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1a1c7a4
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There are those people who can eat one piece of chocolate, one piece of cake, drink one glass of wine. There are even people who smoke one or two cigarettes a week. And then there are people for whom one of anything is not even an option.
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moderation
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Abigail Thomas |
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c022b01
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It's easy now - it's middle-aged lady, nobody's looking, nobody notices. I go without lipstick if I feel like it, and I always wear my comfy clothes. It's a life with fewer distractions, but should something beautiful show up, a middle-aged woman is free to stare.
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Abigail Thomas |
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922efec
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There is nothing like calamity for refreshing the moment. Ironically, the last several years my life had begun to feel shapeless, like underwear with the elastic gone, the days down around my ankles.
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Abigail Thomas |
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ce7b77f
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Dogs are never in a bad mood over something you said at breakfast. Dogs never sniff at the husks of old conversations, or conduct autopsies on weekends gone wrong. An unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is hell. We talk too much.
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Abigail Thomas |
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d269f81
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Grief is not a pleasure, but it makes me remember, and I am grateful.
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Abigail Thomas |
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2c4fb0a
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You had a certain way of saying my name. It was the inflection maybe, something you put into those three syllables. And now you are gone and my name is just my name again, not the story of my life.
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memoir
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Abigail Thomas |
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d64d3cc
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The past is in the wastebasket.
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Abigail Thomas |
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2a2284e
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For better or for worse, but not for lunch,...
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marriage
relationships
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Abigail Thomas |
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e9b3bdf
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A couple of years ago my sister Judy and I were each given a box of truffles. The tiny print said two pieces contained 310 calories and there were six pieces in each box. We were sitting on the bus headed downtown, quietly doing our calculations: Judy was dividing by two and I was multiplying by three. When she realized what I was doing, a look came over her face that is hard to describe. 'I lost all hope for you' she says now.
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humor
moderation
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Abigail Thomas |
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5fb5659
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Shopping is hope.
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Abigail Thomas |
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fdac838
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Here's what I love about dogs. They aren't careful not to disturb you. They don't overthink. They jump on the bed or the sofa or the chair and plop down. They come and they go. I'm not sure they love me exactly, but they count on me because I am a source of heat and food and pleasure and affection.
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Abigail Thomas |
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6ee30f9
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Napping is divine, but I no longer have all the time in the world.
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napping
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Abigail Thomas |
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bdb3dc7
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Nothing is wasted when you are a writer. The stuff that doesn't work has to be written to make way for the stuff that might;
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Abigail Thomas |
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aa1b645
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But when it gets dark, I'm off the hook. The day is officially rolled up and put away. I'm free to watch movies or stare at the wall, no longer holding myself accountable for what I might or might not have gotten done because the time for getting something done is over until tomorrow.
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Abigail Thomas |
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426f38f
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Anger is a luxury. Anger wants answers, retribution, reason, something that makes sense. Anger wants a story, stories help us make sense out of everything. But while we scramble to help those who need it, who has time for anger? Who has time to make sense out of anything? There is only what is. Anger is a distraction. Anger removes me from grief, and the opportunity to be helpful.
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Abigail Thomas |
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b0518d9
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She would (if she could) put her arm around the girl she'd been and try to tell her Take it easy, but the girl would not have listened. The girl had no receptors for Take it easy. And besides, "Hey Jude" was on the radio, it was her prayer, her manifesto, almost her dwelling place. She sang it everywhere. The music made her cry then; it makes her cry now. Listening to it now brings back memories so sharp they taste like blood in her mouth."
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Abigail Thomas |
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db25865
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There's nothing I want to relive--certainly not youth--and as for what's to come, I'm in no hurry. I watch my dogs. They throw themselves into everything they do; even their sleeping is wholehearted. They aren't waiting for a better tomorrow, or looking back at their glory days. Following their example, I'm trying to stick to the present. I'm not stranded here, I know where I've been; I can conjure up details of old haunts, even former stat..
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Abigail Thomas |
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5d1bfdc
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A friend's mother ate nothing but clams for six months. Morning, noon, and night, nothing but clams. 'I don't know what it is - I can't seem to get enough of them' she told her son. He shakes his head, but I understand. I eat nothing but broccoli for a month, then yogurt for six days, then (for one glorious week) lamb chops. One day I roasted a chicken and had seven chicken sandwiches before nightfall. If I like something, I like it a lot. ..
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Abigail Thomas |
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2059c6c
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This would account for those moments of Oh! there you are! After all, there are those people we like and dislike, there are those people we love, and then there are those we recognize. These are the unbreakable connections.
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Abigail Thomas |
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5aa37e0
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What can come? This was a brilliant question. Can is scarier than will. What will come limits itself. What can come has no boundaries.
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Abigail Thomas |
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8f509ef
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I WAS ON A SMALL ISLAND ONCE, IN THE MIDDLE OF a great big lake, mountains all over the place, and as I watched the floating dock the wind kicked up, the waves rose from nowhere, and I imagined myself lying there and the dock suddenly breaking loose, carried away by the storm. I wondered if I could lie still and enjoy the sensation of rocking, after all I wouldn't be dead yet, I wouldn't be drowning, just carried off somewhere that wasn't p..
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Abigail Thomas |
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c437da6
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I used to get upset if somebody I didn't like loved a book I loved. That's MY book, I'd think.
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books
humor
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Abigail Thomas |
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b0d368d
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SIX MONTHS AGO A FRIEND WAS ANGRY WITH ME and I with her. I had written about something someone said many years ago, but it was she who heard the words, not me, a fact I had completely forgotten. Her experience was precious, and she accused me of stealing her memory. Not only that, but what she remembered with grief I had somehow transmuted to gratitude, so besides stealing her memory, I also got it wrong. We argued, but there was no meetin..
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Abigail Thomas |
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98e971a
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THERE ARE ENORMOUS HOLES IN MY EDUCATION. I left college in March of my freshman year and never went back. I've never read Moby-Dick and it's probably too late now. I know nothing about the history of music or the history of art except what I've learned through osmosis. But Outsider Art is its own context. I don't have to know all about the Impressionists or the Abstract Expressionists. I don't have to be able to fit this art into any histo..
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Abigail Thomas |
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f39c185
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Here's what I love about dogs. They aren't careful not to disturb you. They don't overthink. They jump on the bed or the sofa or the chair and plop down. They come and they go. I'm not sure they love me exactly, but they count on me because I am a source of heat and food and pleasure and affection. If one of them is lying next to me and suddenly prefers the sofa, I don't take it personally. Dogs don't wake up on the wrong side of the bed. T..
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Abigail Thomas |
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e8d91f6
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It was a long time before I realized that you don't have to start right, you just have to start. Put pen to paper, allow yourself the freedom to write badly, to get it wrong, stop looking over your own shoulder.
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Abigail Thomas |
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031b113
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The connection with him is a connection with part of myself, and it has to do with a kind of insatiable curiosity. I mean the part of me that gets connected to the rest of me when I'm connecting to him. The insatiably curious part.
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Abigail Thomas |
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56db7c8
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The future was also the place where the bad stuff waited in ambush. My children were embarking on their futures in fragile vessels, and I trembled. I wanted to remove obstacles, smooth their way, I wanted to change their childhoods. I needed to be right all the time, I wanted them to listen to me, learn from my mistakes, and save themselves a lot of grief. Well, now I know I can control my tongue, my temper, and my appetites, but that's it...
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Abigail Thomas |
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0b66d59
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Love Love can accommodate all sorts of misshapen objects: a door held open for a city dog who runs into the woods; fences down; some role you didn't ask for, didn't want. Love allows for betrayal and loss and dread. Love is roomy. Love can change its shape, be known by different names. Love is elastic. And the dog comes back.
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Abigail Thomas |
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3bed1a7
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What I used to fear was growing old--not the aches and pains part or the what-have-I-done-with-my-life part or the threat of illness, none of that. I just couldn't imagine what my life would be like without the option of looking good. I had a piece of good luck. I married Rich in my late forties and thus was eased into middle age while living with a man who approved of the way I looked. When after three years of marriage I lamented the fact..
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Abigail Thomas |
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1a1a86d
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somewhat leaky boat are on the lookout for a human companion. Not me. I have learned to love the inside of my own head. There isn't much I'd rather say than think. Of course for more than thirty years I've had Chuck. We've known each other so long that we don't have to talk, and when we do we don't have to say anything. When he asks me if I'd like to take a trip around the world I can say yes knowing I'll never have to go.
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Abigail Thomas |
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a9a470f
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It ended sadly. The kind of ending where you wait together, holding hands and weeping, while off in another room, love slowly dies.
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love-quotes
love
endings
love-hurts
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Abigail Thomas |
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38880a1
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I have decided that when I'm dead I'd like my body in the woods under a light coating of leaves. That being against the law, maybe I will go for cremation. I ask Chuck what he wants done with his remains. "Remains?" says Chuck. "Do there have to be remains? Can't I just vanish? Be no more?" I tell him I'm sorry but yes, he has to have remains. "Either I'm too young to be thinking about this," he says, "or I have to figure out a way of offin..
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Abigail Thomas |
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d87e77b
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I used to lie in a lover's arms getting a stiff neck, or needing to scratch my nose, or losing all sensation in my arm, unwilling to move lest the man find out I wasn't comfortable in his embrace...Would Snow White have rested all eight pounds of her head on any part of the prince? I doubt it, and I never did either. Sarah says that is why elderly women have such prominent cords in their necks.
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Abigail Thomas |
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b20f500
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It's easy to find that five or six hours have sped by without my noticing. I am having fun. This is not my world, these are not my fears. is great storytelling, and it is not my story.
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Abigail Thomas |
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0817af4
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There are three things that make me want to drink: difficult times, when I want alcohol to either alleviate the pain or allow me to feel it; clear days that make me want to scribble all over the irritating blue sky; and well, waking up in the morning.
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Abigail Thomas |
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163e439
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Happy," for instance, once meant "luck." Not good luck or bad, just luck. Look what we have done to ourselves. We think we can actually pursue happiness."
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Abigail Thomas |
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3ea0ddd
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drip and fling and pour color onto the glass. Then I push the paint around. You have to have some faith. If it looks like nothing, if you think you've destroyed what might have been a good painting, keep at it. If you've scraped all but a few streaks away, chances are those streaks will suggest something else. Don't give up. Don't be afraid of the mess.
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Abigail Thomas |
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32e27a6
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Good things happen slowly and bad things happen fast. Those were comforting words, and they comfort me today.
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Abigail Thomas |
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7344f1b
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What can come?" my grandson Sam asked, when he was very young, after his mother had warned him not to go into the woods after dark. What can come? This was a brilliant question. Can is scarier than will. What will come limits itself. What can come has no boundaries." --
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Abigail Thomas |
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82fe8d3
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even when there's no interest on either side one's coordination completely disappears in the presence of beauty (Abigail's daughter, Jen)
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Abigail Thomas |
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d5bbf93
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But we don't get to choose what sticks. How many times I have run my fingers along a picket fence and thought, "This! I will remember this moment always!" and all that remains is the memory of a desire to hold on to a memory."
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Abigail Thomas |
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9c3ae0f
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So instead of not-writing, I am painting. I'm not a painter, but I make paintings anyway. I use glass and oil-based house paint, which is toxic, and which you can't buy just anywhere anymore. It's being phased out in favor of latex, which doesn't stick to glass, and acrylic, which I haven't tried. Stacked on my garage windowsill are seventeen quarts of the stuff in various primary colors, in case the whole world stops selling it. I love the..
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Abigail Thomas |
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eb3f33a
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If you were to look into our apartment in the late morning, or early afternoon, or toward suppertime, you might find us together sleeping. Of course a good rainy day is preferable, but even on sunny summer days, the dogs and I get into bed.
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Abigail Thomas |