I can always hope that my faithful followers and occasional readers have wondered what has happened to my blog. What has happened is that I’ve been giving my writing time to fiction. Writing fiction is much harder for me than writing essays and the like, but also a lot more fun. The couple of things I have finished do not seem very blog-like, so they wait for some other opportunity to see light. I will be participating in a fiction writing workshop in June, which may either make or break my desire to continue on this track.
So today I will count on others (called to my attention by Garrison Keillor, another other) to shove me back into the blogosphere.
Poet Jane Kenyon opens her “Walking Along in Late Winter” with this provocative comparison:
How long the winter has lasted—like a Mahler
symphony, or an hour in the dentist's chair.
symphony, or an hour in the dentist's chair.
To which I respond, Them’s fightin’ words! Yes, this winter continue to be long, but comparing an hour of Mahler ’s sublime music to an hour of someone’s hands wielding sharp instruments in my mouth…well, I’ll take the Mahler. (Or perhaps you’re satisfied with winter?)
Playwright Edward Albee said: "I take pretty good care of myself, and I have no enthusiasm whatever about dying. I think it's a terrible waste of time, and I don't want to participate in it.”
Or maybe you’d rather die than go through another winter like this one, or listen to Mahler, OR go to the dentist. Time’s a slippery thing.
