writing : blog
“What writing is all about is what happens on the page between the reader and the page…What I want is a collaboration, really, with the reader on the page where the reader is also making an effort, is putting something of himself into it in the way of understanding, in the way of helping to construct the fiction that I…
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"During my teen years, for Halloween, I went as a registered voter." – Martha Plimpton There’s just nothing more depressing to me than half-hearted Halloween costumes, those teenaged boys with a toothpick hanging out of their mouth who say they’re a hillbilly or kids who’ve done nothing but take a pillow case from Mama’s bed to hold all the loot….
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“Not equal to Not metaphor Nor standing for Not sign.” – Minor White Imagine Beetle Bailey’s surprise. As Aldous Huxley said, perhaps Earth is another planet’s Hell. And maybe on that other planet, gargantuan people sit down with their oil drum vats of coffee, butter their big-as-car bagels, and open their 12-foot Sunday newspapers to find human Earth lives splayed…
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“As once the wingéd energy of delight / carried you over childhood’s dark abysses, now beyond your own life build the great arch / of unimagined bridges.” –Rainer Maria Rilke There is a pure and shining glory in the world of my 2-year-old daughter, Tess. It is called a bus, a “big, big bus,” to be exact. There is absolutely…
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"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it." -Joseph Campbell If you’ve read 37 days before, you might have picked up on my love affair with actor Johnny Depp. Beautiful, talented Johnny. Quixotic, funny, odd, quirky Johnny. Did I mention beautiful? Ooh-la-la. What can I say? There’s no defending it. I won’t pretend it…
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“Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” Cecil Beaton (1859-1941) French philosopher Red Convertible #1 When gun-wielding snipers were busy terrorizing Washington, D.C. in October 2002, my family still lived there, feeling hunted like small domesticated deer…
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“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” – Japanese Proverb While driving downtown last Wednesday, I was pondering the epistemological problems of social cognition and constructivism, the origins of values in transcendent functions, and Kantian categorical imperatives. Okay. Well. Maybe it was Johnny Depp looking transcendent in “Pirates of the Caribbean” that was actually…
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“Sheridan’s gifts as a teacher were as rare as the purity of his passion. Wherein did these gifts lie? In his brilliance? Yes. In his mastery of his subject? Of course. In his capacity for lucid, concrete, and vivid explanation? Again, yes. But there is another factor, one whose roots lie in magic or the supernatural. Sheridan had charm.” –Jonathan…
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“Why are women immobile? Because so many feel like they’re waiting for someone to say, “You’re good, you’re pretty, I give you permission.” –Eve Ensler This week, I watched a videotape of Eve Ensler speaking at the 2004 Omega Institute “Women in Power” conference. Ensler is a playwright most famous for “The Vagina Monologues,” which has played in 76 countries,…
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In October of 2003, my stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died 37 days later.
During that 37 days, I helped my mother care for him at home, since he wanted to die there. Never having been around someone dying before, I didn’t know what to do. When my father died, I was just 19 and sitting in the intensive care waiting room. No one asked if I wanted to be with him; they just asked if I wanted to see him dead after it was all over. It was the beginning of a long realization of how intensively we avoid death, at least in this culture.
Patti Digh is the author of six books, including bestsellers Life is a Verb and Creative is a Verb. She travels the world teaching others about mindfulness: to live fully, love well, let go deeply, and make a difference. Patti's comments have appeared on PBS and in The New York Times, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the London Financial Times, and many other international publications. She writes a thank you note every morning.
