Sure you do.
That's one of the reasons why we write together... because someone says it for you in exactly the right way at the right time. What used to be fuzzy or underdeveloped or not yet even verbally formed (as in the photo above), is suddenly brilliantly alive.
For me it was, Annie Dillard, who I haven't thought of since Evergreen in the early 90s when we read "An American Childhood," whose words reappeared for me last Friday (though this time from "The Writing Life") in a coloring book gifted to me by a dear student, swimming opposite page of a color-hungry outline of dolphin. Can't see it? Okay... Let me help... get ready: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
Right?
And not to steal credit where credit is so obviously due, thank you so much Annie Dillard, but I might add, "how we write is, of course, how we spend our lives." Do we over think? Do we under think? Care too much about the little things? Worry? Laugh? Care what others think? Get lost with no sense of time? Lose ourselves? Fret? Love?
Writing as we know, can be so much about the process.
How do you spend your time writing? Your days? How do you write your days?
Is Annie right? Is there another quote you heard recently that tilted the frame back into alignment for you? Helped you remember?
Of course it happens every week here at the Beach as we remember, reawaken, and so much more when we write together. Thank you writers, thank you readers. I'm happy to say, of course, thanks to you, that I spend a good portion of my days in gratitude.
