As every morning, I was thinking this morning about how things are accomplished. Thanks to the book “Bird by Bird” Anne generously loaned me, which life experience corroborates, I even have an answer now: thing by thing. One builds, as I have said before, an igloo shovelful by shovelful. You write a novel word by word, everything is bit by bit. The title of the book comes from an anecdote about the author’s brother getting advice from his writer father to write a late report on birds “bird by bird”.
So, sitting at my table this morning, the phrase “mouse by mouse” came into my mind. It sounded good for a second, it seemed to make sense. Either it was god winding me up, or the cats.
My cats do send me messages, you know, of the extra-sensory sort. Sitting in the kitchen, I know when a cat wants out of or into the house. I get up, go to the front door, and there it is waiting with that feline “it’s about time” expression on its face.
I loved “Bird By Bird” so much when I read it years ago. Anne Lamott has the amazing ability to see clear through to the very core of things. I am always moved by her.
Cats, I find, are devious things who have mastered the art of appearing extremely Zen-like but who are really more like the psychohistorians from Asimov’s Foundation books and have plotted the course of things so many steps ahead of us it’s not even funny.
cats are very knowledgable. one should take care of one’s whiskers when around cats.
I rather like “bgu by bgu” better.
people named anne are the best! anne with an “e” in particular.