This time, I never promised myself that would speak Spanish. I just promised myself that I would practice every day. … I feel like the path for my Spanish work had been set in a lot of ways by my yoga practice. For me yoga has never been about how flexible you are, or whether you can stand on your hands. It’s about showing up. In a way, almost anything that’s worth doing is just about showing up. Not worrying about the big goal but taking baby steps, every single day and trusting that you’ll get there.
Category Archives: Quotes
let go
I caved and joined Pinterest, so I’ve been going through the OneNote notebook where I’ve been storing images of things for years and I came across this quote. Not sure what I like better: the quote or the reminder of the days when all Apartment Therapy posts were written in first-person plural (lol) and readers constantly griped about it. I’d forgotten about that!
Although we don’t have to carry all of our possessions with us, they still take up space in our lives. When we let go of the things we don’t particularly like or need around the house, it frees us up to experience the present moment, or life as it is now. We remember reading a quote once about clutter: that we let go of the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
We made things.
George [McWhirter] stressed that Creative Writing was not an academic subject. We did not study things. We made things. Before I’d met George, no one had ever told me that writing poetry was practical, but this approach demystified the creative process. I began to look at writing as a constructive, physical act. Writing became the artful arrangement of words. There was no teary-eyed emotional or mystical dimension to making better work. The words you used either worked or they didn’t. And if they did not work, there were steps that could be taken to fix them.
The Wisdom of George
Last night I happened to stumble across the first episode of Seinfeld. You know, the one where Jerry wears red sweatpants and there’s no Elaine. Anyway. Jerry and George are nattering away, as they do, and what do I hear George say?
JERRY: Yeah, OK. Oh, wait a second. Oh, I, I forgot to clean the bathroom.
GEORGE: So what? That’s good.
JERRY: Now, how could that be good?
GEORGE: Because filth is good… Whatta you think: rock stars have sponges and ammonia lyin’ around the bathroom? They, they have a woman comin’ over: “I’ve gotta tidy up?” Yeah right, in these matters you never do what your instincts tell you. Always, ALWAYS do the opposite.
JERRY: This is how you operate?
GEORGE: Yeah, I wish.
The Opposite! In the very first episode. It’s a sign, right? 😉
this vocation is not a sprint
Postal submissions taught writers that this vocation is not a sprint. Writing is a series of marathons separated by long respites, where we regain breath and build strength. It is time for writers to slow down again, so that our performance in the next race can be better, more meaningful, and if we are lucky, closer to the eternal, mysterious rewards of art.
the furious finish is part of the process
I used to think that I needed wide open days and uncluttered hours to get important creative work done. Sometimes that’s true. But I’ve also learned that perhaps more important than what happens when I’m staring at the page is what happens when I’m not. How I chew on the idea in my downtime. My subconscious must know about the deadline—needs it, even—and works feverishly to pull it all together. Perhaps it’s even a pipe dream to imagine having something done early enough to bask in its finished glory with a glass of wine. And maybe that’s not even the point—writing is work and the furious finish is part of the process.
Happy Winter Solstice
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
—John Steinbeck
Make something. Anything.
This post was about making things with kids but I think most of the points apply to anyone of any age.
1. It’s important to make something—anything—with your hands every once in awhile.
2. Making things by hand can put you and your child into a state of “flow.”
3. Value process over final product.
4. Stop consuming, start creating.
5. Handmade work teaches children to be original and inventive.
6. DIYs let kids use their imaginations, a skill they have in abundance.
7. Research shows a strong connection between creativity and well-being.
8. Accept that we are all creative.
9. Notice the sense of wonder in your child.
10. Go [a]head, dive back into your childhood reserve of wonder.
always trying to build something
Loved this piece. Sometimes I think about what might have been if I’d had a writing teacher who believed in me, who pushed me to continue past my comfort zone.
“Energy is everything,” he said. He meant the ability to work—to sit at the desk, day in and day out, and to get the words down, despite the disappointment and in spite of the success. Pushing on and pushing through, building sentence after sentence, page after page. Not turning away from the blank page, but always trying to build something from nothing.
beginnings and endings
I only just now figured out what it is about collections of short stories that turn me off. … I don’t like beginnings and endings in fiction. This is true for novels as well. It generally takes 3 to 4 times as long as it should to get through the first 8 to 10 pages of a novel, given my usual middle-of-the-book reading speed; it’s like there’s this big activation energy I have to overcome, all these additional resources I have to put into figuring out the characters, setting, tone, what’s going on, what’s the style, how do I read this, etc. Then you ease into it and it’s smooth sailing for at least 150 pages. Unfortunately, I tend to get antsy toward the ends of things. I think it’s because I like finishing books; it gives me a sense of accomplishment and means I can start something new. So I rush a little toward the end and miss things; too, I overanalyze them, because writers fret over endings and I’m more likely to question the decisions there and feel like something falls flat or feels false. So there’s a certain amount of dread as I approach the last 10-15 pages of the book.
This is a long quote, because yes! All of this. Although, I don’t know that I’d say I don’t like beginnings per se, but I do find them more difficult to get into / slower reading than middles. Partly I think it’s that when I start a new book I still have one foot in the-book-I-was-previously-reading’s ending. So there’s a transitional phase there.
Endings… well. It’s true I often find endings disappointing. They’re so rarely as good as the rest of the story. Endings are hard. Or maybe I am just super nitpicky.
I have come to the conclusion that the way to read short stories is one at a time, which may seem obvious, but when you’re mainly a novel-reader who’s used to getting in that middle-of-the-book zone where you just buzz from one chapter the next devouring the book, stopping and setting the book aside for a while after you finish each story is kind of an “ohhh” moment. So what with all the beginnings and endings and pausings, it makes sense that story collections are much slower reads for me than novels.
Now that I’ve let go of the expectation of being able to read a story collection like a novel, I’m less reluctant to pick one up. There’s still some hesitation, though, because of all those beginnings and endings. (But then you read a gem of a story and it makes it all worth it.)
The Remainder Table 