Sacred and Terrible Smell
What was that sacred and terrible, elusive smell in the air this time? My name is Ambrosius Saint-Miro, the locals call me “Ambrosius Pyhä-Mirä” and in Graad they call me “Svjata-Mira”. “Diduska?” they ask, their eyes wide with affection, but I answer them: “No. I am not your diduska.” I am Ambrosius Santa-Mira from Mesque, Ambrosio Hagiamira, I
Sayfa 60 - Unofficial English TranslationKitabı okudu
Artıq bir “ev”inin olmaması
Nuri, it is no longer home. Aleppo is now like the dead body of a loved one, it has no life, no soul, it is full of rotting blood.
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Ep. 39
And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps. Afternoons in the sun with someone's hand clutched in one's own. The fragrance of flowerbeds in fresh bloom. Sunday is in a cafe. Grandchildren, perhaps. One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else's future. And it wasn't as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living.
Grief is a strange thing.
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The interviews
1. Don't worry
"The secret to a long life is not to worry. And to keep your heart young-don't let it grow old. Open your heart to people with a nice smile on your face. If you smile and open your heart, your grandchildren and everyone else will want to see you."
"The best way to avoid anxiety is to go out in the street
“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness.
Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no great help —may even be hindrances—to a civilised man. And in a state of physical balance and security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life, what we should call the weak areas well equipped as the strong, are indeed no longer weak.
I also dread the cruelty of reality. We were eighteen—now we are forty. We are no longer who we once were. Time has passed, life has rolled over us and transformed us. We will not recognize one another. It doesn’t matter how well appearances have been preserved, it’s who we are, at the root. He is a married father who takes care of a farm in Charente. I am a novelist who spends six months of the year abroad. How could the circles of these two existences have even one point of intersection?
