COSTING SOMEBODY SOMETHING

I did not do the park loop today, however, I did climb up the stairs (two flights) twice with a 25lb box of cat litter each time. Does that count? I climbed other stairs as well. And I did about 3 or 4 minutes of yoga. And I read a paragraph of French. And that was hard.

I saw Kita again.

I am back to having too many books out of the library, but at least some of them are graphic novels. (I decided I needed to read more of them.) I still have The Death of the Heart, lagging on my table weeks after we finished it at book group.

I have tagged a few passages and thought I might as well use this venue as a "commonplace book" ...




"For people who live on expectations, to face up to their realisation is something of an ordeal. Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realize themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt."

"...she had had it borne in on her that wherever anyone is they are costing somebody something, and that the cost must be met."

"The autumnal moment, such as occurs in all seasons, the darknening sea with its little commas of foam offered no limits to the loneliness she could feel, even when she was feeling quite resigned."

Cooder in one of her chairs.

"Let's face it—who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't."

"A face at a window for no reason is a face that should have a thumb in its mouth: there is something only-childish about it. Or, if the face is not foolish, it is threatening—blotted white by the darkness inside the room it suggests a malignant indoor power."

"... one kind of loneliness hammers in another..."

"There seemed to be some way she did not know of by which people managed to understand each other."

Emmylou's tail.

"One's nature is to forget, and one ought to go by that. Memory is quite unbearable enough but even so it leaves out quite a lot. It wouldn't let one down as gently, even, as that if it weren't more than half a fake—we remember to suit ourselves. ... believe me: if one didn't let oneself swallow some few lies, I don't know how one would ever carry the past. ... except at its one moment there's never any thing such as a bare fact. Ten minutes later, half an hour later, one's begun to gloze over the fact with a deposit of some sort."