Last night as I was making this delicious guacamole, my knife slipped through the avocado and I punctured my palm quite deeply, giving myself an accidental stigmata. I'm fine...managed to miss veins and all...but I'm typing a little awkwardly so I'll cut this short (ha, ha...no pun intended).
Maybe it's just as well. Last night I read this line in Angle of Repose and took it personally:
"She mined and irrigated every slightest incident, she wrote and drew her life instead of living it" (pg. 442 of my edition).
I do that. I'm a writer by nature and, true to the breed, I live inside my head a lot of the time. As wonderful as blogging + writing is, I find myself sometimes passing up doing me some living in favor of putting down what we've done, as though the telling somehow makes it more valuable. Other times I'm at one of my kids' events and I'm jockeying for position for a good photo and getting all bunched up inside about the inconsiderate creep who's blocking my shot...when I should be simply enjoying and clapping and living it. I look around the room and we're an audience with digital camera faces.
As I write this I feel a little conflicted because writing and creating is such a vital part of my life. It is living, for me, much of the time and I wouldn't want to take that away from myself. But every once in a while I need a minor tap on the shoulder to remember. You have my permission to do the tapping now and then. {tap, tap} Excuse me, m'am, there's a lot to do and love outside this little comfort zone of yours...
My brother Matt posted a lovely poem by Mary Oliver today that ends: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
So here's to living a wild and precious life.
The guacamole, by the way, was fabulous.
