Circling the Sun

never been afraid of anything, have you?”
“I have, though,” I said, surprised at my own emotion. “I’ve been terrified…I just haven’t let it stop me.”

It’s awfully dangerous. I know I don’t have to tell you that.” He stared into his coffee, thinking quietly. “But you’ve

More than anyone I’d known, Denys understood how nothing ever holds still for us, or should. The trick is learning to take things as they come and fully, too, with no resistance or fear, not trying to grip them too tightly or make them bend.

What moved me about the poem, I realized, was that Denys had seen me in it. The self-sufficiency and free-spiritedness Whitman was celebrating, the connection to wild things and wildness—that was a part of me, and Denys, too. We recognized these things in each other, no matter what else was true or possible

I suppose it wasn’t a great surprise to see she had very little gumption or resilience, and yet it made me sad for her. How dreadful it would be if everything toppled you and you folded in.

Well, I admire your independence. I don’t know many women who could do what you’ve done.”
“Thank you. I have fought for independence here, and freedom, too. More and more I find they’re not at all the same thing.”

The games had prepared Ruta for his future, and should have prepared me for mine, too

. “Proper learning isn’t just useful in society, Beryl. It can be wonderfully yours, a thing to have and keep just for you.”

This was certain: I belonged on the farm and in the bush. I was part of the thorn trees and the high jutting escarpment, the bruised-looking hills thick with vegetation; the deep folds between the hills, and the high cornlike grasses. I had come alive here, as if I’d been given a second birth, and a truer on

I was thin and knock-kneed with unruly white-blonde hair, but my new name and place soon helped to toughen me.