Sweet Words .....

Audrey in Sabrina, 1954

This is not one of my usual blogs, filled with analyses of any sort.  Rather, it is an excerpt from a longer *something* someone sent to me ...... Sweet words of encouragement on Yom Kippur.  A hard day, a day dedicated to Ha'Shem, a day of fasting & introspection ..... both of which I am quite excellent at, actually!  Nevertheless,  a tough day to be a Jew, especially tough for me this year as it is the anniversary of my Dad's death.   Not for nothing have I been called the Queen of Affliction!!!

Anyways, It touched me & I thought I would share .....


" A few words to help you with Yom Kippur ..... which I know will not be easy for you"

"My mother didn't snack, but when she had a dessert, it had to be sweet.   ...  She loved a scoop of vanilla ice cream with maple syrup dribbled over it. After her afternoon nap, which she had learned to take because of the early calls and long hours of film production, she would often have a piece of chocolate - one piece! She said that chocolate chased away the blues.

Here is another secret: my mother really wasn't so thin. She used to refer to herself as “fake thin.” Her upper body, especially her thoracic cage, was thinner than average, thus her thin waist. The early whooping-cough incident, combined with malnutrition during the war, led to asthma in her youth, and she had somewhat weak lungs throughout her life. She smoked, like most dancers and just about everybody else at the time, and was told throughout her life that she might be in the early stages of emphysema. 

 

Her ballet training also played an important role in the development of her physique. Although her upper body was slight, her arms and her legs were athletic and she was well proportioned overall.   So if you want to be in good shape, it's pretty simple: Grow up during the war, suffer famine in your early life, exercise every day, and later in life eat reasonable amounts of everything and feel good about it." 

 ~ Audrey Hepburn,  An Elegant Spirit: A Son Remembers by Sean Hepburn Ferrer. ~ 

 

And, I'll add a quote .... "Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me. "  ~ Audrey Hepburn.