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c49cf7a
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People here just can't wait to die, it seems. It's the main event. The only reason we're not all snuffed at birth is because that would reduce our suffering by a lifetime.
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Miriam Toews |
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dd5871b
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I said. I'm a maid. I'm a dancer, she said. She stuck her elbows out and snapped her fingers. Well, I said. I get paid. Well, she said. I get applause. Well, I said. I get paid and with that money I rent an apartment and buy food. And a television. Well, she said. I get applause and with that affirmation of my amazing talent I feel happy and confident and cool. Well, I said. Enjoy your life as a dancer. Well, she said. Enjoy your life as a ..
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Miriam Toews |
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85fec9c
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Our dreams are little stories or puzzles that we must solve to be free, Sebastian said. He was reading out loud from Wilson's notebook. My dream is me offering me a solution to the conundrum of my life. My dream is me offering me something that I need and my responsibility to myself is to try to understand what it means. Our dreams are a thin curtain between survival and extinction.
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sleep
dreams
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Miriam Toews |
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db1a63c
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I could see my mother's beater Chevy way down below in the parking lot and I pushed the green button on her automatic starter to see how far away I could be from something to make it come to life. Nothing happened, no lights came on.
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Miriam Toews |
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bca58ca
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the idea of "working well" was a relative one for us and that in the context of our present lives my mother was right, it was absolutely fine, no problem."
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Miriam Toews |
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0d985f6
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Everything in life, except her kids, made her impatient. She had tried to do a million things. She'd wanted to be a documentary filmmaker and then a painter and then a tiny-ceramic-figure maker. None of it panned out. She'd be full of enthusiasm at first, full of big ideas and energy and drive, but it would all gradually evaporate and disappear. She could never maintain the momentum or the concentration or the confidence she needed to get a..
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mental-illness
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Miriam Toews |
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65eecca
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Tash had warned me about running. It's for idiots and children.
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Miriam Toews |
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cbdbcc9
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None of us have ever asked the men for anything, Agata states. Not a single thing, not even for the salt to be passed, not even for a penny or a moment alone or to take the washing in or to open a curtain or to go easy on the small yearlings or to put your hand on the small of my back as I try, again, for the twelfth or thirteenth time, to push a baby out of my body.
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motherhood
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Miriam Toews |
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a0f5001
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When she looked at me she saw a child surrounded by flames, screaming. And that must have been hard for her.
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Miriam Toews |
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79702cd
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But what is the bedrock of civilized society? Libraries, said Elf.
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Miriam Toews |
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d060bd9
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The truth is, I don't have a catchy method of conversing and yet unfortunately suffer of a minute to minute basis the agony of the unexpressed thought.
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Miriam Toews |
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2f2f3f3
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Listen, I said, I don't think you understand. I don't want to be presumptuous, but really how could you understand what another person's suicide means? My friend asked the waitress for more coffee. I said that actually, now, I'd begun to measure a person's character and integrity by their ability to kill themselves.
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Miriam Toews |
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e7388df
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I find it curious that she hasn't been excommunicated. Are her small acts of rebellion a convenient outlet for Peters, a type of performance that satisfies the colonists' need to assert themselves, and that allows Peters to act with impunity on a larger scale?
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religion
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Miriam Toews |
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dbe3f8c
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Perhaps all of us are crazy, Ona says. Of course we're all crazy, says Mejal. How can we not be?
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feminism
religion
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Miriam Toews |
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4156f2a
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Salome interrupts. We're not members! she repeats. We are the women of Molotschna. The entire colony of Molotschna is built on the foundation of patriarchy (translator's note: Salome didn't use the word "patriarchy" - I inserted it in the place of Salome's curse, of mysterious origin, loosely translated as "talking through the flowers"), where the women live our their days as mute, submissive, and obedient servants. Animals. Fourteen-year-o..
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women
religion
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Miriam Toews |
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d1ebae8
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I googled 'suicide gene' but cancelled the search at the last second. I didn't want to know. Plus, I already knew. People ask: but how does this happen? To think that even with all the security measures we employ these days to keep things out - fences and motion detectors and cameras and sunscreen and vitamins and deadbolts and chains and bike helmets and spinning classes and guards and gates - we can have secret killers lurking inside us? ..
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suicide
dying
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Miriam Toews |
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2efefa6
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Ona protests, quietly, that she doesn't believe that at all. She doesn't believe in authority, period, because authority makes people cruel. Salome interrupts: The people with authority or the people without?
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Miriam Toews |