Page 27 The exercise
Clear the decks! To resist trying to push the tide around is all this exercise requires, but ALL is a lot. The picture Lamott creates, of the lawyers and "high maintenance parental units" and other miscreants, termagants and malcontents getting picked up by their little forked tails, delectable! I'm picturing those little red devils from the deviled ham spread, Underwood's Deviled Ham. Do they still make that?
The idea that the irritant is just a part of the larger context, God, as Lamott sometimes allows, appeals so much. Before the new pixie haircut I was sure the feelings in my neck were from the weight of my hair, which was "out there" and not a part of "me." After the pixie I have phantom weight or, more probably, the compressed, stressed, restricted way my cervical spine works and feels is inside, and is me.
Shit.
But maybe not. Can we try merde for a moment? Think marigolds in the toilet, growing so their golden petals might indicate the path of return for our annual celebrations of eternity. Think silk, and of the worm shit it is. Think night soil, and the lush wabi sabi of a Japanese garden.
The exercise Lamott prescribes is delicious fun. I like using the exercise when the Philosophical Meditation is not possible. Like maybe when writing in place, or responding to prompts. Lamott's exercise, however, can be too much fun. You might find yourself doing it when planting asparagus or harvesting oregano, with no draft, shitty or not, in the mix at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlckdvjK0Io
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