“One day I’m standing in front of the door,” he said, “and it’s out of control and my wife, Dana, is freaking out, and suddenly I see in all the piles the dress she wore to her first dance and an earring she wore to her bat mitzvah. She’s so trusting her journal is wide open on the floor, and there are photo-booth pictures of her friends strewn everywhere. I said, ‘Omigod, her cup overflows!’ And we started to laugh.”almost as much as I love the title of his book, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life', but I keep remembering how I feel better when I'm tidy. I can at least pretend I'm in control. Mind you, having said that, I'm writing this with my empty soup bowl from lunch(Butternut squash, very nice) perched on a printer cartridge box which is perched on my Far Side desk diary. A book - Metafiction, Patricia Waugh - is face down in between my keyboard and my screen, and a lavender candle is burning a bit too close to a paper bag, containing a present of Venetian stationery. I take heart from the fact that when I do finally get around to tidying up, I might find something wonderful, much as Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin from a moldy bloom in a petri dish he had forgotten on his desk.
Writing Prompt 3-2007: Finding something unexpected under the pile of rubbish.
2 comments:
Excellent book "Metafiction". But will I ever get round to reading "The Last Soviet Avant-Garde: OBERIU - Fact, Fiction, Metafiction" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Soviet-Avant-Garde-Metafiction-Literature/dp/0521028345/sr=1-15/qid=1168269055/ref=sr_1_15/026-1525105-1513265?ie=UTF8&s=books) or even "Paratexts" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paratexts-Thresholds-Interpretation-Literature-Culture/dp/0521424062/sr=1-1/qid=1168269226/ref=sr_1_1/026-1525105-1513265?ie=UTF8&s=books), which at least I own.
Another excellent prompt Sarah...There are plenty of good ideas lurking under THIS rubbish on THIS desk!
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