Arihant Verma’s Kindle Notes & Highlights for The Body Myth

What does it taste like? Like a soaked berry, bursting with the tang of a lemon, with the texture of pudding and the sweetness of mango.

4%

vicarious

4%

A man had never appeared so authentic to me. It made my heart flare up with an unseasoned emotion, a longing to hold his hand.

4%

croaked.

4%

the man said with a hint of irritation, a dash of affection.

5%

Rahil reached toward me and dusted speckles of mud from my sneakers. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched me with absentminded affection.

5%

“Cool,” Rahil confirmed, as he pulled one of my laces out and then proceeded to tie it back. I wanted to giggle. A grown man and woman amused with my sneakers in the middle of a park. A couple willing to Sunday socialize minutes after a medical emergency.

5%

popped a couple out

5%

flipped them in her mouth,

5%

Her mouth moved like she was tasting the ghost of the pills she’d just taken.

5%

her lean legs propped on his thighs, her hair in a high bun, and cups of chai that sat with them as they talked the evening away.

5%

Sara scrunched her face in amusement.

5%

one splotch of mud on his left knee.

6%

Sara’s inquisitiveness was erratic, compelling, and kind,

6%

No doctor could put a finger on it.

6%

It was the specificity in her questions that would make anyone not just want to answer, but to do so articulately, precisely, vulnerably.

6%

But when I answered, the light dimmed and I was met only with a sturdy focus on my gaze, her face blank but composed. I realized I needed her eyes to stay on me. I’d answer anything. Deeply personal things I had never even thought of: How did I survive Ketan’s death? How did I break out of the young widow cliché? How did I manage to work? Where were my scars?

6%

Dark skin, high cheekbones, a small forehead, wide shoulders, tiny hands with sea-blue nail polish. Her breasts were large, her cleavage pushing out of her V-neck blouse.

6%

Her pain was unadulterated energy, a ghost that pulled her and the person sitting next to her together.

6%

I wanted to gnaw at her skin, stay with her until I inevitably found the purpose of life. This was Sara, from the very first meeting.

7%

roping in quick nostalgic facts and anecdotes.

7%

Sara would use my answers to ask the more probing follow-ups.

7%

Rahil looked into his food and repeated the word ginger for no reason.

8%

Her face was full, arms freckled, hair thick, lips in a perpetual pout, and body resigned.

9%

But I always mediated such complaints with a certain brand of nonchalance that, more often than not, left my accusers morally unsure of their own understanding of the world.

9%

was obsessed with de Beauvoir because she, like most women, had a knack for simplifying the complexities that men create for the sake of their egos.

9%

These philosophers who embraced the absurd made my pain feel silly.

9%

I felt the whimsy and entitlement of the cows stoically chewing their cud as they sat in the middle of major intersections.

9%

and I find grief bothersome.

10%

was a messy room, but still clean.

10%

Her lips bloomed from her bare face, plump, puckered, present.

10%

“The Yellow Wall.” “Huh?” I couldn’t help the involuntary pride that warmed my cheeks as I savored her confusion.

10%

Heartbreak only comes from expectation.

10%

brunt

10%

smug

10%

world. I barely had an idea then, much less now. Still, I controlled its intranet, sent out firm-wide updates, and helped the interns resize images.

11%

If you are trapped in mundanity, it’s impossible not to latch your poor soul to something, or someone, that makes you realize your vulnerable pumping heart will only beat a certain number of times.