A.R. Moxon  @juliusgoat.bsky.social 

Good morning. What say we give Nazis a bad day? 

People like to say "we're not going to vote our way out of this," and there is some truth there, insofar as voting is one lever among many for effecting change, and we will need to use all levers, I think. But I know that Nazis v. much don't want us to vote. So let's not give Nazis what they want.

And while it may be true that "we're not going to vote our way out of this," it also occurs to me we're not going to stay-home our way out of this.  So get on out there. All the other levers of change will still be there tomorrow, and we should all put our weight on them. Today, do the today thing. 

Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.

― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.     
― Agatha Christie, The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side

But surely for everything you love you have to pay some price.

― Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.

― Agatha Christie

Time is the best killer.
― Agatha Christie

The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.

― Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.

― Agatha Christie

If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.
― Agatha Christie

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
― Agatha Christie

The older we get the more we carry. When I see 80 year olds at the pool swimming laps I know we are doing the same thing, shedding the gunk to be happy in the present moment.

"One of my swim coaches was also a physical therapist. He said water on your skin mimics the same sensation as getting a massage. So every time you swim it’s a bit like getting a free massage too." 

reddit swim forum

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. Shunryu Suzuki

Gabor Maté No Magic Pill with Blake Mycoskie In this episode of No Magic Pill, Gabor Maté and Blake Mycoskie explore childhood trauma, shame, ADHD, and the long road to healing. Gabor shares his own story of surviving the Holocaust as an infant, traces the roots of the "not enough" wound so many high achievers carry, and offers practical guidance for parents navigating stress, divorce, and sensitive kids. An unflinching conversation about what it actually takes to heal, and why the wound is never the whole story. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFZSWbVGJZg

The Long Bag We Drag Behind Us

Read

whatever leads to joy

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. —Mary Oliver

 

My Dead Friends

by Marie Howe

I have begun, when I’m weary and can’t decide an answer to a bewildering question   to ask my dead friends for their opinion and the answer is often immediate and clear.   Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child in my middle age?   They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads to joy, they always answer,   to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy’s ashes were— it’s green in there, a green vase,   and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes. Billy’s already gone through the frightening door,   whatever he says I’ll do.

__________

From What the Living Do, W.W. Norton & Company, 1998, by MARIE HOWE.

 

What the Living Do

Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

From What the Living Do, copyright © 1998 by Marie Howe. Used by permission of W. W. Norton. All rights reserved.

You have to listen to everyone. As an artist, you have to listen to both the executioner and the victim.

From my childhood, I remember talking to people, and the stories they told me were more interesting than what’s in books. People tell me extraordinary things, and I realize that there is nothing in the world about which we know anything for sure. Each person screams out his or her truth. You have to listen to everyone. As an artist, you have to listen to both the executioner and the victim.

SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH