Write some blues
“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” – Duke Ellington I entered a writing contest six months ago with “Laid to Rest in Suit Number Nine,” a quirky little Southern gothic tale about a fastidious man named Nial who numbered all his suits as …
Open your hand
“To receive everything, one must open one’s hands and give.” –Taisen Deshimaru “If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive.” –Dorothee Solle One of the wisest people I know is a man named Eliav Zakay from Israel, CEO of a national …
Be a willing and prepared hearer
“All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.” – Robert Louis Stevenson, Reflections and Remarks on Human Life I’ve just learned that 37days has won the “Most Inspirational Blog” Award from “The Best of Blogs.” I’m so glad these words and …
See the waterfall
“At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At 40, we don’t care what they think of us. At 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking about us at all.” –Jock Falkson I once designed a three-day conference on diversity for a professional organization whose members are …
Posts in To-Go Boxes
I’ve gotten quite a few requests for printable versions of 37days essays–thanks for your interest. I’m not savvy enough to figure out how to create a "printable version" button on the site, so unless some brave techie type person can help, I’ve resorted to creating PDF versions of the posts. …
Teach fear to heel
“We invent what we love, and what we fear.” – John Irving A student of mine was murdered this week, on Wednesday. No, she was actually assassinated as she prayed at a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand. The reports are that masked gunmen in black leapt from a van and …
Remember the green book
“Far away is only far away if you don’t go there.” -O. Povo When my friend Gay tells a story, it comes out like a hot knife through rich butter—all soft, fluid, full, with a drawl that makes you want to move to Mississippi and listen to a big bearded …
with gratitude, my thanks
"Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give." ~ E. A. Robinson I remember watching an Oprah show where her staff took the studio audience into a room full of left shoes. No right shoes, only …
Claim your A
“More grows in the garden than the gardener knows he has sown.” –Spanish Proverb Three stories circling one theme: The first story When my older daughter Emma was 5 years old, she admired the bracelet of a family friend—“I love that bracelet!” Emma told the woman excitedly one afternoon. “That’s …
Clear your own ground
“If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.” – Hugh Prather I hope you won’t mind this wee note to celebrate. 37days started a year ago today. It is the best job I never had. It began as a …
