(click to enlarge)I learned to love writing in a journal nearly 30 years ago. I found this old journal from high school and laughed as most of the comments from the instructor are encouraging me to "use my time wisely"; advice one could give me today. I'm the kind of person that can spend hours reading through a thesaurus for the perfect word to complete a sentence, while laundry piles up, dust collects and bills go unpaid. I love the artistry of cooking, but find myself reading cookbooks rather than actually cooking from them. I've sauntered through the bottle shop at Old World Market Place reading wine bottle labels, only to walk out without making a purchase.
My personal agenda is loose and disjointed. I am suspicious of people who live in neat houses; where do they put all their stuff? When do they find time to clean? Tracking along side of someone with a tightly structured agenda, directly connecting task A to task B is unnerving. My time is wasted on a regular basis - finding my way back home, searching for a ringing phone, or the other shoe. Hours lost while driving back country roads, or people watching at a busy metropolitan cafe.
In Italy, business owners close their shops for three hours every afternoon. This time is spent meeting their spouse or friends, sipping coffee, eating food served to them on tables set with flowers, table clothes and linen napkins, relaxing, people watching, perhaps a stroll through an art gallery. It's part of the "good life" they are so proud of as a culture. The good life, they say is Life itself. In Italy time is life.
I love this quote from Goethe:
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
Good advice!
As for that instructor from all those years ago, he also encouraged me to keep writing. I think he made his point.
(click to enlarge)"What you don't feel, you will not grasp by art,
Unless it wells out of your soul
And with sheer pleasure takes control,
Compelling every listener's heart.
But sit - and sit, and patch and knead,
Cook a ragout, reheat your hashes,
Blow at the sparks and try to breed
A fire out of piles of ashes!
Children and apes may think it great,
If that should titillate your gum,
But from heart to heart you will never create.
If from your heart it does not come."
(from Faust I)
1 comment:
I have to say that I am amazed that you think neat people have something to hide. If I recall growing up you always had the neatest room in the house. You were always very organized with things in there place. No dust, no clutter. Now, my room on the other had was a mess, clothes everywhere, bed not made (it still isn't made), but my house for the most part is neat. When did this change happen?
Cathy
ps: I could have gone on and on as you know, but I don't want tell every thing.....
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