Happy All The Time
Sunbathing with my sweetheart on a stretch of grass and fall leaves last weekend, I didn't want or expect to be confronted with "relationship talk." I was blindsided when he suddenly grabbed my by the wrists and declared, "You are such a Holly." Hmm... A Holly. Could he love a Holly? Could I love or even be a Holly? Was he merely drunk on sunshine and the scent of my new shampoo, or did he have a point? I mentally raced through the pages of the book he was referring to, Laurie Colwin's Happy All the Time , searching to some clue as to what had been meant by the comment. On the defensive, I first checked off things Holly and I don't have in common. "I don't wear my hair the way Japanese children wear theirs, I can't even figure out how large a pan I need for a batch of brownies, I hate gossip columns... what are you talking about?" "No no no, you're a relationship Holly. Ohhh... He knows me so well. Like Holly, I can't think clearly about a relationship when I am in the thick of it. Holly sleeps with a man for the first time and then wakes up in the morning and does a crossword puzzle, then asks him to bring her a newspaper. Pressed for the reason behind her
Holly and I fall in love in much the same way. We trust to the small things about a person, focusing our love of the person into our pleasure over these discoveries. Questioned about whether or not she actually loves her fiance's character, Holly replies, "Your character is your hair. It's all integrated." In my head, moments where I have experienced intense love for people are catalogued into thumbnail images of them. For example, in my head there is a collection of loose sketches of my boyfriend in movement, cropped images of his eyes, the way his hands cupped around a bowl of strawberries, his clasped sandal buckle. These images carry with them everything else about him. Character and image are integrated. With the sandal there is the presence of the phantom hand that clasped the buckle, a person captured during a moment of complete absorption in the ordinary. actions, she says to him, "I find all this too nerve racking, and so I like to put things into the most normal context." The first time my boyfriend kissed me I looked away from him, and then continued talking about my dog as if nothing had happened. When an important crossroad is reached in a re
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ohhh Holly, Similarly Holly, Colwin's Happy, Holly Sturgis, , Hmm Holly, Holly Guido, love holly, holly love holly, holly love,
Approximate Word count = 793
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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