January 23, 2024
Gleanings
- But once the pianist played our opening and we assumed our positions, then began to move in formation as a real corps de ballet, I stopped thinking about how I might be perceived. Instead, I smiled, breathed in, imagined the top of my head reaching toward the ceiling and let my body present the movements it had been perfecting all week. I stopped judging my every bodily infelicity, quieted any fears and just danced, suspended in time.
- And so yeah, I love my own books, and I want them to be successful but I just…cannot get very fussed about it. Mainly…every now and then I’m still fussed. But really–just what are the odds! If you have seen what I’ve seen–which is actually NOT all the books published in the English-speaking world in a year, but a fair percentage of them–you just can’t get that upset anymore. You still work hard–I still work hard–but like Le Petit Prince on his tiny planet (why are so many things like Le Petit Prince to me?)…it’s an odd perspective
- A middle-aged woman being a life coach is a laughingstock. I know it. We all know it. (I’m Not Sorry About Being a Coach)
- So here I am, feeling a bit shaky like James, falling into your arms. My dad has dementia. It is terrible and often beautiful in totally surprising ways. I’d like to write more about it here. I hope that will be as healing for some of you as I know it probably will be for me.
- I am from the hot desert sand, from where palm trees sway/ Heavy with fresh, golden dates hanging just out of reach./ I am from mudpies, made outside while parents napped./ And the sun beat down on our bare, unprotected brown skin.
- This book of mine pays tribute to poets adults read—Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver—but also to Margaret Wise Brown. You are never too young for the rapture of language—or too old to let it take you somewhere entirely new.
- This is going to sound so trite, so petty, but…I actually feel bad for them. What a sad little world they’ve created, where perfection is the thing that matters. Where the ability to Control your Human-ness is rewarded. To earn your spot here, you must be able to push down your fear, your flaws, your idiosyncrasies, your pain, your personality. Please be a machine, with just the right amount of “musicality.”
- My lobster is out there. Who knows, I may have already met him. But, rest assured, I haven’t waited this long, or done the inner work or, frankly, endured the experiences I have to be disappointed. My person is out there, just waiting for me to make space for them in my life and in my heart.
- You are the original Teflon. You sear meat, reduce a sauce, sweat an onion, and yes, dear cast iron pan, you’ll fry my morning egg.
- In moments like these I start to doubt even “reasonable hope.” I have to admit it. When you see such horror and unjust actions. And, yet, part of me believes that we cannot move forward without some element of hope. What is reasonable hope at the moment? Very difficult to describe. But I communicate with Palestinian and Jewish friends of good will. Notwithstanding the context, they give me hope. Notwithstanding the tears they shed and the sorrow they go through, I can feel hope in their words. I hope I am being reasonable!
- My bridge tales come directly from my heart and my imagination. I just hope I have the fortitude and competence to get this project across the finish line which, for me, would be taking it to the printer.
- I’m glad to have a place to hang up my hat, both literally and figuratively.
- But what I’m wondering, these days, is how to model the behaviour of reading more? In the summer, I’m going to try and read more in public spaces and on park benches. Maybe until then I’ll read in cafes and in libraries.
- When you’re the one who doesn’t leave … you always wonder – what it would be like if you left? Wonder what it would be like if you were elsewhere. Especially when you were the teenager who couldn’t wait to get outta this place …
- I’m really proud of my day, of the feelings of achievement I have for resting, the creativity seeping through as cracks start to appear in the bed of tight, tense perfectionism.
- i can get really tired of people thinking i’m odd. i’m only as odd as the next guy. and i’m not talking about the naked guy at the beach. It gets old, and being embarassed is not that good a feeling, it seems to ride side-saddle to shame.
This engrossing anthology is quite my favourite reading each week – thank you Kerry! For me, Gleanings is writers helping writers – perhaps not their (nor even Kerry’s) specific intent, but the very positive outcome all the same. Thank you!