January 24, 2023
Gleanings
- I think I’m drawn, in most of the art I love, to the kind of ordinary darkness that everyone experiences: that every one of us, no matter what we might aspire to, is capable of failing to do what’s right, and that failure, no matter how we might explain it to ourselves, no matter how sorry we might be, could have catastrophic consequences anyway. This to me feels like the tragedy of the human condition, and it also feels like the source of some of the most beautiful, terrifying stories people have made.
- I’m going to be completely honest: If your girlfriend wrote into this column with this story, I would tell her she should break up with you. Not because you were “honest about your feelings,” but because gaining and losing weight, over and over and over, is part of nearly everyone’s life. It is so inconsequential in the vast tapestry of existence, and if getting fatter over the course of nine short months throws you into this kind of tailspin where you find yourself not only unattracted to her, but you feel honor-bound to tell her so, how are you going to handle it when the really hard stuff happens?
- What activities and actions and experiences and routines help me feel good, whole, content? What leaves me feeling empty, anxious, drained? As I explore what I FEEL (last year’s word), I gain clues to what I NEED.
- I would move into this book immediately if I could, or at least visit for a while. But of course, I already lived there once. Of course, this reading is wildly coloured by my life experience, as is anyone. Perhaps there will be a future school of criticism about the death of the reader, but I don’t know how that would be possible and also it would be too sad.
- It’s not a colour I like to wear because finding the right shade of orange in clothes is nearly impossible – but it’s everywhere in nature. Persimmons, apricots, clementines, strands of saffron in water. When I see it I swear I can feel my heart expand.
- Walking is not a form of exercise. It’s an act of contemplation, a ritual of communing with nature and self.
- “Equanimity,” says Salzburg, “can be described as the voice of wisdom, being open to everything, able to hold everything. Its essence is complete presence.”
- How, just how, in a world of 8 billion people floating amidst the vast cosmos, with layers and layers of histories and everyday moments and decisions, did the group of us from all over this world end up together in this very moment, in this very place … continues to mystify me with awe and wonder and gratitude.
- It’s not how many books or works you read (in whatever form) that counts. It’s that you read that counts – and it counts so very much.
- So I didn’t buy it and we went off to La Paz for five days. I thought I might see another bracelet I liked. I didn’t. But I saw that blue everywhere.
- Honesty is scary, and surprisingly freeing. It helps to try it out on people whom you trust, who’ve been honest with you, too. One honest conversations begets another. And so begins a chain reaction to something so liberating you wonder why it took you so long to blossom.
