‘The Ride,’ Matt Taylor
The peculiar brooding peace of the loner wrapped him in its warmth; he was the only living color in the whole world
Tag Archives: loneliness
The Ride
New Web Series Alert: ‘East & West’ based on Gaskell’s North and South
Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South is one of my favorite romantic novels of all time, I consider it a successor to Pride and Prejudice, so obviously I’m interested in a webseries adaptation of it. It’s a little unassuming but very cute so far, and I’m dying of curiosity to see who they cast as Thornton. Also, as a third culture kid, I completely identity with Margaret’s culture shock here.
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Poetry: Crown for a Young Marriage
This excerpt is from one of my favorite contemporary poems, which was just selected by Rattle for one of this year’s Pushcart Prize nominations. Extraordinary, illuminated.
If I was nothing else, but was a wife;
If I did nothing else, but could make meals
with scraps and pantry staples and a knife
I got when I was twenty-nine; if real
commitment (an abstract and noble word
before it tangles up with sacrifice)
turns out to mean a smaller life, less heard,
less heralded, less published, and less prized;
if after spending summer days indoors
for several years, and writing frightening verse
I’m eighty-odd and pale and little more
than what I am today, will I be worse
off than my single, roving poet friends?
I doubt it, but you’ll have to ask me then.
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I doubt it, but you’ll have to ask me then.
I doubt that I’ll be doddering and hunched
and wishing I could do it all again
because I felt I’d missed out on a bunch
of fellowships. And Christ, I love you. Christ
do I remember loneliness, and what
I did for scraps of evenings, what sufficed
for kindness. Offer me a life, a glut
of love, of undeserved reserves of grace
and nice interpretations of my faults.
I’ll still find ways to be unhappy. Face
the facts, though—I’m at home filling the salt
shakers, cleaning the microwave, unknown.
But staunchly, resolutely unalone.
-Mary Block (view her website here)
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It’s Ok Not to Be a Genius: Lev Grossman on Creativity
Great, great essay by Lev Grossman over on Buzzfeed, on the time he left everything and went on a roadtrip to become a great writer.
“You can’t be that lonely now, not anymore, but back then loneliness was a totally different animal: It came at you hot and strong, raw and uncut….
What I hadn’t figured out yet was that it’s OK not to be a genius, whatever that is, if there even is such a thing. Since then I’ve learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it’s not what I thought it was. It doesn’t make you special and sparkly. You don’t have to walk alone. You can work in an office — I’ve worked in offices for the past 15 years and written five novels while doing it. The creative life is forgiving: You can betray it all you want, again and again, and no matter how many times you do, it will always take you back.”
Coffee and Irony 