I can’t look back from where I am now and feel that I have been very much in charge of my life. Certainly I have lived on the edge of the Port William community, and I am farther than ever out on the edge of it now. But I feel that I have lived on the edge even of my own life. I have made plans enough, but I see now that I have never lived by that plan. Any more than if I had been a bystander watching me live my life, I don’t feel that I ever have been quite sure what was going on. Nearly everything that has happened to me has happened by surprise. And whatever has been happening usually has already happened before I have had time to expect it. The world doesn’t stop because you are in love or in mourning or indeed of time to think. And so when I have thought I was in my story or in charge of it, I really have been only on the edge of it, carried along. Is this because we are in an eternal story that is happening partly in time?
Probably I would have not got through this book if I’d tried to sit and read with my own eyes. I’m not very good at that right now and this was not exactly a page turner, but how I enjoyed! listening to the first person narrative as I worked puzzles, and I kept thinking “I need to get a hard copy so I can see these lines!” What fabulous writing.
And a rich reflection on a life in a place.
Aurora Family Puzzle