bird by bird

Trying to start writing again regularly, here are some quotes I use for self-hypnosis, most by Anne Lamott

And the eternal why - Because I want to, because I'm good at it

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping stone just right, you won't have to die

Regarding perfect people - I could resent the ocean if I tried

All you can give us is what life is about from your point of view. You are not going to be able to give us the plans to the submarine. Life is not a submarine. There are no plans

Dying people can teach us this most directly - The package is not who that person has really been all along. Without the package, another sort of beauty shines through, truer and more poignant

Think of those times when you've read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul

To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass - seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one

Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly

We're a crowd animal, a highly gregarious, communicative species, but the culture and the age, and all the fear that fills our days have put almost everyone into little boxes, each of us all alone

Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before. - Mark Twain

Being enough was going to have to be an inside job.

I secretly believe there’s a pie. I will go to my grave brandishing my fork.

We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer's job is to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues.

The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.

You can either practice being right or practice being kind.

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. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

The function of freedom is to free someone else - Toni Morrison

the incomplete bridge - spoken word

Written a few years ago the incomplete bridge to try animate the exciting world of goal setting

Thanks Elissa for inviting me, and Prabha, for recording this

the constant debate

beside the shadow
of a few mountains
where light was insistent
on deaf tones
and water incited by rain
rushed in floods of bits
trickled through porous sand
wove back in earth quietly
so pebbles could have
their sky back awhile
and all things growing
were wrapped in memories
lived a few birds

The Dress

everyone has one
makes you feel confident
beautiful, brilliant, witty
transformative of the higher self
mine is purple pajamas, of course
and green shirt, with unguents
and ginger scents
a half hour mirrorside
with hardly any talkback from it
a primitive ritual
without human sacrifice
to shore up steel, to mark time
to register and remember
despite many subsequent cutenesses
that a few hours in tiny toddler worldview
with a couple of near death experiences
and post traumatic tantrums thrown in
is life altering