Her true work, which had lingered for so many years in her imagination, emerged fully formed.

Sooki Raphael

These Precious Days

By Ann Patchett

Read it and weep. I did.

I have spent the much of my life contemplating the experience of feeling unseen by most and understood by few.

My heart swelled reading this, enthralled by each sentence the whole way through, wondering how it would end. It turned my whole evening around and instilled confidence and a resurfacing desire to be connected.

It inspired and reminded me to be open.

It is a reminder I can live a full life, complete with unconditional love and supportive friendship. That I can receive openness; that I can, am worthy, and should give it too.

"Renée Fleming spent two years in Germany studying voice while she was in her twenties. She told me that over the course of her life, each time she went back to Germany she found her fluency had mysteriously improved, as if the language had continued to work its way into her brain regardless of whether she was speaking it. This was the closest I could come to understanding what happened to Sooki. After her first round of cancer, while she recovered from the Whipple and endured the FOLFIRINOX, she started to paint like someone who had never stopped. Her true work, which had lingered for so many years in her imagination, emerged fully formed, because even if she hadn’t been painting, she saw the world as a painter, not in terms of language and story but of color and shape. She painted as fast as she could get her canvases prepped, berating herself for falling asleep in the afternoons. “My whole life I’ve wanted this time. I can’t sleep through it.” 

The paintings came from a landscape of dreams, pattern on pattern, impossible colors leaning into one another. She painted her granddaughter striding through a field of her own imagination, she painted herself wearing a mask, she painted me walking down our street with such vividness that I realized I had never seen the street before. I would bring her stacks of art books from the closed bookstore and she all but ate them. Sooki didn’t talk about her husband or her children or her friends or her employer; she talked about color. We talked about art. She brought her paintings upstairs to show us: a person who was too shy to say good night most nights was happy for us to see her work. There was no hesitation on the canvases, no timidity. She had transferred her life into brushwork, impossible colors overlapping, the composition precariously and perfectly balanced. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. When she gave us the painting she had done of Sparky on the back of the couch, I felt as if Matisse had painted our dog."

“Death,” I said. I didn’t say, Your death. I didn’t say, This thing you live with every minute, this heaving horse’s skull, I held it for you today so that you could talk it out with the people who love you. I had set my intention going in: I wanted to help my friend. In making the journey to Oz, she had found the strength and clarity she needed to go home again." 

"As it turned out, Sooki and I needed the same thing: to find someone who could see us as our best and most complete selves. Astonishing to come across such a friendship at this point in life. At any point in life."

Update 💔:

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Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.

Women Who Run With the Wolves
By Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Clear Water: Nourishing the Creative Life

"I've seen women work long, long hours at jobs they despise in order to buy very expensive items for their houses, mates, or children. They put their considerable talents on the back burner. I've seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write...and you know it's a funny thing about house cleaning...it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman.
A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectability) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only."
(p. 333)

I feel attacked!!! How many hours have I lost during weekends where I insisted this or that must be cleaned, and while true, used it as an excuse to not sit down and do the work? Insisting if I could just get whichever chore out of the way I'd be able to focus—a thought followed by the full force of frustration when I run out of time. Blaming the inability to outsource the task as the fault when I really needed more discipline. 

"And yet, a woman may do this to herself by talking away her ideas until all the arousal is gone from them, or by not putting her foot down about people creeping off with her creative tools and materials, or by the simple oversight of not buying the right equipment to execute the creative work properly,  or by stopping and starting so many times, by allowing everyone and their cat to interrupt her at will, that the project falls into shambles."
(p. 334)

"To create one must be able to respond. Creativity is the ability to respond to all that goes on around us, to choose from the hundreds of the possibilities of thought, feeling, action, and reaction that arise within us, and to put these together in a unique response, expression, or message that carries moment, passion, and meaning. In this sense, loss of our creative milieu means finding ourselves limited to only one choice, divested of, suppressing, or censoring feelings and thoughts, not acting, not saying, doing, or being."
(p. 343)

"When women are out in the cold, they tend to live on fantasies instead of action. Fantasy of this sort is the great anesthetizer of women. I know women who have been gifted with beautiful voices. I know women who are natural storytellers; almost everything out of their mouths is freshly formed and finely wrought. But they are isolated, or feel disenfranchised in some way. They are shy, which is often a cover for a starving animus. They have difficulty gaining a sense that they are supported from within, or by friends, family, community."
(p. 348)

Who makes the world?

Watchmen
By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

I re-read Watchmen in honor of HBO's homage debuting later this month.

It was exciting to re-experience its magic and to make new observations that deepened my appreciation for Moore and Gibbons' great, clever, deeply human storytelling.

If I had more time I'd elaborate—but for now will say: still stunning.

© Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons

There are so many kinds of love in the world, not to mention the warmth you already have.

©RazorBillBooks

Still Here
By Rowan Blanchard

I expressed my admiration for Rowan in the past, and almost a year to the day I'm back to express my love for her new book—a compilation of personal works by her and her friends. It is so raw and beautiful and necessary, especially now! I love seeing everything handwritten, thoughts being worked out on the page. And it reminds me of my own journal, which I've started to write in again on a semi-regular basis.

So glad Rowan created something that will make many teens (and adults) feel seen.

My favorite pages are 140-141. They read so TRUE. Was it written for me? If not, I could've easily expressed similar sentiments: the contradiction of deeply valuing my solitude while hating being alone for too long, my personal internet musings (and subsequent regrets), mornings being mine.

"Reminders: You need to be alone very often but if you stay alone you get depressed. People give you life, energy & strength. When you get too personal on the internet you almost always regret it after. Mornings are your time, you don't need to hate yourself for the things you can't control, like the way your body feels drained in the evenings. You wake up & charge with the sun. There are so many kinds of love in the world, not to mention the warmth you already have. Dip into these feelings of calm. Make lists of what you have and not just what you have to do. Good work takes time & patience but best work comes fast when you (I) are least expecting it. Trust it. It is like love, and you might get hurt."
- Tova Benjamin

"All signs are signs of the universe."
- Rowan Blanchard

The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to making art.

© HarperCollins

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
By Ann Patchett

I have Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine to thank for borrowing this selection of essays. (Hi, Reese is my new idol; love her unapologetic ambition. Thinkin' of my ambition and all of my plans for 2018 & beyond. Fills me with excitement. Love that I don't have to feel sorry about it.)

"Living a life is not the same as writing a book, and it got me thinking about the relationship between what we know and what we can put on paper. For me it's like this: I make up a novel in my head (there will be more about this later). This is the happiest time in the arc of my writing process. The book is my invisible friend, omnipresent, evolving, thrilling. During the months (or years) it takes me to put my ideas together, I don't take notes or make outlines; I'm figuring things out, and all the while the book makes a breeze around my head like an oversized butterfly whose wings were cut from the rose window in Notre Dame.
This book I have not yet written one word of is a thing of indescribable beauty, unpredictable in its patterns, piercing in its color, so wild and loyal in its nature that my love for this book, and my faith in it as I track its lazy flight, is the single perfect joy in my life. It is the greatest novel in the history of literature, and I have thought it up, and all I have to do is put it down on paper and then everyone can see this beauty that I see."
("The Getaway Car," pp. 24-5)

"The art of writing comes way down the line, as does the art of interpreting Bach. Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say. Write the story, learn from it, put it away, write another story. Think of a sink pipe filled with sticky sediment. The only way to get clean water is to force a small ocean through the tap. Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama. We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the freshwater underneath."
("The Getaway Car," pp. 29)

"Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to making art, and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life."
("The Getaway Car," pp. 29)

"Enough time has passed that I wish him well, in a way that is so distant and abstract it doesn't even matter."
("The Sacrament of Divorce," p. 61)

"Sifting through the notes I had taken years before, I remembered the basic point behind my intentions, and all these years later that point has never changed: I am proud of my father. I am proud of his life's work. For a brief time, I saw how difficult it would be to be a police officer in the city of Los Angeles, how easy it would be to fail at the job, as so many have failed. My father succeeded. He served his city well. I wanted to make note of that."
("The Wall," p. 153)

"The ability to have a friend, and be a friend, is not unlike the ability to learn. Both are rooted in being accepting and open-minded with a talent for hard work. If you are willing to stretch yourself, to risk yourself, if you are willing to love and honor and cherish the people who are important to you until one of you dies, then there will be great heartaches and even greater rewards."
("The Right to Read," p. 193)

"I believe it is human nature to try to persuade others that our most passionately held beliefs are true, so that they too can know the joy of our deepest convictions."
("Introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2006," p. 208)

"Standing waist deep in the swimming pool at Yaddo, I received a gift—it was the first decent piece of instruction about marriage I had ever been given in my twenty-five years of life. "Does your husband make you a better person?" Edra asked.
There I was in that sky-blue pool beneath a bright blue sky, my fingers breaking apart the light on the water, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
"Are you smarter, kinder, more generous, more compassionate, a better writer?" she said, running down her list. Does he make you better?"
"That's not the question," I said. "It's so much more complicated than that."
"It's not more complicated than that," she said. "That's all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?"
("This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage," p. 249)

"My mother shrugged, so what. "I'll die, you'll die, he'll die, you'll get tired of each other. You don't always know how it's going to happen but it's always going to happen. So stop trying to make everything permanent. It doesn't work. I want you to go out there and find some nice man you have no intention of spending the rest of your life with. You can be very, very happy with people you aren't going to marry."
("This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage," p. 252)

"There were two things about marriage that surprised me. The first was that I discovered Karl had been holding out on me. He actually loved me more than he had previously led me to believe. This is not to say he hadn't loved me for the past eleven years, he had, but there was a portion of himself he kept to himself, thinking that if I wouldn't marry him, then chances were at some point I would go. It was like finding another wing in a house you had happily lived in for years. It was simply a bigger love than I had imagined."
("This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage," p. 265)

In any kind of creative work—it's not the quality of the life that matters, it's the quality of attention that's paid to that life.

  

I am continually amazed by the law of attraction. That when I'm moping about corporate culture and the part I play in it, I could also select two podcast episodes—nearly back-to-back, hosted by people I very much admire—and have them discuss the very things I've been thinking about, reminding me to see my life from a different perspective. Now I remember what I need to do. (Thanks, Universe.)

Dear Sugars Podcast, hosted by Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things!) and Steve Almond
Episode: The Price of Our Dreams—with George Saunders

Steve Almond
In reference to a quote by M.F.K. Fisher
"She talks about why she loved writing, it's because it granted her the right to be precise about her own life. And that's really just saying 'I was paying attention to my life' ... and 'Career Purgatory,' I think you're really paying attention to your life. That curiosity is really at the bottom of it. You can, as I did when I was in journalism, I would sneak off on Fridays because I started reading, including George's stories, and thought 'Oh my God, here are these people paying real attention to their lives and just using the language in such an imaginative way. I want some of that.' What I did, I kept my day job, I tried to pay attention to what I was doing, but I also snuck off and just saw, 'Is this something where I can feed my curiosity? Is this something that grants me the right to pay better attention to my life?'"
(Circa 26:00)

"In any kind of creative work—it's not the quality of the life that matters, it's the quality of attention that's paid to that life."
(Circa 30:00)

Cheryl Strayed
"This is why I keep saying, [when you] sign up for a class or go to a workshop...you find your tribe. What you realize when you're in the company of other writers is: 'Oh, this is a bunch of people who are making it work by doing a bunch of other things.'"
(Circa 32:00)

George Saunders
"The deck being cluttered is part of the path."
(Circa 31:00)

"Suspend the narrative that says you need eight hours a day to [write]. When I was working a day job and writing my first book, I noticed that, actually, if you drop that idea, you can get a lot done in 15 minutes. You really can. In some ways, writing at work or writing when you're tired has a way of focusing your mind." 
(Circa 33:00)

"Your worth as a human being is not tied to your productivity as an artist...I think it's important to say that the pure artistic path is the one that actually is not too tied to the outcome, but is tied to the transformation that happens, and the effort."
(Circa 34:00)



The Good Life Project, hosted by founder Jonathan Fields (Mary Oliver quote on homepage, so.)
Episode: Mari Andrew: The Art of Knowing You're Not Alone.

Mari's art was recently introduced to me by a friend who knew exactly how much it would speak to me. Mari sees and uses her sensitivity as a strength, and that's so empowering to me.

Mari Andrew
"I really don't consider myself a practical person at all, but I did know that I'm prone to stress and what stresses me out is not knowing how I'm going to pay my rent. That's really stressful for me, for everyone. To this, I echo Elizabeth Gilbert: 'Be a patron for your own art.' You don't have to quit your day job—in fact day jobs, god, I mean, what a source of creative material!"

"I have a lot of young people, early 20s, college age, ask me 'How do you do what you do? How do you get to where you are?' And I want to tell them 'Start when you're 30! Start when you have things to say.'"
(Circa 22:00)

Filled with hope, the egg followed.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Volume 1
By hitRECord & Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The other day Joseph Gordon-Levitt tweeted about the Tiny Book of Tiny Stories series and it intrigued me so I bought the first book. Quite lovely and took me all of 20 minutes to read on my way to work yesterday. People are so wonderfully creative.

The one that really hit me from this edition was:

I like this one too:

And the following image accompanied by: 

His hands were weak and shaking from carrying far too many books from the bookshop. It was the best feeling.