5 Quick Quotes

Here are five thought-provoking quotes. The first two I heard on the radio yesterday (both regarding our country's current economic crisis).

May you be born in interesting times. - Chinese Proverb

Let history be written in your own hand. - Glenn Beck, encouraging everyone to chronicle this period of history in journals

Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. - M. Scott Peck

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch. - John F. Kennedy

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of My Favorite Calvin & Hobbes Cartoons...

'Mama's Mama' & 'Mother's Poem'

I came across the first poem below years ago in a book about running a ranch (whicle doing research for my non-fiction children's book) and I can't believe I haven't posted it here before, because I really like it and think of it often when I find myself complaining about 'work.'

It always makes me think of the second poem below, which is by Garrison Keillor. It's a much longer poem, so I will only post snippets here.

Thay're both funny!

Mama's Mama by Anonymous
Mama's Mama, on a cold winter day,
Milked the cows and fed them hay;
Slopped the hogs, saddled the mule,
Got seven children off to school.
Did a washing, scrubbed the floors,
Washed the windows and did the chores.
Cooked a dish of home-dried fruit,
Pressed her husband's Sunday suit,
Swept the parlor and made the bed,
Baked a dozen loaves of bread,
Split some firewood, lugged it in,
Enough to fill the kitchen bin.
Cleaned the lamps and put in oil,
Stewed some apples she thought might spoil;
Churned the butter, baked a cake,
Looked out and said, "For mercy's sake!
The calves are out of their pen!"
Went out and put them in again.
Gathered the eggs, and locked the stable;
Returned to the house and set the table,
Cooked a supper that was delicious,
Afterward washed all the dishes.
Fed the cat, sprinkled the clothes,
Mended a basket full of hose,
Then opened the organ and began to play,
"When you come to the end of the perfect day."

Mother's Poem by Garrison Keillor
Some mornings I get up at five.
With four to mother, one to wive,
I find the hours from light to dark
are not enough to matriarch
with goals for matriarchy high
among the apples of my eye.
. . . .
Negligence in the name of loveis just what we should have more of.
Don’t mother birds after some weeks of looking at those upturned beaks,
deliberately the food delay, hoping to hear their goslings say,
"What are these feathered, floppy things
attached to us? You think they’re wings?"
. . . .
My child, you have been betrayed.
The world you thought was neatly made,
its corners tucked in like a sheet,
is uncomposed and incomplete.

For years I carried on a hoax.
I made you think that scrambled yolks
or poached or boiled, fried or shirred,
are how they come out of the bird.
. . . .

(Actually, children discover their wings quite soon enough, it seems to me.)

Moving Along...

My blogging frequency is up because I've been spending more time at my computer this week writing. I delay actual writing as long as possible by checking my email, updating my blog, reading other blogs, etc. I lack discipline!

You didn't ask (how could you ask?), but I will tell you anyway what I'm writing. On Tuesday I was working on a story that takes place on a potato farm in Idaho, which I hope to develop into a novel -- the kind of novel book clubs would enjoy reading and discussing full of interesting characters, moral dilemmas, etc. By noon I had written a few really good pages, and I was so exhilerated I cleaned the whole house.

On Wednesday I couldn't add three paragraphs to it and became discouraged. (Maybe I am the kind of writer who requires a detailed outline? Maybe the story is too removed from my actual experience? Or too depressing in some respects?)

By Wednesday night I had decided to set that story aside and start working on another story (which I have also been working on for years) that takes place at a motel in Arizona. I was up until 1:00am working on that last night, making incremental progress. Each time I pick it up, I advance it just a little.

Today I am thinking of applying myself to a third novel concept I've been working on (for years) that takes place mostly in the mountains of Utah. Three novels in three days and I am seriously considering getting a real job. It would be so much easier and probably more lucrative.

I did take the test to be a census worker a couple of weeks ago. (Working every ten years sounds perfect, doesn't it?) The test was surprisingly difficult, but I only missed one question. That should qualify me for a position of some sort, according to the test administrator. I'm really getting antsy to do something, but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to full time, long term employment. Working for the 2010 Census would be ideal!

Reading between my own lines in this post I see that I need to apply some discipline to ONE story and see it through to completion and, ultimately, publication. That would be a full-time job and the fulfillment of a lifetime dream.

I wrote a story several months ago for the newspaper about a local women who has written three novels in a relatively short period of time while battling personal health problems and raising two autistic children, which left me wondering - What's my excuse? I am completely out of excuses.

And I am extremely fortunate to have a husband who supports me in whatever I want to accomplish. If I were to announce my intention of hiking to the top of Mt. McKinley next summer, he would start gathering equipment for the expedition. Thank you, Scott. You're my patron and my muse.

A Winter Quotation by Henry David Thoreau

I came across this quote today while looking for another one. It made me almost nostaligic about winter time, even though I am hoping it will end soon.

In winter we lead a more inward life.

Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts whose windows and doors are half concealed but from whose chimneys smoke cheerfully ascends.

Henry David Thoreau

A Few Quotes for Writers

In the course of transcribing my quote collection, I've come across a bunch of quotes for writers, some of which I will post here:

I reject your rejection. - Snoopy (Charles Schulz)

We [writers] have the power to bore people long after we are dead. - Sinclair Lewis

I wish you a wrestling match with your creative muse that will last a lifetime. - Ray Bradbury

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. - Earnest Hemingway

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. - Voltaire

The muse is a tough buck. - Perlman

No work is ever finished - it is only abandoned. - Joseph Conrad

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights and you have to make the whole trip that way. - E.L. Doktorow

William Faulkner once described one of the joys of writing as the moment when a character stands up and casts a shadow.

Movie Review: Cranford (BBC Series)

I sat down this morning to finish watching the BBC series "Cranford," which is based on three novels by Elizabeth Gaskell. The story takes place in the 1840s in a small town in England and it's DELIGHTFUL! I can't recommend it highly enough. (I checked it out of the library after waiting to get it from a long hold list...apparently the word is out.)

Anyway, I went looking on the Internet to see if others are as enthusiastic about it as I am and found this very British review by A.A. Gill in the London Times Online. It's so funny I thought I'd post clips of it here in the hope that others will be inspired to watch so that I will have someone to discuss it with! (The DVD is due at the library today or I'd pass it around...)

(You'll see that A.A. Gill is enthralled with an actress in the film named Atkins, but I loved Imelda Staunton the most, who plays a spinster named Miss Pole. I had to hear every word she spoke and catch all of her facial expressions. She is hilarious!)


Here, in part, is A.A. Gill's Review:


I’ve never read Cranford, and, just between the two of us, neither have you. It’s on our list, though, and has been since we were 18 and first discovered we had a list....only the English have a list of books they haven’t read. Mrs Gaskell is a large bra, right at the top of our unread laundry.

...I’m embarrassed by the cringing cultural kitsch of the classic serial.

So, I sat down to Cranford(Sunday, BBC1) girded and gimlet-eyed, my modernist cudgel ready to bludgeon it to a silly pulp. Then, in the very first minute, Eileen Atkins gave me a look – just for a moment, a sideways look, more a glance, really, but it had such depth of character, such promise of interest and intimations of stories to come of hardship and parsimony, of steadfastness, piety, worldliness and a little kindness, all packed together in that one tiny gesture, like an apothecary’s spice box – and I realised it was all up. I was hooked, gaffed, netted and filleted.

Atkins could have me for her tea with tartare sauce. She is the cur’s cods, the terrier’s testicles, the business.

I will go further and declare that Atkins is the finest actor appearing anywhere in the world right now. There is, in her performance, a miraculous ability to project a complex subtext or emotion and motivation in her face and posture, while delivering words that seem real and immediate but, simultaneously, tell us something quite different. With the merest tightening of a lip or flickering of an eye, she raises doubts, opens lines of plot and is able to hold and impart contradictory emotions clearly and profoundly. To be able to do this isn’t just talent or craft or practice, it is an intense sensitivity, an insight into the dilemmas of the human spirit. She is an era-defining actress.

And with her we got Judi Dench. To use a technical term, that was double bubble. Dench was the straight man, the feed, clearing space and giving time to Atkins. It was a performance of immense generosity, born from confidence and the understanding that to listen is as important as to speak; that a part isn’t measured in how many lines you say, but in how many are said to you. Between them, they created scenes of bright brilliance. But then, this was an entire cast of brilliant women, and I could fill the rest of this page with luvvie notes written in violet spittle, but I shan’t.

Cranford is a story of a lot of fairly silly women fussing about things of monumental insignificance...And we have a particularly strong cast of actresses who find themselves in their prime. The reason there are so many of them in Cranford is that the only people who will write decent parts for them are dead lady novelists, and that’s not just a shame, it’s a sinful waste of a great national resource.

Discovery: The World Is Round (OR Life Is Circular, Not Linear)

So I've been thinking about my last post -- this 'discovery' that maximum efficiency does not necessarily equal maximum happiness -- and I've realized that I was working in a linear direction before (do A, then B, then C...eventually you'll arrive at Z, at which point you'll be entitled to some fun). Suddenly I realize the world really is round and that maybe we're meant to live in circles. This also resolves my laundry conundrum -- why it's always there, why I have to keep coming back to it. ("I did the laundry yesterday! Why is is already piling up again?") I'm just coming around the circle again and there it is.

It's all beginning to make sense to me now. I see how it works. (The circle of life, what goes around comes around...Life has always been circular and I've been trying to make it linear!)

And I like it bettter, too. It's hard to do everything in a straight line -- well, actually, it's impossible. Even chores are more enjoyable when they're not on a list somewhere waiting to be scratched off. (Checking things off your list is definitely over-rated.) Outside of a few must-do items each day, I am free to decide how I want to use the time I have on a whim. Life is, by definition, more whimsical this way.

whimsical: determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason

Learning to Take Life As It Comes, Day 1

A little while ago I was thinking what a great day this has been, which was perplexing because there's no particular reason. I haven't done anything extraordinary at all, haven't seen anyone I don't normally see or created anything or spent much money.

Which got me thinking about why it's been so great. (Oh, I know - I tend to over-analyze. Okay, I will admit that I am the Queen of Over-Analysis, which explains my particularly bad case of Analysis Paralysis. I can deliberate over some issues for decades...)

And the reason why I think today has been so great is that I have taken it as it comes, moment by moment. I have not consulted my ubiquitous day planner -- not once. (Which makes me wonder, what have I forgotten to do today...? A momentary panic distracts me...)

When we showed up an hour early for my son's ACT this morning (for which I had awakened at 5:44am), I did not freak out. I used that "found time" to make a grocery list and do some shopping before the Saturday crowds. At home I processed laundry, one load after another, without tapping my foot waiting for the dryer to stop rotating so that I could proceed. I baked a cake this afternoon for no reason. My daughter Emily said, "It's been so long since we've had a random cake!" (meaning a cake which is not a birthday cake).

And in all of this I think I've discovered that pre-planning every aspect of your life is not all it's cracked up to be. For years I have been scheduling all of my time, never doing one thing without thinking about the next thing I have to do - and it's exhausting! I have been living a carefully measured existence. Every possible activity I might want to engage in has had to conform to (often imaginary or self-imposed) constraints of time, money, schedules....You can't really force life anyway -- to a certain extent you have to react to it. To a certain extent you have to take it as it comes, whether you want to or not.

Which makes me remember some lines by the poet Walt Whitman:

From this hour I ordain myself
Loos'd of limits and imaginary lines
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute
Listening to others, considering well what they say
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating
Gently, but with undeniable will
Divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I have alway considered these lines somewhat controversial because some limits are necessary and some lines are not imaginary but are essential to human happiness (at least to my own happiness), but I believe I will divest myself of the unnecessary 'holds that would hold me.'

I think I will practice taking life as it comes.

P.S. Last night I stuck a post-it note to my computer screen that said 'Cheryl Acton is fearless!' Nothing could be further fom the truth - but that philosophy has affected me all day and may also be responsible for my new outlook.

Some Quotes from the Great Greek Philosopher, Anonymous

When I was about ten, my dad introduced me to Bartlett's Quotations, and I really did think that Anonymous was an actual person who seemed to know something about everything. (Aside: I also thought Arson was the name of a person. News reports on a rash of fires in Kansas City when I was young always ended with "Police suspect arson." I wondered why they didn't just go arrest him.)

Anyway, I started my own quote collection in high school and I have several books of them now, which I'm transcribing to computer bit by bit. Many of them are by 'Anonymous.'

Here are a few to give you an idea of Anonymous's breadth of knowledge and insight:

Ideas are very much like children – your own are wonderful.

Some people have 100 acres of possibilities and about ½ acre under cultivation.

A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous.

An extravagance is often something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.

You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate.

Corduroy pillows make headlines.

Sorrow looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

Being a husband is like any other job. It helps if you like the Boss.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.

Peace is not the absence of conflict; it's the absence of inner conflict.