Nora Ephron rocks

 I’ve watched four Nora Ephron films in the last two weeks. Four! Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, and Julie and Julia. My favourite is Sleepless. 

They’ve reminded me how much I like Ephron’s writing…but I would love anyone who comes up with a line of dialogue like this: 

“Verbal ability is a highly overrated thing in a guy and it’s our pathetic need for it that gets us into so much trouble”

Or this:

“Thank God my life is in place”  (when it wasn’t)

Or this:

“I’ll have what she’s having”  (the faked orgasm in Katz’s Deli)

Anyway, it prompted me to get out my four Ephron books that I have on the shelf, and discovered I have six books, because I have two copies of I feel bad about my neck, and two copies of Heartburn. How did that happen? I think it’s because of gifts from friends.

My favourite piece in the first of those books is Considering the alternative, in which she writes about aging. This is an excerpt:

So then I looked at The O Word in her collection called I remember nothing, where again, she talks about aging. Another excerpt:

On the next page she says “And every time one of my friends says to me, ‘Everything happens for a reason’ I would like to smack her.”

I loath that phrase too.

I feel similarly about the saying ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s learning to dance in the rain.’

The upshot of all this is that I now have four books I am carrying around - two Ephron collections, The Gifts of Winter, (see last post) and a Kate Atkinson novel. I have become like Dave, who also carries around piles of books, or rather, who leaves them on the floor for months…

There are another three piles out of shot 

…despite the fact we have numerous floor to ceiling bookshelves housing many books that will never be read so could be got rid of to make room for the piles. This is because when we lost all our things in the fire, friends offered us books they didn’t want, and Dave was unable/unwilling to say no, even if the books were definitely not something he might have sought out in a bookshop. He has not read them, and will not read them, and yet he will not get rid of them, which probably stems from his residual upset over our losses.

I have just added to our library another Bloodaxe poetry anthology - Staying Human - and discovered a poem by Craig Arnold called Meditation on a Grapefruit, that ends with this couplet, which I really, really like:

each year harder to live within

each year harder to live without

The poem is all about savouring those small, special - sometimes sensual - moments, which you have time to do when you’re older. (Full disclosure…I loved the poem but didn’t get the connection with peeling a grapefruit after first reading, so my dear, more intelligent friend Het explained it.)

When Nora Ephron was in her seventies, her perfect day consisted of a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. My perfect day would have to include a bacon sandwich, a sunny walk or bike ride, and a chat with a good friend.

I like Ephron’s honest take on what aging is really like. There’s some of that in Grace and Frankie, which is one reason I like it so much. 

Enough of this, it’s time to tackle Connections on the New York Times puzzle page. Another small pleasure.

What I am reading

 I read more in the winter, and having finished ‘Any Human Heart’ and voted it the best book I read last year, I started on Elif Shafak’s ‘10 Minutes 38 seconds in this strange world,’ and was enjoying it.

Then I got to page 66 where the uncle gets into bed with the six year old girl and I stopped. Images of my granddaughter MsX flashed into my mind, not the girl in the story, and I didn’t want to read further. You are entitled to call me a wimp but I read for enjoyment, and I didn’t want to continue for fear of what might come next. What I had read was upsetting enough.

So I started reading a book my daughter lent me. She said it was so helpful, she was going to read it every October. It’s called ‘The Gifts of Winter,’ by Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald, a neuroscientist who used to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Now she deals with it. But that problem is dealt with in chapter one. The book is so much more.

Here is what it says on the back…

I have hated winter since we moved to the country 30 years ago, because of the lack of colour - literal and social. Also because bad weather can interfere with transport and thus my social life. I’m half way through the book and enjoying it. I am also sitting here with the daylight lamp on the bedside table.

For entertainment purposes I am reading a Kate Atkinson novel called ‘One Good Turn.’ So far so good. What are you reading?

Almost forgot…I read this last night for a bit of encouragement: