Aidan Chambers

Secrets. Funny how, when you're about to be given something precious, something you've wanted for a long time, you suddenly feel nervous over taking it.Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else's most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone into their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don't we all long for this? Yet when it's offered it's frightening, because you might not live up to the desires of the one who bestows the gift. And frightening because you know that accepting such a gift means you'll want-perhaps be expected- to offer a similar gift in return. Which means giving your *self* away. And what's more frightening than that?_ _ Aidan Chambers, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

Secrets. Funny how, when you're about to be given something precious, something you've wanted for a long time, you suddenly feel nervous over taking it.Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else's most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone into their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don't we all long for this? Yet when it's offered it's frightening, because you might not live up to the desires of the one who bestows the gift. And frightening because you know that accepting such a gift means you'll want-perhaps be expected- to offer a similar gift in return. Which means giving your *self* away. And what's more frightening than that?

I__e always been a slow learner in some areas of my life.mostly the areas known as myself. Or maybe I should say __elves.__ecause the fact is, I__e never, even as a child, felt I__ only one self, only one person. I__e always felt I__ quite a few more than one. For example, there__ my jokey self, there__ my morose and fed-up self,there__ my lewd and disgusting self. There__ my clever-clogs self, and my fading-violet-who-cant-make-up-her-mind-about-anything self. There__ my untidy-clothes-everywhere-all-over-my-room self, and my manically tidy self when I want my room to be minimalist and Zen to the nth degree. There__ my confidant, arrogant self and my polite and reasonable and good listener self. There__ my self-righteous self and my wickedly bad self, my flaky self and my bsentimental self. There are selfs I like and selfs I don__ like.there__ my little-girl selfnwhonlikes to play silly games and there__ my old-woman self when I__ quite sure I__ eighty and edging towards geriatric.The self I show in action at any moment depends on where I am, who I__ with, the circumstances of the situation and the mood I__ in.

I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It__ always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers.Are people like that? I wondered. Am I like that? Always me, like the river itself, always flowing but always different, like the water flowing in the river, sometimes walking steadily along andante, sometimes surging over rapids furioso, sometimes meandering wit hardly any visible movement tranquilo, lento, ppp pianissimo, sometimes gurgling giacoso with pleasure, sometimes sparkling brillante in the sun, sometimes lacrimoso, sometimes appassionato, sometimes misterioso, sometimes pesante, sometimes legato, sometimes staccato, sometimes sospirando, sometimes vivace, and always, I hope, amoroso.Do I change like a river, widening and deepening, eddying back on myself sometimes, bursting my banks sometimes when there__ too much water, too much life in me, and sometimes dried up from lack of rain? Will the I that is me grow and widen and deepen? Or will I stagnate and become an arid riverbed? Will I allow people to dam me up and confine me to wall so that I flow only where they want? Will I allow them to turn me into a canal to use for they own purposes? Or will I make sure I flow freely, coursing my way through the land and ploughing a valley of my own?

The plain unwelcome fact is that sometimes life stymies you.

Yes, even in your mouse moods you only play with the idea of not being." She cleared her throat again. "Biology, you see. It__ because of biology that we want to live and not to die. And it is because of biology that we come to a time when we want to die and not to live.

I don't just want to ban The Bomb. I want to ban all bombs, whatever, and all bombers, whoever, and all bombings, whyever. There have to be better ways of saying no and making changes.

If we try to measure Now, we find it's always gone, has become part of the past.

Maybe we should always start everything from the inside and work to the outside, and not from the outside to the inside. What d'you think?

I asked Geertrui the other day what she thought love is-real love, true love. She said that for her real love is observing another person and being observed by another person with complete attention. If she's right, you only have to look at the pictures Rembrandt painted of Titus, and there are quite a lot, to see that they loved each other. Because that is what you're seeing. Complete attention, one of the other..."but in that case," he said, speaking the words as the thought came to him, "all art is love, because all art is about looking closely, isn't it? Looking closely at what's being painted.""The artist looking closely while he paints, the viewer looking closely at what has been painted. I agree. All true art, yes. Painting, Writing-literature-also. I think it is. And bad art is a failure to observe with complete attention. So, you see why I like the history of art. It's the study of how to observe life with complete attention. It's the history of love.

Is it better to go with the flow or let the flow go?

Love, being in love, isn__ a constant thing. It doesn__ always flow at the same strength. It__ not always like a river in flood. It__ more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows. The thing is, when love is real, whether it__ ebbing or flowing, it__ always there, it never goes away. And that__ the only proof you can have that it is real, and not just a crush or an infatuation or a passing fancy

I cannot live without reading.

Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people's books, one's own books - it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction. And often, very often, while browsing haphazardly, looking for nothing in particular, you pick up a volume that suddenly excites you, and you know that this one of all the others you must read. Those are great moments - and the books we come across like that are often the most memorable.

All the time I think I can never love you more than I already do. And then you do something or say something, and I love you more than ever. Like just now. Like now. How is it possible? Can you love someone more and more and at the same time, all the time, love them as much as it's possible to love someone?

It is not growing like a treeIn bulk, doth make Man better be;Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:A lily of a dayIs fairer far in MayAlthough it fall and die that night;It was the plant and flower of Light.In small proportions we just beauties see;And in short measures life may perfect be (Ben Jonson)

a joy that hurts with sadnessa sadness that is pleasurablea pleasure full of terrora terror that excitesan excitement that calmsa calmness that frightens.

It's one of the great temptations, you see--wanting to prove the strength of your own faith by making others believe what you believe. It shows you're right. But it doesn't prove anything of the sort. All it proves is that you're condescending and arrogant and good at doing what half-decent actors can do, or advertising agents, or pop stars, or politicians, or con men, or any of the professional persuaders. They sell illusions. And that's all they do. And they feel good when they succeed. That's what their lives depend on. Which isn't true about religion. Or shouldn't be. Your belief shouldn't depend on what other people think about it. And it certainly should not depend on whether other people believe the same as you.