Don't tell me we're not like plants, sending out a shoot when we need to, or spikes, poisonous oils, or flowers. Come to me but only when I say, that's how plants announce the rules of propagation. Even children know this. You can see them imitating all the moves with their bright plastic toys. So that, years later, at the moment the girl's body finally says yes to the end of childhood, a green pail with an orange shovel will appear in her mind like a tropical blossom she has never seen before.
from: The Snow Watcher. Copyright 1998.
