—I KNOW THAT I’M TALKING TOO MUCH, BUT I WANNA BE SOMEONE

 

 

 

…Hey. Hi.

I hope that you had a fabulous weekend, and that if you’re a Mom, you got celebrated in a big way.

I spent most of mine working on final edits for my new book of essays. The cover and galleys look so great. I hope someone actually wants to read it.

 

…Speaking of reading, the below are from “The Life of the Mind,” a novel I sort of have a love-hate attitude toward. I suppose that’s good, because writing is supposed to make you feel something—joy, revulsion, sorrow, laughter…something.

Anyway, there were a lot of bits of wisdom sprinkled throughout, and here are the ones I liked the best…  

 

 

--“Feelings can be like catching a cold. You never know ahead of time how sick they might make you.”

 

“Waiting time is agony, particularly when one has no idea what one is waiting for.”

 

“What is the point of any of this, if we can’t be honest with each other?”

 

“True, divorce was hard, but divorce was also a kind of glory. It announced that you had loved and been consumed in the flames, that you had lived; and afterwards, it made you serious and deep.”

 

“Sometimes you resent someone for the wrongs they have done to you and sometimes you resent them for the wrongs you have done to them.”

 

“But it was also true that no one should have to tell anyone everything; that isn’t friendship, it’s extortion.”

 

“When someone has everything, even if you love them, you sometimes wish that they had a little less.”

 

“Sometimes in correcting one set of mistakes you end up making entirely new ones.”

 

“And then, there was something so relaxing about being around a talker. All you had to do was keep them going.”

 

“She grinned with the unmistakable pleasure of watching the person you love do something they excel at.”

 

“Seriously, can you think of one situation that wouldn’t be improved with a glass of water?”

 

“It’s hard to know when something ends.”

 

“In the old days, the post office was proof that you believed in the possibility of reaching someone, anyone. That a letter could arrive.”

 

“No one was perfect, but near-perfection was the natural state of the human being. Made in the image of God, with some room to improve.”

 

“Just make sure to explain how whatever ending you choose gives everything before it meaning.”

 

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at stars.”

 

 

         --Christine Smallwood, “The Life of the Mind”