Tagged: puttingwordstogether

There it goes, winging by, that crazy thief Time. He steals days from my pocket, flits by unseen, and suddenly I look up and realize I’ve been robbed again. I think he swings from the trees like a monkey, arm over arm, howling with a boom that startles me awake. He sifts through the moments that flutter past, snatching them from the air while I stroll on, unalarmed and oblivious, thinking that there’s more where that came from. I’m wrong, though. There isn’t more where that came from. This is the time to treasure. This time, this present, this now....

There’s been some speculation out there, wondering whether blogs are dying. They’re so 2010. Maybe it’s just mid-January slump. I know THIS blog isn’t dying. It’s too important to die and it’s going nowhere unless I do, and I have no plans to disappear. It’s been awhile since the question of why I blog has been raised, though the answers remain the same. Important, you say? How could this blog be important?! What cheek! Yes, indeed: it IS important. What I’ve gained from this online journal, this interwebby rambling, this obiter dictum, is immeasurable. Friends, family, community, posterity; a place...

Writing condolence cards is hard. Words seem inadequate. EVERYTHING seems inadequate, actually. What can you say or do that relates your sympathy, your empathy, your sorrow in the face of someone’s loss? Mostly I think it’s worthy that you try. That you say you’re sorry, that you send your love and a heartfelt note. That you open your arms and hold someone tight. Or let them cry. Or just listen. It’s never enough, though. Nothing is. My dad died 14 years ago on December 20th. 5 days before Christmas. A friend’s father died 2 days ago. And my sister-in-law’s father...

It’s been raining most of the day. On and off, harder and softer as if it can’t make up its mind or its intensity, but it doesn’t stop for long. In the street the raindrops make small white circles for a split second as they smack into the asphalt. It’s like watching an animation: vertical white streaks, then small sudden circles. The street is shiny and black except where the rain lands. Sometimes it rains so hard it bounces, even off the grass—the impact makes a mist rise and hover off the ground. On the back deck, which is slick...

A whole week goes by, not even in a flash, and I think about writing but I don’t. I read a book, and then another, and I nap, or play a computer game or clean or run errands. I cleaned the fish tank and bought fish. I picked up the kids from the swimming pool. I bought new late-summer flowers for the pots and dead-headed the baby roses. I even went for a couple of walks and I updated my books-to-buy list and my library inventory and I talked to my mom and wrote emails and went to sushi night,...

Do you think that what you have to say is less important because it’s on the Internet? Would it have more value, ring truer, be BETTER if it were between the covers of a book, printed on newspaper, glossy in a quarterly? Would it be more impressive, or more importantly, carry more weight? My words fly out into the ether here, roll around on the front page of this journal for a couple of days and then are scrolled under. Soon they’re a click away, then two clicks away, then three klicks and suddenly we’re talking the distance of kilometers—gone....

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”—Jessica Hische A type artist & graphic designer whose work I admire was featured on Humble Pied recently. It’s a website that highlights advice—one piece of advice—from one inspiring person every few days. What a neat idea! Sometimes out of all the blah blah blah that constantly passes through your receptors, it’s that one sudden striking of a clapper inside the bell of your brain that stands out and makes you sit up and pay attention. It arrests you, snaps...

What if we had never met? What would your life be like? Some of you might argue that, in fact, we never HAVE met, and some of you have only met me once or twice in person, but maybe the meeting of the minds that passes for frequent contact here is enough. Maybe it counts! For all the friends I’ve never met, and the ones I’ve only met a couple of times and all the ones that used to live nearby and whom I never now see, it must count for something, right? What if you’d never come to that...