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Passion for 365 days~

8/17/2012

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Spicy curried zucchini soup
The other day I got it in my mind (once again) that I wanted to do some kind of art or activity every day for a year. The idea has intrigued me every since I saw the movie “Julia Being Julia”, in which for 365 consecutive days a young woman named Julia Powell completes a Julia Child recipe and blogs about it. (Her blog no longer exists .)

        Then there is Nina Sankovitch reading a book a day to assuage her grief after her sister’s death and writing about it in “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair”. Her blog continues to be a rich resource for all kinds of reading: http://www.readallday.org/blog/

        “365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!” by Noah Scalin has also inspired many to pick a theme and then create variations for a year. The possibilities are endless. Check out http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/ for inspiration.

      So I decided I’d make a soup a day. Really? What was I thinking? I don’t have time for such a labor intensive activity, and besides, what would I do with all that soup?  Oh, I have the time if that’s what I want to do with my life; we could have soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner and of course I could give it to the people I visit and take it whenever there is a call for food at church.

     Well, after completing Day 1 of soup making I have scratched the idea. It isn’t that the soup was a disaster (which it was, but I tell you about that tomorrow), but because, who wants to eat soup for 365 consecutive days anyway? Certainly, I don’t. Why? I like soup okay, but a lot of soup is about vegetables, and truth be told, I don’t like vegetables. How humbling to admit such a thing, but I’m working on humility and confessing such blasphemy is a good a place as any to start.

     What I learned from this one day experience is that you to have passion to repeat any variation on a theme for 365 days, and since I don’t have passion for soup or for cooking, no wonder I failed. You have to have passion to get you through those days when you’re tired and want to skip a day, and you have to have passion to give yourself permission to do just that—skip a day. In fact, you have to have passion to do whatever you do in any serious way for any extended period of time.

     As far as the 365 a day commitment, I seem to have a passion, a desire, to post a quote every day on this blog. I’ve done so for about 635 days, missing one day, I believe, due to traveling.  What’s the passion? Inspiring, affirming and encouraging others to find the silence, solitude and simplicity that they long for--to follow their bliss.

    One more thing….I haven’t given up on finding another 365 day project, although if I think about it, I’m already doing  a bunch of them, beginning with such mundane, but necessary routines as flossing, and taking my vitamins. And there’s my walking and taking quiet time.  But I’m thinking of a new, intentional commitment, something a little bit more radical than flossing.


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Reading memories~

10/8/2011

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I finally got my reserve copy of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair from the library. When I wrote about the book on my blog back in July, I had heard the author, Nina Sankovitch interviewed by Emily Rooney on ‘Greater Boston’. I was intrigued with her commitment to read a book a day and follow up with a review on her blog. I didn’t promise to blog daily, but I was fascinated with maintaining a daily practice, and I still am.

       Sankovitch took on this project as a way to grieve and come to terms with the rather sudden death of her oldest sister from cancer three years earlier. In her book she shares snippets of reviews and varying insights she gleaned from the books she read. It is these insights, as I grieve for my mother, that resonate with me. Today it’s about the importance of memories and how authors use their memories to create masterful tales, tales that give hope and a belief in the possibility of good in the world.

      To a large extent, the memories I am still holding are of those last eight days sitting with Mom. But I notice others coming forward. Memories of Mom in the first house we lived in after moving out of Brooklyn, when I was between the ages of 2 and 5. And another, when I was about 9, of mom coming into my room to shut the window and wake me up on a cold winter’s morning. I wonder what soul work these hold for me. Maybe that’s why, like the writers of the 365 books that Sankovitch read from October 29, 2008 to October 28, 2009, I’m writing this blog.


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Tolystoy and the Purple Chair

7/22/2011

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      The other day on Greater Boston Emily Rooney interviewed Nina Sankovitch. author of “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair” and the accompanying blog,  readallday.com. For an entire year, Sankovitch read a book a day, and blogged about each one as a way to deal with her grief from her sister’s untimely death from cancer.

        Sankovitch isn’t the only one living out this very compelling idea of doing a similar thing every day for a year. There was Julia cooking a Julia Child’s recipe a day. There is Noah Scalin’s “365: A Daily Creative Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change your Life!”  Gretchen Rubin, creator of The Happiness Project tells her readers: “I observed that it’s often easier for me to do something every day than to do it some days.” Check out these sites for inspiration.

       I’m not talking here about our personal daily habits that don’t make one bit of difference in other people’s lives-- drinking coffee, checking email, reading the paper, even taking a walk. After all, if we run out of coffee one day, or if the paper doesn’t get delivered, no one but us will know or care.

     What makes Sankovitch’s commitment to read a book a day so compelling is that she announced her intention out loud and promised to share her experience with others. People who got wind of her blog, started counting on her each day, and I bet she didn’t want to let them down.
     I never promised to post every day, but I do sense a obligation to keep cottage by the sea going on a regular basis. After all, it doesn’t feel right to tell people about my blog and then post sporadically. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve missed a daily quote; you can pretty much count on that. I do my best to post a blog every other day, but a post a day is pretty appealing—just not always practical.
     For me, silence, solitude and simplicity is not about being a hermit, but  about sharing from that deep spot in me. 


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