Ann Howard Creel

“Sometimes you do find what you're looking for closer than you think”

“He touched me as if I were the curved and delicate handle of a china cup, but he held me tightly just as I was, flesh and blood and full of human flaws and fears. In his arms I wasn't a girl dreaming of sailing the high seas, and I wasn't a farm kid jumping the train, either, but a fully grown woman riding the soft side of a crescent moon.”

“Memories are fragile things to hold, but many times, it's what we have.”

“Livy: Don’t you ever wonder what else is out there…beyond the farm?Ray: SometimesLivy: Aren’t you curious how other people lived?Ray: I enjoyed the drive, but i like coming back to my place. Sleeping on my land.Livy: Your land. Ha! Seems every war in human history is about owning a land. I liked the Indian view that we’re just temporary guardians of the land where we lived.Ray: It’s not temporary to me.Livy: But your family just owned this land for less than a hundred years. In a span of a history that’s nothing. Ray: In a span of a life…that’s near everything.”

“As a child, when I first heard the story of Creation, I’d closed my eyes and pictured the earth as a ball rolling off the palm of God and into dark space, then drifting around until it found its home in sunny orbit. Never perfect, but ever spinning, and holding on to her course, despite it all.”

“In the past, I would’ve listed things such as common interests, mutual attraction, worldliness, and higher education. My freedom above all else. If I had found love, it would have had to be the kind that overwhelmed and overpowered all else.I passed a hand between Ray and Me. “Once you told me that this,” I said “is a beginning.” I searched his face. "But how do you know, Ray? How do you know it’s the beginning of something good?”“I know.” His breath was warm on my face as he moved in closer.” Because someday, you’re bound to forgive yourself.”

“We’d save up a penny or two, bring them down here, and set them on the tracks. When a train comes, it flattens out that penny, leaving it thin as paper and shaped long, like an egg. But it happens so fast, you can’t see where the train sends that penny flying… We’d look all around, in the sage brush and the prickly pear cactus, until we found them.. And you know what?” He stopped walking and turned to gaze at me now. “We always found them closer than we thought.”“After we’d looked all over Creation, we’d find them somewhere near the tracks, after all.”He said, “Sometimes you do find what you’re looking for closer than you think.”

“I’ve often wondered, even to this day, why during painful times some people seem to step away from themselves and make decisions that fall far out of their usual line of character and behaviour. Perhaps a natural reluctance to sit still is central, or perhaps, like the lesser animals, instinct forces us to go on even if grief has left us not up to the task…. In one fleeting moment, I stripped away the petals of my future, let them catch wind, and fly away”

“My aunts were not cruel, you understand. They loved to talk, and at every available opportunity they gave away the neatly wrapped presents of their thoughts, confident that no one would refuse them. ”