Are you guys’writers?
I know you are readers, for you are here. Thank you. I appreciate you immensely.
I am encouraging reading and writing. Don’t let either go away. Ray Bradbury said, “You don’t have to burn books, you just have to get people not to read them.”
Don’t do that. Keep on reading. Keep on writing. Both are good for that beautiful brain of yours.
“In times of crisis,” I read this morning in the Epoch Times: “it’s easy for your mind to feel bombarded—notifications, headlines, endless scrolling. It feels like information overload, but science shows it’s worse: shallow, fragmented content actually changes your brain, training it for distraction.”
I know that extended, focused reading is good for the brain. A study published in Neuroscience News shows that consistent cognitive engagement such as reading can even delay cognitive decline by years.
“What you feed your brain defines how it performs. Shallow content trains distraction. Deep, quality reading trains focus and insight.”
We need to delve into something of substance once in a while, immerse ourselves. Perhaps I should write longer blogs. But people have little time, so they want to get through information quickly. I suggest you use your precious leisure time to read a book. Savor it. Devour it. And after that, write out your feelings, frustrations, blessings. Your life has meaning; it deserves your attention.
I was so excited yesterday after completing Suzanne Redfearn's novel Where Butterflies Wander, especially after she explained in the author’s comments following the book how she came to write it and how it morphed along the way. It fell right in step with a discussion I had with my grandson the night before on what a theme is, a plot, should you write the ending first, those sorts of things. As she was writing her novel, she found an article in a magazine about a man in a cabin, squatting on someone’s land, and used that idea in her book. It gave it backbone she said. And it gave her an ending. I wanted to tell somebody, but it was met with crickets, and I realized, once again, that discovery gives its gift to the one who finds it. Plus, you must jump on an idea while it’s hot; otherwise, it flies away with the wild ducks.
It seemed pertinent that the two books I completed in the morning, were by the same author. In April I mentioned Walking the Camino, and now I am talking about Where the Butterflies Wander.
When my girls were starting school, and I was reading about alternative education, I came upon the book, Education and Ecstasy. The author asked if we had ever, in our 12,16 or 18 years of schooling, had a teacher who believed learning was ecstasy. That’s the way learning ought to be, but mine wasn’t during those early years. (That book is on Amazon; by George B Leonard, I just looked it up. Yep, printed in the 60s. That sounds right.)
That book just popped into my mind. That’s the way the brain works, and the way I wrote my memoir, like a mountain stream that splashes against rocks, beavers dam it up, the water breaks free, logs fall into it, but I trust the river to reach its destination.know where it is going and to take us there.
It may sound ludicrous to say I’m writing a memoir, I'm not illustrious. I’ve never been to Mars. I’m not a celebrity, had a near-death experience, or chewed off my arm stuck on a mountain. However, I trust Natalie Goldberg when she said everybody ought to write a memoir, and it doesn’t have to be your life story. It can be any moment. It can be for those moments that take your breath away.
I wanted to visit my little girl self again, the one who could jump rope and run, and fearlessly jump onto a horse’s bare back. I wanted to visit my father again, who left for the Second World War, but I didn’t see him again until 38 years later.
I wished my ancestors had been more expressive. That way I would know how my grandmother responded when her 16-year-old daughter informed her that she was pregnant.
They had their thoughts and the right to keep them private, but then those thoughts and feelings died with them.
I’m up to 70,000 words.
I agree that these are tough times, so was the war. However, then we didn’t have a society built on fear. We didn’t have a would-be dictator. We believed that our President was pulling with us. We still believed in democracy.
Now, there are many Americans who ought to be ashamed of themselves.
A moment of Reprieve:
Let us be as gentle and loving as this Momma Goat protecting her baby at the Lane county Fair in Eugene, Oregon.
