loving the process

Listen to what Shannon said about hanging out with the tricksters and the rascals and the artists — make sure to stay with those who are in on the joke, the delight, the wild creativity of this place.

I liked mattering. I can live with less money and with “regular” cars and without a job title ... it’s very possible to live a very nice life without those things. But mattering ... yeah, I miss that. I want to figure out how to matter again1. Let’s put a pin in that one, consider it a work in progress.

Making ceramics requires patience and is an exercise in delayed gratification (or dissatisfaction). There are so many ways to fuck something up, so many stages to the process, and entering that cycle of hope, expectation, and either failure and trying again or ecstatic satisfaction added a new dimension to the rhythms of my life.

I just feel like, “You know what? I don’t suck. Things don’t suck. I am just doing what is in the proper life cycle of a winning team to intentionally and strategically have a rebuilding year.”

In the early 20th century, Rilke wrote a wonderful series of letters to a young poet in which he counseled, "Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart." He said, "Try to love the questions themselves as though they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language." He said, "Don't try to reach for the answers which could not... See more

I think that one of the things, again, my son has been such a blessing to me over the past couple of years because I think that is an example of I almost missed him. I was so focused on solving him and preparing the path for him with his ADHD and his challenges there that I was exerting my efficacy on his life, and I almost didn’t know him. And... See more

Part of me wishes these essays were completed already, so I could feel the relief that comes with getting them all out. Another part of me wants to spend 20 years getting them all perfect. I suppose the solution is to do both