A Good One

When I went to Westport last week, a large tote of books came with me. One of them was Where the River Ends by Charles Martin.  When a novel breaks my heart good, and causes the tears to run, it's worth passing on.

Here are a few quotes that found a permanent page in my journal, I need them:


"What you got inside you is...is a well that bubbles up from way down deep. It's sweet water, too. But, sometimes wells run empty. If you ever get to hurting and all you feel is ache ~ you reach down and find your well empty, nothin' but dust ~ then you come back here...dive in and drink deeply."


"This river's taught me a good bit. Probably why I don't leave here. It winds, weaves, snakes around. Rarely goes the same way twice. But in the end, it always ends up in the same place and the gift is never the same."


"Some live well, some die well, but few love well."


"To love well ~ that's something else. It's a choosing ~ something done again and again and again. No matter what. And in my experience, if you so choose, you better be ready to suffer hell."


"If you want to make great art, something that can reach beyond time and space, find someone who isn't beautiful and show them that they are. Paint the broken, the unlovely...and make them believe."


Not once did they (her parents) think to ask Abbie, "What are you passionate about and how can I pour myself into your vision of you."


"You don't have to be beautiful to be beautiful." "Breathe."


"But time does heal, not like we think it does, not like we would ~ from the front~ but more from the back or side or someplace we can't see it coming. It bubbles up beneath and ruses all around. All of a sudden I dried my eyes long enough to look up, look beyond myself, and discovered my pain had become the sinew that hel me together. I stood on the bank, stared out across the vast epicenter of me and faced a choice ~ do I risk the river? So I cut the water, paddled out of my own black hole and discovered that the river was not one, but many, and like it or not, they all merge. Each turn, each bend, led to something beautiful, something whole, something worth remembering. Why? How? I can't answer that, I just know that."


"Tides ebb, rivers flow crooked, and love uses pain."


"Lord, Son of David, I want to see."

Charles Martin