Because there are tons and tons to read on the Internet, I usually find it hard to pry myself off its clutches whenever access is free. And although it is completely acceptable in this age to get most if not all of one’s reading materials online, there is also a part of me that feels guilty for the volumes and volumes of books that I have promised myself I would find the time to read, but keep putting off. So I do it one little step at a time.
This weekend, I intentionally left my laptop in the Makati apartment when I went home to Valenzuela so I wouldn’t be tempted to go online. I admit to allowing myself to check my mails a couple of times though through my phone but that was it.
So my reading list for the weekend included a compilation of old American essays (actually titled The Best American Essays 1992), wherein the first was by Anne Carson (who is actually Canadian but well, they probably meant “American” in the broadest sense. In fact when you think about it, who gave the US citizens monopoly of that word?).
Here are some quotes from her Short Talks (my O friends would love this one):
Short Talk on Walking Backwards
TO CONTINUE READING, CLICK HERE.My mother forbade us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.
