February 1, 2022
Gleanings
- Making meaning of this pandemic is a very human response, but maybe it can also become a bit of an addiction, another way to control, and build an identity around how you’re doing it right while so many are doing it wrong.
- Reading does it again, gets me through, keeps me going, makes everything so very good, especially when I get to share it with someone amazing.
- We reach out, we spend time with each other, we ask questions, we lift each other up; and THEN we create. And the sharing of this creation empowers others to create. We give so we can give, so we can give.
- They shouldn’t let just anyone drive on our street.
- Maybe what I’m really trying to get at with this post is that we still need the tactile, the movement of pen or pencil over paper, we need the brush daubing and sliding through that paint, we need to get our hands a bit dirty or spill a bit of ink.
- Then I dug out this old picture of myself with a group of friends taken 40+ years ago, I don’t know the exact year. Did we know how beautiful we were then? And what if we knew then what we know now? Would we have made different choices? Would we have appreciated ourselves more, compared ourselves to others less?
- A bedcover, yes, but also a record of how I felt about the floods, the rivers, the state I find myself in as an aging woman, attentive to my own heart-beat.
- Isn’t it amazing to consider all of the millions of moments, decisions and details of not only our lives, but of previous generations, that have led us to sitting together, sipping tea and sharing stories on this very day?
- “What exactly is the cloud and how does it work?” I asked. And he admitted that he wasn’t quite certain himself.
- Tookie’s journey would have been enough for a story, but add in the bookstore haunting, her intriguing fellow employees and their stories, the vital role of books, and of course the appearance of the Pandemic and months of panic and isolation, as well as the explosive political moment of Black Lives Matter, and this book is bursting with deep ideas to explore.
- She’s right that grief is lonely, and that in the face of it, our words often fail us. She’s also right that “no matter how anarchic and wretched the grief may be, a poet will have gotten there first.”
- How do we know when it’s too late? I guess that’s what I’m wondering. I’m wondering what I can do right now, and how, and with whom.
- She could have skipped the event, but no one would have known why. She could have stood on a podium and ranted, but I expect she would have been largely ignored. Instead, she threw the prime minister a powerful glare that sent a clear message.
- Between one thing and another, I never made it to the cinema in the Fall, and now that they’re shut again, it’s all I want to do.
