Secure

'It would always be like this now. Secure. Never again that feeling of solitude in a crowd that made one sometimes begin to think furtively of escape. It was fun to be among people with him and lovely to leave them afterwards and go out alone together.' Monica Dickens Mariana

Will this week turn into an introspection week? I can go to parties alone. I like meeting new people. I had gotten a little weary of always being 'by myself' even if you've gone with frineds. I love going to parties with Warmth. It feels like the best of both worlds. To be out and about. Socialising. Laughing. Talking. Secure. We leave together.

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Kept a bit of myself back

'It's odd, but all through everything it's as if I'd known about you. I always kept a bit of myself back, because I knew that it wasn't the ultimate thing - that I still had to find you.' ...I always knew God had something special up his sleeve. There I was, going round with a whole lot of love to unload on to you, and I dumped it on to one or two of the wrong people on the way, by mistake, that's all.' Monica Dickens Mariana

I read this novel on a great sunny summer holiday with two close girlfriends. It was when I was still hoping, waiting for 'the ultimate thing'. It summed up how I felt and how I'd lived. Keeping 'a bit of myself back'. Somehow I knew they didn't love me so therefore I couldn't give myself in total and utter love to them.
I imagined myself sitting under a fabulous sun hat on a great sunlounger and hopefully sipping on champagne from huge saucers.

The Jigsaw

'Life was a jigsaw, but if you tried to fit the pieces together yourself, you generally got them wrong... She had thought that was the pattern the pieces made. But it had been like trying to force two pieces together that didn't quite fit, and then, suddenly, the jigsaw had been done, in quite a different way, by other hands.' Monica Dickens Mariana

Endpaper from Mariana

Another quote that links to so many others about how we journey through life. Reading helps us make sense of life, explore other people's lifes for size and hopefully decide that ours is the best one for me right here, right now. Reading shows how throughout time, across generations and continents, we've been puzzling over the journey. The journey and opportunities will change but the puzzling won't.