Heard

Recently encountered:

1. How could words no longer suffice if words affected her so deeply? Words were how information was received; words were used to respond to words that she read. Some words were daggers. Other words could only be spoken. She used words to carry herself away; she read words to be carried away with. Words formed the basis of understanding, and she justified actions with a carefully constructed set of words.

2. Blaine collected particular items - they were pictures, slips of paper, figurines - ephemera that represented the spirits of people she was with. She surrounded herself with the relics and curated them. Some got dusty, fell off the shelves or disappeared over time.

3. People marched from one place to another. Well, sometimes they marched. At other times, they walked. Some limped. From one destination to another, whether it was in the dustbowl, the desert, or across the country, throngs of people carried what they valued: children, guns, family histories, cattle, packages held together with scraps of rope. They traveled slowly. The side of the path was strewn with discarded items. Occasionally a person chose to step aside from the moving mass and watch the procession proceed in its own direction.

4. Good story, wasn't it? ...where I walked out of there slowly, with my dignity intact? Well, I fell apart a few days later. But Lenny caught me. He unfolded me and reminded me of who I was. He knew what I was made of, and he let me be that person.