrapped around my heart, infusing me with daily bitterness. Resentment broiled to the surface. I'd left medicine to follow God's call, but a large part of me, in shocking arrogance, wanted to comply on my terms. Over the past two years, God has compelled me to confront my idols. I thrived on productivity. But now I inevitably find grime in corners I have just cleaned. I prized efficiency. But it now takes 30 minutes of wrangling over potty... I'm an introvert, who needs alone time to rejuvenate. But is anyone less alone than a mom with young kids? A "save the world" mentality drives me. But my daily life fodder is now the mundane. I relish instant gratification. But this business of shepherding hearts is long, with few immediate rewards. I relished accolades... I consider God's graciousness to us, and in the stillness of a springtime morning, I struggle for breath. His mercy toward us in this season -- in the face of my arrogance, despite the brokenness to which I've so stalwartly clung -- is stunning. During all the years of my training and career, homeschooling was never the plan. God inexplicably placed the idea in my heart, like a shadow that deepened daily. But now, I see how perfect were his methods. I shudder to think of how our family would struggle if I was still barreling ahead at the hospital, subsumed with my own self importance, while Pip fought daily to deal with every crowd... Homeschooling was never the plan. . . but oh, what a plan! That he called us this way, was mercy manifest. That he has equipped us to continue, is the greatest gift. Even on the hard days, I count it all joy. On the days when Pip, after a week of handling things so well, has a meltdown in the grocery store, complete with screaming and a blow to my chin -- there is joy there. God can work even with our ugliness. Through Christ, God redeems even the most corrupt. He assembles the stray petals, the unseemly stems, and makes things new. He strips away the idolatry of a surgeon desperate to prove her own worth, and points her toward the fount of all worth -- Christ Jesus. There is a deep well of peace in serving God where he has placed you. There is a refining grace, in realizing his work even in the hard moments. There is a profound beauty in redemption -- in the love that breaks forth through brokenness -- if we can only put away our preoccupations, and embrace his will. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." -- 2 Cor 12:9

Ugh. Kids these days. They all get the crazy idea that whoever has the most friends wins. One is enough. Just find that one irreplaceable someone.

It ain't no thing, angelface. None of those people matter. In a year, nobody will remember anything about cults or crazy suicidal megalomaniacs. They'll only know about the work we do here and the people we help, and we'll be too busy raising our own kids and taking in every stray you find of both the two and four-legged variety." "Hard to believe all of this started with a shower," Robby mused. "Nah, baby. All of this started the minute I saw you in that conference room chair, looking like the loneliest boy in the world." Robby looked up. "I think I was, you know. The loneliest boy. Before you." Calder took his eyes off the road to drop a kiss on Robby's forehead. "I think I was too... before you. But this is one hell of an after we've made for ourselves." It really, really was.

Seriously, should I lose it?” I shrug. “It’s practical. I get it.” He yanks it off and shoves it into the pocket of his shorts. A shake of his head lands everything where it belongs. “Here,” I say, angling my candle toward him. “I already took care of the headband. Fire really isn’t necessary, is it?” I motion toward the unlit candle at his side. He smiles and raises it to mine. As he watches his wick ignite, I stare at the hundreds of tiny whisker-shadows dancing on his face and the contrast of the smooth, illuminated apples of his cheeks. He looks from his candle to me, his eyes glossy in the orange candlelight. “I was just kidding, you know. About your hair,” I say, reaching to adjust a stray curl. “But this is better.” Darren clutches my wrist and lowers my arm slowly, my eyes forced to meet his. The drums from the parade combine with the thump, thump, thump of my heart in my ears. Our smiles fade and my mouth is suddenly a desert. His fingers slide down my wrist until my hand rests loosely in his. A boom from a drum as it passes causes us both to jump. I exhale and take the opportunity to pull away and redirect my attention. Nearly the whole town joins the parade behind the band, some carrying candles, some walking arm in arm. Some holding hands. Did Darren really just try to hold my hand?

The sun starts to sink lower over the ocean, and Zach somehow magics up a fire from driftwood and kindling. And then he brings out the marshmallows. Not a bag of mass-produced, uniform white cylinders of sugar. But two not-quite-square, hand-made, artisanal marshmallows. I look up at him. “Are you kidding me right now?” The right side of his mouth kicks up in a smirk that says I gave him exactly the reaction he was looking for. “Nope,” he says. “I asked the baker and she made these special for us. After all, I did promise you.” He grabs a forked stick and roasts them for us. When they’re perfectly golden brown and sagging off the stick, he slides it onto a graham cracker, and adds a square of chocolate. I put the entire thing in my mouth. “Ohmigod!” I murmur. “This is amazing!” “Transcendent?” he teases. “Absolutely.” I agree, licking some of the sugar off my fingers. He grabs my wrist and the next thing I know, he’s licking the sugar off my fingers. Oh God, and now I’m thinking of last night and what else he licked. As I watch, his eyes get intense; he’s thinking the same. “We can’t have sex on the beach,” I say breathlessly. “Too sandy.” “You have a one-track mind, don’t you?” he teases. “I only brought you here for the sunset.” Aaaand now I feel like an idiot. “Right,” I cough, blushing. “Well, thank you.” “But …” He adds, his mouth curving into that sexy smile that kills me. “That doesn’t mean we can’t … kiss.” His hand comes up to push a stray lock of hair behind my ear. I nod because resistance is futile. The best I can do is make light of it so he can’t see the emotion coursing through me. “I’m pretty sure it’s the law that when you drink wine and eat artisanal marshmallows on the beach, you have to kiss.” I wave vaguely toward where we left the car. “I saw it on the sign by the parking lot.” “Well, if it’s a law,” he grins. A second later, his lips find mine. He tastes like wine and sugar, and pure Zach. I sigh in pleasure. This picnic, the marshmallows—everything—just might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me. But that perfect sunset? We totally miss it. After all, there are better things to do.

I was afraid of you. I know that’s not what you expect to hear from someone like me. I’m the kid from West End—I must be tough, I must be a thug, I must have a gun in my home, I must be in a gang…I bet he’s killed someone, I bet his brother’s in prison. You can see why I was afraid. I was so afraid that I would get here, and that’s all you would see—a picture in your heads that was so far from the truth, but too impossible to overcome.” “I was afraid of discrimination. Of intolerance. Of ignorance. I remember the meetings the admissions board held when I was in junior high, the ones about getting rid of the scholarship program because it exposed good kids to at-risk youth. At. Risk. Youth. That phrase…it’s too small. It’s pejorative. It’s not entirely wrong. Growing up in West End made me. That risk…it toughened me up. It made me fast. It made me fight. When I was a kid, I remember hiding on the floor of my room on Friday nights so stray bullets wouldn’t harm me. I hated my home. I loved it. I would never choose it for someone—never wish for my child to feel the fear I did. I could never imagine growing up somewhere else. That fear made me. That fear is the reason I stand up here; the reason I pushed myself to learn, to question, to try—to argue. That fear was balanced out by faith.” ““You made me, too. You lifted me. You pushed me. You believed in me. You saw the boy from West End. I surprised you. But you—you surprised me, too“When I was afraid, you challenged me. And now, I dare you. I defy you to be great. Do not just be tradition—break tradition. As only you can.

that pop-culture content.” Moore chuckled. “There’s been this amazing shift. It used to be the parents coming to me, worried sick about what their kids were watching and listening to, asking what they could do to pull them back,” he said. “Now, almost everywhere I go—this just happened at a church I visited the other night—it’s the kids coming to me. They say their evangelical parents have gone totally crazy, binge-watching Fox News or Newsmax or One America News, and they want to know how to pull them back.” Darling noted how there were people at his church who had strayed “really far into the conspiracy stuff, and sending them legitimate news articles with facts does not work.

They gave me faith in my own abilities. They offered me a unique view of worlds that were both exotic and familiar to me. They kept things in perspective. They pissed me off. They opened my mind to realities I didn’t know existed. They forced me to be resilient, to sacrifice, to see how little I knew, and also how much. They put me in close contact with people who could’ve funded the college educations of ten thousand kids and also with people who would’ve rightly fallen on the floor laughing had I complained to them about how unfair it was that after I got my degree I’d have this student loan I’d be paying off until I was forty-three. They made my life big. They contributed to an education that money can’t buy.

There is nothing wrong with falling in love!

THE MAKNAE ON TOP

You can be happy about anything. You can be happy about life. You can be happy about music. You can be happy about food. You can be happy about sleep. You can be happy about others, and I can be happy about STAY.

Not being perfect is all it takes ‘cause we’re perfect Nothing can make the standard, show us some respect Not being perfect is all it takes ‘cause we’re perfect Love me the way I am

Show them what you’re made of Your endless nights deserve a loud ovation Shine bright and prove them wrong ‘Cause we can feel our progress