from "Miles City, Montana" by Alice Munro

"I wanted to hide so that I could get busy at my real work, which was a sort of wooing of distant parts of myself. I lived in a state of siege, always losing just what I wanted to hold on to. But on trips there was no difficulty. I could be talking to Andrew, talking to the children and looking at whatever they wanted me to look at--a pig on a sign, a pony in a field, a Volkswagen on a revolving stand--and pouring lemonade into plastic cups, and all the time those bits and pieces would be flying together inside me. The essential composition would be achieved. This made me hopeful and lighthearted. It was being a watcher that did it. A watcher, not a keeper."

--Alice Munro, "Miles City, Montana"

east north carolina in the summertime