Boredom Abounds, But Is That Bad?

  I’ve often marveled at my husband’s ability to find pleasure in the mundane. He finds projects around the house and property that need attention and applies himself to them without complaint. He is currently scraping, sanding, and repainting individual pickets on our veranda. On the other hand, I vocally suffer from what Dostoevsky referred

Thoughts On Memoir and Angles of Repose

Finding the angle of repose, that easy place where story flows is no easy task. First, pour your heart out on the page until a pile forms— sufficient text for a memoir, say. (Example: if the memoir has 360 pages, write M=360) Using a life span and brutal honesty, measure the amount of truth versus

Three Little Pebbles

Another canine traffic jam at the door. Sit. Stay…. Okay Like lit bottle rockets they launch, rounding the corner of the house to some imagined danger I cannot see. A thousand toads bleat and honk,while rain sizzzles on the roof. The pond is full. Finally, the drought ends. Sharp air, frost on the ground, my

Resolutions for the New Year

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” Henry Ford New Year’s resolutions, like laws, are for breaking. Yet, I feel inclined to make some this year. Nothing big, mind you, because high and mighty dreams lead to failure. The biggest and hardest of these involves disconnecting my

Order & Chaos

 According to Victor MacGill, life is caught in the tension between order and chaos. If there is too much order, everything becomes the same and there is no room for creativity or anything new. Everything must fit the one pattern. If there is too much chaos nothing can last long enough to create anything useful;

Muse Brain/ Monkey Brain

This morning I woke at 4:18 AM according to my trusty alarm clock. I keep for the purpose of knowing whether to get up or see if my wakeful spate in the dead of night will pass. Usually it says 2:38 or 2:22. This morning it was close enough to my usual getting up time