“If you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do it. I know that sounds a little pious.” – David Foster Wallace
I am married. And honeymooned. And today, utterly fatigued by the weight of the carbohydrates and protein that I have ingested in the last twelve hours. Thanksgiving seems a good day – an excellent day! – to return to a more reflective way of living.
I’d kept my private journal updated daily in October, but this month has been sparse on account of finishing Nanowrimo for the first time in the proper month of November – I finished Camp Nano in June 2012. I have not thought of much else but writing at breakneck speed, and keeping up the usual professional and familial obligations. I pulled a marathon writing session this past weekend, averaging 3500 words a day so I could finish the novel before Thanksgiving. It actually happened. Wow.
Tuesday night we stayed with mom on the way down from SF, and then drove the rest of the way down on Wednesday. Today was nothing but food, food, and more wonderful food. One of my lifelong wishes is for science to develop diet that emphasizes the heavy, unlimited consumption of simple starches and sugars.
What has changed in the last three months? Marital status, sure; but have also found a new writer to add to the pantheon of my favorites (above), and added a new country to my passport, and many small and grateful realizations about family and maturity.
I’m looking forward to winter. Ahead: family, daily writing, figure drawing & exercise. Happy Thanksgiving.
as it was, as it were 