http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/04/one-day-david-nicholls-review
I remember picking up One Day in a bookstore merely because of a gut feeling that always guided me beyond the book cover. Later on, I surprisingly found out that the author David Nicholls was born at the same day as mine. The frustrated, promiscuous, insecure Emma Morley at her 20s can be easily related to.
…Emma Morley wasn’t such a paragon either: pretentious, petulant, lazy, speechifying, judgemental. Self-pitying, self righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she had always needed the most.
Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will. I just don’t like you anymore. I’m sorry.
It would be inappropriate, undignified, at 38, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour or intensity of a 22 year old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry? Crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photo booths? Taking a whole day to make a compilation tape? Asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or TS Eliot or, god forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them? Ridiculous, at 38, to expect a song or book or film to change your life.
At 38? Acting 22? Drop that self-pity, the heart does what it does.
And they did have fun, though it was of different kind now. All that yearning and passion had been replaced by a steady pulse of pleasure and satisfaction and occasional irritation, and this seemed to be a happy exchange; if there had been moments in her life when she had been more elated, there had never been a time when things had been more constant.
“The Buddhists say if you meet somebody and your heart pounds, your hands shake, your knees go weak, that’s not the one. When you meet your ‘soul mate’ you’ll feel calm. No anxiety, no agitation.”
I don’t remember if I have ever recognize anything similar from Buddha, but this quote is from Monica Drake of ” Clown Girl”.
Would you mindfully choose a shared soul? Or all you want is just getting your damn own soul back?
