Re-reads
Am, at the moment, revisiting two invaluable reads - Paolo Coelho’s "By the River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept" and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ "Love in the Time of Cholera."
Both books are to me classic novels of love - and of life - lived by those who love with the entirety of their lives. As I am a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, I take shelter in the magic of distant worlds and of spirited souls groping about in search of their soul’s companion. It is in such humble tales that I find refuge, especially when faced with the need to keep up with the surreal demands of a conflicting society.
While I choose to move in and out of my routines with nary a thought of disrupting other busy bees, there are those who simply take it upon themselves to challenge your monotony with unreasonable interruptions. For them, to see you agitated is a mere pleasure - so much so that sometimes, I am led to believe that there are those whose hapiness are spurred only by others’ misfortunes.
When such incidents abound, I shut the world out and clam up in my shell like I were a wounded beaver in a dug-up hole. But more than the beaver, I am blessed with the company of great minds like Richard Bach, Paolo Coelho, G.G. Marquez & Isabel Allende. They keep me grounded while transporting me to realms beyond my phsysical reach and keeping me enriched with unspeakable truths as taking risks and following my hearts desires.
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"You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected.
Every day, God gives us the sun - and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist - that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour on in the thousand and one things that all seem same to us. But that moment exists - a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.
Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many dissapointments - but all of this is transitory; it leaves no permament mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.
Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back - and at some point everyone looks back - she will hear her heart saying, "What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life.
Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life’s magic moments will have already passed them by."
Paulo Coelho, BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN & WEPT
2005.06.22 (reposted)
