That's 31025 days to grow up and then grow old. Still, sometimes we feel as life is passing by too fast.
What do we do with our time? Let's see:
- 8 hours of sleep (my friends who recently turned moms would love to)
- 3 hours eating (including grocery shopping and loading the dishwasher. Unless you are Italian, then 4 hours will be just enough to get started on the appetizers)
- 2 hours dedicated to personal care (showering and grooming)
- 3 hours to get places, clean the house, fix the daily troubles (including kids)
- 6 hours working (at least! Unless you are writer, in which case, 2 hours is pushing it)
- 1 hour to socialize and attend meetings, share gossip, shovel coffees
This would leave 1 hour and 30 minutes a day to enjoy the little blessings of life (a bit more if you are not working).
What do I want to do in this 1 hour and 30 minutes? Not much. I would like to feel, more than do. To be aware, more than busy.
I would like to remember to thank God (in a broad, unspecific, nonreligious way) for being alive and smart, not too pretty and, hopefully, healthy.
This prayer is quite surprising, to myself mostly. Let's see why.
Beside being alive, that is a universal wish, I'm thankful for my reasoning abilities, more than my looks and my social skills. I suppose that is because I've always enjoyed mental adventures and animated philosophical disquisitions, therefore when I witness other people failing to express themselves in various subjects or languages I feel quite proud and blessed.
I'm also thankful of not being a beauty, so that I can enjoy the freedom that comes from not attracting excessive, undesired attention. I regard the gift of anonymity when I wish to be invisible (that is pretty often, having been born a solitary creature).
Last but not least, I've always been physically weak, with a tendency to dramatization, hypochondria and a delirious array of psychosomatic conditions. My life has been a long list of inexplicable sorrows that do not match my average, if not perfect, upbringing and life events.
So while Francoise Heritier throws herself in a (too long) list of little blessings to remind us of the sweetness of life, I let my mind wander to the significance of the original title, "Le sel de la vie" which literally translates "The salt of life".
I like this title better, because what makes life worthy is the taste, more than the sugar coat.
