Pink pony

“Stored away in some brain cell is the image of a long-departed aunt you haven’t thought of in 30 years. Stored away in another cell is the image of a pink pony stitched on your first set of baby pajamas. All it takes to get that aunt mounted on the back of that pony is to eat a hunk of meatloaf immediately before going to bed.”

—Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Keys to happiness

“The key to happiness is pretty much the same as the key to worry and anxiety — you must learn to make a big deal out of nothing.”

“The key to happiness? Simple really. You don’t let short-term concerns ruin your life, and you don’t let long-term concerns ruin your day.”

—Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Book-sticky

“Old or new, the only sign I always try to rid my books of (usually with little success) is the price-sticker that malignant booksellers attach to the backs. These evil white scabs rip off with difficulty, leaving leprous wounds and traces of slime to which adhere the dust and fluff of ages, making me wish for a special gummy hell to which the inventor of these stickers would be condemned.”

—Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, 2006

Defining moments

We all have those moments in our lives that transform us — something small or big happens and we’re never the same.

Sometimes we remember these moments in our personal histories as leaps, or falls — or just serendipitous wanderings — from one life segment to the next.

Or we mark them like stars on a map of self — constellations of life-changing moments. Some seem crazy small and wouldn’t even register as stars in others’ systems. But in our own they blaze bright.

Or maybe our days are raindrops and our lives rolling clouds and these moments are lightning strikes. Raindrop days, lightning-strike moments.

These maps and moments imprint our souls, our minds, our memorious hearts. Our stories of self are made from them.

Terri Guillemets