Was he even planning on coming to meet me? Or did he change his mind at the last minute? Did he decide he liked me better at a distance? That meeting the real me would ruin his fantasy? And what about my fantasy? That there was a real man out there who saw me. A man who couldn’t stop thinking about me. A man who made me feel like a woman worthy of being obsessed about.

But my advice is – have the courage to let your marriage be some fiery country in the throes of revolution where each of you speaks a different dialect and sometimes you can barely understand each other but it doesn’t matter because, well, each of you is fighting. Fighting for each other.

For the first half of your life each minute feels like a year, but for the second half, each year feels like a minute.

She loved rhubarb pie. She loved the morning sun. She loved drying the sheets on the clothesline, even in the dead of winter. She loved a good pot of jasmine tea. She loved orange rinds and gossip and peacock feathers. She loved plums.""Plums. Greengage plums?""Yes, greengage plums.

I'd never forget the smell of the orchard. It was imprinted on me like the scent of my mother's Aliage perfume. Overly sweet, musty, blossomy, leaves-turning, fruit-ripening.

It was August and the fields were high with corn. In the orchard the last of the peaches clung to their branches and the apples were showing their first pinkish blush. The vegetable garden overflowed with produce: peppers, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash.

All I have to say is - run, dive, pitch a tent... Spend hours on the phone with your best friend.... Wear bikinis. Drink tequila. Wake up in the morning happy for no good reason.... Lie in the grass, dream of your future, of your imperfect life & your imperfect marriage to your imperfect true love.... Because what else is there? Honestly, there's nothing else. Nothing else matters.

As I walked through the fog, back into the future, I made a list of everything I wanted to bring back with me: the heartbreaking indigo of a Greengage night sky, the sugared almonds I'd eaten in the dining hall, the hawing sound Fancy made when she laughed, the smells of freshly cut clover, sponge cake, and loam, Martha's steady gaze, the swish of my borrowed skirt.

We might miss the days of being unreachable.

When I'm in pain I want everyone I love on the island with me, sitting around the fire, getting drunk on coconut milk, banging out a plan.