loudon wainwright on songwriting

"Writing songs is like fishing. You sit in the boat and you wait. It's true you have to know the best spot, time of day, which bait to use, the difference between a nibble and a strike, and most importantly, how to get the damn fish into the boat. Talent is essential, craft is crucial, but for me, it's mostly down to waiting and luck."

the cure for anything

The cure for anything is salt water, sweat, tears, or the sea.

-Isak Dinesen


And gorgeous horses in fly masks in the back yard. :)

Some things...arrive in their own mysterious hour, on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever.

-Gail Godwin


I was thinking about this quote on the way to my office today, how fleeting things are sometimes and how easy it is to miss them altogether. There's an art and a talent to seizing the moment. There's an art and a talent to letting one go.

Just as I was thinking that, a song came on XM and while I've heard it before and liked it well enough, this piece resonated today:


Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists and turns of fate
Time falls away
But these small hours
These small hours
Still remain


The small hours and little wonders of horses munching first cut organic orchard hay soft as silk, children with sore throats sipping ginger root tea and soup before napping, the gift of a much-wanted novel in the mailbox today.

At the office, walking in, this, which seems to mix spring, summer, and fall all into one:




Inside, seeing clients, the small hours became therapy hours and the little (and not so little) wonders continued.

I was not in the best mood earlier today, but by the time I came out of work into a soft but steady rain, that had shifted.




Seize. Relinquish. Knowing when to do which thing. Being present enough to see what's landed at your feet.

the week's end

Yesterday afternoon this image on the wall outside my garret perfectly captured the mood of the week's end ... golden light and dancing shadow, warmth inside as the wind outside took on a chill.

The image here doesn't quite capture the color and definitely not the movement, but it has its own grainy appeal.

And now, of course, we're on to Monday and a new week's magic.

the list

There's a piece of paper fluttering around my chair, fuzzy here b/c I'm too impatient to fuss with the camera.

Books to buy:

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood

Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman

Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley

Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Finn by Jon Clinch

The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

I'll Steal You Away by Niccolo Ammaniti

And some books that have disappeared from my library and need replacing:

Haven Kimmel's novels

Huck Finn

Tom Sawyer

Catcher in the Rye


The frustrating thing is that I can't just go out and buy all of them at once. But, even if I did, there would be another such list in about three days' time.

If you like, feel free to add suggestions. I'm getting an early start on building my reading pile for the coming winter. :)