As I write this, my camera is uploading to my computer 189 pictures that I took last week on our trip to Montreal. I'll get them edited and posted to the slideshow at the bottom of this blog when I get home from work this afternoon. For now I'll just say that we had a great time, ate great food (including peanut butter dumplings at a hole-in-the-wall noodle bar), and got a smidgen better at parlez-ing Français.
I also read a tremendous book while we were there: Alice Hoffman's new novel,
The Story Sisters. I've always been a big fan of Alice Hoffman, but this novel is her best so far, I think. I don't know how much a man or someone without a sister would get out of it, but as a woman with 3 sisters, I lived inside that book for a week. There is so much truth in it.
She got a seat and looked out at the trees and thought what a long way it seemed to New York, and how her mother had driven here once in a blinding snowstorm and she had refused to see her. How she'd watched from the window, too prideful to call out to her mother, too young to know how few chances there would be to do so.
I want to give this book to every young person I know, all of us so full of pride and unaware of how short life really is and how few chances we have to love someone. I wish it would make a difference. But I know we all have to learn this lesson ourselves, and no matter how long life is, it's never long enough to love someone as much as we want to. That last chance always comes too soon.
1 comment:
Because of this post, I'll read the book. What you said about how few chances we have to love someone went right to my core.
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