Her own living room was about soft colours and textures; suede cushions and fluffy carpets; she loved to touch and feel everything. There were light colours of coffees and creams and just like the mug in her hand they helped clear her mind. In a world where most things were a clutter, having a peaceful home was vital to her sanity. It was her refuge, her nest, where she could hide from problems outside her door. At least in her home she was in control. There, unlike in the rest of her life, she allowed in only those whom she wanted, she could decide how long they should stay, and where in her home they could be. Not like a heart, which let people in without permission, held them in a special place she never had any say in, and then yearned for them to remain there longer than they planned. No, the guests in Elizabeth's home came and went on her command. And she chose for them to stay away.
***
Firstly it was just to see if she could hear him or sense him again, but then after a few hours, he found her compelling. She was obsessively neat. He noticed she couldn't leave the room to answer the phone or front door until everything had been tidied away and wiped clean. She drank a lot of coffee, stared out to her garden, picked imaginary pieces of fluff from almost everything. And she thought a great deal. He could see it in her face. Her brow would furrow in concentration and she would make facial expressions as though she were having conversations with people in her head. They seemed to turn into debates more often than not, judging by the activity on her forehead.
He noticed she was always surrounded by silence. There was never any music or sounds in the background like most people had, like a radio blaring, the windows open to allow the sounds of summer- the birdsong and the lawn mowers-in. Luke and she spoke little and when they did it was mostly her giving him orders, him asking permission, nothing fun. The phone rarely rang, nobody called by. It was almost as if conversations in her head were loud enough to fill her silence.
***
Take, for example, Elizabeth; she lies in bed worrying about car tax and phone bills, babysitters and paint colours. If you can't put magnolia on a wall then there are always a million other colours you can use, if you can't pay your phone bill then just write letters telling them. I'm not playing down the importance of these things, yes you need money for food, yes you need food to survive, but you al so need sleep to have energy, to smile to be happy, and to be happy so you can laugh, just so you don't keel over with a heart attack. People forget they have options. And they forget that those things really don't matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have. And by the way, wishing and dreaming doesn't mean concentrating on what you don't have, it's positive thinking that encourages hoping and believing, not whinging and moaning.
***
She prayed that no traffic would come toward her, as the road just about allowed her car through, leaving no room for two-way traffic. In order to let someone pass she would have to reverse half a mile back the way she came, just to make room. At times it felt like the longest road in the world. She could see where she was trying to get to, yet she would have to keep reversing on order to get there.
Two steps forward and one step back.
***
He moved slowly toward the kettle. To Elizabeth's utter annoyance, they only sold one kind of coffee. And that was the instant kind. Elizabeth missed the variety of flavors that she used to get in the cities she traveled on business; she missed the smooth, sweet-tasting French vanilla in a Paris cafe, the creamy full-bodied flavor of hazelnut cream in a bustling cafe in New York, the rich velvety masterpiece of the Macadamia nut in Milan, and her favourite, the Coco MOcha-Nut, the mixture of chocolate and coconut that transported her from a Central Park bench to a sun-bed in the Caribbean. Here in Bail na gCroithe, Joe filled the kettle with water and flicked the switch. A cafe with one measly kettle and he hadn't even boiled the water.
***
Elizabeth was always the first in; she loved the silence, the stillness that her office brought at that time of day. It helped her focus on what lay ahead before her noisy colleagues rattled around and before the major traffic hit the road. Elizabeth wasn't the chatty, giggly type. Just as she ate to keep herself alive, she spoke to say only what she had to say. She wasn't the type of woman that she overhead in restaurants and cafes, chuckling and gossiping over what someone said someday about something. Conversations about nothing just didn't interest her.
She didn't break down or analyze conversations, glares, looks, or situations. There were no double meanings with her; she meant what she said at all times. She din't enjoy debates or heated discussions.
***
The important thing is not what we look like, but the role we play in our best friend's life. Friends choose certain friends because that's the kind of company they are looking for at specific time, not because they're the correct height, age or have the right hair colour.
***
Just because you see one "imaginary" friend, it doesn't mean you see them all. You have the ability to see them all, but as humans only use 10 percent of the brain, you wouldn't believe the other abilities there are. There are so many other wonderful things that eyes could see if they really focused. Life's kind of like a painting. A really bizarre, abstract painting. You could look at it and think that all it is, is just a blur. And you could continue living your life thinking that all it is, is a blur. But if you really look a it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. The painting could be of the sea, the sky, people, buildings, butterfly on a flower, or anything except the blur you were once convinced it was.
***
Like children, the elderly had the ability to believe and hope, especially when they were really sick and weren't going to be with us much longer. I suppose it's times like that people take the time to really think about life, what they were here for and all its possibilities. They drop their defenses and allow themselves to open up to the new experiences of what's happening to them and their bodies. It was the people in-between ages that had the blinders on.
***
"You know, its interesting." He leaned forward again. "Children learn much more, far more quickly than adults. Do you know why that is?"
Elizabeth assumed there was some scientific explanation for it, but shook her head.
"Because they're open-minded. Because they want to know and they want to learn. Adults"-he shook his head sadly-"think they know it all. They grow up and forget so easily instead of opening their minds, they choose what to believe and what not to believe. You can't make a choice on things like that, you either believe or you don't. That's why their learning is slower. They are more cynical, they lose faith, and they only demand to know things that will help them get by day by day. They've no interest in the extras...."
***
In Ekam Eveileb there were no door, because nobody here could open them, but there was another reason- doors acted as barriers, they were thick, unwelcoming things that you could control to shut people in or out and we didn't agree with that.
***
"Most meteors from a common meteor shower are parallel to one another. They appear to emerge from the same point in the sky called 'the radiant' and they travel in all directions from this point."
"Oh, I see," Elizabeth said.
"No, you don't see." Ivan turned on his side to face her. "Stars are like people, Elizabeth. Just because they appear to emerge from the same point doesn't mean that they do. This is an illusion of perspective created by distance." And as if Elizabeth hadn't quite understood the meaning, he added,
"Not all families manage to hold it together, Elizabeth, everyone moves in different directions. That we all emerge from the same point is a misconception; to travel in different directions is the very nature of every being and every existing thing."
***
They walked in silence deep into the heart of the countryside. The birds sang loudly in the early morning, the crisp air filled their lungs, rabbits bounded daringly across their path, and butterflies danced through the air waving through them as they walked along the woodlands. The sun shone down through the leaves of the dominant soak, sprinkling light on their faces like gold dust. The sound of water trickled alongside them while the scent of eucalyptus refreshed the air. Eventually they reached an opening, the trees held their branches out, making a grand and proud presentation of the lake. They crossed a wooden bridge and sat on a hard carved bench in silence, watching as the salmon jumped to the surface of the water to catch the flies in the warming sun.
***
When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or a picture falls off the wall, it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when it breaks, its completely silent. You would think as it’s so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it’s silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain."
If there is a noise, it’s internal. It screams and no one can hear it but you. It screams so loudly yours ears rings and your head aches.It thrashes around in your chest like a great white caught in the sea, it roars like a mother bear whose cub has been taken. That’s what it looks like and that’s what it sounds like, a thrashing, panicking, trapped, great big beast, roaring like a prisoner to its own emotions. But that’s the thing about love; no one is untouchable. It’s as wild as that, as raw as an open flesh wound exposed to salty sea water, but when it actually breaks, it’s silent, you’re just screaming on the inside and no one can hear it.
But Elizabeth, she saw the heartbreak in me and I saw it in her, and without having to talk about it we both knew. It was time to stop walking with our heads in clouds and instead, keep our feet on the harder soil of ground level we should always have been rooted to.
***
But I saw them. I saw it all.I was like a visitor in an art museum standing in front of a busy painting, trying to make sense of it, loving it so much and wanting to jump in and become part of it. I was pushed farther and farther to the back of the garden; my head spun and my knees were weak.
***
"Life is made up of meetings and partings. People come into your life every day, you say good morning, you say good evening, some stay for a few minutes, some stay for a few months, some a year, others a whole lifetime. No matter who it is, you meet and then you part..."
Taken From:
If You Could See Me Now- Cecelia Ahern
=do something right=
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