Bookworm had to return her copy to the library, but I think the grandmother's meditation she wanted to share was this (in any case, it's the meditation I want to share):
When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended.
How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
8 comments:
This last sentence is sooooo true
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
I have to remember it, as it's one of the things I have trouble with
I have to look up that book. I loved the excerpt.
Yes! Read it! It's better than good!
Agreed! A wonderful, wonderful book. Highly recommended. So funny, so deeply sad.
"I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness."
I had already copied this quote before I read Claude's comment.
I think it is growing old and also growing wise.
I lost two best friends this year and mourning them is long, slow, and painful. I try to accept the sadness of these losses by dwelling on the happiness (really joy) that my friends, brought. I have blogged about this recently in my post "Jean Rice, beloved friend."
Another happy note: Our mutual blogging friend Stephanie invited me to join your salon this evening. And I look forward to meeting the one on whose blog I have been a lurker many months.
Wow I have GOT to read this book. That excerpt is amazing.
Tamar - I look forward to meeting my "Atlanta lurker!"
Yael - Come to soup this afternoon! You can meet Tamar and I'll lend you the book.
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