Marion Agnew

The seasons are definitely changing now--May is undisputably spring instead of late winter--and so I've been looking back and looking ahead. It seems to be what I do when the external world changes visibly. What spring looks like, sometimes. It's always disheartening instructive to look at what I was n't able to complete in the previous season. And also, why that might be.  So this all sounds basic, BUT. I’m trying to remember that when I try something and it doesn’t work, I need to 1. Stop trying that and 2. Figure out why, if possible (sometimes there is no because), and 3. Use that info to try something else. I recognize that this is Basic Life Skillz 101. Logic. Problem-solving. Yet sometimes my first instinct is to try harder. Actually, that's my second instinct--my first is to ignore it all. THEN I try harder (muscling through, discipline, don't let myself off the hook, etc.). So this analysis is probably my third step. I guess it's good when I get there...

Sometimes it just does, you know? And not in a good way--not in the way of learning something, but in the way of doing work that you hope pays off somehow. Such as, "Maybe this homework I'm doing today will appear on the final." But. For one thing, I'm not in school, and for another, I've found that real life's "finals" are rarely based on such well-defined homework assignments. And for yet anOTHER, thinking about "finals" doesn't make the homework more appealing.  What does NOT feel like homework: playing "fox or coyote?" when this friend stops by. Current thinking: coyote. Sometimes, all the books feel like homework--things you're "supposed" to read, and even things you "want" to read, in theory, and even in reality, except that you kind of don't want to read them NOW. Reading is not the pleasure it usually is. Sometimes, the writing feels like homework, too. Robert Frost maybe said, "No tear...