Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World: List 1

“I see a longing in you, Aristotle Mendoza.”
“A longing?”
“Yes. A yearning.”

I watched him as he bounded up the steps. He moved with the grace of the swimmer that he was.

She almost smiled. “Don’t kid yourself, Ari. You can’t think your way out of this one.”
“How can you be so casual about this, Mom?”

I loved that he brought so much laughter into what was once the pathetic- melancholy -boy thing I used to do all the time.

“You’re laughing at me.”
“No, I’m not. Do you hear me laughing?”
“You’re laughing on the inside. I can tell.”
“Yeah, I’m laughing on the inside. You’re relentless.”

“Ari, are you gonna hear me out? Or are you gonna editorialize?”

“Look, just listen to the list, and then you can throw in your irony and sarcasm after I’m done.”

In another version, he dies saying, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

You looked at me and it was as if something passed between us. It seemed to me that it was something very intimate—and I don’t mean that there was anything inappropriate about it. But you noticed something about me.

You don’t have to have ESP to have a very acute sense of perception. You read people. It’s a gift.

A man, trying his best to keep his composure, was speaking into the microphone of a news reporter.

I keep thinking about Dante and the cartographer thing. Making a map of the new world. Wouldn’t that be something fantastically, amazingly beautiful? The world according to Ari and Dante. Dante and me walking through a world, a world nobody had ever seen, and mapping out all the rivers and valleys and creating paths so that those who came after us wouldn’t have to be afraid—and they wouldn’t get lost.

“You’re interesting, Dante. You love words like ‘interminable,’ as in ‘I’m interminably bored,’ and words like ‘liminal’—”

“I did. I can even use it in a sentence: Aristotle and Dante reside in a liminal space.”

"...Mom and Dad spoiled you like crazy.”
“Ahh, sibling resentments.”

There would be a road that led to the desert, and I would name the desert Arid because it contained my name and I would take that road and I would stand there, in the desert named Arid, and I would see a summer storm coming in, and I would breathe in, and understand that the smell of that storm was the smell of God.

“I find that philosophy quite laudable.”

The white dunes are composed of gypsum crystals,
 which never heat up even on the hottest summer days and create an ideal hiking environment for a comfortable barefoot experience, perfect for individuals who have an antipathy for shoes.

The white dunes are composed of gypsum crystals,
 which never heat up even on the hottest summer days and create an ideal hiking environment for a comfortable barefoot experience, perfect for individuals who have an antipathy for shoes.

“You’re getting pretty good at not rolling your eyes at me. It shows restraint.”

“Well, I only know how to make rice and warm up leftovers.” That sweet look on his face. Dante could be humble.

What your father did and what I did when he and I were underage is, one, none of your business, and two, irrelevant to your situation. I’m a parent, and you may want to believe that all I want to do is control you, but you’d be wrong about that. I just don’t want you two to get into any trouble.

“No, I don’t think I’d ever heard that word. Didn’t have a clue. But now I’ve added a new word to my lexicon.”

And all of a sudden, with that one question, he went from clowning around to being pensive and serious.

You know, that time I was at your house and you told me that your mom was inscrutable? I didn’t really know what that word meant, so I went home and looked it up.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe it’s a good idea not to go for camp.”
“Well, for now, we’re all about the level-field thing and not the tacky-horrible-taste thing.”

“You have something I’ll never have. You have humility. And that word lives inside you. And you don’t even know it.”

I think I have impeccable taste in men.

Well, because people aren’t logical. I mean, people aren’t all that consistent, if you think about it. They jump around from here to there to there because, well, like I said, people don’t think in straight lines, and that’s okay, it’s what makes people interesting, and maybe it’s what makes the world go ’round.

They’ve been gone most of the summer. Otherwise they would have been badgering me. And they’d have talked you into being their friend.

There wasn’t anyone in the gallery except a woman who had a calm, friendly, and sophisticated look about her. Dante liked the word “sophisticated.” I took the word to mean a rich person who knew how to be nice to people who weren’t as rich as they were.

And everything seemed so serene. That was the word.
I remembered Dante on his bed, and me sitting on his big chair as he read the definition for that word from his well-worn dictionary: Calm, peaceful, untroubled, tranquil.

Neither he nor I was serene by nature. Me, my head was always cluttered with too many things, and Dante, his head was always creating some kind of art.

I know your virtues and I know your vices. And one of the vices you need to work on is that you think you can talk your way out of anything. That’s a terrible quality, Dante, and not one you got from either of us.

I know you don’t like rules—and I don’t know of too many boys your age who do—but you not liking the rules is not a compelling reason for you to break them.

“I really do not wish to have this discussion in front of children. It just isn’t appropriate.”
“Ari isn’t a child. He’s almost a man. I’m sure he can handle it.”
“I thought you were a more discreet mother.”

“I swear I could choke that woman. I could choke her and go in front of a judge, and in all honesty and sincerity, I would plead justifiable homicide. And I am absolutely certain I’d get an acquittal.”

She looked at me intently with her dark, dark eyes, and I knew that even though dogs didn’t understand the language of human beings, they did understand the language of love.

And Dante, my mom, she is one fine, fantastic, feisty lady. And if my life is going to be a war because I love you, which means I like guys, then I'm one lucky guy to have my mom fighting that war right beside me.

“Because,” she said, “it’s our tradition that we surround the mourners with our love. Our presence gives them consolation when they feel inconsolable. That matters.”