Just finished reading

"The crocuses have melted, the daffodils have shrivelled to paper, the tulips have performed their enticing dance, flipping their petal skirts inside out before dropping them completely."

Fantastic prose. So evocative.

*

I finished reading The Testaments and took a last mouthful of coffee, which was just warm enough to mask the bitterness. My posture being poor, a dribble passed the corner of my mouth and slid down the gully between my lower lip and my chin. I instinctively sat up with a sudden movement and moved to wipe it away, quickly, guiltily as if being watched.

All endings are unsatisfactory but some journeys can be repeated, making the destination as opposed to the travelling less of an issue. Books can be re-read, recipes recreated, and a failed interlude with a lover can be revisited. With each iteration the outcome becomes less important than the process, the whole become less important than the parts. We develop a fondness for a single passage or chapter, an ingredient or the heady aroma of a single spice or herb. And with lovers we focus on the foreplay perhaps or the tender sleep that comes afterwards, or that particularly place where we like to be touched. The blank side of the final page, the empty plate or the brief physical memory are no longer an issue. The journey truly is more important than the destination.

I’ll be reading this one again some day.

*

Yes that was my feeble attempt at good writing. Mrs Atwood doesn’t just entertain, she also inspires (in this case a lowly blipper in his daily word smithing).