The One With a Tree Grows in Brooklyn

"It is necessary that she believe. She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination... only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for."


"It's a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No. I don't want to understand it at all. It's beautiful because it's always a mystery, like God Himself is a mystery. Sometimes I say I don't believe in God. But I only say that when I'm mad at Him... Because I do! I do!"


"Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry... have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."


"People always think that happiness is a faraway thing, something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone- just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness."


"The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself... Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day."


"To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Thus is your time on earth filled with glory."


I finally finished the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I was reading it with my dear friend Stiggy Frazon. Per usual, I finished it much later than anticipated. It is, however, one of the largest books that I have ever mastered and for that, I am proud of myself. The above quotes are a few of my favorites from the book. Some of them I am even trying out as new life mottos.


I finished the book yesterday when I got to Warrensburg. I was helping some of my other dear friends (Brook and Jake Coughran) pack and load a moving van that they would take with them back to Illinois. It was a long day of hauling belongings up and downs stairs in the sun, but I would not have wanted to miss it. It was nice, although sad too, to spend some moments with these people before they left. It has been 6 years that we have lived close and realized all too late that we did not take advantage of that fact like we could/should have. A lot has happened in those 6 six years and out of those years an amazing friendship has been maintained. I have no doubt that it will continue on that way even with the larger distance now between us.


A change has occurred in my life recently. People I used to be distanced from by miles are now closer and those I was located near are now not as close. Life has an interesting way of playing out sometimes...