“And if you’ve been somebody’s first call, it’s hard not to be their first call anymore. She says it’s one of the reasons why parents sometimes feel sad when their kids are getting married. It’s not just the empty nest. They’re not the first call anymore. I’m not Andy’s first call anymore. It doesn’t mean I want to be his girlfriend, and it doesn’t mean I don’t like her. But it was sad. It’s different. The doctor says it’s important to be sad.”
―
Linda Holmes,
Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Your head is the house you live in, so you have to do the maintenance.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“therapy is like a toothbrush. You can’t really put it to use for anybody except yourself.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“The tag on her chamomile teabag said, There is no trouble that a good cup of tea can’t solve. It sounded like what a gentleman on Downton Abbey would say right before his wife got an impacted tooth and elegantly perished in bed.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“You’re twenty-two, twenty-three, time is sort of infinite. It’s like a pool where you can’t touch the bottom.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Did you want to do something else? he asked. She sighed. "I think every plan I ever had involved everything happening later. You're twenty-two, twenty-three, time is sort of infinite. It's like a pool where you can't touch the bottom. I knew there would be something else, but it was always after. After, after. It was like I was waiting for something to start, and I was accidentally in the middle of it the whole time.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“To some of the people who had watched him grow up, I think he was…a unicorn.” “He didn’t want bigger things?” “No, he did.” “Then why come back?” Evvie shrugged. “Because anywhere else, he’d just be a nice-looking horse.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Dr. Talco tapped her index fingers together. “Did you know it’s possible to remove your own teeth with pliers?” Evvie looked at her blankly. “That’s not what I thought you were going to say.” “No, no, probably not. But it’s true. If you have a bad tooth, you can take a pair of pliers, stick them in there, and pull as hard as you can. Is that something you would do?” “This feels like a trick question.” “Stay with it.” “No, I don’t think I would pull out my own tooth with pliers.” “That’s what I always tell people about therapy. It’s not a question of whether you could try to do it by yourself. You can always try it. But it can be dangerous, and it’s harder. Trying to buck yourself up is the tooth pliers of mental health.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“[T]he old stories of human relationships with animals can't be discounted. They are not primitive; they are primal. They reflect insights that came from considerable and elaborate systems of knowledge, intellectual traditions and ways of living that were tried, tested, and found true over many thousands of years and on all continents.But perhaps the truest story is with the animals themselves because we have found our exemplary ways through them, both in the older world and in the present time, both physically and spiritually. According to the traditions of the Seneca animal society, there were medicine animals in ancient times that entered into relationships with people. The animals themselves taught ceremonies that were to be performed in their names, saying they would provide help for humans if this relationship was kept. We have followed them, not only in the way the early European voyagers and prenavigators did, by following the migrations of whales in order to know their location, or by releasing birds from cages on their sailing vessels and following them towards land, but in ways more subtle and even more sustaining. In a discussion of the Wolf Dance of the Northwest, artists Bill Holm and William Reid said that 'It is often done by a woman or a group of women. The dance is supposed to come from the wolves. There are different versions of its origin and different songs, but the words say something like, 'Your name is widely known among the wolves. You are honored by the wolves.'In another recent account, a Northern Cheyenne ceremonialist said that after years spent recovering from removals and genocide, indigenous peoples are learning their lost songs back from the wolves who retained them during the grief-filled times, as thought the wolves, even though threatened in their own numbers, have had compassion for the people....It seems we have always found our way across unknown lands, physical and spiritual, with the assistance of the animals. Our cultures are shaped around them and we are judged by the ways in which we treat them. For us, the animals are understood to be our equals. They are still our teachers. They are our helpers and healers. They have been our guardians and we have been theirs. We have asked for, and sometimes been given, if we've lived well enough, carefully enough, their extraordinary powers of endurance and vision, which we have added to our own knowledge, powers and gifts when we are not strong enough for the tasks required of us. We have deep obligations to them. Without other animals, we are made less.(from her essay "First People")” ― Linda Hogan, Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals
“My therapist calls it grieving the first call.” “What does that mean?” “She says when something happens, good or bad, you can only call one person first. And if you’ve been somebody’s first call, it’s hard not to be their first call anymore. She says it’s one of the reasons why parents sometimes feel sad when their kids are getting married. It’s not just the empty nest. They’re not the first call anymore.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“She hadn’t yet turned to 'anti-aging,' but she figured 'revitalizing' was for over thirty and under forty, 'anti-aging' was for over forty and under seventy, and then when you were seventy, you just told everybody to fuck off.” ― Linda Holmes
“There is no trouble that a good cup of tea can’t solve.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Instead, for luck, he asked them for 26, because Evvie’s address was 26 Bancroft Street. When he got home and he showed the shirt to Evvie, she said, “Hey, look. That’s my house number. Maybe it’s lucky.” He’d folded it up, saying, “Maybe.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“When she started to cry, the upside was as it always was: the shower cry takes the logistics out of it. Crying has to be dealt with—it makes a mess, it swells up your face, it creates a little pile of tissues that are a tell. But the shower cry is the superspy’s cry, Evvie had always thought. It was between you and the tile walls, and everything that hurt turned into water, and the water went away.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“It’s not a question of whether you could try to do it by yourself. You can always try it. But it can be dangerous, and it’s harder. Trying to buck yourself up is the tooth pliers of mental health.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“There’s this kid Mike Parco, who at the time is eight years old and is a serious, total asshole. I know you’re not supposed to say that about children, but I swear, it takes most men at least two divorces to be as mean as this twerp.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“The amount of time people who have just met are supposed to look directly at each other, particularly without talking, is a unit that’s both very short and very precise. When you exceed it, you get suspicious, or you get threatened, or you get this flicker of accidental” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“That therapy is like a toothbrush. You can’t really put it to use for anybody except yourself.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Eveleth had always hated how blushing felt. It was accompanied by such a miserable desire to cease to be, utterly, to turn into a fog that could be waved away.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Your head is the house you live in, so you have to do the maintenance.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“therapy is like a toothbrush. You can’t really put it to use for anybody except yourself.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“The tag on her chamomile teabag said, There is no trouble that a good cup of tea can’t solve. It sounded like what a gentleman on Downton Abbey would say right before his wife got an impacted tooth and elegantly perished in bed.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“You’re twenty-two, twenty-three, time is sort of infinite. It’s like a pool where you can’t touch the bottom.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Did you want to do something else? he asked. She sighed. "I think every plan I ever had involved everything happening later. You're twenty-two, twenty-three, time is sort of infinite. It's like a pool where you can't touch the bottom. I knew there would be something else, but it was always after. After, after. It was like I was waiting for something to start, and I was accidentally in the middle of it the whole time.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“To some of the people who had watched him grow up, I think he was…a unicorn.” “He didn’t want bigger things?” “No, he did.” “Then why come back?” Evvie shrugged. “Because anywhere else, he’d just be a nice-looking horse.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Dr. Talco tapped her index fingers together. “Did you know it’s possible to remove your own teeth with pliers?” Evvie looked at her blankly. “That’s not what I thought you were going to say.” “No, no, probably not. But it’s true. If you have a bad tooth, you can take a pair of pliers, stick them in there, and pull as hard as you can. Is that something you would do?” “This feels like a trick question.” “Stay with it.” “No, I don’t think I would pull out my own tooth with pliers.” “That’s what I always tell people about therapy. It’s not a question of whether you could try to do it by yourself. You can always try it. But it can be dangerous, and it’s harder. Trying to buck yourself up is the tooth pliers of mental health.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“[T]he old stories of human relationships with animals can't be discounted. They are not primitive; they are primal. They reflect insights that came from considerable and elaborate systems of knowledge, intellectual traditions and ways of living that were tried, tested, and found true over many thousands of years and on all continents.But perhaps the truest story is with the animals themselves because we have found our exemplary ways through them, both in the older world and in the present time, both physically and spiritually. According to the traditions of the Seneca animal society, there were medicine animals in ancient times that entered into relationships with people. The animals themselves taught ceremonies that were to be performed in their names, saying they would provide help for humans if this relationship was kept. We have followed them, not only in the way the early European voyagers and prenavigators did, by following the migrations of whales in order to know their location, or by releasing birds from cages on their sailing vessels and following them towards land, but in ways more subtle and even more sustaining. In a discussion of the Wolf Dance of the Northwest, artists Bill Holm and William Reid said that 'It is often done by a woman or a group of women. The dance is supposed to come from the wolves. There are different versions of its origin and different songs, but the words say something like, 'Your name is widely known among the wolves. You are honored by the wolves.'In another recent account, a Northern Cheyenne ceremonialist said that after years spent recovering from removals and genocide, indigenous peoples are learning their lost songs back from the wolves who retained them during the grief-filled times, as thought the wolves, even though threatened in their own numbers, have had compassion for the people....It seems we have always found our way across unknown lands, physical and spiritual, with the assistance of the animals. Our cultures are shaped around them and we are judged by the ways in which we treat them. For us, the animals are understood to be our equals. They are still our teachers. They are our helpers and healers. They have been our guardians and we have been theirs. We have asked for, and sometimes been given, if we've lived well enough, carefully enough, their extraordinary powers of endurance and vision, which we have added to our own knowledge, powers and gifts when we are not strong enough for the tasks required of us. We have deep obligations to them. Without other animals, we are made less.(from her essay "First People")” ― Linda Hogan, Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals
“My therapist calls it grieving the first call.” “What does that mean?” “She says when something happens, good or bad, you can only call one person first. And if you’ve been somebody’s first call, it’s hard not to be their first call anymore. She says it’s one of the reasons why parents sometimes feel sad when their kids are getting married. It’s not just the empty nest. They’re not the first call anymore.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“She hadn’t yet turned to 'anti-aging,' but she figured 'revitalizing' was for over thirty and under forty, 'anti-aging' was for over forty and under seventy, and then when you were seventy, you just told everybody to fuck off.” ― Linda Holmes
“There is no trouble that a good cup of tea can’t solve.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Instead, for luck, he asked them for 26, because Evvie’s address was 26 Bancroft Street. When he got home and he showed the shirt to Evvie, she said, “Hey, look. That’s my house number. Maybe it’s lucky.” He’d folded it up, saying, “Maybe.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“When she started to cry, the upside was as it always was: the shower cry takes the logistics out of it. Crying has to be dealt with—it makes a mess, it swells up your face, it creates a little pile of tissues that are a tell. But the shower cry is the superspy’s cry, Evvie had always thought. It was between you and the tile walls, and everything that hurt turned into water, and the water went away.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“It’s not a question of whether you could try to do it by yourself. You can always try it. But it can be dangerous, and it’s harder. Trying to buck yourself up is the tooth pliers of mental health.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“There’s this kid Mike Parco, who at the time is eight years old and is a serious, total asshole. I know you’re not supposed to say that about children, but I swear, it takes most men at least two divorces to be as mean as this twerp.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“The amount of time people who have just met are supposed to look directly at each other, particularly without talking, is a unit that’s both very short and very precise. When you exceed it, you get suspicious, or you get threatened, or you get this flicker of accidental” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“That therapy is like a toothbrush. You can’t really put it to use for anybody except yourself.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
“Eveleth had always hated how blushing felt. It was accompanied by such a miserable desire to cease to be, utterly, to turn into a fog that could be waved away.” ― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over
