The Road / Cormac McCarthy

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, don't you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
"To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pearce

"If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed,
except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I."
Michel de Montaigne, "Of Friendship"

Saturday, April 2, 2011

April 2, 2009

I felt an intense, urgent need to copy down a passage I was reading from Milan Kundera's Identity.

He rose and went toward the half-open door of the bathroom. There he stopped, and like a voyeur avid to steal a glimpse of some intimate scene, he watched her: yes, it was his Chantal as he had always known her: she was leaning over the basin, brushing her teeth and spitting out her saliva mingled with toothpaste, and she was so comically, so childishly focused on her activity that Jean-Marc grinned. Then, as if she felt his gaze, she pivoted about, saw him in the doorway, flared up, and ultimately let herself be kissed on her still quite white mouth (Kundera 34-35).

This scene, as I interpret, is love in everyday life than can be, should be seen among us. We forget too soon that love does not require or expect or demand much. That love is just like Jean-Marc, initially anticipating his love to be romantically erotic and then finding her somewhat funny brushing her teeth, finally giving her a kiss. This love, I love.