March 21, 2023
Gleanings
- It’s taken me years to realize that fancy notebooks are stifling. Beautiful, but stifling. Because unless I write really slowly, I’m a messy writer. And slow, pretty writing isn’t helpful when you’re just trying to get ideas out.
- This being human is so unique… to have the awareness of the past and future, the yesterday and the tomorrow can wreak havoc on my heart.
- How often — will it be for always? — how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, ‘I never realized my loss until this moment’? The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again.
- What makes for strong writing in math? I asked. Everything serves a purpose. It ties together. There’s not a lot of extraneous stuff. Importantly: there is clarity.
- I read in part because I like to. I also read because I write, and reading helps me learn. And I read because I enjoy stories, and people, and challenging ideas, and other peoples’ expertise.
- I’m not sure I even knew my Yiayia wasn’t Greek until my teens, which given her terrible Greek accent and strawberry blonde hair shows how very up my own arse I was.
- When I went out to see if the crocus in the garden had opened yet, wanting a photograph, I saw the rhubarb unfurling. Looking ahead, I am thinking about crumbles, pies, jam with ginger, and compote to have with yogourt.
- This book is so ambitious which made it also bulky. This put off some who wanted it trimmed down, but I’m here for women writers who want to take up space. After so many years of impressionistic, slim novels, I’m finding something revelatory about bigger novels. They aren’t afraid to sprawl.
