Abby Slovin

“The search for lost things is hindered by routine habits, and that is why it is so difficult to find them.”

“Love was something that sat comfortably in her dreams, so she never fully expected it to materialize.”

“She suddenly realized how much she loved the rain; loved the way it seemed like the sky was purging something it held onto; the feeling of relief that settled over the earth the moment it passed. As if the universe, and all its tiny pieces, took one collective sigh and moved on to the next thing.”

“The likeness she had been searching for was on her face the whole time.”

“What a world, she thought, where you could at one moment be under a cloud and the next, right in the heart of it; and then, in another moment, soaring high above them all.”

“She was now on her way to an old world that was nothing but new to her.”

“She approached the car with a confident stride that implied she had lived on the block her whole life.”

“At a time when Parker might have craved the comfort of certainty, she instead held tight to her wavering thoughts; To the gravity and thrill of a new adventure; To the promise of everything and nothing all at once.”

“Parker soon became familiar with the one certainty of sorrow, that ultimately loneliness trumps logic.”

“I can’t even think about words because the sunset stole them all.”

“This was what Parker had learned early on about disappointment; its sting lasts only in the beginning, only until the body goes numb from its repetition.”

“Parker and her mother exchanged small talk like a pair of strangers in an elevator. What a nice day it was and how loud the airplanes flew overhead and this statement and that observation to fill the time.”

“She let go and yet for the first time did not feel she was giving up.”

“Its roots emerged forcefully from the earth like the Great Wall and extended at least ten feet toward the house, demanding to be seen from beneath the soil.”

“She sat on the stoop alone, gazing up at an infinite sky as it held her and pushed her away all at once.”

“She inhaled deep breaths filled with salty air and watched the moon cast streaks across the rippling river, unable to determine in which direction it flowed or where it went, but suddenly curious about it for the first time.”

“In the distance, they could see the headlights from cars crossing the bridges like fireflies swarming the streets toward home.”

“I used to build things, maintain them and what-not. Sometimes, we’d take things apart completely just to get a good look at the thing on the inside. Then, put it all back together...Now, I’m lucky if I can build a complete sentence.”

“Parker, I'm old," She said matter-of-factly. "I get away with these things." She continued to wave and smile wildly. "People treat me like an idiot so I'm allowed to act like one from time to time. It's one of the perks.”

“The smell of burning firewood and the molding of organic, earthy substances reminded her of jumping wildly into the enormous leaf piles of autumns past and she suddenly wished that it was appropriate for someone her age to do such a thing.”

“Fact is just fiction with different storytellers”

“Parker fixated on the envelope's precise penmanship as she lifted it. Her grandmother rarely took the time to write her own name in the return address, let alone give it the aesthetic attention that this one so seemed to demand. Once, when Parker questioned her on this, her grandmother casually asserted that she "didn't quite believe in envelopes" as if this were a debatable concept like Socialism or wearing white after Labor Day.”

“At some point, time isn’t something on the horizon anymore, something you think about happening one day, but something that’s already happened, only there to replay in your mind.”

“By midday, temperatures had not reached their typical highs for late spring, and passersby seemed to struggle with the desire to dress for summer despite the chill in the air.”

“A girl?" Her mother looked at her, curiously, as if the word were unknown to her; ancient and puzzling as an artifact behind a glass encasement.”

“His words were rare, full conversations with him even rarer, as if Parker were one of his students that he did not want to indulge with conversation after class.”

“She did not know why the heat felt so heavy in that house, why all of a sudden it felt so much less like warmth than she remembered.”

“Winter's my favorite...The best parts are the coats and sweaters. Hugging all the warmth back in.”

“Like a palindrome, like the way a perfect day should be.”

“Sometimes you don’t get to close one door before another opens. We’re not all given that luxury, for closure.”

“His eyes felt like bathwater; fluid, therapeutic almost.”

“There are no words for the sight of a smiling face.”

“She didn’t quite know how to translate faces; so she wondered about Jerry, but that’s all she could do.”

“In a brief, surreal moment, she could see the young man he used to be in his smile.”

“Leaves danced sadly with the wind, waving goodbye.”

“A thin yellow curtain hung in front of the corner window as boney tree limbs tapped on the glass like an unwelcome visitor. Despite the tiny buds on the trees outside, the branch at this particular window was still bare.”

“She looked out the window at the soggy sidewalks on Saint Marks Place, as a late snowfall began to melt in the face of a much warmer early spring day.”

“This was the place where someone had led her, only she could not remember who and could not remember when. Just that this was where she was now.”

“Nothing happens here except the past in slow motion. We’re starting to go backwards, you and I.”

“Even with the windows up she could smell the thick, spiky aroma of cut grass and the distant hum of a lawnmower somewhere down the street. It was a sad hum, though, like the buzzing of a bee that had lost the desire to make honey.”

“Go have a birthday. Before you blink and its all over.”

“Fear swallowed her, deep and dark as the ocean and she sank into it.”

“Eventually, as her grandmother’s sobs softened, she pulled her away and – looking deeply into the clouds of her grey eyes – lifted her and led her home for the last time.”

“Sometimes walls go up between friends and you can’t see the other side. And sometimes they come down. That’s just the way walls are, and they’re everywhere.”

“Her past was finally speaking to her in a language she understood.”

“Speed did not feel exhilarating or thrilling anymore. It only felt like a rapid approach toward something distant that she couldn’t make out through the dirty windshield.”

“Tree limbs boasted fresh baby buds and smiled at the brush strokes spread across the sky.”

“Never too late for the right kind of change.”

“Sometimes, we have to change the way we see things in order to see the way they truly are. We have to look at all the angles and cracks and crevices until we know what it is we’re looking at. And we can’t stop until we see it all!”

“Parker let the letter drop to the floor, an act she often criticized in movies for its melodrama.”