Little Miss Sunshine's gonna steal herself some shadow.

Dear Princesses,

I was driving away from Los Angeles when I heard Carrie Fisher had died.  I always feel a bushel of maternal protectiveness for Hollywood damsels who become emblematic of what society thinks about women; living martyrs, consumed by our voracious appetite for symbol.  I did not love her right away, though, because I am suspicious of popular things, and I never want to read the best sellers, dance to the number one records, or see the big films until the hoopla has left the building. 

And so, I grew to love Carrie Fisher slowly: I saw her in Star Wars six years after it was released (see above).  I loved that she was a wise acre, I loved that she was a writer, and I loved that she married a musician for only a matter of months.  I loved that she crawled out of her own hell, over and over, because everyone does, or doesn't.  I loved that her fame was a hairshirt for her.  I imagined meeting her and telling her it was okay; she was all right with me, no matter what, with or without Star Wars and metal bikinis and addiction.  Yes, she was all right with me, just for trying to be herself in the first place.

Here are two songs to contemplate:  Carry on my wayward daughter, and she moves on.

Time is of the Essence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Persistence of Memory

Salvador Dali, 1931.

Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Bookshelf,

 

I am so very slow to get around to things, and I could just kick myself, because sometimes opportunities completely vanish and I am left with an empty void, where once there was a space filled with potential and ideas.  Yes, I do mean that people die, and our hope of meeting them, or seeing them again soon is gone in a flash.  Don't let this happen to you, run out and grab some people and tell them something good.

 

I read a few months ago, an article about Ursula K. Le Guin and I noted that she wrote a blog.  It is quite a nice blog, in fact, but I only just finally took a look at it.  Please don't wait as long as I did.

 

 

 

Ursula K. Le Guin's Blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS

 

This post's title might be our daily mantra, except for the terrible fact that enjoying a space, a place, a time,  or a person, requires one to forget, or consciously push aside, the transient nature of the world.  A painter I once knew, said that one needed to paint both urgently, as if it was one's last painting, and as if one had all the time in the world.