A Commonplace Book

And I thought it might frighten her if I told her I loved her. It seemed simpler for things to remian as they were--for us to be pasionate when we were in bed, and in between times to be close friends. I was also afraid myself that she would depend on me, and I imagined every time I turned around I would see her and she would say, What shall we do now?

"Everyone's wearing that style," they said. That did it. As soon as I heard that I didn't want the thing. So when Mrs. Mamalujian said, "Is there anything you want?" I thought, Yes, what no one else has, what no one else wants or can even imagine. People with money bought things to be like everyone else. If I had money, I thought, I would try to be as different as possible.

One of my luckiest instincts lay in being able to tell when I was happy--at the time, not afterwards. Most people don't realize until long afterwards that they have passed through a period of happiness. Their enjoyment takes the form of reminiscence, and it is always tinged with regret that they had not known at the time how happy they were. But I knew, and my memory (of bad times too) was detailed and intense.