Hope Begins in the Dark
Working With Words
A weblog devoted to spurring a conversation among those who use words to varying degrees in their daily work. Hosted by John Ettorre, a Cleveland-based writer and editor. Please email me at: john.ettorre@gmail.com. "There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real." --James Salter
Monday, August 17, 2009
'Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.'
--Anne Lamott. We've pointed to her often, for what I hope are obvious reasons. She's just damn brilliant.
8 Comments:
you know I'm a huge fan! i got to hear her speak a few years ago at Case and she speaks as brilliantly as she writes.
Yes, in posting a link to earlier mentions of her, I came across a great comment you left about her earlier, how reading her stuff always made you feel like a better person. No higher praise than that for any writer. I was at that same event at Case. It was unbelievable how she filled up Amasa Stone Chapel so there was standing room only. No small feat for any speaker, but she's got a cult following.
I've never heard of her but then I've never heard of anyone. Every day I look at the Internet there's someone else with a lifetime's work behind them that I should know about and don't and every day I have a day less to life and another person's life's work to try and fit in. No wonder I feel tired all the time.
You've hit on an extremely resonant subject, Jim, about which more later, when I'm not my typing's not limited to 2 thumbs.
I'm glad to learn about this lady too. I'm adding her to my list of must reads.
I'm also glad it only took me a couple of seconds to realize that John didn't slam his fingers in the car door, but probably was just responding on his Blackberry/ipod.
Right you are, Donna. No car door accidents, just commenting via Blackberry.
I feel as Jim does. There is so much I want to read, and so much that I want to create.... I know I won't live long enough to get it all in. I don't even have a bucket list -- I'm just all over the place.
In the midst of all these wonderful things I want to read and do, I have mothering obligations -- no, priviledges -- and, of course, the ever present housework. I get tired just thinkig about it all.
I also felt like Jim and Pat for years--decades, actually--overwhelmed by the idea of all the things I wanted to know, learn and read over my lifetime. But somehow in recent years I've just gotten more comfortable with biting off chewable daily portions of the best and most interesting stuff, and getting used to the idea that I can never begin to get to it all, or to even do much more than begin scratching the surface. At a certain age, I think that dynamic tends to kick in. At least it did for me.
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