A year-end grab bag of inspiration
Dear Readers,
Making collages is one of my favorite things to do—visual collages, word collages, and even … newsletter collages. So I thought it would be fun to close out 2024 by inviting some whimsy into this newsletter and to trust in the guiding light of happenstance.
I’m always collecting quotes and other miscellaneous doo-dads in my internet peregrinations, but most of those things end up lost on my computer, no matter how much I like them, so I decided to use the end of this year to clean out my computer closets and let the doo-dads shine a bit.
I’m starting with the Toulouse Lautrec painting above because I have a sticker of that painting on my laptop. I first encountered Lautrec when I was an unworldly 20-year-old, and I’ve always been taken by his aesthetic of tragic festivity—how his paintings show how we reach into the darkness of the night with only a simple dance to give.
It’s a good way to create art—to give whatever dance you have. Life is a many-hued party, after all, and you’ve got to kick up your leg a bit.
Because it’s good to start
"Zero plus anything is a world."
—Jane Hirshfield
Because seeking is a blessing
“Anyone who writes is a seeker. You look at a blank page and you’re seeking. The role is assigned to us and never removed. I think this is an unbelievable blessing.”
—Louise Glück
Think of this next time you’re blocked on a work: you’re practicing the blessed state of seeking.
Because love is constantly moving
“In loving we abandon the tranquility and permanence within ourselves, and virtually migrate toward the object. And this constant state of migration is what it is to be in love.”
—José Ortega y Gasset
I love this quote not just as a way to understand love, but to understand writing with love. We’re always moving—going outside of ourselves—to understand another, to connect, to create. But to do that, we invite in uncertainty and discomfort.
Love is a state of constant unrest. Love can give peace, but love isn’t necessarily peace.
Because love requires imagination
"Art and morals are … one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love. Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality."
—Iris Murdoch
If love is the realization that something other than oneself is real, then we live in a paradox: we move out of ourselves and we try to become one, but we also have to accept that we can’t become one. Isn’t it interesting that Murdoch calls love a “perception”?
True love is the step after “falling in love.”
Because to have a heart is to be heartbroken
“Now I know I've got a heart because it is breaking.”1
—Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz
Because every story is a story of loss
“I always argue that every story, all literature, is a grief story. It is a loneliness story. It is a love story. All of these things have to work in conjunction with each other, even if we prefer to think of them as separate and that you can isolate these feelings."
—Venita Blackburn
Because intimacy is a gift
“Intimacy always carries the sense of something hidden about to be felt and known in surprising ways; something brought out and made visible that previously could not be seen or understood. In intimacy what is hidden will become a gift, discovered and rediscovered again and again in the eyes of both giver and receiver.”
—David Whyte
What better way to write (and live) than with intimacy.
Because we are imperfect creatures
"If we truly comprehend and acknowledge that we are all imperfect creatures, we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of others’ shortcomings and the world appears less dissonant, less isolating, less threatening."
—Nick Cave
What better way to write your villains (and see them in life).
Because maybe our self-doubt is a creative force
"In the end, everything I know comes directly out of this lifelong self-doubt. Everything."
—Vivian Gornick
I find this fascinating: there’s the self-doubt that is crippling and prevents us from expressing ourselves, from being. But then there’s the self-doubt that pushes us further, asks questions that requires us to go ever deeper. Sometimes we should thank our self-doubt.
Spare a dime to help me publish this newsletter?
Because it’s important to listen to your art
“The culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art.”
—Junot Diaz
Because our words flow into other people’s cells
“Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.”
—Annie Ernaux
This is the artist’s higher calling: to somehow almost sacrifice our lives—to make our lives into words that live in others’ cells and transform them. To be an artist is to choose a life of service.
Because a blade of grass holds awe
“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself”2
—Henry Miller
Because we must beseech art
“The invincible power of poetry has reduced me to the condition of a tattered beggar.”
—Basho
Because our heart knows
“You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.”
—James Baldwin
Because we can never have enough
“O if I am to have so much, let me have more!”3
—Walt Whitman
Most popular post of last year: Somebody Somewhere
“I can’t help but think we all live in such a terrified, confused state, feeling forsaken. And in feeling forsaken, knowing that there is only one remedy, one solace: the warmth of togetherness.”
I can’t get enough of the TV show, Somebody Somewhere—my favorite art experience of last year. I’ve been roaming the internet reading about it and listening to podcasts with its actors. My favorite is
’s brilliant, funny, life-loving interview with the actor Jeff Hiller, who plays the character Joel on the show. Jeff Hiller is currently my favorite person on the planet.
Because a photo
Heartbreak: the loss of love: it is proof of the depth of our love. But it invites questions: Are we crying for ourselves, for the lost “us,” or because suddenly we realize that love might be just a mirage. And then the question: how do you love the cause of the heartbreak? How do you love the heartbreak itself? I wonder if heartbreak is an odd gift. As Leonard Cohen said, you’ve got to have cracks to let the light in.
“Attention is devotion,” as Mary Oliver said.
Not more things. More feelings. More gusto. More love.
Oh, what an awesome computer closet you have! Thanks for sharing these treasures.
What an excellent way to end the year! Here's hoping 2025 is full of good stuff for you.