When Women Were Birds

Terry Tempest Williams

My 4 highlights

  • Brooke’s mother, Rosemary, made me a dress out of fabric that depicted a marsh. It was a yellow cotton jersey print with cattails and dragonflies. I loved it, and wore it for the school pictures. Mrs. Jeffs found my outfit a distraction. “It is best not to advertise one’s subject by wearing it,” she said.
  • I have talked to myself for years in the privacy of my journals. The only things I’ve done religiously are keep a journal and use birth control.
  • Every day, I walked. It was not a meditation, but survival, one foot in front of the other, with my eyes focused down, trying to stay steady.
  • I cannot think without a pen in hand. If I don’t write it down, it doesn’t exist.