My First Ever Meme

I've been tagged by Paula Weston to participate in this "Page 123" meme. At first I thought it was going to be like the BTT entry a couple weeks ago, but this one is different even though it uses the same page number. The rules are pretty simple:

1. Grab any nearby book and open to page 123.
2. Find the fifth sentence.
3. Post the next three sentences.
4. Tag five people
5. Acknowledge who tagged you.

The book I picked is Pablo Neruda: Absence and Presence. (I'm still reading Ten Big Ones but forgot it upstairs next to my bed and my husband is still sleeping and I don't want to take a chance of waking him up!) This is a gorgeous book of poetry, photos, and remembrances. Page 123 is a photo so I turned the page to a remembrance of Pablo written by Julio Cortazar.

On my first visit two years before, he had embraced me with a "See you soon," which had taken place in France. Now, he looked at us for a moment, his hands in ours, and said, "Better not to say good-bye, right?", his tired eyes already far away.

That was it.

I'm not sure how I feel about these memes. They kind of remind me of chain letters and I've always hated those. On the other hand, it's interesting to read the sentences and maybe be intrigued enough to buy the book. Also, it's a fairly painless way of meeting new people and since I've only had my reading blog for about a month, I could definitely use new "friends." So, I'll reluctantly tag five people.