What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the
people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in
parantheses. -- John Irving, "The Cider House Rules"

She stretched out on her back on the thin bed, as if she were a
little girl waiting to be tucked in and kissed good night in a foreign
country. -- John Irving, "The Cider House Rules"

Motorcycle Zen

"On a cycle, the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming."


---  Robert M. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

Rachel Carson on writing

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps where no one has ever been.
It is a lonely place, and even a little frightening... No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new...

Rachel Carson on writing

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps where no one has ever been. It is a lonely place, and even a little frightening... No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new...

Rachel Carson on writing

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps where no one has ever been. It is a lonely place, and even a little frightening... No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new...

The Black Hen by A K Ramanujan

It must come as leaves
to a tree
or not at all

yet it comes sometimes
as the black hen
with the red round eye

on the embroidery
stitch by stitch
dropped and found again

and when it's all there
the black hen stares
with its red round eye

and you're afraid.