dave5f0d

“…that she has met him several times before only adds to what he calls her charming basket of imperfections. The only Buddha I could love, he says, is one who is capable of forgetfulness and sin.” “It’s sunny as Bermuda out here, and I’m still so high from the boat race that I can tell myself there’s nothing to be afraid of. Like sometimes when you go to a move and you get so lost in the story that when you’re walking out of the theater you can’t remember anything at all about your own life. You might forget, for example, that you live in a city where people have so many choices that they throw words away…you might forget that you never expected to be alone at thirty-one…or that all the people you know-without exception- have their hearts all wrapped around someone who won’t ever love them back.” “I’m scared,” I say again, but this time it comes out stronger, almost like singing, as though it might be the first step-in fifty five or a thousand-towards something like a real life, the very first step toward something that will last.” “It was the end of the old year, two weeks before my thirty-third birthday, the age my Catholic friend Tony said all things would be revealed to me…” “What I’d like to know,” Carter said, “is when we are gonna grow up enough to get over the idea that there’s some perfect person out there for each of is who’s gonna make every day of our lives like Paradise.” “This is Paradise, ” I said, “The three of us and Phaedrus, out on the wild wide sea.” “I’ve been doing some reading about the original Phaedrus…Phaedrus asks Socrates whether it is better to spend your life with someone who you’re compatible with, like a friend, or someone who you’re crazy for, someone who will make your life a living hell.” “And what does Socrates say?…he says you should be with someone you can get along with, and he spends thirty pages proving it…Logically….Like a theorem…Then he changes his mind and says you should be with the person who makes your live a living hell…What he says, is that when we fall full tilt in love with somebody, it’s because our soul recognizes another soul that it was mingled with on some previous plane…Even Socrates says we shouldn’t settle.” “I thought that life was like that, that you could frame it like a photograph, according to your need. It was that part of me…The very same part that knew that for every positive image there was a pure and perfect negative, that right on the other side of that piece of paper called making things up, was a whole other story, and that story was about learning to believe in the things that had been there all along.” “Find yourself a place you belong in the universe…a place where the dirt feels like goodness under your feet. Take the right picture and a man will walk into it. If you can bear him even a little, then for a while let him stay.” “What do you want me to say to Carter about sex?” “Tell him I’ve discovered that it’s very simple. That you have it, then you have it again, then you have it again; and then you get up and have breakfast.” “Everything good I’ve gotten in life I’ve gotten by plunging in, ” I said… “Sure,” she said, “and everything bad you’ve gotten in your life you’ve gotten by plunging in.” There was no arguing with that, so I stayed silent. “What are you thinking?” Marcus said. “That I don’t know who to be happy,” I said. “Strong and excited, spontaneous, even brilliant, but this happiness thing is like another girl’s clothes.” “It’s easy to believe being alone is the strong thing, but the river taught me long ago that it’s a stronger thing still to make yourself fragile. To say I love you, I dare you. I want you with me.”

2022-11-14 14:15