Beard in Mind by Penny Reid (Notes)

▪ Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”

― Isaac Asimov

▪ People—all people—are blinded by their own expectations.

▪ Folks with the highest degree of entitlement and inflated sense of self are the easiest to con, the easiest to exploit.

▪ “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”

― Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost

▪ knew how to work a smile and turn on the charm to achieve a goal.

▪ it’s hard to get to know someone who never spoke, but easy to like someone who always smiled.

▪ “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

▪ I was not a fan of uncertainty. I didn’t much like surprises—the good kind or the bad kind—and now I was discovering that an exclusive relationship—or potentially exclusive relationship—between two people apparently came with a truckload of uncertainty.

▪ It was a matching numbers car, a real beauty of a ride, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her. A matching numbers car is the term we classic automobile aficionados use to describe cars with original major components, or major components that match one another. Matching number cars are extremely rare, especially sixty-year-old Plymouths with less than sixty thousand miles on them.

▪ Now, I dawdled.

I wasn’t much of a dawdler. Usually, I was a doer.

▪ You don’t blame the chicken when a fox gets in the hen house ”

◆ Chapter 4

▪ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”

― George Orwell, 1984

▪ her. Smiles between strangers are a show, a mask, misdirection, manipulative.

▪ Therapy isn’t about ‘fixing,’ Shelly. We’re building strategies to help redirect your existing responses.

◆ Chapter 5

▪ “Quiet people have the loudest minds.”

― Stephen Hawking

▪ “I guarantee there’s more to that one than meets the eye.”

◆ Chapter 6

▪ “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

― George Bernard Shaw

▪ I cleared my throat again and reminded myself I wasn’t angry with Ashley. I wasn’t angry with the rest of my family either, for living life, for finding their soulmates, for moving forward.

▪ But settling for someone, or pushing for more with a person you don’t have strong feelings for, isn’t the way to go about getting a jump-start on living life.”

“It’s like y’all are . . .” leaving me behind.

▪ Why was it you never realized how much you would miss someone until they’d left?

◆ Chapter 7

▪ “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

▪ Usually, the good manners drilled into me by my momma and Grandma Oliver demanded that I wait for a pause in conversation, allowing me to end the call as politely as possible.

◆ Chapter 8

▪ When we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.”

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

▪ “That’s not true. You like people. You fear being close to people. Most of your fears, your obsessive thoughts and therefore compulsions, center around unintentionally hurting others. You have grown used to pushing people away—pushing people away is the compulsion—because you think it’s safer for them to keep their distance—concerns for their safety is the obsessive thought. People are not the problem. Your irrational obsessions, your worries about hurting people are the problem.”

▪ You need to stop referring to yourself or thinking of yourself in that way. Calling yourself crazy is giving up. You are in control, of your obsessions, of your compulsions, because you know they’re irrational. And you want to change.”

◆ Chapter 9

▪ Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

― Aristotle

▪ The search results returned a whole lot of scary stuff, and basically added up to the fact that folks cut themselves as a way to gain a sense of control. Often because at some point in their life, control was taken away without their permission. Which didn’t make much sense to me.

▪ Sleep was elusive from that point forward.

▪ Oh yeah? How do crazy people seem?”

His eyes cut to mine and his expression intensified. “Out of it, I guess. Out of touch. Messy. Emotional. She’s not messy at all. Have you noticed she’s been reorganizing the entire garage? Everything has a place. It’s nice. And, emotional? No. Other than hollering at you yesterday, she doesn’t seem to have any emotions at all.”

▪ She reminded me of Duane in a lot of ways, but to an extreme degree. Honest, clever, with zero patience for bullshit. But Duane shook peoples’ hands, and knew when to keep his opinions to himself, neither of which Shelly had seemed to master.

▪ don’t set yourself on fire trying to keep other people warm.”

◆ Chapter 10

▪ “Enough about my beauty,” Buttercup said. “Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I’ve got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.”

― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

▪ You dress for the job you want. And she’s dressed like she wants to have a good time. If she wanted to be inconspicuous, she’d dress inconspicuously. Right?”

◆ Chapter 11

▪ “He’s like a song she can’t get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn’t think she could ever get tired of hearing it.”

― Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

◆ Chapter 12

▪ If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

▪ This woman was going to be the death of me. How was it possible to both dislike and admire a person this much? To want—no, crave—so badly to be in her company and be rid of her at the same time?

◆ Chapter 13

▪ “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

▪ So the obsession is the thought, and the compulsion is what you do to avoid the thought?”

▪ Because from what I’ve seen, the glimpses of herself she’s shared with me, it’s a damn shame no one else gets to see it. It leads me to suspect that what we see of her on the outside has nothing on the beauty on the inside.”

▪ What must that be like? To be a prisoner to your own mind? To have your actions and desires held hostage by irrational fear?

◆ Chapter 14

▪ It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

― Aristotle, Metaphysics

◆ Chapter 15

▪ To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”

― Kahlil Gibran

◆ Chapter 16

▪ “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

― Aristotle

▪ “It’s very difficult for people who haven’t lived it to understand why others self-injure. It’s easy to assume all attempts at harm are rooted in suicidal thoughts.”

▪ You and I have discussed deserving at great length. And you agreed you would stop deciding what people deserve. What Beau deserves is his choice. What your brother and parents deserve is their choice. You can only be yourself. You must let them decide.”

▪ Not at all. Your OCD is a big part of your life, and it always will be to varying degrees, but it isn’t the sum total of who you are. You’re a world-class artist, I’ve read articles describing you as a genius. You’re also a gifted mechanic. You donate your time and money to worthy causes. You’ve fostered countless animals. You have a great deal of empathy and a lot to offer a person.”

▪ Let him see these parts of you, give him time to discover how great you are. Then—when or if the obsessive thoughts start—you’ll have a solid foundation. You’ll be able to reason your way through it. You’ll have a level of confidence in him, that he knows who you are and that’s why he’s with you. If you rush into things, it’ll be easy to doubt, both him and yourself.”

▪ o Exposure and Response Prevention.

◆ Chapter 17

▪ “I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.”

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

◆ Chapter 18

▪ The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

― C.G. Jung

▪ It occurred to me in that moment, transfixed by her exquisite smile, that Shelly likely didn’t know how to be disingenuous. She may have hidden behind her defenses, but whenever I flat-out asked her a question she always answered with honesty—sometimes brutal, but always real.

▪ You focus on others, you draw them out, and you’re unfailingly accommodating. That’s why everyone likes you.”

▪ “People like you because of how you make them feel. That’s why people don’t like me, or it’s one of the main reasons. I don’t know how to do that.”

◆ Chapter 19

▪ People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”

― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

▪ People need to be polished, to be stroked, touched,” her tone was abstract, “and when they’re not polished, their colors fade. They fade, they change, warp, become something different.”

▪ Stop telling me the shop ain’t my business, and stop cutting me out of things that matter.”

◆ Chapter 20

▪ We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

▪ Sometimes, things are sad and unfortunate. But finding the funny in a situation can make the sad and unfortunate more bearable.”

◆ Chapter 21

▪ “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

▪ described the therapy as a way for a person to face their fear in a safe environment, realize the fear was irrational, and stop the person from engaging in the compulsion as a way to avoid the fear.

▪ mandatory conditions of the therapy: graded, prolonged, repeated, without distraction, and without compulsion. Then she went over the meaning of each, how they would be applied in the initial attempt, and guidelines for how they should be followed over the next week.

▪ Dr. West says I need to interrupt the pattern, every day. I need people, distraction, surprises, ‘normal’ stress. Routines are okay as long as they reinforce good habits, like running in the morning, walking the dogs at night, or arriving to work on time. They keep my anxiety low because they’re part of making responsible decisions and keeping me healthy. But other routines, those that I put in place only to avoid anxiety, can become like a prison.”

▪ Don’t let anyone in your life who isn’t the best, and don’t hesitate walking away from a person who can’t give you what you need.”

◆ Chapter 22

▪ “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

― John Milton, Paradise Lost

◆ Chapter 23

▪ The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”

― Thomas Paine, A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal on the Affairs of North America

▪ My life was overflowing with uncertainty at present. Almost two weeks ago, I’d stood on the edge of this cliff and wondered what was below. Now I’d jumped, and I was falling, and I needed to know she would be there when I hit the bottom

▪ then I knew how to know whether a person’s feelings ran deep.

So I was flat-out honest. “She makes you a priority.”

◆ Chapter 24

▪ “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

― Albert Einstein

▪ This is what you should do.” Roscoe began pacing, and his pacing hurt my head. I closed my eyes as he continued, “The next time you see her, be aloof. Pretend you don’t see her at all. That drives them crazy. Then when she comes over to you—’cause if she wanted you before, she still does—don’t even mention the last time you saw her. Compliment something she’s wearing, like her earrings, and then—”

◆ Chapter 25

▪ “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gra

▪ Don’t set yourself on fire trying to keep others warm.

▪ After “Skylark,” we slow danced to “Fools Rush In,” and “Come Rain or Come Shine.” But when “Jeepers Creepers”

◆ Chapter 26

▪ “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

― Plutarch

▪ If something breaks, we fix it. That’s what we do.”

▪ It wouldn’t be the same . . . if it broke.”

▪ You can’t be worried about breaking things all the time, Shelly. Things are gunna get broke whether you want them to or not. And if you’re tiptoeing around, not buying teacups out of fear that they might someday break, then you’ll never know the joy of—of—”

“Of?”

I gave her my most serious of looks. “You’ll never know the joy of drinking tea from a real, bona fide, fancy-as-shit teacup.”

◆ Chapter 27

▪ “I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.”

― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

▪ Pick a date, and stick to it, even if you’re not ready to initiate touch. If you wait, you will miss out. I’m sure your family would agree. At a certain point, it’s better to go as you are than to wait until you’re who you want to be.”

▪ All people are broken, Shelly. No one is perfect. Some seek help. Some don’t. But no one is ever fixed by another person. We can only work on ourselves. We are—using your analogy—our own refrigerators, no one else’s.”

▪ “You can be supportive of Beau, hold the tools for him while he works on his refrigerator, remind him to take a break, show interest in his struggles. You can do things, gestures of kindness that show him he’s appreciated, that you care about him. But no one can fix Beau’s refrigerator except Beau.”

◆ Chapter 28

▪ Yes, I was infatuated with you: I am still. No one has ever heightened such a keen capacity of physical sensation in me. I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. And you weren't having any of those.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

▪ Compassion without love felt suspiciously like pity. So instead I went home, drank exactly one glass of the Aberfeldy, and read poetry.

▪ It was a poem entitled, ‘The More Loving One.’

Huffing a laugh at the ironically appropriate title, I read the verse, expecting lots of how I love thee’s and thou arts. But when I reached the second stanza, I blinked, my breath catching, and I reread it again,

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

▪ People, they’re nice to you ’cause they like you. You’re easy to like. People are nice to me because they want something. Except you. You don’t want anything.”

▪ Cause after a while, being friends with someone who never asks for anything makes you feel like shit.”

I jerked back, frowning at my friend and his declaration. “I make you feel like shit?”

“Yep. You got no need of me. Take last Wednesday for instance. I made a mistake. I made a big one. And you walked away, not giving me even two minutes to explain.”

▪ Hate to break it to you, but you can’t force a person to be your friend. Nor can you buy friendship.”

◆ Chapter 29

▪ “The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful.”

― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

▪ “I’m not saying this because I feel sorry for myself. I do not feel sorry for myself. The wiring in my brain is wrong, it is defective. Before I sought help from Dr. West, I had to accept that there was something wrong with me and stop making excuses for my behavior. A mental disorder is not like a physical one. My mind and I are not one and the same. I don’t trust myself all the time, but I am working on that. I’m working to rewire my brain.”

▪ I hate being afraid all the time. There is nothing of value about my fear. It’s irrational, it’s harmful—to me and the people I . . . the people in my life.” She sniffled, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of my shirt. “But you never looked at me like that, like I was defective. Nothing about me scared you. You never felt sorry for me. You took everything in your stride.”

▪ She wasn’t broken, but her words made me want to break something. Her fear wasn’t beautiful. But her strength, her resolve, her brilliance and goodness were. She wouldn’t be who she was now without her struggles. Life had shaped her, her fear had formed her, and I wouldn’t have her any differently.

“Checking on me, hovering, treating me like I’m weak, it makes me feel broken. It is humiliating.”

▪ I guess . . . that makes sense.”

“The thing about Darrell is, he’s a master at getting people to think he’s a good guy. I hate him, I do. But I see what he is and I understand why she stayed. He’s basically all of us. Fun-loving as Jethro. Handsome as Billy. Smart as Cletus. Soulful—or the appearance of it—as Ashley. Reckless as Duane. All with the pretense of being as well-meaning as Roscoe.”

“What about you?”

“Charming as me.” I peered down at her, giving her a self-deprecating smile.

▪ What do you mean then? Hold my tools?”

“Bounce ideas off me, go through scenarios. What’s the worst-case scenario if you tell Duane the truth?”

◆ Chapter 30

▪ “I think . . . if it is true that

there are as many minds as there

are heads, then there are as many

kinds of love as there are hearts.”

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

▪ As time together grows scarce, it also becomes more precious.”

▪ So I hugged my family. I wrapped them in my arms and took a moment to be grateful that they were mine.

▪ Physically, the woman was a goddess, and she didn’t seem to care.

Of course she didn’t care.

It would be so easy to look at her and only ever see the shell, be blinded by her form. But her flaws, her resilience in the face of her struggles, her strength of character and honor, that’s what made her who she was.

▪ She was exquisite to me and I loved her because I knew her. And I felt sorry for everyone else who wouldn’t be able to look beyond her exterior to the true beauty within.

◆ Chapter 31

▪ “The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.”

― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

▪ How can I help you? What do you say or do when you need to push through your fears?”

She shook her head, her body stiff, but then she recited on a rush, “Thinking that a person is prone toward violence because of the number of words in their sentences is irrational. I will face this irrational fear and conquer it. I am in control of my actions. I’m not violent.”

▪ My momma always said you should meet a guest in shoes, family in socks, and friends in bare feet.

◆ Chapter 32

▪ When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”

― Mark Twain, Notebook

▪ “Actually, bears make the worst fathers. They eat their young. Or, to be more accurate, they eat bear cubs that might be their young

▪ No. Billy.” I gave my older brother a severe scowl. “This is my refrigerator. I need to do it. You can’t be doing everything for all of us. Don’t keep shouldering all the burdens. Otherwise, we’ll never learn how.”

◆ Chapter 33

▪ I shall take the heart. For brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

◆ Chapter 34

▪ “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”

― Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

◆ Chapter 35

▪ Separation

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

― W.S. Merwin

▪ I was thinking about our conversation, back in October, about how things change. It seems to me things are changing so fast, every time I blink, something crucial is different.”

“And some things never change.” I squeezed her fingers. “Like how if you’re not happy, then no one gets to be happy.” I shifted my eyes meaningfully to Drew.

◆ Epilogue

▪ Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.”

― E.E. Cummings

▪ “As a philosophy,” I pointed to the cup, “the point of kintsugi is to treat broken pieces and their repair as part of the history of an object. A break is something to remember, something of value, a way to make the piece more beautiful, rather than something to disguise. They use gold, not invisible superglue, because mistakes shouldn’t be considered ugly. Broken pieces and their repair merely contribute to the story of an object, they don’t ruin it.”