I knew that I did. I didn't like that either but it was better than sitting slump-shouldered and spineless on a stool while the inexorable waters advanced.
So, in a way, I was going to them.
I could have said I was getting away, but I was seeking something rather than fleeing. In my mind, at least.
I hated them because I was stuck to them, was of them, yet there was nothing admirable or enviable about them. It was not so much that they were not memorable, in the sense that the world craved news of them or to wear the same type of shoes or deoderant that they did, it was that I did not respect them. There was nothing in them, in the statements of their lives, which I respected. I had ignored this; it had saddened me; now it enraged me.
Many things did.
I often thought of Jackson at times like this. At times like this he was usually the first one I thought of. Sometimes it was Lyman, but usually it was Jackson.
Before me, in a broad dip in the road, just before a curve, there was the tree. A great old split-trunked wild oak all scraggly and dark. Its beauty, built of age, strength, form, position, made me catch my breath and it caught my attention and held it away from the turquoise truck.

(Cella) I don't know how long I had sat upon my stool staring at my ravaged boots.