The Bonesetter’s Daughter-Quotes from Part Two (continued) and Part Three

Although I finished this a few days ago and am on to new books and projects, I wanted to complete this task…

Effortless

Don’t fight differences of meaning. Find where you mean the same.

You should think about your character.  Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.

He kissed my eyes one at a time.  “This is beauty, and this is beauty, and you are beauty, and love is beauty and we are beauty.  We are divine, unchanged by time.”

Part Three-One

“Why you give up?  Something hard maybe worth more than easy.”

So many combinations, like Chinese names and characters, the same elements, seemingly simple, reconfigured in different ways.

Expiration was simply a release.

Dementia was like a truth serum.

Ruth wondered what made people happy.  Could you find happiness in a place?  In another person?  What about happiness for herself?  Did you simply have to know what you wanted and reach for it through a fog?

Some notions of time are irrelevant.

“You’re like someone who has cataracts and wants to see, but you refuse to have an operation because you’re afraid you’ll go blind.  You’d rather go blind slowly than take a chance.  And then you can’t see that the answer is right in front of you.”

 

Two

She was drawn to them all, (books) these prisms of other lives and times.  And she felt sympathetic, as if they were dogs at the animal shelter, abandoned without reason, hopeful that they would be loved still.  

“I don’t think I know an important part of you.  You keep secrets inside you.  You hide.  It’s as though I’ve never seen you naked, and I’ve had to imagine what you look like behind drapes.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m a pair of eyes and ears, and I’m just trying to stay safe and make sense of what’s happening.  I know what to avoid, what to worry about.  I’m like those kids who live with gunfire going off around them.  I don’t want pain.  I don’t want to die.  But I don’t have anything left inside me to figure out where I fit in or what I want.  If I want anything, it’s to know what’s possible to want.”

Three

Mystery is a wonderful part of life.

“He’s been in love with her since she was a little girl,” Art said.  “She’s not just a source of temporary companionship.  He loves everything about her, and that includes who she was, who she is, who she will be.  He knows more about her than most couples who are married.”

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I hope you read it all and enjoy it too.  Angels come in many forms if we know how to see them 🙂

The Bonesetter’s Daughter-Quotes from Part Two

Continues to impress.  It occurred to me that one of my other favorite authors also has the initials AT-Anne Tyler.  As it also could stand for “A Thinker”, I think there must be some connection.  Digression, however, so to task:

Heart

A person should consider how things begin.  A particular beginning results in a particular end.

 

Change

I was like a turtle lying on its back, struggling to know why the world was upside down.

“If she didn’t love you, why did she bother to criticize you for your own good?”  And then Precious Auntie went on to say how selfish I was, always thinking about myself.  She said my face looked ugly when I pouted.  She criticized me so much I did not consider until now that she was saying she loved me even more.

You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort… You push and ask yourself, What are my intentions?  What is in my heart that matches my mind?

My head was a sandstorm, ideas and hopes whirling about freely.  I was wondering all the while what those people at the pavilion would remember the next day and the day after that.  Because I knew I would never forget a moment of that day, the day I was to begin my new life.

I saw how all the women we passed, young and old, had the same bland face, sleepy eyes that were mirrors of their sleepy minds.

 

Ghost

I was amazed at how Mother’s mind flowed, as if she were accustomed to running two paces ahead of a flood.

Want less, regret less, that was Mother’s motto.

 

Destiny

“You can have pride in what you do each day,” said Sister Yu, “but not arrogance in what you were born with.”  She also often reminded  us that self pity was not allowed.  That was an indulgence.

 

We can study, we can learn

We can marry whom we choose.

We can work, we can earn,

And bad fate is all we lose.

 

I recalled for them what Precious Auntie had taught me about writing characters, how a person must think about her intentions, how her ch’i flowed from her body into her arm, through the brush, and into the stroke.  Every stroke had meaning, and since every word had many strokes, it also had many meanings.

“How could beauty be more than divine?”… “The fourth level,” Kai Jing said ” is greater than this, and it is within each mortal’s nature to find it.  We can sense it only if we do not try to sense it.  It occurs without motivation or desire or knowledge of what may result… Kai Jing was quiet for a long time.  “This fourth level is called Effortless,” he said at last… For we both knew we were speaking about the effortlessness with which one falls in love without intending to, as if we were two stalks of bamboo bent towards each other by chance of the wind.

The Bonesetter’s Daughter- Continued quotes from Part One

I continue to devour this book.  Amy Tan is a wonderful magic carpet writer than is a no-side-effect cure for everything from whining minions to grey ennui.

Part One

Chapter Four

A lot of her admonitions had to do with not showing what you really meant about all sorts of things:   hope, disappointment, and especially love.  The less you showed the more you meant.

Chapter Six

All it took was the right chemistry, which included love, and sometimes the wrong chemistry, which included booze and falling asleep.

As she now kept walking, she felt comforted by the water, its constancy, its predictability.  Each time it withdrew, it carried with it whatever had marked the shore.

Chapter Seven

She had just finished reading The Diary of Anne Frank in sophomore English class, and like all the other girls, she was imbued with a sense that she too was different, an innocent on a path to tragedy that would make her posthumously admired.  The diary would be proof of her existence, that she mattered, and more important, that someone somewhere would one day understand her, even if it was not in her lifetime.  There was a tremendous comfort in believing that her miseries weren’t for naught.

That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.

 

 

Good book

I pondered giving up this little project after the year anniversary.  I did it with the intent of seeing it through for a year, which I did.  The summer has stumbled and stalled at times which made it less than inspiring to memorialize it on the internet.  That being said, it is a handy memoir of sorts, even if only for myself.  If I make someone else think or smile or reflect, well, then I guess I should be happy.  I read a lot of books and always highlight the passages I find meaningful.  At one time I tried going back through all my books and copying  the passages into one big book.  Well, that lasted til I got a cramp in my hand!  And then Twitter has a 140 character limit, not practical.  So, I recently started reading The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan.  I  haven’t read any of her other books, but I think I will if this one ends up as thought provoking as it begins.  As I was highlighting away it occurred to me to use my virtual diary to record eloquent snippets, so, for now, at least, Gypsysunshine has a little resurrection.  These are my favorites from Chapter One:

 

I was still young enough to believe that beauty came from things.

 

“The Law of Relative Gravity”:Lighten up.  A problem is only as heavy as you let it be.  “The Doppler Effect of Communication”:There is always a distortion between what a speaker says and what a listener wants it to mean.  “The Centrifugal Force of Arguments”:The farther you move from the core of the problem, the faster the situation spins out of control.

 

Her preferred form of exercise, she told Wendy, was stress.”Clench muscles, hold for twelve hours, release for a count of five, then clench again.”

 

He smiled. “Do you always live in such a dangerous world?”  “Always. Life is more exciting that way.”  “Well, the headstand is one of the most important postures you can do.  Being upside down can turn your life around.  It can make you happy.”

 

He slipped off the ring and rotated it in the light.  “My best friend made it for my wedding,” Art said solemnly.  “Ernesto, a rare spirit.  He was a poet and a goldsmith by avocation, made his living as a limo driver.  See the indentations?  He told me they were to remind me that there are a lot of bumps in life and that I should remember what lies between them.  Love, friendship, hope.”

That’s it for the first chapter.  I’m hoping for the time, motivation, and perseverance to follow through on posting my favorites.  At least I’ll get one book done.  Only about 100 to go 🙂

 

A New Grandson

Blowing bubbles

Limb envy

My dear father discovered my little blog the other day.  As he has 6.5 granddaughters and only 2 grandsons, I am christening my latest baby (metamorph) Ted.  So the boy count bumps up to at least 2.25 🙂

Tad, ted, tid, tod, tud poles

Well, I’ve moved from feral cats to feral frogs-hopefully at least!  I miraculously found these in a shallow puddle of bulldozer tracks at a construction site.  I guess I’m suffering from empty litterbox syndrome, because I scooped up a bunch (7 actually) and have them in a little terrarium/aquarium. So far they’ve all made it, and the biggest ones are growing legs.  I’ve become quite attached, so I do hope they all make it!  I’ve been feeding them boiled lettuce and fish flakes, and I have water chestnut plants in the container for entertainment. (Hey, I guess it’s a tadpole party if you can swim in some roots).  Wish me, and them, luck!

Kitteh Update

Skippy Jon Jones (he looked like a chihuahua character from a children’s book)

Well, our foster tenure is complete. (For the time being at least).  My birthday/blog anniversary has come and gone, and my “feral” litter has been successfully rehabilitated (with the help of my trusty kitty elves) and rehomed to loving families.  Here are some photo updates:

God is laughing

I’m reading what is starting out to be a great book, Cutting for Stone, and a quote from it is sticking in my mind as I pen this post.  The quote is, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  Recently there has been a few, not necessarily a lot, (but close) things that fall into this CATegory.  Wink wink.  I said in my last post that my blog may be winding down.  But, it seems that I’ll be around for at least a few more weeks to chronicle the progress of my latest project.  My family has been involved, over the years, with rehabilitation of litters of feral kittens.  Basically this means taking a litter of kittens and socializing them to become friendly, adoptable pets. I’ve been told we make “bomb proof” cats, due to the general chaos in my house.  As such, we’ve designed a kitten “boot camp”.  It’s been a while since we’ve had a litter, but it seems that kitten season is running a bit late this year.  We got two recruits yesterday, with their two remaining siblings scheduled to arrive once they’re lured into the humane trap.  These pictures were taken last night-this morning the shorthair was amenable to being held, and both are eating from a spoon. Our bootcamp basically runs on the Stockholm Syndrome principal, obviously sans any abuse on our part. Most feral kitten litters are found between 4 and 7 weeks old, usually in window wells, under decks, or in/around yard structures (grills, sheds, etc.)  Their eyes are clear blue when born, start getting cloudy around 4 to 5 weeks, and turn brownish/greenish between 6 and 7 weeks.  That’s how we typically age them.  I know that some breeds have blue eyes, but those breeds are typically treasured purebreds and not wild or stray.  These two are probably at the 6 to 7 week stage.  The rehab or “bootcamp”  is a loosely organized stepwise process, which at this point involves getting them used to human household smells and sounds.  We have them in a large cage in the laundry room and will move them to the common area this afternoon.  The longhair is going to be a bit more of a challenge, but this will be fodder for posts for them next few weeks.  Hooray!!

P.S.  As of 8am this morning they’re still nameless.  Quel suprise-bickering about what to name them amongst my human ferals:)

Longing for True Summer

As you can see, my attention to my project is waning as the year of exploration draws to a close.  I’m not sure if I’ll continue it after my birthday.  I’ve been working on mundane projects or forget to take pictures of things I’ve made.  The only constant historian is my camera and nature, so here are some images of what I have seen and captured on film, so to speak.

You May be happy Wren it’s sunny

Mother nature has been busy this month.  My wren friend from my last post returned from maternity leave. I’ve been busy knitting wooly beak warmers.  Also, it’s everything’s coming up pink!  The rose campions are my absolute favorite!  This was the first bloom to burst this season.  Happy day:)