Quotes by Aspen Matis, Girl in the Woods: A Memoir

“I'd crossed a borderSpeaking openly, exposing the weak girl I'd been, I was no longer her.”

“As if violence could make light. Maybe violence could make light.”

“If I couldn't find the trail before dark, I could wake tomorrow disoriented and desperate, without having even made any new miles; my loss of the PCT should have distressed me, but a new instinct l...”

“I didnt know if I was brave or reckless.”

“The harsh dimness that follows loss isnt static, but charged with the energy of immanent change. Hurt, I was left with a choice: wallow and stay in the dark, or seek light and fight to reach it. Th...”

“It finally had to.I understood that it wouldnt be easy, it would be very hard; Id need to resist the habit I had developed long ago with conviction. Id have to be impolite, an inconvenience, and s...”

“For this entire walk, my desire had ashamed me, as if my wanting to be kissed that night mitigated the fault of Junior's sudden deafness. I'd been given stacks of reasons to blame myself for an act...”

“For all my life, I had been passive when faced with dangers. I was stunned as I swam to find that I had, for the first time in my history, asserted myself and been truly heardrespected. It felt mon...”

“We arent afraid of what we can explain.”

“In the aftermath of destruction, a silence settles the stillness of fresh loss. Peoples cheerful chatter is fainter, the blue color of sky dimmer; now that horror is undeniable and feels inescapab...”

“But the truth was stranger than an aimless road, it always was.”

“My relationship with my mother trapped me in the identity of a child.”

“Living as Wild Child, I could no longer be Debby Parker comfortably this name that Id been given at birth that defined me before Id had the chance to define myself.”

“Shed taken care of me in all the ways my body needed, but the devastation of my rape had made me feel the weight of the essential way she had neglected me: she hadnt nurtured the potential of my st...”

“Squatting on my bedafter twelve years of trying and missing, in about two minutes totalI put my own contacts in for the first time. Second try on the right eye, first try on the left. I blinked in ...”

“I hoped my solitude would help me reclaim my innocence, remember who Id been, to find who I wanted to be. To become her. To love her, Deborah, Debby, Doll Girl, Wild Child, me, despite the irrevers...”

“I didnt know what I would do. There was no way I could survive. I stared at my damp tent ceiling, feeling the frigid air against me, the frozen ground against my bottom, so cold my bare skin burned...”

“This was a vision of wildness contained caged. Huge, powerful animals whose wild dignity was stripped from them.Panic jolted me. These animals had had their freedom seized by people who put their ...”

“He hadnt treated me with the love and compassion I wanted, but I was worthy of that love, and someday some boy would have it for me. I hadnt found it yet, but I would find it soon.”

“My path, beyond doubt or denial. I just hadnt looked toward it. I wasnt lost. Id always known the way. If Id only allowed myself to look. I had never been lost, only scared.”