Non, je ne regrette rien

I finished Confessions of Madame Psyche this morning.  Like all of Dorothy Bryant's fiction it is detailed, intelligent, ... and a kind of spiritual education without the pretension to call itself that.  On the last page, the main character reflects on all she has been through, with a calm and a self-possession that I would love -- some day -- to be able to imitate or approach:

A woman comes to sit by Lower Lake every day at exactly three o'clock.  She carries an old-fashioned windup record player and one record, Edith Piaf singing Non, je ne regrette rien....

I regret nothing.  It is a brave, wise song which I can now sing by heart and which I try to think of whenever I remember any part of my life as an injury or a deprivation.  I regret nothing.  Especially not the injuries, errors, and accidents which drove me to despair.

If I had not been pushed to the end of my rope, I don't know that I would have fallen, ever, into the reality that has given my life form and meaning....  If I had been rescued from even a little bit of that suffering, I might have been able to go on without changing, like a sleep-walker in a nightmare, wandering blindly, flailing in all directions with yearning and pain and fear.  I was saved from that life, but at a price.  The price was everything, and worth everything.

No, I regret nothing.