Quote of the day

Forgive me, but I am lost in reading, Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman by Nuala O'Faolain.

Cheryl sent it to me because she knows that "friendship is something you do" (page 15). She wrote in her note that came with the book, that she was "thinking about [me] at so many places."

O'Faolain writes:

My report, then, from middle age, has a tension to it, because it swings between the two poles of wanting to be alone and lonely. Middle age is the least talked about of all the seasons of life, and yet it seems to me the most exacting. It is adolescence come again at the other side of adulthood - the matching bookend - in its uneasiness of identity, its physical surprises and the strength it takes to handle it. A person who feels herself still uncertain, still tentative, still a learner, is startled to see beginning in her age group, a winnowing-out, a next-to-Last-Judgment. I look now past bland young faces to the ones with grooves down the upper lips and indistinct jaw lines and wrinkles around the eye sockets. I'm looking to see whether my contemporaries know how to do this growing older stuff better than I do. How's their health? What people do they have in their lives? Do they look serene? Do they look happy? Do I look as happy as they? (page 28)

A year ago on Tamarika: Cave Withdrawal

Comments

[tamarika]

Thanks, ainelivia. I am enjoying the book very much.

[ainelivia]

I have been reading and rereading this book for over a year now. I keep going back to it. I really can relate to her writing in this book especially.

So glad that you and Nuala have found each other. Enjoy