1. Summer, where are you going? I realized Labor Day is six weeks away. Sigh.
2. APOD posted a picture of the Tulip Nebula this week. Space is pretty.
More Zen
Pretty Much
Tuesday Pending Project: Hobbit Child
The yarn I ordered for Skyler’s sweater arrived this week. Between the color and the pattern I decided on, I think he’s going to look like a little hobbit when it’s done. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course.
This
+ this
= this:
Getting My Zen Back
19.
Once at Cold Mountain [or Mount Aire], troubles cease –
No more tangled, hung up mind.
I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff,
Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.
(From Han Shan, the Cold Mountain Poems, translated by Gary Snyder)
Peace out, nature.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Happy birthday to my favorite novelist of tragedy and despair and horses, Cormac McCarthy.
2. From my friend Jason’s blog, here’s a picture of Papa Hemingway at home in Cuba in 1947. Nice slippers, Hem.
Frodo Lives
The Writer’s Almanac tells me that it’s the anniversary of the 1954 publishing of The Fellowship of the Ring. The trilogy started as a sequel to The Hobbit, took 17 years to write, was interrupted by WWII, and ended up over half a million words long.
Then some people made it into movies, which gave us the source of this gif.
What Elizabeth Bishop Thinks
“We write for the same reason we read or look at paintings…for the total immersion of the experience, the narrowing and intensification of focus to the right here, right now, the deep joy of bringing the entire soul to bear upon a single act of concentration.”
Tuesday Project Roundup In Action
Goals? What Goals?
Hey, remember the 3+2 Things I wanted to accomplish for my 32nd year? Yeah, I do, too (vaguely). How about a halfway report?
The first two of the three quantitative goals were:
1. Take a fiction writing class
2. Write 3 short stories
Earlier this year I signed up for a class on plots (not the evil villain kind; the novelistic kind) but it was canceled due to lack of registrants. I still want to see what’s offered in the fall and try to make this happen.
I thought the third thing would be the easiest:
3. Read a new book a month
But it’s been seven months and as far as new fiction goes, I’ve read parts of Brideshead Revisited and 1984 and two Jeeves & Wooster short stories. I’m still hopeful that I can get some more reading time in by the pool this summer.
As for the “+2” qualitative goals
+1. Be happier in my work
Um, this is coming along, kinda sorta maybe. I have to remind myself of this hippie quote.
+2. Less judgment, more compassion
Finally, something I feel like I’ve actually been working on for the year. I won’t say I’ve “accomplished” this, as there are moments every day with people or traffic or any other trigger, but I’ve found that repeating this saying from The Dharma Bums really helps:
I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like, “Equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha.”
(I think it also helps I’ve been around someone pretty regularly for a few months–nothing like having someone to be nice to to show you the ways you’re not.)
So that’s where the goals for the year stand. As my inner hippie says, it’s all about the journey, right?