Sunday papers...

So I'm reading something in The Sunday Times about the beauty of songs that "don't resolve heartbreak's contradictions, but revel in" them. Katie Glass calls Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" the greatest break-up song ever and adds that it's the kind of thing that "triumphs in despair."

There's an entire book about the song has helped people deal with hard times:

http://www.amazon.com/We-Will-Survive-Encouragement-Inspiration-ebook/dp/B00DCX0X40/ref=sr_1_1s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422815514&sr=1-1&keywords=i+will+survive+gloria+gaynor

And even though I think coincidences are just that and nothing more, before I opened the paper I had been reading a short story where the main character (following a devastating break-up) asks herself: "If I could not learn to live with myself and my many faults, what chance would someone else have with me?"

Though she is in a completely different situation, when she says, "We walk forward in life for a reason" it's exactly what I need to hear and one of the reasons I love reading so very much.

Some of the things that plague us will disappear some day (soon, hopefully) and some of those things won't. I can get over not being in a relationship or even knowing I may never find one; I can't, however, get past the fact my parents and I just don't get along very well unless I agree with them on everything...that troubles me a lot.

Still, I love sentences like this from Karen Campbell's "The Butterfly Collector":

“Everything changes now,” a voice within told me. “What you thought was real will fade and what you thought faded will become real.” It was not a moment for the faint-hearted. I know that I have been worn down but that ends now, as the lock turns and the door opens. Today begins the new me...



Also...

in Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section a review for Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart and Mind by David J. Linden:

Viking. 261 pp. $28.95

Of all the gifts that a parent can give a child, one of the most important is a simple, loving touch. Babies who are deprived of human touch, such as those who spend their early years in understaffed orphanages, display profound abnormalities. Their growth is stunted, and they’re slow to gain cognitive and motor skills. They display repetitive, self-soothing behaviors, such as rocking endlessly back and forth. They are more likely to develop obesity, diabetes and heart disease, or suffer from mental illnesses ranging from depression to psychosis. But the smallest of interventions — as little as 20 minutes of gentle physical contact a day — can help touch-deprived infants avoid the worst outcomes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-touch-the-science-of-hand-heart-and-mind-by-david-j-linden/2015/01/29/f0161be4-8f8d-11e4-ba53-a477d66580ed_story.html