Erica Bauermeister Quotes & Sayings

I've been wondering," Isabelle commented reflectively over dessert, "if it is foolish to make new memories when you know you are going to lose them. — Erica Bauermeister

The cold reality of it had struck her, as if, perched on the crest of a roller coaster, the rest of the ride was suddenly, irreversibly clear. On the way up, the vista had been infinite, the time to look about sometimes agonizingly long; now there was only the certain and dispassionate knowledge that there was one set of rails on which to travel, the ending immutable and about to begin. It didn't matter that the rest of the trip might take twenty, even thirty years to complete; the angle of the ride had changed. — Erica Bauermeister

I loved to walk in her garden after dinner; it felt alive, even in the winter. She always told me that rosemary grows in the garden of a strong woman. Hers were like trees. — Erica Bauermeister

You could never be certain what you would find in a book that had spent time with someone else. — Erica Bauermeister

She found herself wondering at what point in her life she had ceased to be Gulliver and had become the strings holding him to the ground. — Erica Bauermeister

Irreversible decisions are good for the soul, word lady. — Erica Bauermeister

Breath is life in — Erica Bauermeister

They walked back to the chopping block, Claire carrying the crab in her hands. Helen paused. "You know, I'd like to ask you something a friend asked me once, if you don't think it's too personal."
"What is it?"
"What do you do that makes you happy? Just you?"
Claire looked at Helen for a moment and thought, the crab resting on the block beneath her hands.
"I was just wondering," Helen continued. "No one ever asked me when I was your age, and I think it's a good thing to think about."
Claire nodded. Then she took the cleaver and cut the crab into ten pieces. — Erica Bauermeister

She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time with someone else. As she has rifled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder, 'buy a gun.' Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters. Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to. — Erica Bauermeister

You're not traveling if you already know everything. — Erica Bauermeister

The more she cooked, the more she began to view spices as carriers of the emotions and memories of the places they were originally from and all those they had traveled through over the years. — Erica Bauermeister

You know," Marion said, "I met a woman once when I was a teenager. I knew she had gone through a lot but she was so strong, so compassionate. I asked her how she could be the way she was, and you know what she told me?"
Hadley shook her head.
"She said, 'You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours. — Erica Bauermeister

Lillian sometimes wondered why psychologists focused so much on a couple's life in their bedroom. You could learn everything about a couple just watching their kitchen choreography as they prepared dinner. — Erica Bauermeister

Every time we prepare food we interrupt a life cycle. We pull up a carrot or kill a crab- or maybe just stop the mold that's growing on a wedge of cheese. We make meals with those ingredients and in doing so we give life to something else. It's a basic equation and if we pretend it doesn't exist, we're likely to miss the other important lesson which is to give respect to both sides of the equation. — Erica Bauermeister

If you live in your sense, slowly, with attention, if you use your eyes and your fingertips and your taste buds, then romance is something you'll never need a greeting card to make you remember. — Erica Bauermeister

She'd seen it with Isabelle, the way things could become so permeated with memories that story was more important than function. — Erica Bauermeister

When Marion had been a teenager, she wanted a tattoo. As an oldest child who did mostly what was expected of her, she had been fascinated by the abandon tattoos implied, the willing, blind leap into commitment. — Erica Bauermeister

Jack's marketing books had been a part of her life for so long that she had ceased to register their presence, simply moving them from the couch to the coffee table, from the bed to the nightstand. How to Sell Everything to Anybody. Eight Great Habits of CEOs. They all seemed to involve numbers, as if you could simply count yourself to riches, like following sheep to sleep. — Erica Bauermeister

It was interesting. Isabelle thought, the children that chose you. Some come through your body; others came in cars in the middle of the night. — Erica Bauermeister

Caroline had felt more comfortable thinking of beauty as something separate from her, like a scarf or a coat you could check before going in to a show. She wondered now, however, if she had treated more things as a part of herself rather than an accessory, perhaps everything would have turned out differently. — Erica Bauermeister

There were moments in life, Marion thought, when you reached back, baton in hand, feeling the runner behind you. Felt the clasp of their fingers resonating through the wood, the release of your hand, which then flew forward, empty, into the space ahead of you. — Erica Bauermeister

The name for the cocoa tree is theobroma, which means "food of the gods." I know that chocolate is meant for us, however, because the melting point for good chocolate just happens to be the temperature within your very human mouth. — Erica Bauermeister

Marriage is a leap of faith. You are each other's safety net. — Erica Bauermeister

She simply didn't have an interest in men anymore. It wasn't that she didn't like them, she just knew how easily they broke. — Erica Bauermeister

I walked across a bridge that doesn't exist. And after that, being scared just didn't seem so important anymore. — Erica Bauermeister

You know, Ian," Antonia commented, "my father always said a person needs a reason to leave and a reason to go. But I think sometimes the reason to go is so big, it fills you so much, that you don't even think of why you are leaving, you just do. — Erica Bauermeister

A risk is a risk because it's avoidable. — Erica Bauermeister

When she realized that there are many kinds of love and not all of them are obvious. That some wait like presents in the back of the closet until you are able to open them. — Erica Bauermeister

I used to know a sculptor ... He always said that if you looked hard enough, you could see where each person carried his soul in his body. It sounds crazy, but when you saw his sculptures, it made sense. I think the same is true with those we love ... Our bodies carry our memories of them, in our muscles, in our skin, in our bones. My children are right here." She pointed to the inside curve of her elbow. "Where I held them when they were babies. Even if there comes a time when I don't know who they are anymore. I believe I will feel them here. — Erica Bauermeister

TIME WENT ON, life with the children unfolding in its own ecosystem, small plastic toys seeming to grow up from the carpet like mushrooms, clothes falling to the floor like autumn leaves. Every once in a while she would blaze through the house and clean everything
at which point, the process would start all over. — Erica Bauermeister

I am starting to think that maybe memories are like this dessert. I eat it, and it becomes a part of me, whether I remember it later or not. — Erica Bauermeister

I think love is kind of like those waves out there," she said. "You ride one in to the beach, and it's the most amazing thing you've ever felt. But at some point the water goes back out; it has to. And maybe you're lucky-maybe you're both too busy to do anything drastic. Maybe you're good as friends, so you stay. And then something happens-maybe it's something as big as a baby, or as small as him unloading the dishwasher-and the wave comes back in again. And it does that, over and over. I just think sometimes people forget to wait. — Erica Bauermeister

It made Chloe wonder, how much could you hold in your arms if they weren't full of constantly falling pieces of yourself? — Erica Bauermeister

She became a frame for the picture that was her son and daughter. — Erica Bauermeister

Somewhere along the line, I'll screw up and hurt you," he said. "Everybody does. But that's not the point."
"What's the point?"
"The point is if you believe I would never do it on purpose - and if I believe the same of you. That's how you deal with stuff. — Erica Bauermeister

When Sean died she understood for the first time how completely human beings were dependent upon a suspension of disbelief in order to simply move forward through their days. If that suspension faltered, if you truly understood, even if only for a moment, that human beings were made of bones and blood that broke and sprayed with the slightest provocation, and that provocation was everywhere
in street curbs and dangling tree limbs, bicycles and pencils
well you would fly for the first nest in a tree, run flat-out for the first burrow you saw. — Erica Bauermeister

It was like trying to teach subtlety to a thunderstorm. — Erica Bauermeister

Stories of her children when they were small, their round little bodies barely containing their personalities, which bloomed and glittered and melted into her. — Erica Bauermeister

While the egg yolks cooled, he directed the beaters at the egg whites, setting the mixer on high speed that sent small bubbles giggling to the side of the bowl, where a few became many until they were a white froth rising up and then lying down again in patters and ridges, leaving an intricate design like the ribs of a leaf in the wake of the beaters — Erica Bauermeister

Maybe your mind won't remember what I cooked last week, but your body will. — Erica Bauermeister

She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes
a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely. — Erica Bauermeister

They said - Adults need to have fun so children will want to grow up. — Erica Bauermeister

The results of the irrevocable decisions in her life, the commitments she had leaped into without thought, with only the sure and perfect knowledge that it mattered not where her feet landed because her heart was certain.
p 186 — Erica Bauermeister

Being around her, he found even every day experiences were deeper, nuanced. Satisfaction and awareness slipped in between the layers of life like love notes hidden in the pages of a textbook. — Erica Bauermeister

We are all just ingredients, Tom What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal — Erica Bauermeister

When a couple came to class together, it meant something else entirely - food as a solution, a diversion, or, occasionally, a playground. — Erica Bauermeister

Life is beautiful. Some people just remind you of that more than others. — Erica Bauermeister

You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours.
p 146
about dealing with the loss of her mother — Erica Bauermeister

And that night she dreamed in French. — Erica Bauermeister

The day coming to her in small, liquid moments, sleep slipping into wakefulness like the slow merging of two steams.
p 125 — Erica Bauermeister

The women ranged in age, but they were all old enough to know that in the currency of friendship, empathy is more valuable than accuracy. — Erica Bauermeister

Each person's heart breaks in it's own way. Every cure will be different, but there are some things we all need. Before anything else, we need to feel safe. — Erica Bauermeister

Rituals, Al Decided, were a lot like numbers; they offered a comforting solidity in the otherwise chaotic floodtide of life. But it was more than that. A ritual was a way to hold time - not freezing it, rather the opposite, warming it through the touch of your imagination. — Erica Bauermeister

She looked at the produce stalls, a row of jewels in a case, the colors more subtle in the winter, a Pantone display consisting only of greens, without the raspberries and plums of summer, the pumpkins of autumn. But if anything, the lack of variation allowed her mind to slow and settle, to see the small differences between the almost-greens and creamy whites of a cabbage and a cauliflower, to wake up the senses that had grown lazy and satisfied with the abundance of the previous eight months. Winter was a chromatic palate-cleanser, and she had always greeted it with the pleasure of a tart lemon sorbet, served in a chilled silver bowl between courses. — Erica Bauermeister

What did she do that made her happy? The question implied action, a conscious purpose. She did many things in a day, and many things made her happy, but that, Claire could tell, wasn't the issue. Nor the only one, Claire realized. Because in order to consciously do something that made you happy, you'd have to know who you were. Trying to figure that out these days was like fishing on a lake on a moonless night - you had no idea what you would get. — Erica Bauermeister