This book was given to me as a birthday gift this past September by my friend, Ryan. It's been here on my nightstand waiting to be read. I have noticed the universe sending me messages (not to sound too crazy). Themes are developing. Today I needed something from the universe. I also needed my new thing for the day. I sent out the question and without hesitation I knew it was time to read the book. I just read it from cover to cover in about 2 hours. I not only loved it and all of its tales but I'm letting it speak for itself. Spoiler alert: these are direct quotes from the book. If you've read it, it'll remind you of how wonderful it is. If you haven't maybe it will inspire you to read it. If you just want some things to think about...well, here they are. Please excuse quote and grammar rules because it's late and I'm sort of tired. Oh and Ryan...THANK YOU!
"Now: I believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup...and that all of her memory would then be used up in sadness and dead ends and being hurt, and at the end of it all there would be...nothing-no more new feelings."
"Sometimes I think the people to feel the saddest for are people who are unable to connect with the profound...and then sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder - people who closed the doors that lead us into the secret world - or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness."
"Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy."
"When you're young, you always feel that life hasn't yet begun - that "life" is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays - whenever. But then suddenly you're old and the scheduled life didn't arrive. You find yourself asking, "Well then, exactly what was it I was having -that interlude - the scrambly madness - all that time I had before ?""
"My mother comes to visit and she talks while she washes my dishes. She does not see things the way I do. She says that your mother is young and will see things differently after a while. Just hang in there. She says that what we are going through is common in couples and one of the great points of life - but is survivable. She scrubs and puts order into the chaos. She says: "First there is love, then there is disenchantment and then there is the rest of your life. " And I say, "But what about the rest of your life - what about all the time that remains?" And she says, "Oh- there's friendship. Or at least familiarity. And there's safety. And after that there's sleep." I think to myself: How do any of us know that it's going to end up like this? That this is all there was maybe going to be? I say, "Oh God." Any my mother says to me, "Honey, God is what keeps us together after the love is gone.""
"And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened."
"Yet how often is it we are rescued by a stranger, if ever at all? And how is it that our lives become drained of the possibility of forgiveness and kindness - so drained that even one small act of mercy becomes a potent lifelong memory? How do our lives reach these points? It is with these thoughts in mind that I now see the drifter's windburned face when I now consider my world - his face that reminds me that there is still something left to believe in. A face for people like me - who were pushed to the edge of loneliness and who maybe fell off and who when they climbed back on, our world never looked the same."
"And then suddenly I realized that I was feeling -well, that I was actually feeling. My old personality was, returning. Just the littlest bit- but my essence was already asserting itself, however weakly at this point. I felt a lump in my throat, and I spent the rest of the day walking around this strange and beautiful city, remembering myself, what it used to feel like to be me, before I switched myself off, before I stopped listening to my inner voices."
"And that is my story until now. Her I now lie, on my stomach, looking out at the dark wet world, pulling the blanket tighter around me,...knowing that this is the end of the some aspect of my life, but also a beginning - the beginning of some unknown secret that will reveal itself to me soon. All I need do is ask and pray."
"Now - here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond able to love."
No comments:
Post a Comment