My Years With Proust - Day 713

And to tell the truth, as in those calendars which the postman brings us in the hope of a New Year's gift, there was not one of the years of my life that did not have, as a frontispiece, or intercalated between its days, the image of a woman whom I had desired during that year; an image sometimes entirely arbitrary, for the reason that, often, I had never seen the woman in question, whether she were Mme Putbus's maid or Mlle d'Orgeville or some young woman or other whose name had caught my eye on the society page of a newspaper, amongst "the swarm of charming waltzers." I guessed her to be beautiful, I fell in love with her and I constructed for her an ideal body which towered above some landscape in the region of France where I had read in the Annuaire des Chateaux that the estates of her family were situated.

Marcel Proust, Time Regained, p. 1038

You know, it's funny, just as the last day of the year managed to, randomly, produce an appropriate passage from Proust, I guess this one is also a perfect fit for my 58th birthday.  As is so often the case, I will be spending another holiday or birthday overseas.  I'll be waking up, inshallah, on Pemba and then catching a very early morning four hour ferry ride to Unguja and then settle in at Stone Town (where we'll be staying for the better part of a week).  Doubtless, if I wanted to, and I were even less discreet than I normally am, I could name a woman, either through love or lust, who has dominated every year of my life.  I guess my hope as I begin a new year is that there is never a year when that's not true (although, as we know, I am free of the carnal whirlwind).