you ask an artist how he got where he is, he will not describe breaking in but instead will talk of a series of lucky breaks. “A thousand unseen helping hands,” Joseph Campbell calls these breaks. I call them synchronicity. It is my contention that you can count on them.

Stop looking for big blocks of time when you will be free. Find small bits of time instead.

List twenty things you enjoy doing (rock climbing, roller-skating, baking pies, making soup, making love, making love again, riding a bike, riding a horse, playing catch, shooting baskets, going for a run, reading poetry, and so forth). When was the last time you let yourself do these things? Next to each entry, place a date. Don’t be surprised if

RULES OF THE ROAD In order to be an artist, I must: Show up at the page. Use the page to rest, to dream, to try. Fill the well by caring for my artist. Set small and gentle goals and meet them. Pray for guidance, courage, and humility. Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work.

I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty.

Each moment, taken alone, was always bearable.

My grandmother was gone before I learned the lesson her letters were teaching: survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention. Yes, her letters said, Dad’s cough is getting worse, we have lost the house, there is no money and no work, but the tiger lilies are blooming, the lizard has found that spot of sun, the roses are holding

He squandered life’s big chances the way she savored the small ones.

Life through grandma’s eyes was a series of small miracles: the wild tiger lilies under the cottonwoods in June; the quick lizard scooting under the gray river rock she admired for its satiny finish.