Perhaps I need to do another #introduction here, since it has been some time since I did it last and new folks are arriving all the time. My regular forays here include composing #smallpoems, #writing #smallstories, sharing #smallquotes, #remix, chatting about #songwriting and other connected sharing threads. By day, I am a #teacher #educator of adolescents. Some days are longer than others, if you know what I mean. If you write there, I'll try to respond. I try to keep my heart and mind open.

“Inside this isolation booth there was no swearing, no furious X-ing out of copy, no yellow copy paper reeled onto pitted platens, no impatient slam of carriage returns. Just the relentless stamping out of disembodied sentences in rote rhythm unlike real writing.”

-- The Art of the Wasted Day, by Patricia Hampl, page 117

#smallquotes

I shared this a few days ago with a book review at my blog - some inspirational #smallquotes about the observation and contemplation of nature and personal stories from the beautifully-written World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

"The secret in talking to birds is in the steadiness of each limb as you make your way into their territory, in the deliberateness of each movement and bend of tree branch and grass blade. ... perhaps you could try to find a little tranquility, find a little tenderness in your quiet."

-- from World of Wonder by Amee Nezhukumatathil, page 97

#smallquotes

“She was not wrong -- the mind designs the body.”

-- from The Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry, page 75

#smallquotes

“... perhaps the best thing creative work can do is to compost into soil so that, unremembered, it becomes the food of a new era, or rather, devoured, digested, the very consciousness of that era. Marble lasts, but soil feeds.”

-- from Recollections of my Nonexistence, by Rebecca Solnit, page 222

#smallquotes

“Out here, it was as if the world had backed off from them for a spell. They believed in the fated-ness and meant-to-be’s. They believed in the dark star that was theirs to steer by.”

-- from The Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry, page 72

#smallquotes

“Collage is literally a border art, an art of what happens when two things confront each other or spill into each other, what conversations arise from the conjunction of difference, and how differences can feed into a new whole.”

-- from Recollections of my Nonexistence, by Rebecca Solnit, page 150-151

#smallquotes

“The present becomes the past through increments too small to measure; suddenly something that is becomes something that was, and the way we live is not the way we lived.”

-- from Recollections of my Nonexistence, by Rebecca Solnit, page 204

#smallquotes

“They say when you’re lonely you start to lose words.”

-- from Weather by Jenny Offill, page 168

#smallquotes

“They say people who are lost will walk trancelike past their own search parties. Maybe I saw you. Maybe I passed you on the street. How will I know you? Trust me, you’ll say.”

-- from Weather by Jenny Offill, page 199

#smallquotes

“A book: a bird that is also a brick.”

-- from Recollections of my Nonexistence, by Rebecca Solnit, page 104

#smallquotes

“I wanted writing that could be lavish, subtle, evocative, that could describe mists and moods and hopes and just facts and solid objects. I wanted to map how the world is connected by patterns and intuitions and resemblances. I wanted to trace the lost patterns that came before the world was broken and find the new ones we could make out of the shards.”

-- from Recollections of my Nonexistence, by Rebecca Solnit, page 126

#smallquotes

For friends among the hashtags I regularly use -- #smallstories #smallpoems #smallquotes etc -- I am going to pull back in most digital spaces for the month of July (as I do every year). I may still jump in now and then, but nothing with any regularity. I hope you all keep writing.

“I was engrossed in the film playing across the apartment walls. I had forgotten myself in her story, had lost my way, willingly, until she reached back and swatted my thigh. ‘Hey, don’t fall asleep on me now!’ But I wasn’t asleep.”

-- from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong, page 23

#smallquotes

“Undersea cables link people — in rich nations, first — but the earth itself always stands in the way. To determine the route of an undersea cable requires navigating a maze of economics, geopolitics and topography.”

-- from Tubes by Andrew Blum, page 198

#smallquotes

“... favoring control leaves no room for surprises. A more difficult, perhaps more deeply satisfying method is to embrace contingency and randomness, accepting that life is a compromise between what exists and what you want, and beauty is found not by imposition but through an absence of control.”

-- from The Longing for Less, by Kyle Chayka, page 205

#smallquotes

“The story unfurled, its storm rolled in as she spoke, then rolled in once more as I repeated the words. To bake a cake in the eye of a storm; to feed yourself sugar on the cusp of danger.”

-- from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong, page 5

#smallquotes

#smallquotes from On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder -- Lesson 6: Be Wary of Paramilitaries

#smallquotes from On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder -- Lesson 5: Remember Ethics