Some folks always read with a pen at the ready to underline, circle, square and star, scribble notes in the column, question mark and even cross out. Not me. But every so often I do dog-ear (tsk, tsk).
Some folks record the especially moving/touching/thought-provoking/well put phrases in hardcover notebooks. Others type them up, print them out and tack them to their bedside walls. I (when I remember to) write them here:
Edith Wharton was born in the century before last; she spent much of her youth in Europe and then her teen/young adult years in New York. As an adult she heads dreamily back to Europe, but ultimately returns home to the United States. I don’t know about my ‘ultimately’ yet, but thus far our trajectories (insofar as continental geographic location is concerned) are similar. It turns out, so were our feelings about returning to the U.S. as adults – strikingly similar:
“In 1896, she spoke with resignation of their planned return to the United States: ‘Time was, as you know, when I should have been glad to make my home in Europe, but it was made in America, & I have fitted myself into it tant bien que mal, & taken its creases more than I realized until I left it again.”
(From “The Age of Innocence” by Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker)
Another gem that struck me as reassurance to anyone trying to figure out what is up with guys (er, besides that) in their 20s and early 30s – ok, fine, all the 30s, and maybe some of their 40s too:
“‘It’s interesting when you have boys,’ she said. ‘Because boys are so sweet. Little boys, they are just great, and it was completely fascinating to me to see that. But the problem with men is not whether they’re nice or not. It’s that it’s hard for them at a certain point in their lives to stay true. It just is. It’s almost not their fault. But it feels like it’s their fault if you are involved with any of them. And then you get older and almost all of the men I know just seem as sweet as the boys I once had.'”
(From “Nora Knows What to Do” by Ariel Levy, The New Yorker)
For a woman whose 1st husband cheated on her when she was 7 months pregnant with their second child, Nora Ephron really seems to have made her peace. Guess there’s been a lot of public venting. I’m not crazy about the fact that she (almost) lets them off the hook, but I like the cyclicality. There’s more depth here (not to mention uplift) than the standard “Men are pigs!”