Posts
Monday, October 21, 2024
Don't Wait in Ambush
Don't Wait in Ambush
The Tibetan version of this slogan literally says "Don't ambush", that is, wait for somebody
to fall down so you can attack. You are waiting for that person to fall into the trap or
problem you want or expect. You want them to have that misfortune, and you hope that
misfortune will take place in a way which will allow you to attack.
If you are having a disagreement with somebody, you don't usually attack him or her right
away because you don't want to be in a powerless position. Instead, you wait for him to fall
apart, and then you attack him. Sometimes you pretend to be his adviser, and you attack
him in that disguise, pointing out to him how wretched he is. You say " I have been waiting
to tell you this. Now you are falling apart completely, I am going to take the opportunity to
tell you that you are not so good. I am in much better shape than you are." That is a sort of
opportunism, a bandit's approach. That bandit's approach is the meaning of waiting in
ambush, which happens quite frequently.
From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa
Don't Wait in Ambush
The next one is "Don't wait in ambush," yet another "naked truth" slogan. You have been
taught that you should be a nice person; on the other hand, you don't feel so nice. Maybe
you know something about your husband that he doesn't know you know. You keep it up
your sleeve, waiting for just the right moment to spring it on him. One day you're in the
middle of a big argument, very heated. He has just insulted you royally. At that moment
you bring the ace down from your sleeve and really let him have it. That's called waiting in
ambush. You are willing to be very patient until just the right moment comes along, and
then you let someone have it. This isn't the path of the warrior, it's the path of the coward.
Not only do you want to "win"; you aren't even willing to communicate. The aspiration to
communicate with another person-to be able to listen and to speak from the heart-is what
changes our old stuck patterns.
From Start Where You Are : A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron
Don't Wait in Ambush
When someone has caused you trouble, the tendency is to fix it in mind and never forget it
though many years go by. When there is an opportunity to ambush the person and to return
the injury, revenge is taken. Give up this approach and be as helpful as you can in your
response to troublesome situations. For the kind of trouble caused by demons, don't cling to
the problem, but work only on love and compassion.
From The Great Path of Awakening : An Easily Accessible Introduction for Ordinary People
by Jamgon Kongtrul, translated by Ken Mcleod
Do Not Wait at the Narrow Passageway
Picture a scene from a western, or from the highlands of Tibet: bandits waiting in ambush at
a narrow pass, where the victim has no chance of escape. To really damage someone, one
waits till one's intended victim is most vulnerable. What we are told to avoid here is biding
our time to be especially hurtful, lashing back at someone maybe weeks or months after
they have injured us, whether physically or verbally.
On first hearing verses such as this we may assume they do not apply to us. Obviously, this
is meant for malicious people, and we are not among the bad guys. Perhaps this initial
response is honest; some of us may hold no grudges. If so, we need not be concerned with
this right now; we have certainly practiced well in the past, either in this or previous
lifetimes. Let us focus instead on problems that are relevant.
But our initial response may not be very insightful. In meditating on this pledge as well as
the others, the point is to examine our past experience and try to recall: Have I done this
kind of thing before? What was the context? What prodded me to do it? What were the
results? Do I still have this tendency? And in the present, any resentment still active should
be brought to light. Am I anticipating revenge? There are ways of getting back at others
more subtle than standing at the ready with a shotgun. We need to check for ourselves
whether each pledge is pertinent for our present situation, but they are all worthy of clear-
minded, honest introspection that does not rely on the initial response, "Who, me?" Maybe,
after more reflection, we may say, "Well, yes, at times." This does not mean that we are
evil and vulgar, but simply that we have some work to do.
Excerpted from: The Seven-Point Mind Training(first published as A Passage from Solitude :
Training the Mind in a Life Embracing the World), by B. Alan Wallace.
Don't Wait in Ambush
'Ambush,' in this case, means remembering the harm done to us by others and biding our
time for a moment of weakness when we might strike back, seeking the help of the
powerful or even resorting to witchcraft, and so on. We should relinquish any thoughts of
this kind.
From Enlightened Courage, by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Copyright 1993 by Editions
Padmakara
follow your curiosity and passion.
My own best advice is to young writers is: follow your curiosity and passion. What fascinates you will probably fascinate others. But, even if it doesn't, you will have devoted your life to what you love. An important corollary is that it's no use trying to write like someone else. Discover what's uniquely yours.
DIANE ACKERMAN
Sunday, October 20, 2024
Hot Pepper Picking Guide (You are here!!)
Community-Supported Agriculture
Generally speaking, peppers can be harvested at any stage of ripeness, as long as the fruits feel firm and have a glossy sheen. Hot peppers generally get hotter (and change colors, usually from green to orange, red, or purple) the riper they get. Additionally, peppers tend to get spicier in hot, dry conditions; a cool, wet season will make for milder peppers.
We encourage you to wear gloves when slicing your peppers, and avoid rubbing your eyes, mucus membranes, or other sensitive areas. Also thoroughly wash your knife, cutting board, and anything else the peppers have touched with lots of warm, soapy water. If you find that a pepper is too hot for your tastes, capsaicin (the chemical that makes peppers hot) can be dissolved in oils (such as vegetable or olive oil), dairy products, soap, or alcohol. (Unfortunately water will not help, as capsaicin, like oil, is hydrophobic.) Be careful, have fun, and enjoy your taste tests!
- Czech Black: An heirloom from the Czech Republic, this pepper has fruits so striking that sometimes they are just worth looking at. Black when immature, the 2” long conical peppers ripen to a lustrous dark-red garnet color. Mild, juicy, thick-walled flesh runs with a cherry-red juice when cut. The heat, which is a bit milder than a jalapeño, is in the ribs and seeds. Can be candied like a citrus peel for a spicy holiday treat. Great eating at any stage.
- Jalafuego: Jalafuegos are a super-sized and slightly spicier variety of the more traditional jalapeño peppers. Instead of being 2"-4” size, these are 4"-6" long, making them perfect for jalapeño popper recipes. Peppers can have a range of pungency from moderate to high heat, depending on the pepper. Commonly picked and consumed while still green, if allowed to fully ripen they will turn red, orange, or yellow. Smoked and dried red peppers are known as chipotles. Other common uses include being stuffed with meat or cheese (jalapeño “poppers”), made into jelly, served with mixed drinks, added to salsas, or included in Vietnamese dishes such as pho and bánh mì.
- Matchbox: This Thai pepper has fiery red fruit clusters and strong heat and flavor. Two-inch long fruits are very colorful and can sometimes make the plant look like a Christmas tree. This welcome descendant of "Super Chili" was 8 years in the making and has a similar heat.
- Paper Lantern: Elongated and wrinkled, this habañero-type pepper has red lantern-shaped fruits that are 3"-4" long. Harvest green for milder spice, or when ripe at orange to red. Caution: VERY HOT! You may wish to use gloves when preparing, and avoid touching your eyes, mucous membranes, or other sensitive areas. Often added whole to curries or soups, or cooked down for hot sauce. Great for seasonings, salsa, or roasting, their thin walls also make them ideal for drying.
- Shishito (Mellow Star): Japanese pepper for cooking or salads. Heavily wrinkled fruits are thin walled, usually mild (no heat) when green and slightly sweet when red. Popular in Japan where the thin walls make them particularly suitable for tempura. Also very good in stir fries or sautés or eaten alone with oil, salt, and pepper. In Asia, fruits are often cooked green, but they also may be used red. Thinly sliced, the red fruits are excellent in salads and coleslaw. Note: Proceed with slight caution, as one out of ten peppers is hot!
December 2, 1948 . - T. C. Boyle
Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all. T. C. Boyle
Sometimes, we find common ground; more often, we don't.T. C. Boyle
What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions. T. C. Boyle
I am a worrier. I worry about the state of our country, of the world, of our species. Every day seems to deliver a new nail to hammer into our collective coffin. T. C. Boyle
It's hard to say how certain stories just punch us in the heart and the brain at the same time at the end. I suppose that's what we're all looking for. But each story has its own valence, its own way of saying goodbye to you. T. C. Boyle
The compulsively readable events of my life occurred mainly in infancy, and it's been pretty humdrum ever since. T. C. Boyle
One of the reasons I've been able to be productive is that I want to do everything. T. C. Boyle
You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before. T. C. Boyle
I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you. T. C. Boyle
In previous generations, there was purpose; you had to die, but there was God, and literature and culture would go on. Now, there is no God, and our species is imminently doomed, so there is no purpose. We get up, raise families, have bank accounts, fix our teeth and everything else. But really, there is utterly no purpose except to be alive. T. C. Boyle
I'm not looking ahead joyfully to the rest of my life or the future of the human race. I've always written about man as an animal species among other animals, competing for limited resources. Our population is exploding. Our environment is dying. Science has debunked God. T. C. Boyle
What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language? T. C. Boyle
My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth. T. C. Boyle
I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. T. C. Boyle
I worry about everything in the world, and it's just too much for anybody to think about, so I have my art as my consolation. T. C. Boyle
This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth. T. C. Boyle
It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too.
T. C. Boyle
I describe myself as an environmentalist not because I'm marching in the street with placards but because I like to be in the woods by myself. T. C. Boyle
Art saved me. It may sound corny, but it's true. T. C. Boyle
The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced. T. C. Boyle
I think, if I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean, that's what the best art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to be political. I think if you read all my books, you know where I stand, pretty much. T. C. Boyle
I never go anywhere without a book for fear of being stuck in line in front of the theater or strapped down in the dentist's chair and being bored witless. Thus, I read everywhere. T. C. Boyle
I've never really been met with indifference, where they say, 'Who cares?' I think that's what good art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to make you feel good about your own prejudices and your own values; it's supposed to open you up in some way and get you outraged or make you happy or make you sad or whatever it's going to do. T. C. Boyle
Every story is organic, and every story finds its own ending. T. C. Boyle
It's true that none of my characters are admirable. But maybe I'm primarily a satirist, and a satirist needs to hold up what's not admirable. T. C. Boyle
I do not want to repeat myself. I want to reach for something I've never attained. This is the excitement of art. T. C. Boyle
I really like the power of stopping the laughter and turning it to horror. T. C. Boyle
Now that we all live in a bad '70s sci-fi movie, I am made to understand the tyranny of the machines every minute of every day. T. C. Boyle
I read widely - for news, the arts, science, for entertainment, and the value of being informed - and, as a fiction writer, I can't help transposing what I learn into the scenario for a novel or story. T. C. Boyle
If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed. T. C. Boyle
I am mad for nature writing. I want to get inside the head of every creature in the world, even ants. T. C. Boyle
Of course all novelists are egomaniacs and want to draw everyone to their fold just like any other preacher. The snake-oil peddler, the false prophet, all of this is fascinating to me. But I certainly hope that I'm more humane than that. T. C. Boyle
I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book. T. C. Boyle
I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are. T. C. Boyle
Science has killed religion. There's no hope for the future with seven billion of us on the planet, and the only thing you can do is to laugh in the face of it all. T. C. Boyle
Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don't have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier.
T. C. Boyle
I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy. T. C. Boyle
I tell jokes, and I have fun, but I tend to worry about everybody and everything throughout the entire world. T. C. Boyle
I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels. T. C. Boyle
I think the way to be a writer is to experience things, certainly, and be open to things, but at some point to become dedicated to the craft of writing and to create a stable environment for that writing to occur in.
T. C. Boyle
Look at Sam Beckett. Most depressed man who ever lived, but he sure was funny. T. C. Boyle
Sometimes if something is entertaining and amusing, people tend to think that it doesn't have the depth of something that's dramatic. I don't think that's true. T. C. Boyle
This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them. T. C. Boyle
I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it.
T. C. Boyle
I envy Jesus because he's dead. T. C. Boyle
The beauty of American law is you cannot slander anybody who is dead. This is not true in all countries. T. C. Boyle
I hope to stay light on my feet, to work in many modes, to seek inspiration always, and avoid the fatal. But, as we all know, it is the price of life to burn out, both metaphorically and literally. T. C. Boyle
I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning. T. C. Boyle
I'm enslaved to writing to the point where I sacrifice almost everything else. T. C. Boyle
As humans, we all want our own island. Of course, the truth is, we're never going to get it.T. C. Boyle
I think that's what art is about: to provoke you. It helps me make sense of a senseless universe because I become the god of the story. I create it, and I see it in all its lineaments in my own way and can control it - in a world in which everything else is out of control. T. C. Boyle
T. Coraghessan Boyle
“I've always been a quitter. I quit the Boy Scouts, the glee club, the marching band. Gave up my paper route, turned my back on the church, stuffed the basketball team. I dropped out of college, sidestepped the army with a 4-F on the grounds of mental instability, went back to school, made a go of it, entered a Ph.D. program in nineteenth-century British literature, sat in the front row, took notes assiduously, bought a pair of horn-rims, and quit on the eve of my comprehensive exams. I got married, separated, divorced. Quit smoking, quit jogging, quit eating red meat. I quit jobs: digging graves, pumping gas, selling insurance, showing pornographic films in an art theater in Boston. When I was nineteen I made frantic love to a pinch-faced, sack-bosomed girl I'd known from high school. She got pregnant. I quit town.”
―
“But then, that’s the beauty of writing stories—each one is an
exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find
that reason and that shape, there’s no feeling like it."
[Peter Wild Interviews TC Boyle, 3:AM Magazine, June 2003]”
―
[Peter Wild Interviews TC Boyle, 3:AM Magazine, June 2003]”
―
“Writing is a habit, an addiction, as powerful and overmastering
an urge as putting a bottle to your lips or a spike in your arm. Call it
the impulse to make something out of nothing, call it an
obsessive-compulsive disorder, call it logorrhea. Have you been in a
bookstore lately? Have you seen what these authors are doing, the
mountainous piles of the flakes of themselves they're leaving behind,
like the neatly labeled jars of shit, piss, and toenail clippings one of
John Barth's characters bequeathed to his wife, the ultimate expression
of his deepest self?”
―
―
“There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the
surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth
living if there were no exceptions, no sunny days, no acts of random
kindness.”
― The Tortilla Curtain
― The Tortilla Curtain
“Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain.”
― A Friend of the Earth
― A Friend of the Earth
“In order to create you have to believe in your ability to do so
and that often means excluding whole chunks of normal life, and, of
course, pumping yourself up as much as possible as a way of keeping on.
Sort of cheering for yourself in the great football stadium of life."
(Barnes & Noble Review, email dialogue with Cameron Martin, Feb. 09, 2009)”
―
(Barnes & Noble Review, email dialogue with Cameron Martin, Feb. 09, 2009)”
―
“First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping
out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers
and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or
smell or taste, you have something.”
―
―
“To be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy of man.”
― A Friend of the Earth
― A Friend of the Earth
“Why ruin my sister's birthday simply because the entire planet was going to hell in a hand basket?”
― Without a Hero: Stories
― Without a Hero: Stories
“Sometimes, when she's out here alone, she can feel the pulse of
something bigger, as if all things animate were beating in unison, a
glory and a connection that sweeps her out of herself, out of her
consciousness, so that nothing has a name, not in Latin, not in English,
not in any known language.”
― When the Killing's Done
― When the Killing's Done
“I do feel that literature should be demystified. What I object to
is what is happening in our era: literature is only something you get
at school as an assignment. No one reads for fun, or to be subversive or
to get turned on to something. It's just like doing math at school. I
mean, how often do we sit down and do trigonometry for fun, to relax.
I've thought about this, the domination of the literary arts by theory
over the past 25 years -- which I detest -- and it's as if you have to
be a critic to mediate between the author and the reader and that's
utter crap. Literature can be great in all ways, but it's just
entertainment like rock'n'roll or a film. It is entertainment. If it
doesn't capture you on that level, as entertainment, movement of plot,
then it doesn't work. Nothing else will come out of it. The beauty of
the language, the characterization, the structure, all that's irrelevant
if you're not getting the reader on that level -- moving a story. If
that's friendly to readers, I cop to it.”
―
―
“She didn't recognize him and he didn't recognize her, because
people and places change and what once was will never be again.”
― Tooth and Claw
― Tooth and Claw
“They wore each other like a pair of socks.
From "Love of my Life”
―
From "Love of my Life”
―
“Who was she in high school? Little Miss Nobody. She could have
embroidered it on her sweaters, tattooed it across her forehead. And in
small letters: i am shit, i am anonymous, step on me. please. She wasn't
voted Most Humorous in her high school yearbook or Best Dancer or Most
Likely to Succeed, and she wasn't in the band or Spanish Club and when
her ten year reunion rolled around nobody would recognize her or have a
single memory to share.”
― Drop City
― Drop City
“I am concerned with social and environmental issues. What
rational person is not? But advocacy and art do not mix. Art is a
seduction. Good art invites the reader to think and feel deeply and come
to his/her own conclusions.”
―
―
“I introduced Nora as my wife, though that was a lie. Old people,
that's what they wanted to hear. If you were married, you were mature,
reliable, exactly like them, because in their day men and women didn't
just live together--they made a commitment, they had children and went
on cruises and built big houses on lakes and filled them with all the
precious trinkets and manufactured artifacts they'd collected along the
way.”
―
―
“I have an idea and a first line -- and that suggests the rest of
it. I have little concept of what I’m going to say, or where it’s going.
I have some idea of how long it’s going to be -- but not what will
happen or what the themes will be. That’s the intrigue of doing it --
it’s a process of discovery. You get to discover what you’re going to
say and what it’s going to mean.”
―
―
“This was what he was born for. This was what made sense. The only thing.”
― The Women
― The Women
“To readers who tend to think primarily in terms of liking or
disliking characters: these people are fictional. They do not stand
before us asking to be liked. They stand before us asking to be read.
They ask to be seen and heard and maybe even understood, or at least for
their motives to be understood, if that is what the author is after.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend these characters are in
fact real, that they are human beings standing before us. Let us open up
at least a little to those we might not like—in their presence, we
might experience something new. To me, facing those we might not want to
face is crucial to living in a diverse world.”
― The Best American Short Stories 2015
― The Best American Short Stories 2015
“I was reading, absorbed in an assault on K2 by a team of Japanese
mountaineers, my lungs constricting in the thin burning air, the deadly
sting of wind-lashed ice in my face, when the record -- Le Sacre du
Printemps -- caught in the groove with a gnashing squeal as if a
stageful of naiads, dryads and spandex satyrs had simultaneously gone
lame.”
―
―
“The moment we pulled up in front of her apartment she had the
door open. She turned to me with the long, elegant, mournful face of her
Puritan ancestors and held out her hand.
'It's been fun,' she said.
'Yes,' I said, taking her hand.
She was wearing gloves.”
―
'It's been fun,' she said.
'Yes,' I said, taking her hand.
She was wearing gloves.”
―
“I SHALL WIN!" She exclaimed. "You'll see! When the smoke of
battle clears away I shall be a rainbow again--and, undying name--an
altar of fire that you have tried to dash to hell. I shall weave a rose
wreath and hang it round your neck. You will call it a yoke of bondage
and curse it--no matter. You are afraid of the light I give you. You
crouch in the darkness. Come, take my hand, I will lead you." And her
valediction, intimating in its restraint whole words of love and grief
and passionate regret, was, simply, Miriam.”
―
―
“constellations hanging overhead in the rafters of the universe”
― The Women
― The Women
“At best, I consider flying an unavoidable necessity, a time to
resurrect forgotten prayers and contemplate the end of all joy in a
twisted howling heap of machinery; at worst, I rank it right up there
with psychotic episodes and torture at the hands of malevolent
strangers.”
― If the River Was Whiskey
― If the River Was Whiskey
“It was then that my gaze happened to fall on the bookcase, on the
gap there, where the old paperback of "Nine Stories" had fallen flat.
"Where's the thing?" I said.
"What thing?"
"The mesh. My mesh."
She shrugged. "I tossed it."
"Tossed it? Where? What do you mean?"
In the next moment I was in the kitchen, flipping open the lid of the trash can, only to find it empty. "You mean outside?" I shouted. "In the dumpster?"
When I came thundering back into the room, she still hadn't moved. "Jesus, what were you thinking? That was mine. I wanted that. I wanted to keep it."
Her lips barely moved. "It was dirty.”
― Stories II: The Collected Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle, Volume II
"What thing?"
"The mesh. My mesh."
She shrugged. "I tossed it."
"Tossed it? Where? What do you mean?"
In the next moment I was in the kitchen, flipping open the lid of the trash can, only to find it empty. "You mean outside?" I shouted. "In the dumpster?"
When I came thundering back into the room, she still hadn't moved. "Jesus, what were you thinking? That was mine. I wanted that. I wanted to keep it."
Her lips barely moved. "It was dirty.”
― Stories II: The Collected Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle, Volume II
“Besides, to like something, to really like it and come out and
say so, is taking a terrible risk. I mean, what if I'm wrong? What if
it's really no good?”
― If the River Was Whiskey
― If the River Was Whiskey
“But then all writers smoke, don't they? And drink? And sit in
front of computer screens till their arteries clog and muscles atrophy?”
― When the Killing's Done
― When the Killing's Done
“She was at sea. She knew the rocking of the boat as intimately
now as if she’d never known anything else, felt the muted drone of the
engines deep inside her, in the thump of her heart and the pulse of her
blood. At sea. She was at sea.”
― When the Killing's Done
― When the Killing's Done
“The thought arrested her and she pulled away from him just to
stand there a moment and take in the strangeness of it all. Music
drifted down to her then, an odd tinkling sort of music with a rippling
rhythmic undercurrent that seemed to tug the melody in another direction
altogether, into the depths of a deep churning sea, but beautiful for
all that, and so perfect and unexpected. She felt languid and free--all
eyes were on her, every man turning to stare--and it came to her that
she loved this place, this moment, these people. She could stay here
forever, right here, in the gentle sway of the Japanese night.”
― The Women
― The Women
Listen to Radio Swiss Classic anywhere in Switzerland with digital radio! You can listen to Radio Swiss Classic on DAB+ in Switzerland. For details on DAB+ we recommend the following website: broadcast.ch.
T.C. Boyle
As we get closer to the most momentous election in American history and my waking dreams are filled with images of the Bogeymen who want to take power and dictate to us how to think and what we can and cannot do, I must report that I am once again walking, however tentatively, sans crutches or knee brace, all the better to make my escape if the worst should happen. Which it won’t, will it? Can anybody really want a mendacious, heartless, mentally crippled felon at the helm, one who has promised to dismantle the Constitution and rule with an iron fist, jailing all those who oppose or even speak out again him? No. No way. Not in my country. No, no, no.
What am I doing about it? Drugging, boozing, napping in the sun, limping up the road at dawn with the dog at my side and coming home again to worry over the keyboard. No new work yet in sight, though I’m pursuing several leads—I’d like to complete the next book of stories and find the subject and theme of my next novel, but, of course, I live in terror and my usual resources of joy have been severely abridged by my accident. What can I tell you? Day by day, inch by inch, I’m getting stronger? Well, yeah, okay, but to what end?
This is called despair. Yes, I can look forward to the joyous delirium of November sixth and the new work that will arrive to stimulate me—and walking, walking once again along the beach in the company of the dog—but for now, I find myself dissolving in a puddle of broken-legged worry day after day. My readers help. My family helps. The dog. The cat. I tell myself I’m going to be all right. So is my country. First, we cut the head off the snake and then we break out the bandages.
What joy, what insuperable joy! Crack the champagne! Shout hosannas! Throw away the crutches and crank the stereo! As Solomon Burke sang, “Life is for the living,” and right now, right here, as I get to the bottom of this page, I feel I’m definitely in that camp, alive, alive still, and limping into the glorious future. I’m not complaining. Not a bit. Uh-uh. Never.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)