The Book as Baby

/2 Comments/in /by

Encouraged by my friend Janet (see her unfortunately neglected but still stellar blog, Deep Grace of Theory), I have been reading Cherishment: A Psychology of the Heart, by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and Faith Bethelard. After four hours this morning on my own manuscript (and about the same amount of time each morning this week — a record run of uninterrupted days for me), I came across this passage:

“The book made demands. It was a very greedy, eager baby, wanting our time and attention and thought, preoccupying us, getting into everything.” (Young-Bruehl, Bethelard, p. 26)

Heather Sellers, in her book, Chapter after Chapter, makes a similar observation. You have to reach this point with your book if you are ever going to finish it. You can’t put it down and go into another room and not return. You can’t leave the house or go on vacation and not take it with you. It’s your baby. You have to carry it with you. Young-Breuhl and Bethelard would say, You have to cherish it. Don’t say “no.” At least, don’t say no too many times.

Think of your book ms. as a young, needy baby. Say yes to it.

Of What Use Is Poetry?/0 Comments/in /by

 

wild roseAt the Chuckanut Sandstone Reading last week, our moderator, Betty Scott, shared this quotation, along with her thoughts about the usefulness of poetry. I wanted to share this extremely useful quote with you. It’s from Marilyn Sewell and Claiming the Spirit Within, an anthology of spiritual poetry :

“To claim a self is to claim the holiness within. Such claiming has nothing to do with striving, with competing, with winning. It has nothing to do with egotism or self-aggrandizement. Rather, it has to do with recognizing and owning one’s power, and using that power well in the world.” (51)

What if we all spent time today recognizing and owning our power, and using that power well in the world?

 

Ah! The quote I wanted to put with that picture!

/0 Comments/in , /by

I’ve posted this quote before. One of my Creative Nonfiction students used it in a paper.

“To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each others’ hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.”
-Clara Ortega
(The picture is of me and my siblings.)

“a world possibly not born until they arrive”

/2 Comments/in /by

Image

My to-do list has — for about three weeks — had at the top of it, “Upload pictures from Leavenworth trip.” My husband’s two brothers and his three cousins, plus assorted spouses, met in Leavenworth toward the end of September, stayed at a lodge and cooked amazing food. I felt very lucky to be included. I think it was Judy who gave me an assignment to write about them. 

For now, this blog post will have to do. And here’s a quote that I think will help to hold my place: 

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry in The Diary of Anaïs Nin