You must learn now, that the important lesson – as long as you have your health – is that the divide is not between the servants and the served, between the leisured and the workers, but between those who are interested in the world and its multiplicity of forms and forces, and those who merely subsist, worrying and yawning.
— Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, A.S. Byatt (excerpt here)
In other words, try to remember what it was like to be her:
Amen!
Have a great weekend!
oh my god!!! look how cute you were! (and still are :) i just want to pick you up and squeeze you!
Mere – I know – look how happy I am!
And seriously, my fashion sense has not changed one iota since that day.
Plaid highwaters rule!
OMG! I want to pick that little munchkin up, find her belly, and blow big, fat, sloppy, wet belly farts on her and hear her squeal.
Now that I’ve known you for 20 years, that came off kind of wierd.
See David?!! We ARE destined to be friends!! My very first thought was,”I want to bite her belly button!! Which is a very strange thought to have about one’s 40 year old friend, but whatever…
hahahahaha You guys crack me up. You both can bite my belly button any time you want.
Oh, we’re going to be friends alright, and one night, we’re going to have too much wine and blow belly farts on Sheila.
We’re not going to be able to talk about the next day.
It seems to me, from years of reading your Diary Fridays, that you remained that girl through your teens. Am I right?
This is what I’m having a hard time with now with my 14-yo daughter who is suddenly bored by the world, too blase to care about anything. An amazing rainbow on Friday – I mean it was HUGE and the sky was bright blue and the clouds fluffy – was “just water vapor, Mom.” Sigh. And then the cinnamon toast made for her was rejected because she found herself to “not be in a cinnamon mood.” You need a mood for cinnamon? How could cinnamon displease?
Anyway, that quote made me see teenagers and their yawning, disinterested selves and made me miss my own little girl who was passionate and interested!
Oh, Sheila, that is an awesome quotation! Thank you for sharing it. I will have to keep it in mind.
May you ALWAYS remain interested in the world.
Diana – no, not really (to your first question). I only post mostly amusing journal entries and leave out the self-loathing entries, so angry and so depressed that they alarm even me.
Adolescence is tough on everyone, i guess!
My son is now referring to me as Vladmir Putin….
ricki – I know, right?? It’s a great quote!