Carolee Bennett –> poet. artist. crankypants.
This blog post isn’t the product of me berating myself because I’d abandoned the damn thing for too long. It isn’t the product of me saying, “Well, Carolee, you know you should…” Instead, it’s the result of being inspired by what I’m hearing around me.
I wake up and make oatmeal. I take my Subaru for its oil change. I go with my boyfriend to Bennington on an unseasonably warm February Saturday. We browse galleries and bookstores. We eat and drink at a local brewery where Marilyn Monroe watches us sideways from her perch atop an old upright piano. Things are perfectly normal.
It’s far harder for me tear myself away from my significant other, from my kids, from family and friends when I’m in love with myself and all of them. But when I’m in a funk, I retreat and write.
Think about all that wants to remain hidden. Think of the reasons people insist on silence. I love all of you who refuse to be complicit with it. I love you who sweat it out to tell your stories, whether they feel small and personal or large and political, whether they feel like entertainment or literature or information or activism.
Since when is the “promise” to make a living or become a celebrity the only good reason to do anything? We’re obsessed with too much bull shit like that.
the 30/30 challenge was tapping into an energy i’d enjoyed when i was writing most feverishly, a part of me that i thought had left the building.
much like everyone else, i initially gravitated toward it in total admiration for the spunk and spirit deborah (the patient) shows and for the openness of the amazing group of people who joined her in the dance. right away i think we all wished we could face fear with such great style. but when i came back to the video today, i realized it represents something else, as well: