Marriage

N: Oh, wife. You are so nice to me...sometimes.
D: Sometimes? You needed to use a qualifier with that one?

Steve Lewandowski

We all got up and drove quickly to
the farmers' market to buy cases
of broccoli, crates of celery, several
bunches of leeks with a strong smell,
boxes of meaty cauliflower blossoms, dirt
caked beets & a basket of huge carrots.

from Write a poem using the word "suffuse"

The Writers' Almanac

About Eudora Welty's house:

You can tour her house and garden in Jackson [Mississippi] for $5, the house at 1119 Pinehurst Street that Welty moved into in 1925 with her parents when she was 16 and lived in until she died in 2001. The garden was planted by her mother Chestina so that there'd be something in bloom each season. There are larkspur, hollyhocks, and snapdragons for the spring; phlox, zinnias, and blue salvia for the summer; asters, chrysanthemums, and spider lilies for the fall, and camellias and pansies in winter. 

 --"The Writers' Almanac," April 13, 2016

NEH

You know what's great? I can buy my kayak in the same place where I buy my bacon! Also, playground sand! 

--My spouse, expounding upon the virtues of Menards

Snippets from Colette

Isn't it amazing how many common household items can be used for sewing tricks?

If you have some extra Press'n Seal wrap in your pantry, use it to keep your loose buttons together. You can even punch holes in the sheets and store them in binders. Or just chuck them in a drawer, because you can be confident that all buttons will stay with their mates!

(This tip is going to change my life. -Ed.)

--from Colette's Snippets newsletter emailed on March 29, 2016

Paul

The fact only best friend is someone a lot of more to come go back to my house is not so you don't know what to I love you ok so yo face and you

-love letter from Paul, using only QuickType suggestions on iPhone.

Lily Tomlin

I gained another pound today, but I think it's a pound of knowledge.

--as Frankie Bergstein in Grace and Frankie (2015)

Marriage

Conversation before we went out for dinner on Saturday evening.

N: Are you ready?
D: Yes, I'm not changing my clothes - let's go.
N: Are you going to put your sweater on the right way?
D: What do you mean?
N: Your sweater has been on inside out all day. Maybe you should fix that before we go.
D: All day? Why didn't you tell me before?
N: I don't know. I guess it didn't matter before.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Whatever you do, try not to dwell too long on your failures. You don't need to conduct autopsies on your disasters...Move on. Whatever else happens, stay busy. Find something to do--anything, even a different sort of creative work altogther--just to take your mind off your anxiety and pressure. (I always lean on this wise advice, from the seventeenth-century English scholar Robert Burton, on how to survive melancholy: "Be not solitary, be not idle.")

Go walk the dog, go pick up every bit of trash on the street outside your home, go walk the dog again, go bake a peach cobbler, go paint some pebbles with brightly colored nail polish and put them in a pile. You might think it's procrastination, but--with the right intention--it isn't; it's motion. And any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion.

So wave your arms around. Make something. Do something. Do anything.

--in Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert

It makes me sad when I fail. It disappoints me. Disappointment can make me feel disgusted with myself, or surly toward others. By this point in my life, though, I've learned how to navigate my own disappointment without plummeting too far into death spirals of shame, rage, or inertia. That's because I have come to understand what part of me is suffering when I fail: it's just my ego. It's that simple.

An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call "a hungry ghost" -- forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed.

My saving grace is this: I know that I am not only an ego; I am also a soul. And I know that my soul doesn't care a whit about reward or failure. My soul is not guided by dreams of praise or fears of criticism. My soul doesn't even have language for such notions. My soul, when I tend to it, is a far more expansive and fascinating source of guidance than my ego will ever be, because my soul desires only one thing: wonder. And since creativity is my most efficient pathway to wonder, I take refuge there, and it feeds my soul, and it quiets the hungry ghost, thereby saving me from the most dangerous aspect of myself.

So whenever that brittle voice is dissatisfaction emerges within me, I can say, "Ah, my ego! There you are, old friend!" It's the same when I'm being criticized and I notice myself reacting with outrage, heartache, or defensiveness. It's just my ego, flaring up and testing its power...I try not to take [it] too seriously because I know that it's merely my ego that has been wounded--never my soul.

At such times, I can always steady my life once more by returning to my soul. I ask it, "And what is it that you want, dear one?" The answer is always the same: "More wonder, please."

--in Big Magic 

Elizabeth Gilbert

I recently read a fabulous blog by a writer named Mark Manson, who said that the secret to finding your purpose in life is to answer this question in total honesty: "What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?"

What Manson means is that every single pursuit--no matter how wonderful and exciting and glamorous it may initially seem--comes with its own brand of shit sandwich, its own lousy side effects. As Manson writes with profound wisdom, "Everything sucks, some of the time." You just have to decide what sort of suckage you're willing to deal with. So the question is not so much "What are you passionate about?" The question is "What are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work?"

--in Big Magic (2015)

R.A. Dickey

Ultimately the thing that helped me find some healing [was when] I learned that life was not about turning the page, or getting to the other side of something. It's about holding what is broken about the world and holding what is joyful about the world, and being able to take a step forward with both. That is living well in the moment. And that's what I've tried to make a discipline of.

--R.A. Dickey is a pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays and is known for his knuckleball.

Dolly Parton

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. 

Daniel P. Barbezat & Mirabai Bush

Cluttered schedules not only constrict the time we have, but also manipulate our understanding of value and worth. It is crucial to remember the simple value and beauty of life as it is, not as it is used. The simple awareness cultivated by contemplative practices can bring us back in touch with this beauty, enriching our interactions with others.

Contemplative Practices in Higher Education, ©2014

Overheard in the office

A classic Wisconsin-ism. Two employees are talking in the cubicle where one of them works. The visitor says, "Can we do this by me?" They move to her cubicle to continue their discussion.