[오늘의 한문장] 생각보다 잘 살고 있어

그걸 보니 정혜신이 쓴 『당신이 옳다』라는 책의 한 구절이 떠올랐다. "사람은 상대가 하는 말의 내용 자체를 메시지의 전부라고 인식하지 않는다. 순간적으로 그 말이 내포한 정서와 전제를 더 근원적인 메시지로 파악하고 받아들인다."•
• 『당신이 옳다』, 정혜신 지음, 해냄, 50페이지에서 인용

- <생각보다 잘 살고 있어>, 박산호 - 밀리의 서재
https://www.millie.co.kr/v3/bookDetail/d4c11d758ad0446c - P202

Yes. But if it didn’t work I’...

Yes. But if it didn’t work I’d be no worse off. Except for the humiliation of being turned down. - P146

No. Hell. I just want to live simply and pay attention to what’s happening each day. And come sleep with you at night. - P146

But I do feel better already. I thank you for that. I’m grateful for all of this. I feel very fortunate again now. - P151

Well, old woman Moore. You’ve won me completely. You’re just right. You’re how you’re supposed to look. You’re not supposed to be some thirteen-year-old girl without any breasts and hips. - P152

Look how I’ve turned out, he said. I’ve got this gut on me. My arms and legs are thin old man’s arms and legs. - P152

No. But I haven’t tried this for years either. The limp time has come, as the poet says. I’m just an old son of a bitch now. - P153

After dark one night they walked over to the grade school playground and Louis pushed Addie on the big chain swing and she rode up and back in the cool fresh night air of late summer with the hem of her skirt fluttering over her knees. Afterward they went back to bed in her upstairs front room and lay beside each other naked in the summer air coming in from the open windows. - P155

Because men are the ones who design these things, that’s why. - P156

She scooted over close to him. - P156

Everything in its time and place, he said. - P156

Like Dad did with me, you mean. I know your father wasn’t always kind. Kind. My God, he had nothing to do with me after Connie died. - P164

I’m keeping you from your sup...

I’m keeping you from your supper. He stood up and reached out to shake the boy’s hand again. Now take it easy on me. The boy tentatively took his hand and barely touched him. Okay, I’ll be seeing you. - P139

It was all too sudden. I was in some kind of trance. I think I was just in shock. - P142

But even now I can see it all clearly and feel that kind of otherworldliness, the sense of moving in a dream and making decisions that you didn’t know you had to make, or if you were sure of what you were saying. - P142

You can’t fix things, can you, Louis said. We always want to. But we can’t. - P143

이제 초저녁이 되어 마당 끄트머리에 있는 나무들 사이...

이제 초저녁이 되어 마당 끄트머리에 있는 나무들 사이로 은은한 바람이 불고 마지막 남은 석양빛이 희미해지고 있었다. 나는 한참 더 개수대 앞에 서서 비파나무들과 공구 창고와 집 뒤편의 작은 스튜디오 사이로 해가 저무는 풍경을 바라보았다. 집안 반대편에서 샤워기가 꺼지고 몇 분 뒤에 음악이 켜지는 소리가 났다. 내털리가 평생을 바쳐 연마한 그리고 우리가 지금까지 살았던 모든 아파트와 주택에서 항상 흐르던 클래식 음악이 아니라 베시 스미스의 노래였다. 새로 찾은 사랑이자 요즈음 우리의 삶을 진한 소울로 채우는 음악. 나는 코르크 마개를 따고 내털리의 잔은 신경써서 반만 채워 더 많이 채우면 손을 떨어 흘리기 십상이었다-두 잔을 따른 뒤 부엌 한가운데에 있는 아일랜드 식탁 앞에 앉아 기다렸다. - P74

그때 나는 스튜디오로 조금 더 가까이, 하지만 내털리는 나를 볼 수 없을 만큼만 가까이 다가갔다. 맨발 아래 시원한 땅이, 등에는 부드러운 바람이 느껴졌다. 마당에 짙은 어둠이 깔려 강렬하게 빛나는 스튜디오의 조명 외에는 온통 캄캄했다. 나는 더 다가갔다. 내털리가 머리를 앞으로 기울이며 어깨를 늘어뜨리는 모습을 바라보았다. 내가 손을 흔들거나 이름을 부르면 어떻게 될지 궁금했다. 내털리가 나를 볼지,
이번 한 번만이라도 문으로 다가와 나를 안으로 들여줄지. - P93

Louis said, It was awful for ...

Louis said, It was awful for her that last year. She was just always sick. They tried chemotherapy and radiation and that slowed it for a while but it was still there and it never was out of her system completely. She got worse and she didn’t want to have any more treatments. She was just wasting away. - P128

Not like I was. I’ve come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We’re just in this physical body till we go back to spirit. - P128

No, not yet, Addie said. I do love this physical world. I love this physical life with you. And the air and the country. The backyard, the gravel in the back alley. The grass. The cool nights. Lying in bed talking with you in the dark. - P128

She didn’t want to go back to the hospital ever. So that’s how it was. Finally she died. Holly and I were both in the room. She stared at us with those big dark staring eyes like she was saying Help me Help me Why won’t you help me. Then she quit breathing and was gone. - P139

I couldn’t be sure. I felt something. Some kind of emanation. But it was very slight, maybe just a breath. I don’t know. At least she’s at peace now in some other place or higher realm. I think I believe that. I hope she is. - P129

She never really got what she wanted from me. She had a kind of idea, a notion of how life should be, how marriage should be, but that was never how it was with us. I failed her in that way. She should’ve had somebody else. - P130

Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings. - P130