SMTTY

Today was fun. F + f + m + w + l (: hehehe

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I happened to come across Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult today. I decided to start it and see what its like, and not surprisingly, I like it so far and am going to put some bits and pieces (in no particular order) from it in this post :) [[below]]

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Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who left when she was five. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother's absence and shameful memories of her past make her doubt both her maternal ability and her sense of self-worth.

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I remembered the rolling brogue of my father's voice telling me over and over again, Life can turn on a dime.

Still, she hung the letter on the refrigerator, next to my damp finger painting and my noodle-glued collage. The letter disappeared the day she left, and I always wondered if it was something she'd taken because she knew she couldn't take me.

I wondered what my father thought. I wondered if the God he had so much faith in could tell him why the women in his life were always running away.

Even before I had the power to sketch people's secrets, I had always believed I could draw well. I knew this the way some kids know they can catch pop flies and others can use felt and glitter to make the most creative covers for book reports. I always used to scribble. My father told me that when I was a toddler, I had taken a red crayon and drawn one continuous line around the walls of the house, at my eye level, skipping over the doorways and the bureaus and the stove. He said I did it just for the hell of it.

On the bus I made up aliases for myself and told them to anyone who asked.

My father tapped his finger against the end of the receiver, just as he used to do when I was very little and he went on overnight trips to peddle his inventions. He'd send a softwhap through the phone lines. Did you hear that? he'd whisper. That's the sound of a kissrunnin' into your heart.

"Aye," my father said, "but it seems you've got a bit of your mother in you too."