Notes from an Island

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“Everything about yourself has been evened out, is now neutral and not especially interesting. You are your own companion, who seldom talks and never asks questions; a person you can live with. Your existence is turned out ward in calm observation of familiar things that constantly change, giving you a remarkable sense of security and excitement.”

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“It is astonishing the number of people who go around dreaming of an island. Sometimes they're deliberate people who search for their island and secure it and sometimes the island dream is a passive symbol of what lies one step out of reach. The island, privacy at last - distance, intimacy a self-contained universe without bridges and fences. Protected and isolated bv the water, which, at the same time, opens up the possibility of contact with others. A possibility never exploited.”

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“When we tired of that game, we sat down and took stock. The sea was chalk white in every direction as far as the eye could see. It was only then that we noticed the absolute silence. And that we had started whispering. Now came the long wait. I was seized by a new feeling of detachment that was utterly unlike isolation, merely a sense of being an outsider, with no worry or guilt about anything at all. I don't know how it happened but life became very simple and I just let myself be happy.”

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“At the end of her notebook Ham wrote. underlined “We must not gild the lily.” Yes, yes, I know, probably from the Bible. And I know exactly what she meant - that we’ve tried to make the meadow into a garden, change the thicket into a park, tame the shore with a dock, and all the other things we’ve undeniably done wrong. Okay, we make mistakes. What of it? Sometimes it felt like unrequited love - everything exagerated. I had the feling that this immoderately pampered and badly treated island was a living thing that didn’t like us, or felt sorry for us, depending on the way we behaved, or iust because.”