Tuesday, September 22, 2009
"That night, she had a beautiful dream full of seas and leafy islands. She woke up in the early hours and was glad that Lorens was there beside her. She got up and went over to the bedroom window, where she looked out over the sleeping city of Dublin.
She thought of her father, who used to do just that with her whenever she woke up feeling frightened. The memory brought her to another scene from her childhood.
She was on the bench with her father, and he asked her to go and see what the temperature of the water was like. She was five years old and glad to be able to help. She went to the water's edge and dipped in a toe.
"I put my feet in and it's cold," she told him.
Her father picked her up and carried her down to the water again and, without any warning, threw her in. She was shocked at first, but then laughed out loud at the trick he'd played.
"How's the water?" asked her father.
"It's lovely," she replied.
"Right, from now on, whenever you want to find out about something, plunge straight in."
She had quickly forgotten this lesson. She may only have been twenty-one, but she had quickly nurtured many enthusiasms, which she had abandoned as quickly as she had taken them up. She wasn't afraid of difficulties; what frightened her was being forced to choose one particular path.
Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now.
"I'm afraid of committing myself," she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all the possible paths and so ended up following none.
Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pain, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyews in order not to see the bad things in life.
"Life is so complicated."
You had to take risks, follow some paths and abandon others.
:
:
:
Her father took her by the hand and led her into the living room, where her grandmother used to watch television. There was a large, antique grandfather clock, which had stopped years before because it could no longer be repaired.
"Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong, my dear," said her father, looking at the clock. "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.""
~~~PAULO COELHO, BRIDA~~~
