Sharing the With of Others

The Journey

Some years ago, when I was either set adrift alone or struck out bravely on my own (the characterization depending entirely on how tired I am or how many glasses of wine I've had), my therapist suggested several good titles to assist me in finding my bearings as a single woman. Being the magpie-like collector of interesting bits and bobs I have always been, I started writing down things that I thought were Deathless Prose then. That list has now expanded to 500 entries. Well, actually, it presently has 499 entries but I always type in the next number so I don't have to go back looking for it if I am working on the small screen of my iPhone. So, on the occasion of the 500th entry, I want to share some of these beauties. They started out mirroring my bereavement over the death of my marriage, they went on to illustrate my disillusionment with romantic relationships in general, and they have evolved into wonderfully funny things (to my admittedly somewhat quirky sense of humor). If it catches my attention or tickles my fancy, I save it. And the beauty of a collection on an electronic medium is that it doesn't take up nearly as much space as shoes, scarves or large musical instruments.

For your edification, amusement and enlightenment I offer the following from my Shoebox of Wonder:

1. Vengence is a lazy form of grief (from The Interpreter) As you can see, I was not a happy camper when the list began ...

5. Today is not won by old victories nor lost by old defeats. (Vita Sackville-West)

15. Things rarely go according to the youthful, heroic master plan. Sometimes walking away is not only the easy thing, it's the right thing. (The Matchmaker)

16.  Once in love, you're never out of danger.

17. Unconditional Love ~ you don't have to love me back. (this works for Jesus Christ, but it's a bit dodgy for the rest of us)

18.  Small pleasures must correct great tragedies. (Vita Sackville-West)

23.  Abandonment: The end of a life, but without the mercy of oblivion.

24.  You grieve until you are exhausted. Then rest restores enough strength to be hurt again.

These, obviously, collected at a rather grim time ...

40. It is like the taste of a passion that has passed its noon and turned to weariness. The only thing to do is to recognize bravely that it is dead, and put it away. (Dorothy Sayers)

41. Tennessee Williams said, "A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace."

42.  If life is a muddle, we can't look for love to make it all come right. (P.D. James)

43.  And wasn't this the stuff of nearly all the world's poetry, the transitoriness of life and love and beauty, the knowledge that time's wingéd chariot had knives in its wheels? (P.D. James)

One of the reasons I like to reread my favorite authors is that, depending upon the circumstances of my life at the various times of reading a piece, I always find new bits of their wisdom to speak to me. 

63. " 'Sides, men being wha' dey are, you c'n always get one, you lower your standards enough.  " (Elizabeth George)

64. "She wasn't so foolish as to call what she was feeling for the young man love, although another woman might have done so. She knew it was basic animal stuff: the ultimate trick a species plays upon its members to propagate itself." (supra)

65. "She was, in short, a victim of the myth that has been foisted upon women since the time of the troubadours: Love conquers all; love saves; love endures." (supra)

I confess that I never reread this particular book (What Came Before He Shot Her) because it was so troubling; however, I've used these lines many times since that first reading!

76. So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings. (Elizabeth Gilbert)

89.  "'Be careful, Tuppence, this craving for vulgar sensation alarms me.'", [Agatha Christie, Partners In Crime]

90. "'I may be, mon cher, an artistic and competent liar- you seem to think so. But it is not my idea of ethical conduct. I have my standards.'", [Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs]  

I may have started collecting bits that just amused me ... this had to be a good sign!

101. "But don't you think," I persist, "that it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just OK for your whole life?" (Audrey Niffenegger; The Time Traveler's Wife)

102. "Things die, too, you know. And so, if they too have to die, well there it is, it's so much better to let them go. That has much more style about it, apart from everything else, don't you agree?" (Giorgio Bassani; The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) 

103. "This is now, not then, and the only direction you can go is forward." (Elizabeth Peters; The Snake, the Crcodile & the Dog)

A deep breath in the course of time and then to follow Elizabeth Peters' advice ... she is one of my favorite authors, anyway.

106. "[T]hat perfect safety is not to be found in this imperfect world and that facing danger is sometimes less dangerous than trying to avoid it." (Elizabeth Peters; Lord of the Silent)
107. "[W]e must make the best of what fate has to offer, and accept the good with gratitude and the bad with fortitude." (Elizabeth Peters; The Golden One)
108. "There is nothing so destructive of romance than continued proximity." (Elizabeth Peters)

Told ya she was good!

117. "I think his lies hurt most of all because they stripped down the possibility of belief. I guess that's what betrayal does." (Florence Falk, On My Own)

118. "It is very growing up to find that someone you loved all your life never existed at all." (Josephine Tey, To Love and Be Wise)

119. Always do the right thing and let the consequences take care of themselves ... Unless you plan to play God, one has to take the simple way. (Josephine Tey, Miss Pym Disposes)

120. Broken hearts heal ~ you just kinda walk with a limp.

Curiously enough, a lot of the things I saved to document the steps of my own recovery from abandonment have been useful in explaining the process to other people going through it (although we never actually seem to hear the wisdom until later). 

152. Niels Bohr described wave and particle as the two aspects of a single reality. An unknowable reality [because you can measure one or the the other, but not both at the same time]. (so which am I today?)

153. Sometimes you have to lose your way to find yourself.

154. "... I wanted to be steadfast, you wanted to be released." (Mary Black; Where Did We Go Wrong)

155. "It takes a long time before we cease to feel proud of being wanted. Though God knows why we should feel it, when we look around and see who is wanted too.", [Alan Furst, The Book of Spies]

I'm not sure why I collect the things I do, perhaps to convince myself that other people have survived and I will, too?

183. I don't know what they taught you in France but rude and interesting are not the same thing. (French Kiss; I love this movie!)  Well, yes!  :O)

187. "Her house awaited her, large and empty, which she knew was the result of choices she had made, but which perhaps were not entirely to be laid at her door. She had not deliberately chosen to fall in love so completely, and so finally, that thereafter no other man would have done. That was something which had happened to her, and the things that happen to us are not always of our making.", [Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club]
Do I seek these characters out or do they find me? Fortunately, this one (in a later book) did find love again. Hurrah for the fictional characters!


189. "But she did not want to think about him now because she realized that time was doing its healing, and he seemed to have become more and more distant. And she liked the feeling of forgetting, of the slow conversion into the state of his being just another person, somebody whom she could think about, if he came to mind, without feeling a pang of loss and longing." (Alexander McCall Smith; Friends, Lovers, Chocolate)

191. "What failure of imagination had caused me to forget that life was full of other possibilities, including the possibility that eventually I would fall in love again?" (Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck)

That's what they keep telling me. I must assume it may be true ...

218. "The past must go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms - a false perspective." (Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot's Christmas)
219. "It does not do, Harry, to dwell on dreams and forget to live." (Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone)
220. "And a continual atmosphere of hectic passion is very trying if you haven't got any of your own." (Dorothy Sayers, Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club)
Well, there you have it; if Dumbledore says it is so, it must be so.


246. "In the end it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in love, to combat the inescapable disappointments of intimacy." (Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed)
247. Marriage is what happens "between the memorable." (Jack Gilbert)
248. "One divorce may be regarded as a misfortune, but two begins to smack of carelessness." (Oscar Wilde)
249. "There's always another explanation." (Indiana Jones)
I have no idea over what period of time these were collected, but don't they fit together nicely?


258. "I was sorry I'd quit smoking. Then I remembered I had another bad habit. I went to the mini bar and selected two small bottles more or less at random. At that point I didn't care what I drank as long as it was alcoholic."  (Elizabeth Peters, Laughter of Dead Kings)
259. "No, she is afraid of serious emotions," Schmidt explained. "We who love her accept this."  (Elizabeth Peters, Laughter of Dead Kings)
Yep, I love her characters!


293. "Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling." (G.K. Chesterton)

304. "The wit of your remark," he said, "wholly escapes me." (G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles)


320. "People change and they forget to tell each other." (Lillian Hellman)
321. "I've been married three times and each time I married the right man." (Margaret Mead)
322. "Send me love and light every time you miss me. Then let it go. It won't last forever. Nothing does." (Eat Pray Love, the movie)
323.  "I stopped looking to the horizon. Nobody was coming to save me."
324.  "I miss you more than I can bear, but we had our time together and I have to let you go." (Inception)
325.  "Let's drink to a rise in frivolity." (A Small Death in Lisbon)
326. "If you love, you grieve and there are no exceptions - only those who do it well and those who don't." (Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking)
327. "Nothing was ever what you expected. That was the beauty and the terror of life." (Christopher Fowler, White Corridor)
Again, I'm not sure over what period of time these came to me; but they set out the ups and downs rather nicely ...

328. "My dear chap," said Bryant, "everyone is younger and fitter than us. What have we got on our side? Decrepitude, mid-afternoon narcoleptic attacks and ill-timed lapses of memory. Although, being the oldest, I am of course less afraid of dying and therefore liable to do anything, no matter how uncalled-for and dangerous." (Christopher Fowler, White Corridor) this made me laugh out loud

331. "With increasing age, the grace notes of temperance, balance, harmony and gentility are supposed to appear in the human heart. This was not entirely true, however, in Arthur Bryant's case. He remained acidulous, stubborn, insensitive and opinionated" (Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May Off the Rails) [I just love Arthur]

332. "I'm sorry, I forgot you exist in an alternate universe where everything has to be slowly explained to you." (Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May Off the Rails) [again, I just love Arthur!]

336. He looked like the chief villain in an Italian opera. (just found it funny)

347. "Your questions regarding that gentleman are very delicate, very subtle, very much like being smacked in the head with a mallet." (Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)
352. "Despite itself being a barefaced whopper of some considerable magnitude..." (Michael Dibdin, Back to Balogna) 
354. "History teaches us that men behave wisely once they've exhausted all other alternatives." (Still Crazy)
355. "Adhere to the truth where possible. Lie as a last resort." (Daniel Silva, Portrait of a Spy)
357. "Did everyone see that? Because I shall not be doing it again." (Jack Sparrow in On Stranger Tides)
358. "... where British colonials had played cricket and drunk gin while the empire collapsed around them." (Daniel Silva, Prince of Fire). [yeah, I've had days like that!]

361. "... a pair of neurotic terriers that patrolled the perimeter of the stables with the fervor of holy warriors." (Daniel Silva, Moscow Rules)
376. "I allowed her to slip a hefty and illicit drop of whiskey into the cup of tea before me, and downed the tepid atrocity in one draught. It hit me like a swung punching bag, but when the top of my head had settled back into place, I found that the impulse to pull out my revolver and begin shooting had subsided as well." (Laurie King, The Language of Bees)

Frivol While You May

378. I set my tea-cup back into its saucer, that I might lean forward and examine my husband's face. I could see no overt indications of lunacy. No more than usual. (Laurie King) 
374. " the dog turned and galloped like a clumsy weasel down the hallway to the front door." (Laurie King, Play the Fool)
382. "He looked about as alert as a doped tree sloth." (Phillip Kerr, March Violets)

383. "Close your eyes and pretend it's all a bad dream. That's how I get by." (Jack Sparrow in At World's End)

453. "... causing your forehead to wrinkle like a lizard's elbow."

454. " [He] had the face of an elderly sea turtle who had just found something it didn't like on the seabed." (Simon Brett, Twinks & Blotto ...)

457. "It's all very slippery-snakery," she said. "But not necessarily sinister, my dear," he replied.  (Patricia Graham, Faithful Unto Death)
479. You're merely indulging your vivid imagination in a gallop over a wholly speculative course. (Agatha Christie, Tragedy In Three Acts)
495. He was a meteor who turned out to be an incandescent fart. (Louis de Berniéres, Corelli's Mandolin)
496. ... and our rulers were mainly ebullient and dishonest eccentrics in the authentic Italian mould. (supra)
497. ... and [he] had reached that dangerous age when a man was only susceptible to an innocent little cutie or to an experienced floozie. (Len Deighton, Mexico Set) 
499. No matter how weasel-like or vomit-worthy he may be, he has come to us for a solution. (Stephen Fry in Kingdom) 

These all just struck me as funny ... maybe you had to be there.

393. (for Mike & Emily's wedding) We sat side by side in the morning light & looked out at the future together.

        (for Jayne & George) I remember sitting side by side and planning our future, the joy of the life we built, and the great sorrow of the loss. but it was a heck of a ride, and i wouldn't change a thing,  besides the ending. RIP my love

These were both from Brian Andreason's Story People.  Somehow I saw them on the same day.

397. "Always prepare for the unexpected and face the unthinkable. There is no orthodoxy to follow now. Everything is in a state of flux." (Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House)

398. Sameness is easily achieved and highly unmemorable.

399. I know right now I look like something that belongs on the wall of a second-rate cathedral, but I'm stronger than I appear. (Christopher Fowler, White Corridor) 

400. [S]he seemed to exist somewhere between post-menopausal and post-mortem.

(Christopher Fowler, The Memory of Blood)

401. Losing your mind is a small price to pay for an interesting life.

403. "I'm a police officer, I can do whatever I want," replied Bryant. "It's fabulous being me. Look, I'll show you." (Christopher Fowler, The Memory of Blood)

Honestly, how can you help but love the character, Arthur Bryant? He gives me new hope for old age!

412. I said, "Why don't we do this kind of thing any more? Why don't we talk like this any more?" "Because we're not those people any more," he said. "We're not supposed to be." (James Ireland Baker)
413. It takes a strong heart to love, but it takes an even stronger heart to love after it's been broken.
414. "Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it." (Nora Ephron, Heartburn)
415. "Don't mind if I fall apart, there's more room in a broken heart." (Carly Simon, Coming Around Again)
416. "[She] exaggerates, but only enough to enjoy herself." (Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society)

Yet again, no idea over what period of time these appeared ... but they constitute a nice thought.

429. "I once spent a rather diverting part of my debauched existence there." (Two Fat Ladies)
430. "Yes, but I am large. I contain multitudes." (Jill Patton Walsh, The Attenbury Emeralds)
431. Very few vices left ... and those depend upon whether or not he takes his trousers off. (Clarissa  ~ 2 Fat Ladies)
432. "God give me strength to bear this mighty freedom." (Elizabeth, The Golden Age)
If you haven't seen "Two Fat Ladies", the humor of the presenters is worth the price of the ticket - whether you cook or not!

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves & remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself. (Brian Andreas)

These are excellent words of wisdom with which to leave this project ... (for the moment).

The sun always comes out ... eventually