Any and all activity that requires you to be in any state of undress will be done on your time, not mine. Because believe it or not, I don’t get paid nearly enough to have to watch you scratch your balls.
He looked at me. “You got his little hellion here?” he asked, pointing in Pepper’s direction. “Absolutely.
Lord, I realize that I have tended toward the independence described in this chapter. Before I go one step further, I want to settle this issue with You. I repent, and I ask Your forgiveness for having this “boastful pride of life” – this tendency to seek independence from You and Your plans for me. I want to reverse that now. Lord, I make this declaration to You: By Your grace, I will live from now on in willing dependence upon You. Amen.
The poorest man around is not the fellow without a bank coin to his name, but the soul without the right information to orchestrate for himself the right future.
The darkness of ignorance is allergic to the light of your truth. Speak your truth.
Much later I would see this kind of behavior with gorillas in captivity. They had nervous tics similar, if not identical, to mine: hair plucking, picking at scabs, scratching, rocking, chewing on themselves, and other repetitive and self-stimulating behaviors. One gorilla spun in tight, fast circles. Another bobbed her head up and down.
What hell, being an adult!
The Heir and the Spare – there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity. I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion and, if necessary, a spare part. Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow. This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter.
It wasn’t that she felt no emotions. On the contrary, I always thought that Granny experienced all the normal human emotions. She just knew better than the rest of us mortals how to control them.
He assured me that people do stupid things, say stupid things, but it doesn’t need to be their intrinsic nature. I was showing my true nature, he said, by seeking to atone. Seeking absolution.
Is each generation doomed to unwittingly repeat the sins of the last?
I recall one headline, addressed pointedly at Granny: Show Us You Care. How rich, coming from the same fiends who “cared” so much about Mummy that they chased her into a tunnel from which she never emerged.
My family had declared me a nullity. The Spare. I didn’t complain about it, but I didn’t need to dwell on it either. Far better, in my mind, not to think about certain facts, such as the cardinal rule for royal travel: Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.
She said: That was everything. She said: That is a man. My love. She said: That is not a Spare.
With bagpipes it’s not the tune, it’s the tone.
In this mixed-up world, this pain-filled life, we’d done it. we’d managed to find each other.
Weddings were joyous occasions, sure, but they were also low-key funerals, because after saying their vows people tended to disappear.
Study, concentration, requires an alliance with the mind, and in my teen years I was waging all-out war with mine.
He was, I realize now, one of the most truthful people I’ve ever known, and he knew a secret about truth that many people are unwilling to accept: it’s usually painful.
Also, the notorious Wallis Simpson. Also, her doubly notorious husband Edward, the former King and my great-great-uncle. After Edward gave up his throne for Wallis, after they fled Britain, both of them fretted about their ultimate return – both obsessed about being buried right here. The Queen, my grandmother, granted their plea. But she placed them at a distance from everyone else, beneath a stooped plane tree. One last finger wag, perhaps.