I grieved my parents’ failings. My own life, which I saw stretching the length of that rhapsody.
-- Joy Harjo (chapter 1)

Importance: Harjo is writing about a moment while listening to jazz as a child. Her epiphany is feeling the longing, a sorrow and sadness within the notes, and she connects that note with her own life. This quote, at the beginning of the memoir, sets up the architecture of the piece (Harjo will often defy chronological order), and it begins with Harjo understanding that the entire memoir is a grieving process, one that contains gentleness and openness, one all wrapped up in a chord of music.

In the end, we must tend to our own gulfs of sadness, though others can assist is with kindness, food, good words, and music.”
-- Joy Harjo (chapter 1)

Importance: She is speaking about a humans’ tendency to fill our void with other items, perhaps commercialism, addictions or romances. However, eventually, if we choose...