Tove Jansson
Dear Friends,
Let this next excerpt from Tove Jansson's Sun City be a warning to us:
It was not until her ninetieth year that Miss Ruthermer-Berkeley began to ask herself whether her long life and not been lacking in what was once called a heart's desire. A much too rigorous upbringing may have had something to do with it, but essentially, she realized, it was all her own fault. Without sense or consideration she had striven for perfection and thus had lived with constant anxiety, anxiety for everything left incomplete the day before- work, duties, conversations- and anxiety for the day to come, which had to be shaped to suit her wishes and the demands she made on herself. Lost in the future and the past she had not been abele to live in her own moment. It was really a great shame, an omission that had probably made no one happy.
I hope you don't recognize yourself in this passage- as for me, well, I wasted miles and years on perfection and anxiety; but there is time, maybe to loiter and play yet left.
Keep an eye out for one more bit from Sun City in a future post- if you don't want me giving you these tiny spoonfuls, you know what to do!
