Author Archives: Carmel O' Reilly

‘I have to go’, I said and tried not to hear any more as I left but it was still going on and the only way I could not hear it was to be gone.

Either you had Bel Esprit or you did not have it. If you had it you would subscribe to get the Major out of the bank.If you didn’t it was too bad.

They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered in better soil and with a higher grade of manure.

I really love how the learning I’m taking from the chapters of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast connect with my day-to-day learning from other sources. Simply because I love to learn by connecting different things. In this case the same approach taken by people in very different eras to getting good work done and in using ridicule to deal with the absurd.

These people made it a comfortable café since they were all interested in each other and in their drinks or coffees, or infusions, and in the papers and periodicals which were fastened to rods, and no one was on exhibition.

All I must do now was to stay sound and good in my head until morning when I would start to work again.

That was a new and fine thing that I knew little about. It came to be a big part of our lives later.

‘Memory is hunger.’ Hadley Richardson. For me, this line gives a sense of longing for the good experiences of the past to return, and a sense of realising the importance of creating new experiences, and that they don’t have to cost a lot of money. Experiences are the thing that bring richness and privilege to our lives. I needed to be reminded of that.

This was the only true sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and the branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.

I love stories that remind me that the long-lasting memories that live on in our hearts and minds are often the memories of acts of generosity and kindness, happiness and the simple things and times in our lives.