hopeless Romantic

'I have asked my mother if she regrets her marriage, her choices, and she has told me it is pointless to regret. That she did what she could do. What more can we ask of ourselves? I want to tell her, but do not, that we must ask for so much more, for everything, for love and tenderness and decency and courage. That we must be much more than comfortable, that we must be better than we think we can be, so if in some foreign tongue we are confronted by those childhood questions - "Qui êtes-vous?" "Qui suis-je?"* - we will not be afraid to answer.'


(from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", by E.J. Levy, originally published in Salmagundi, anthologised in The Best American Essays (2005), pp 130, ed. Susan Orlean)


* "Who are you?" "Who am I?"
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