{"author":"Dee Williams","author_id":"Dee+Williams","total_quotes":34,"quotes":[{"text":"Grief makes gravity heavier and air molecules denser, so breathing is accomplished in a shallow, half-hearted way.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["breathing","grief","grief-and-loss","grieving"],"id":7118,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"My friends stood on the ground two feet below me, and miles away from understanding why I would want to sleep on a trailer platform... I couldn't possibly begin to explain what was only beginning to bud inside me: I wanted a home. I wanted to be at home, in the world and in my body (a feeling I had been missing since I'd woken up in the hospital) and somehow, in some as yet undefined way, I knew that windows in the great room and a skylight over my bed were going to help with that.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["belonging","home","the-big-tiny"],"id":17840,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"The space reminded me of the small hay-bale clubhouses and scrap-wood tree forts that my brothers and I had made as kids - high up spaces where you could see things differently, where you could get your bearings.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["bearings","perspective","the-big-tiny"],"id":17861,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"Perhaps the current state of my health should have raised a bright red caution flag, but instead it fired me up. I wanted to do what I wanted. I didn't care if hefting plywood and climbing ladders weren't on my doctor's recommended list of activities, or if I was foolhardy to think I could lift a fifty-pound roll of tar paper into and then out of my car. I was going to do it because it sounded like a blast, like the best possible way to have fun.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["fun","health","the-big-tiny"],"id":23210,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"I had worked my way through a thousand problems, like when the tar paper bulged on the corners so I used a strap wrapped around the whole house and ratcheted it tight to attach the trim; I had figured that out without using a book, and that was just one of a bunch of ideas that had saved the day. I liked it; I was falling in love with the way my kneecaps knew how to hold a piece of plywood halfway up till I could grab the underside with my hand. I like the way the little house was taking shape, and the way it seemed to double-dog dare me to step in... Move in.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["ideas","problems","solutions","the-big-tiny"],"id":37004,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"We were taught not to offer or invite aid, because, like it or not, helping is a messy, confused proposition; sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, and sometimes you have no choice but to trust that the man holding your tire iron, cussing at your old lug nuts, is a deeply kind human after all.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["aid","kindness","the-big-tiny"],"id":37523,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"That obstinate sense of independence was the biggest challenge I face in building my little house (that, and not always knowing what I was doing). I was stubborn in the way I hated to ask for help. Some people are good at it, asking friends or their husbands to collect ginger ale and crackers at the grocery because they feel nauseous, or standing on the side of the road with a tire iron in one hand, hoping someone will stop to change their flat tire. I'm not like that; I'd rather have a rough stick dragged across my gums than walk to the neighbor's house to borrow sugar or ask for help jump-starting my car.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["asking-for-help","challenge","independence","stubborn","the-big-tiny"],"id":39689,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"I thought: This is what the living do. And I swooned at the ordinary nature of the task and myself, at my chapped hands and square palms, at the way my wrists bent and fingers flexed inside this living body.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["body","living","ordinary","the-big-tiny"],"id":51402,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"I think I'm more curious than I used to be - curious about why people live like they do and how they make sense of their time... Do they see how the sun has made it like a champion around the world overnight, and that all day today we get another chance to be brave, to exercise our humanity with boldness and deft precision?","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["boldness","brave","curiosity","humanity","the-big-tiny"],"id":114142,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"},{"text":"I never saw this coming - the little house was working its magic, connecting me to people and materials I never would have guessed would find their way into the picture.","author":"Dee Williams","tags":["connection","magic","the-big-tiny"],"id":116088,"author_id":"Dee+Williams"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":34,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}