182 Quotes by Aspen Matis

I had once again proven that again alone, I was again enough.

He spoke as if the plan had already been written.

College had always felt more like an anchor than a kite, a tedious and time-eating entrapment. Studying for pointless tests stole away nights, rote memorization disappearing the freedom of creation.

For this entire walk, my desire had ashamed me, as if my wanting to be kissed that night mitigated the fault of Junior's sudden deafness. I'd been given stacks of reasons to blame myself for an act of violence committed by another. I had blamed my flirting for his subsequent felony. My college taught me: my rape was my shame. Everyone I'd trusted asked only what I might have done to let it happen. In my gut, I'd always believed I'd caused it. I finally questioned it.

A single black ant sped across the floor beyond our naked toes, and I wondered why I felt so oppositional. His expression of unflappable faith had touched a profound place, the deep wellspring of my purpose—my future dream I cradled like a soft and formative pearl.

Trails enabled me to better see the world, to notice fine aspects invisible from an airplane, the most basic things we miss. Seeing life at a pace at which you can actually observe nuance, the speed of stepping, the beautiful inspiring texture of “plain” reality becomes visible—God smiling in the detail.

I doubted I could survive in the woods without these very basic things to help me. It seemed like a tremendous leap of faith to forsake the tools I’d always been told I needed. And yet leaving college to walk was such a massive leap of faith already, and nothing I’d ever trusted and believed in seemed true any longer.

I felt lit up, as if someone had reached into my heart and flipped an inner switch, turning me on, brighter.

He kissed my mitten. “Then we’ll get you to New York,” he said. He described Manhattan as an epicenter of creativity, a midnight tar-paved island where the young artists of the world go to pursue themselves. Listening, growing warmer, I peered up through the tent’s mesh roof at faraway stars, faint glitter, giddy.