Interesting story of one woman’s attempt to learn about a different culture. I am glad that Riccardi wrote so well about the variations on the JapanesInteresting story of one woman’s attempt to learn about a different culture. I am glad that Riccardi wrote so well about the variations on the Japanese tea ceremony. I can’t imagine ever having the opportunity to participate in an authentic tea ceremony. ...more
“I don't miss my name and I haven't bothered to replace it. I miss your name. I'm sorry but I have forgotten it, too. I don't look for it on the walls“I don't miss my name and I haven't bothered to replace it. I miss your name. I'm sorry but I have forgotten it, too. I don't look for it on the walls. The thought that I might read it and pass it by, just to go on to the next name is terrible. Like meeting you in another life and failing to recognize you.�
“I can hear you clearly but it is also as if you are far away. It is unbearable to look back from the future we did not know we had been traveling toward. That is not right. It is unbearable because we did know. It was plain as our own palms.�
“I realize now that when I was playing these silent movies of life after our life, you were still there. You were sitting with me, the two of us alone in the theater, still together. This sadness is not an empty church and not an empty house. It is the whole empty world and I am in it and it is in me.�
I picked up this book because of the crow on the cover - I have been thinking a lot about corvids. I am not sure what I read in these few passages, but I will be thinking about them for a bit. Very powerful, very horrible and very lovely all at the same time....more
I can't believe that it has been 25 years since Bourdain wrote this book. I probably would have liked it better if I had read it then. This book is goI can't believe that it has been 25 years since Bourdain wrote this book. I probably would have liked it better if I had read it then. This book is good, but by now, I had heard many of these stories from other readers.
I will always be grateful to Bourdain for one of the meals I had in Saigon and for his view of how to live life. I am very sorry that he is not still on the planet....more
Merritt knows how to tell a story. I liked his first book and so picked up this one. Wow - life has changed for Merritt, but he is still trying to telMerritt knows how to tell a story. I liked his first book and so picked up this one. Wow - life has changed for Merritt, but he is still trying to tell his truth in his way. This was an excellent audiobook....more
**spoiler alert** What an amazing book. Have never read anything like this. All I can do is quote some of his words. “I’m not reporting on Indigenous K**spoiler alert** What an amazing book. Have never read anything like this. All I can do is quote some of his words. “I’m not reporting on Indigenous Knowledge systems for a global audience’s perspective. I’m examining global systems from an Indigenous Knowledge perspective.�
“If people are laughing, they are learning. True learning is a joy because it is an act of creation.�
“You can't maintain a culture that is based on retarding the development of half the population, particularly the half that is responsible for creating life.�
“The war between good and evil is in reality an imposition of stupidity and simplicity over wisdom and complexity.�
“Engaging with them (malignant narcissists) alone is futile - never wrestle a pig, as the old saying goes; you both end up covered in shit, and the pig likes it. The fundamental rules of human interaction do not apply to them, although they weaponize those rules against everyone else.�
“Every viewpoint is useful, and it takes a wide diversity of views for any group to navigate this universe, let alone to act as custodians for it.�
“Grief is a country that has no definite borderlines and that recognises no single trajectory. It is a space that did not exist before your loss, and “Grief is a country that has no definite borderlines and that recognises no single trajectory. It is a space that did not exist before your loss, and that will never disappear from your map, no matter how hard you rub at the charcoal lines. You are changed utterly, and your personal geography becomes yours and yours only.�
“Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter. They are places that make us feel something larger than ourselves, as though we are held in a place between worlds, beyond experience.�
“This border � unseen, hand-drawn by man, and for him alone, too � has been the thread that has run through my life. A ghost vein on the map of my insides, it is a line that is political, physical, economical and geographical; yet it is a line I have never once set eyes upon. This invisible line � a border that skims the water I have just emerged from, as though it were a dragonfly � has been the cause of such sorrow and suffering, such trauma and loss, that I ran from its curves and coursing flow at the very first chance I got.�
“The echoes of the Troubles in Ireland have been, are being and will continue to be a coal-black crow that covers us with its wings. In those moments between waking and sleeping, while the border between reality and nightmare dances, the past, if it has not been dealt with, will keep resurfacing. It is my belief, though, that we are learning to talk to that crow, these days. We are learning to talk with each other, too. How do we talk about things which are so real they are almost unbelievable? I spent decades trying to accept my own story, trying to make peace with the sorrow and the unending, haunting grief.�
Dochartaigh has written an exquisite, painfully open, amazing book. I feel like she ripped her veins open to show us what life has done to her and for her. I wish her more beauty, peace and thin places....more
“To wake for the first time in a new place can be like another birth.�
I don't remember why I bought this on Thriftbooks.com. Someone mentioned it som“To wake for the first time in a new place can be like another birth.�
I don't remember why I bought this on Thriftbooks.com. Someone mentioned it somewhere and I remembered how much I liked Godden's children's books. I also recalled that my mom had loved one of Godden's adult novels - The House of Brede".
Although the copy that I bought was not in good shape, the story was well worth reading. Godden made me believe in the children who were telling the story. She set the stage, started the action and I followed along, not able to stop reading until the last page.
This is a coming of age story, but so much more. I highly recommend it....more
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