You Reading This, Be Ready

November 25, 2012November 25, 2012 ~ Live & Learn ~ 20 Comments

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

– William Stafford (The Way It Is)

Sources: Poem – Thank you WhiskeyRiver. Photograph: Rangefinder

Sylvia Path: “I am myself. That is not enough.”

November 1, 2012November 1, 2012 ~ Live & Learn ~ 16 Comments

Sources: Sylvia Path quote via creatingaquietmind from larmoyante. Image: Crescentmoon

Related Sylvia Path Post: Oh, How I Ricochet Between…

Blue Nights…

June 20, 2012June 20, 2012 ~ Live & Learn ~ 12 Comments

Earlier this month, I shared a post on Joan Didion’s essays titled “One runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.” One of my new blogger friends, Lori @ Donna & Diablo, mentioned in her response to my post that she planned to see Didion and was more excited about meeting her after reading the excerpts. I asked Lori if she wouldn’t mind sharing her thoughts about the meeting in a Guest Post. (I had never met a writer/author so I was looking to live the meeting-the-famous-author-moment vicariously through Lori’s post.) She graciously agreed. Lori also also mentioned that she didn’t know if it was good enough to post. I’ll let you make up your own minds. (Note to Me: If I could BANG LIKE on my own blog and keep BANG, BANG, BANGING LIKE, I would do so now…). Here’s Lori from Donna & Diablo on her meeting with Joan Didion…ENJOY!

Continue reading “Blue Nights…” →

One runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home…

June 10, 2012June 10, 2012 ~ Live & Learn ~ 29 Comments

Back in 2005, I read Joan Didion’s book “The Year of Magical Thinking” after hearing much acclaim for the author and the book. I was underwhelmed and said so in my Amazon Review at the time. Yet, it rankled me that so many others were on the other side. (Why? Perhaps, I just missed what was readily understood by the intellectuals. Maybe you just didn’t get it Pal.)

So, more than 7 years later – I trip across a post at Brainpickings.org on Joan Didion’s 1968 collection of essays in Slouching Towards Bethlehem. My head immediately snaps to attention.