The Great Treasure Hunt of Life

Following in Harry O’s Footsteps

(NOTE: Some of the links in this blog are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase on Amazon. Thank you for supporting my writing in this manner. More details here.)

*****

During my teens, as other girls giggled about boys, I made appointments with my rabbi to discuss existentialism. In my 20s, I loved a TV show with David Janssen called Harry O. So, ok, I had a crush on – and giggled over – the actor. But I also loved Harry Orwell’s essence. He was a seeker as evidenced by the name of the fishing boat he was perpetually trying to repair – The Answer. I identified completely.

In my lifelong search for the answer, I have found many hints in books. In 2002 I started a journal making a list of all the books I read. It is 22 years – and 664 books – later, and I have reached the last page. Looking back through this notebook, I see that in the years before digital books, I used to write down favorite lines in the journal as well. I’m not surprised that most of the quotes resonated with me because they are hints about the answer – with a few funny one-liners thrown in for good measure.

Here then are some treasures I have found through reading.

*****

This beautiful quote on aging:

“Hard to believe it now, when I can’t even tie my own shoes! I think back to those times, when I was just an ordinary man, not even a young man, and it’s like remembering that I used to be the sun and the wind! Taking the steps two at a time! Well, it all seemed so natural, like it would never end.”

– From Home by Marilynne Robinson

*****

This understanding of caregiving:

“He’d done all he could. But choosing to lovingly care for her was like steering a plane into a mountain as gently as possible. The crash is imminent; it’s how you spend your time on the way down that counts.”

– From Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford

*****

This reminder to curmudgeons to let people in:

“AJ watches Maya in her pink party dress, and he feels a vaguely familiar, slightly intolerable bubbling inside of him. He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then determines it’s love…And then despite the fact that AJ does not believe in God, he closes his eyes and thanks whomever, the higher power, with all his porcupine heart.”

– From The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

 *****

The importance of eating cookies today:

 “By midafternoon she has written a thousand words, which is greater than the number of calories she has consumed since yesterday. Hardy is on a diet that started, roughly, at age twelve. She’s thirty-six now and still dreaming of butter cookies.”

– From The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

*****

Appreciating the rewards of a long relationship: (The man says his relationship with his wife is “fine” and then goes on in honesty, not sarcasm to say…)

“I pay the bills, she runs the house. Neither one of us wants surprises. There’s ecstasy in the bedroom each time I open a dresser drawer and see the laundry’s been done again.”

– From Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man by Joseph Heller

 *****

An understanding of new love in later years:

“And so, if this man next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter? He most likely wouldn’t have chosen her either. But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union – what pieces life took out of you.”

– From Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

*****

And here is a gem about feeling gratitude for all the little things:

“There are random moments – tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square…when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.”

– From The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

*****

Another reason for gratitude – because things can change quickly:

 “In the dictionary lumpy jaw comes just before lunacy but in life there are no such clues. Suddenly, for no reason, you might start to dribble from the mouth, to howl peevishly at the moon. You might start quoting your mother, out loud and with conviction. You might lose your friends to the most uninspired deaths. You might wake up and find yourself teaching at a community college; there will be nothing to warn you.”

– From Anagrams by Lorrie Moore

*****

And since laughter is the best medicine, here are some one-liners from Anagrams:

• “All the world’s a stage we’re going through.”
• “Anguish as a second language.”
• “You cannot say, ‘to lay down’ unless you mean to copulate with feathers.”

A few more chuckles from other authors:

• In Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem says, “I’m tightly wound. I’m a loose cannon. Both. I’m a tightly wound loose cannon, a tight loose.”
• In Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson says, “If I [maintain] my aversion to change, I [risk] being reincarnated as a granite post.”
• In We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver says, “Though it may be more romantic to picture the bereaved as gaunt, I imagine you can grieve as efficiently with chocolates as with tap water.”

*****

One-liners can also bring wise words such as these:

• In Rules of Civility, Amor Towles says, “Most of us shell our days like peanuts. One in a thousand can look at the world with amazement.”
• In Expecting Adam, Martha Beck says, “The vast majority of us normal people spend our lives trashing our treasure and treasuring our trash.”

Martha Beck will be proud of me as I treasure all of these treasures, all of these hints about the meaning of life.

22 years. 664 books. Lots of learning. I am grateful.

*****

If you like my writing, please know that my newest book, Chai on Life, will be published April 1, 2025. Pre-order now on Amazon!