A line from a book I carry with me — words that stopped me mid-page and stayed.
"Not all those who wander are lost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
We were deep into The Lord of the Rings — a long read, months of evenings — when we hit this line in Gandalf's letter. My son, who was ten at the time and had been restless and uncertain about a lot of things that year, went very quiet.
Later he asked me to write it down for him. He kept it on his desk for two years.
Some lines find the right reader at exactly the right moment. That's the gift of reading aloud together — you're in the room when it happens.