So I was called off from work yesterday. Sad for paycheck...happy for bookshelf. I read myself into a migraine and finished Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlin just in time for bed. While this most recent novel was not quite up to her masterpiece, One True Thing, I enjoyed her development of the sisterly relationship. I also enjoy that she made the city of New York a pivotal character.
Here are a few of my favorite nuggets I have panned for:
"The problem is that when most people think of having children, they think about having other people's children. They look at a bunch of four-year-olds screaming on the playground or some nasty teenager snarling at his parents and think, Not me. And then someone hands them their own child. And all of that other nonsense is forgotten. Irrelevant. They change in an instant."
"The apartment felt quiet and peaceful. Nearly every drawer was open about an inch, and I went around the apartment closing them all. I await the research on why a person carrying a Y chromosome is unable to close a drawer entirely. "What?" Irving always said. "It is closed."
"You had to hand it to the women in my parenting class; their kids might wind up leaving school, going to jail, or if they prospered, leaving the neighborhool behind. But they still thought having two babies at once was almost as good as making a big win on the Lotto."
"The closest I'd come to having a kid was Leo, who was my godson as well as nephew. I'd held him at St. Stephen's Church, and when he cried as the priest poured water over his bald head, I had begun to sway from side to side in the gentle unconscious rhythm that later I'd learned to recognize in supermarket lines, waiting outside preschools. The unconcious slow dance of motherhood."
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