I have always been a reader. I buy books in charity shops & will probably not live long enpugh to read all the books I already own. On top of that I have several friends who are readers & they give me books or recommend titles. I will never be bored. The only problem is not going to sleep while reading.
Currently I'm reading a book P.... gave me, which I had never heard of - "The Little Paris Bookshop" by Nina George. It took me a while to get into, but now I am loving it. I'll give you some quotes so hopefully you will see why.
"All of us preserve time. We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us. Under our skin, under the layers of wrinkles & experience & laughter, we, too, are old versions of ourselves....We are our former selves, the former child, the former lover, the former daughter".
How true. Our departed loved ones & friends are Cinderellas, hidden within forests, forever the age they were the last time we saw them. We labour under the delusion that our ageing exterior is simply a mask for the real person within, who never ages as our bodies do.
"What task do the departed want us to do? To carry them within us - that is our task. We carry them all inside us, all our dead & shattered loves. Only they make us whole. If we begin to forget or cast aside those we've lost...then we are no longer present either".
I can clearly see the faces of all the people who have meant something to me in my life, but are no longer here. I remember them on the odderst of occasions, often prompted by the weirdest of happenings. To me that is truly the only "life after death". I will only really lose them when dementia sets in & my memory goes.
Life & Death. Being present or absent. Continuing the process of learning & being interested. Excercising the "little grey cells". Thank goodness for creative people - writers & artists, actors & musicians. What would we be without them & why don't we value them enough? We remove them from the education of our children at our, & their, peril.
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