“Maybe we can just park and check out the fields," said Ethan. "It doesn't look like anyone's around."I was sad to leave the playlist behind--I was worried the car was my snow globe and it would shatter without us being in this small space filled with music and sunlight.It turned out, though, that the snow globe was bigger than I'd imagined. We high-stepped through grass that hadn't been mowed all spring, where blue and yellow wildflowers were growing. When we found a shady spot near a lone tree in the middle of the field, Ethan smoothed out some grass and said, "Let's sit.”

“Inside the snow globe on my father's desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, "Don't worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He's trapped in a perfect world.”

“This is what I love to do: I love to run through a field of wet grass that has not been mowed recently, I love to run, keeping my snout low to the ground so the grass and the sparkles of water cover my face. I imagine myself as a vacuum cleaner, sucking in all the smells. all the life, a spear of summer grass. It reminds me of my childhood, back on the farm in Spangle, where there was no rain but there was grass, there were fields, and I ran. ~ p208”

“Can you get a summer snow-globe instead of a winter one with green grass and flowering azalea bushes and blue sky? Because I'm here, inside it. If you shake it, perhaps it fills with black smoke, not swirling snowflakes.”

“And on a personal level,my boyfriend and I love eachother enough,and we have enough respect for each other, that we're bigger than that."I laughed."Nick and I are not bigger than that.We are very,very small." Daisy nodded. "And then,of course, there's the fact that I'm prettier than my boyfriend. He may fly higher,but I look better doing it." She turned around backward. "I mean, even in these snow pants,check out my ass.”

“Do you see the Field of Mars, where I walked next to my bride in her white wedding dress, with red sandals in her hands, when we were kids?”“I see it well.”“We spent all our days afraid it was too good to be true, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “We were always afraid all we had was a borrowed five minutes from now.”Her hands went on his face. “That’s all any of us ever has, my love,” she said. “And it all flies by.”“Yes,” he said, looking at her, at the desert, covered coral and yellow with golden eye and globe mallow. “But what a five minutes it’s been.”