so the first time i was in a psych ward was sept 2015. i was there for a couple weeks. there was a library there but most of the books sucked. i breezed through a gillian flynn book that should NOT have been in there in a couple days, then didn't really have any curiosity at all about the other books there. i was just picking up and looking at a few, but none seemed intriguing, but then i picked up Cold Mountain. back cover didn't make it seem horrible so i opened it up and within a few words of the prose i was hooked
i read it a bunch while i was there. one quote really stuck with me, and i took note of it. i hadhn't finished the book when i was let out, and although i was adoring it, and although i very very nearly always finish books i start, i wasn't going to particularly look out for it at the library or bookstore or anything. i wasn't really thinking about when i'd finish some book i started reading because the rest of the psych ward library was shit
in nov 2015 i was back in. sent to the hospital on thursday, admitted by friday at 4am, last dismissal time before the weekend was friday at 10am, and i honestly was fine, but the docs wouldn't let me out until monday...too short a turnaround, repercussions to actions, etc. the first time i was in, i was terrified to leave, but this time i was going nuts wanting to be out there and continuing my life and trying to move it in the direction i wanted it to (although ultimately that took several years to start doing, but i digress). and so, i continued reading Cold Mountain where i left off. again, one quote really stuck with me, and i took note of it
i eventually did finish the book, and i loved it, and it's probably in my top 10
here is the quote i took note of during my first stay:
here is the quote i took note of during my second stay:Ada looked up with some disappointment to the faint lacework of pale blue sky visible through the leaves. She wished rain were falling so she would feel even more protected as it rustled the leaves overhead. The occasional drop that might find its way through, plopping a tiny crater into the dust, would only emphasize that though inside she remained dry, outside rain fell wholesale. Ada wished never to leave this fine shelter, for when she considered the pass she had lately reached, she wondered how a human being could be raised more impractically for the demands of an exposed life.
The rain came down harder and a few drops made their way through the hatching of the arbor and hissed in the fire. It was a lonesome sound, the rain and the fire and nothing else. Inman tried to picture himself living similarly hermetic in just such a stark and lonesome refuge on Cold Mountain. Build a cabin on a misty frag of rock and go for months without seeing another of his kind. A life just as pure and apart as the goatwoman’s seemed to be. It was a powerful vision, and yet in his mind he saw himself hating every minute of it, his days poisoned by lonesomeness and longing.