Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

The point was that we both understood how easy it is to let your life pass along, totally in book, unless you take a risk, disrupt the expected patterns, and try to make something human happen.

—  CJ Hauser, The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays (Doubleday, July 12, 2022)


Notes:

  • Highly recommended. And if you can, listen on Audible.
  • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, THE GUARDIAN, GARDEN & GUN
  • Guardian Book Review July 19, 2022: The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser review – frank and funny essays on doomed romances.

we have an unstoppable will to go forward

PS: It’s like every time i get pushed down and crushed, I seem to get more information…Parkinson’s had made me aware of time. Like, really aware of it. My sense of mission, my sense of this is what I’m supposed to do, that got much stronger in me. If I don’t do that, I start to think about “Oh, Shit, this happened to me.” “What a drag.” You know, it makes life harder. Then you go into this whole pity party thing. It’s a complete waste of time.

JH: Do you ever get into that zone, the pity party zone?

PS: Yeah, I get in it all the time, but I’m very fast at getting out of it. […] Because the whole premise of this is we’re not gonna win every time, we certainly can’t be perfect, we can’t control it, but we have an unstoppable will to go forward… Basically its the same goal, which is, “Schmuck, take action, no matter how frightened you are.”

Phil Stutz & Jonah Hill, from Stutz, (Netflix, 2022)


Notes:

  • Lori suggested that I watch. I’ve watched it front to back 3x. Powerful.
  • Stutz: Rated R for frank language. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
  • NY Times Film Review: ‘Stutz’ Review: An Actor’s Tribute to a Therapist. In his documentary, Jonah Hill gently turns the tables on the famed Hollywood psychiatrist and author Phil Stutz.

Tuesday Morning Wake-Up Call

It was always here, like a secret door you’ve been trying to kick in for years.

And then, in the midst of this trial, as you hang your head in defeat, you notice that around your neck you are wearing a key.

— Jillian HortonWe Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing (HarperCollins Publishers, February 23, 2021)


Notes: Image: Daryn Stumbaugh via Unsplash

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Where to go from here?

—  Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life: A Memoir (Little, Brown and Company. April 12, 2022)


Notes:

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Start close in, 
don’t take the second step  
or the third, 
start with the first  thing  close in,  
the step 
you don’t want to take…

Do I have a first step I don’t want to take? …

What would it be, this step I don’t want to take?

— Jillian Horton, We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing. Poem by David Whyte: “Start Close In


Image: Carolina Pimenta, Arts Center, Riberia Grande, Portugal (via Unsplash)