... yes, it's yesterday's amaryllis, again - this time caught in a shaft of very late afternoon sunshine. So it's still on my desk, and I'm still at my desk - give or take an evening at the President's Holiday Dinner, which was most spectacular and indeed fun - having just, more or less, at last, finished writing the piece on the Novel and the Everyday that I've been worrying away at for - how long, now? - probably eighteen months. I daren't check, in case it proves to be longer. In that time, I've learned a lot about the everyday, or, rather, about theories concerning the everyday. Even though I'm still trying to fine-tune a final sentence that says something about how acknowledging and appreciating the everyday shouldn't mean complacency, but should be a springboard for action, for transformation, I'm not entirely sure that this will stick. It may - but at the same time, what I love about the everyday is that, just for a moment, like this afternoon at my desk, everything can suddenly seem completely beautiful. And seeing and recording this is, I know, part of what writing Forms is about - even as I feel, from day to day, that I'm ducking and weaving under the surface of writing about - oh, the Occupy movement, or the unbelievable awfulness of Newt Gingrich - I mean, although I wouldn't do it myself, I can see why someone would go for Michele Bachmann, but that slime ball? Yet I do think that the miniature essay form, or whatever it is that I practice, is a form of recognizing the everyday, and as such, it's perhaps unsurprising that I should turn to it as more intellectual subject matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment