Herbal and verbal, Daniel said. Language is like poppies. It just takes something to churn the earth round them up, and when it does up come the sleeping words, bright red, fresh, blowing about. Then the seedheads rattle, the seeds fall out. Then there's even more language waiting to come up. -Ali Smith (Autumn) Almost…
Five hundred twenty-five thousandSix hundred minutesHow do you measure - measure a year?In daylights - in sunsetsIn midnights - in cups of coffeeIn inches - in milesIn laughter - in strife. - Jonathan Larson (Rent)2016 has been a weird year--quite possibly, the strangest and most disruptive year of my 33.5 years on earth. After thinking…
And looking round, he met her eyes, and from their expression he concluded that she was understanding it just as he was. But this was a mistake; she almost completely missed the meaning of the words of the service; she had not heard them, in fact. She could not listen to them and…
It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.-Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)As I sit here writing this in the Greek's and my bedroom listening to the…
"How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself." -Virginia Woolf (The Waves) Five years…
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who…
You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life. -Mary Oliver (Wild Geese)A little over a week ago, I turned thirty. When it comes to the "new decade" birthdays, there's this expectation that one should do something grand, splash out and set the bar…
As they aged, they grew more avid of beauty, the royal sea in their eyes in town, the dunes' scimitar shadows, the ever-perishing skies. The two were storing all this--for what? -Annie Dillard (The Maytrees)This past week, I've felt a little like pinching myself. Between the birthday wishes I got from some of my favorite…
"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." -Virginia Woolf (A Room of One's Own)It's hard to believe that I've now had this blog for 8 months and also that today's post is my 50th! In the great scheme of things, this isn't all that much time, but still,…
"You don't get tired of muffins, but you don't find inspiration in them."-George Bernard Shaw Let me begin by saying that George Bernard Shaw had no idea what he was talking about. Recently, I've been thinking--and a lot-- about muffins. I guess you could say it all started about three weeks ago when a friend…
Dining with Dostoevsky 