The Way Seahorses Hang On by Anne Panning


From the first sentence this feels like an instant classic piece of writing, and the writing is just filled with visual language and thought-provoking metaphor. This story has come back to me almost daily for a week.

Rain gush-pummels our car. Whippet wipers slash frantically at the whitecaps. Off to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, to watch our daughter, Lily’s, volleyball tournament. It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving, and our son, Hudson, is meeting us there from Pittsburgh. 

After we’ve tunneled our way out of the storm, we’re spit into a mystical world of blue that looks exhausted. I grab my book: The Curious World of Seahorses. 

“Did you know,” I ask my husband, Mark, “that seahorses are surprisingly loud? And they love to dance?” 

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