Debby Bull

“Your like Martha Stewart on crack,” my neighbor shouted as I stuck another cardinal in with the daisies.”

“It was obvious that the woman was trying to turn over a new leaf, so we bought all her bowls. I got a gigantic stoneware one with a flat bottom, like you’d use if you were making bread for the whole army, and I knew I would have to change my whole life to have a use for this bowl.”

“I closed the door. Other people got husbands and children; I got a bag of lettuce. I hurled myself on the floor and sobbed. The worst thing about trying to get myself undepressed were the days when it seemed like I hadn’t made any progress at all.”

“You have to not care whether they approve of your or not,” she said when I called. “We do what we do to express ourselves, not to coincide with what others like. You’re lucky if they like anything you do.”

“You can die trying to get along with a disagreeable man,” she said, and I put a star beside it when I wrote it down and then taped it to the rear-view mirror for the rest of the drive. She hadn’t said “abusive,” I noticed; she had said that just disagreeable could kill you.”

“Canning is a whole world of a thing to do. It requires that you get out of your head. It's a Zen thing. You cannot be wondering about your inadequacies and how they drove Bob off and be making jelly. You'll wind up with big, cylindrical jujubes.”