Some Good Words I found in Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout:
And any unpleasantness that may have occurred back in his home, any uneasiness at the way his wife often left their bed to wander through their home in the night's dark hours - all this receded like a shoreline as he walked through the safety of his pharmacy.
For many years Mrs. Granger worked for him; her husband was a lobster fisherman, and she seemed to carry with her the cold breeze of the open water, not so eager to please a wary customer.
But Denise was not his daughter, and he told her it was noble to be a homemaker - vaguely aware of the freedom that accompanied caring for someone with whom you shared no blood.
He felt the stain of some sadness make its way from her to him.
Twenty-two years...but for Angie time was as big and round as the sky, and to try to make sense of it was like trying to make sense of music and God and why the ocean was deep.
Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn't go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.
When you looked into his eyes, it was like seeing him through a screened-in porch.
...that one of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren't just moments, they were gifts.
The natural rubber band around people's lives that curiosity stretched for a while had long ago returned to encompass their own particularities.
One and a half years later, this still squeezed Olive so hard she felt like a package of vacuum-packed coffee...
"Are you feeling poorly again?"
He smiled that tiny smile. "Only soul poor. The body hangs on."
She nodded.
And any unpleasantness that may have occurred back in his home, any uneasiness at the way his wife often left their bed to wander through their home in the night's dark hours - all this receded like a shoreline as he walked through the safety of his pharmacy.
For many years Mrs. Granger worked for him; her husband was a lobster fisherman, and she seemed to carry with her the cold breeze of the open water, not so eager to please a wary customer.
But Denise was not his daughter, and he told her it was noble to be a homemaker - vaguely aware of the freedom that accompanied caring for someone with whom you shared no blood.
He felt the stain of some sadness make its way from her to him.
Twenty-two years...but for Angie time was as big and round as the sky, and to try to make sense of it was like trying to make sense of music and God and why the ocean was deep.
Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn't go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.
When you looked into his eyes, it was like seeing him through a screened-in porch.
...that one of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren't just moments, they were gifts.
The natural rubber band around people's lives that curiosity stretched for a while had long ago returned to encompass their own particularities.
One and a half years later, this still squeezed Olive so hard she felt like a package of vacuum-packed coffee...
"Are you feeling poorly again?"
He smiled that tiny smile. "Only soul poor. The body hangs on."
She nodded.
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