Quotes from Aimee Nezhukumatathil

It is this way with wonder: it takes a bit of patience, and it takes putting yourself in the right place at the right time. It requires that we be curious enough to forgo our small distractions in order to find the world.

Under a brilliant moon, and unbeknownst to us, the darkened world silvers and shimmers from pink and ebony wings, a small thunder. We can't possibly hear such an astonishing wind while we try to keep in step with our small dances on this earth. But we should try. We should try.

There is a time for stillness, but who hasn't also wanted to scream with delight at being outdoors? To simply announce themselves and say, I'm here, I exist?

A snake heart can slide up and down the length of its body when it needs to. You'll never be able to catch my pulse, my shine.

But I think it's the quiet way you settle into the crook of a tree trunk, the still and slowdown of your heart in a world that wants us to be quick and to move onto the next thing.

How can one even imagine us getting back to a place where we know the names of the trees we walk by every single day? A place where "a bird" navigating a dewy meadow is transformed into something more specific, something we can hold onto by feeling its name on our tongues: brown thrasher. Or that "big tree": catalpa. Maybe what we can do when we feel overwhelmed is to start small. Start with what we have loved as kids and see where that leads us.

There's a spot over Lake Superior where migrating butterflies veer sharply. No one understood why they made such a quick turn at that specific place until a geologist finally made the connection: a mountain rose out of the water in that exact location thousands of years ago. These butterflies and their offspring can still remember a mass they've never seen,

This is the story of how, for years, I pretended I hated the color blue. But what the peacock can do is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life: My favorite color is peacock blue. My favorite color is peacock blue. My favorite color is peacock blue.

And when it eats—what a wild mess—when it gathers a tangle of bloodworms into its mouth, you will understand how a galaxy first learns to spin in the dark, and how it begins to grow and grow.

the firefly … only appears in summer, with the stink of meats sizzling somewhere down the street, and the mouths of neighborhood children stained with popsicle juice and hinging open with the excitement of a ball game or tag.

If a white girl tries to tell you what your brown skin can and cannot wear for makeup, just remember the smile of an axolotl.

Boom. Boom. You might think of a heartbeat—your own. A child's. Someone else's. Or something's heart. And in that slowdown, you might think it's a kind of love. And you'd be right.

There is a darkness behind all dances of color.

Maybe what we can do when we feel overwhelmed is to start small. Start with what we have loved as kids and see where that leads us.

Maybe that is the loneliest kind of memory: to be forever altered by an invisible kiss, a reminder of something long ago and crumbled, (…)

Sometimes it is possible to still embrace the wildness of home, even if the lone window in your room only blooms snow and more snow.

I'd rather share sunrise with him and loon call over the lake with him, the slap of shoreline threaded through screen windows with him—my heart slamming in my chest, against my shirt—a kind of kindling you'd never be able to light on your own.

This is the fruit for a time of year when the sun and all its gallop don't merely feel as though they have nudged us from a static winter, but into a fully alive, roaring season—when everything you touch feels like it could give you a blister and a bit of wild burn.

Our kitchen is a riot of pots, wooden spoons, melted butter. So be it. Maybe all this baking will quiet the angry voices next door, if only for a brief whiff. I want our summers to always be like this—a kitchen wrecked with love, a table overflowing with baked goods warming the already warm air. After all the pots are stacked, the goodies cooled, and all the counters wiped clean—let us never be rescued from this mess.

through the navy blue pause just moments after twilight.

Looking back back at the one and only time I've gone swimming with a whale shark, I realize I was simply unprepared to submit myself so completely to nature. Or rather, humans' interpretation and preservation of nature, by adding 1.8 million pounds of sea salt to a giant tank of water so all these creatures could live and swim together. For science. For entertainment. For spectacle. Perhaps for a little of all three.

Mommy, you are like a lady cardinal because you are brown. Why do you have better camouflage than daddy? Right now, I have medium camouflage. Will I be brown or white when I grow up? Why do some white people not like brown people? Don't worry, Mommy, you can hide in the forest from those bad people. You have good camouflage. Can I have good camouflage even though I'm half and half?

There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter. Any trace left on the knife will make a kitchen sink like that evening air the cool night before star showers: so sticky so warm so full of light