A Long Time Gone

 

We are all separate boats on this river of years, never expecting to see the boat before or behind us except when the current of time unexpectedly pushes us together, touching but never altering our course. We are born to fight the bends and curves of our own rivers, pushing back that which will not give, understanding where we are meant to be only when we let go and let the river take us back to the place where we began.

Pg. 417

A Long Time Gone

Karen White

 

This is actually the last paragraph in the book. Doesn't it just say it all? It just takes a lot of living before most of us can "let go."

 

I like this quote a bunch, too.

 

He gave me a lopsided grin as I turned and headed toward the stairs. "Good night, Booger," he called after me.

If I'd had something to fling in his direction, I would have. Instead I was left to contemplate the relationship between siblings, and how even though we would always get older, our relationship never really would.

Pg. 125

 

 

Whistling in the Dark

 

I never heard exactly who it was that found Sara Heinemann's dead body over at the lagoon. But it was Willie O'Hara who told us that she was lying neatly on the grass between those rotting red rowboats you could rent for a dollar if you wanted to do a little fishing. Sara's pink undies were wrapped around her neck like a bow and she was naked. And some of her blond hair had been cut off just like Junie Piaskowski's had the summer before.

Something like that wasn't supposed to happen on a Vliet Street. But like Daddy always said...things can happen when you least expect them. Things that can change your whole life. How right he was. Because after they found Sara's body, it seemed like our nightly games of red light, green light and the Fourth of July parade and even cooling off in the Honey Creek on days so hot they'd curl the hair on the back of your neck might become part of the good old days that Granny always talked about. Because one dead girl was one thing. But two dead girls...everybody started wondering who would be next. Except for me. I knew I was next.

Whistling in the Dark

Leslie Kagen

 

It seems Leslie Kagen always writes in the voice of a young girl. I love Sally O'Malley--her wild imagination and her wise-beyond-her-years insights. There's a lot going on in the O'Malley Girls world this summer. Dramatic and scary things. But, Sally and Troo squeeze the best out of their world; charming the neighbors and finding adventure, intrigue, and empathy in every nook and cranny of Vliet Street and the neighborhood.

 

Sea Change

 

St. Simons Island, Georgia

September 1804

Storms bring the detritus of other people's lives into our own, a reminder that we are not alone, and of how truly insignificant we are. The indiscriminating waves had brutalized the shore, tossing pieces of splintered timber, an intact China teacup, and a gentleman's watch--still with its cover and chain--onto my beloved beach, each coming to rest as if placed gently in the sand as a shopkeeper would display his wares. As I rubbed my thumb over the smooth lip of the China cup, I thought of how someone's loss had become my gain, of how the tide would roll in and out again as if nothing had changed, and how sometimes the separation between endings and beginning is so small that they seem to run together like the ocean's waves.

Sea Change

Karen White

 

Great storytelling; loved the alternating stories--early 1800s and 2011. Interesting characters; well drawn. Makes me excited that we're going to be on St. Simon's Island for a few days in September. We'll be celebrating your SIL's 65th birthday, and I've already ordered a copy of this book for her.