we've been baking again

March 08, 2017  •  4 Comments

“I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread.

You never bake bread, he wrote, and we were still joking.

Then it's like I woke up and baked bread, I said, and we were joking even then. I wondered will there come a time when we won't be joking? And what would it look like? And how would that feel?

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.

I spent my life learning to feel less.

Every day I felt less.

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” 

-- Jonathan Safran Foer


Comments

Lois(non-registered)
Life can be hard - we don't want to feel less, or maybe we do? The extremes are always painful, gleefully so or mournfully so. Not sure not feeling is a good thing, somehow keeping it all in perspective. It's all important or none of it is. Thought provoking. As always photos of the heart.
Beth(non-registered)
Such cute baking apprentices!
Anna Rosner(non-registered)
I feel wonderful when I see your photos and read your words.
John(non-registered)
Welcome to being normal. I think as we grow older we see to much, know to much, experience pain to much, seen to much hatred, and... we become numb to it, learn to ignore it... with that comes ambivalence, whatever, sure why not... finding a new joy becomes that much more important. something that makes you happy.. not making others happy but you happy (unless your happy is making others happy).. A simple smile a day isn't always the easiest but even a fake smile means you made an effort. At the end of the day though we have two solid choices.. Lock the door and throw away the key or enjoy those little joys each day... Painting, walking the dogs, reading, running, or... Many times I think life sucks more than there is joy.. I have really bad days too.. and yet today I walked among the flower, knowing my dad beat another odds, and now watching the birds dance in the backyard.. Try and not be so hard on yourself. Take care.
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