Pam's Blog

I very much liked “Out Stealing Horses” by Per Petterson, a book in which I found several quotes that resonated with me. The main character has his own set of rules. I have some of my own “Pam Rules”, part of my personal code, that come in really handy when I’m out of sorts or in a place where I feel stuck or unsure. Here’s one of the quotes from the book and some thoughts.

“It is important not to be careless about supper when you are alone. It is easily done, boring as it is to cook for one person only. There must be potatoes, sauce and green vegetables, a napkin and a clean glass and the candles lit on the table and no sitting down in your working clothes.”

I certainly can relate … it is so easy to be careless about supper when you are alone. It *is* boring to cook for one person. There’s always more food than one serving. In the book, the character, Trond, has a dog, who gets the leftovers. People are always telling me I should freeze the leftovers and eat them later. Just can’t seem to get into the swing of that. I don’t always have potatoes, sauce or green veggies. Several years ago I started using cloth napkins, more as an environmental decision than anything else. I never have candles and I hardly ever eat at the table anymore. Most of the time I eat in front of the TV, sometimes the computer. Sometimes I’m in my work clothes, other times in my yoga clothes and even, some days, in my pjs.

Even though I’m not following his standards, I certainly have my own set of rules I try to follow to keep me healthy and happy. What are some of your personal guidelines?

Here’s another line from “Out Stealing Horses” by Per Petterson (page 167)

“I wonder whether that is how we get after living alone for a long time, that in the middle of a train of thought we start talking out loud, that the difference between talking and not talking is slowly wiped out, that the unending, inner conversation we carry on with ourselves merges with the one we have with the few …people we still see. When you live alone for too long the line which divides the one from the other becomes vague, and you do not notice when you cross that line.”

I find myself doing this at times … surprisingly I hear myself talking out loud. A while back, one other day at work, in a shared space in which I was alone, I said something out loud and a co-worker walked in. I said “Ooops. You caught me talking to myself.” He told me that was OK … just as long as I didn’t answer myself. 🙂

Over the last many, many months I’ve been really thinking about friendships, relationships, how well I know other people and how well others know me. I thought this passage from “Out Stealing Horses” by Per Petterson summed things up nicely.

“People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are the facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. No one can touch you unless you yourself want them to. You only have to be polite and smile and keep paranoid thoughts at bay, because they will talk about you no matter how much you squirm, it is inevitable, and you would do the same thing yourself.”

I love his distinction between knowing “about” each other and knowing how the events of life have shaped “who you are”. I think that’s what has been missing in my own definition of friendships. It was good to read and get clarity on concepts that have been rolling around in my head for some time.