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Working From Home Meant We Could Vary Snack And Coffee Breaks, Change Our Desks Or View, Goof Off, Drink On The Job, Even Spend The Day In Pajamas, And Often Meet To Gossip Or Share Ideas. On The Other Hand, We Bossed Ourselves Around, Set Impossible Goals, And Demanded Longer Hours Than Office Jobs Usually Entail. It Was The Ultimate "flextime," In That It Depended On How Flexible We Felt Each Day, Given Deadlines, Distractions, And Workaholic Crescendos.

-Diane Ackerman

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Working From Home Meant

Diane Ackerman

...

Working From Home Meant We Could Vary Snack And Coffee Breaks, Change Our Desks Or View, Goof Off, Drink On The Job, Even Spend The Day In Pajamas, And Often Meet To Gossip Or Share Ideas. On The Other Hand, We Bossed Ourselves Around, Set Impossible Goals, And Demanded Longer Hours Than Office Jobs Usually Entail. It Was The Ultimate "flextime," In That It Depended On How Flexible We Felt Each Day, Given Deadlines, Distractions, And Workaholic Crescendos.

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The Knowing, I Told Myself, Is Only A Vapor Of The Mind, And Yet It Can Wreck Havok With One's Sanity.

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Working From Home Meant We Could Vary Snack And Coffee Breaks, Change Our Desks Or View, Goof Off, Drink On The Job, Even Spend The Day In Pajamas, And Often Meet To Gossip Or Share Ideas. On The Other Hand, We Bossed Ourselves Around, Set Impossible Goals, And Demanded Longer Hours Than Office Jobs Usually Entail. It Was The Ultimate "flextime," In That It Depended On How Flexible We Felt Each Day, Given Deadlines, Distractions, And Workaholic Crescendos.

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Nature Is Also Great Fun. To Pretend That Nature Isn't Fun Is To Miss Much Of The Joy Of Being Alive.

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The Further We Distance Ourselves From The Spell Of The Present, Explored By Our Senses, The Harder It Will Be To Understand And Protect Nature's Precarious Balance, Let Alone The Balance Of Our Own Human Nature.

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Poetry Reminds Us Of The Truths About Life And Human Nature That We Knew All Along, But Forgot Somehow Because They Weren't Yet In Memorable Language.

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Habit, A Particularly Insidious Thug Who Chokes Passion And Smothers Love. Habit Puts Us On Autopilot.

Home Is Where The Heart Is, We Say, Rubbing The Flint Of One Abstraction Against Another.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Love Is The Great Intangible. ... Frantic And Serene, Vigilant And Calm, Wrung-out And Fortified, Explosive And Sedate -- Love Commands A Vast Army Of Moods. Hoping For Victory, Limping From The Latest Skirmish, Lovers Enter The Arena Once Again. ... Love Is The White Light Of Emotion. ... Everyone Admits That Love Is Wonderful And Necessary, Yet No One Can Agree On What It Is.

We Try To Exile Ourselves More And More From Nature - Not Always Consciously: We Build Houses; We Dismiss Nature; Nature Has To Be Outside, Because We're Inside. God Forbid Something Like A Cockroach Comes Inside, Or Some Dust.

Despite Not Knowing If What He Felt From Moment To Moment Would Pass Or Last Forever, He Entered Fully Into His Shifting States Of Violent Rage, Self-pity, Longing, Heartbreak, Cynicism, Without Losing The Ability To Think About What Was Happening To Him. That Took Courage, I Thought, Living With The Suffering In A Mindful Way, As An Artifact Of Being, Neither Good Nor Bad.

Because Poets Feel What We're Afraid To Feel, Venture Where We're Reluctant To Go, We Learn From Their Journeys Without Taking The Same Dramatic Risks.

Wonder Is The Heaviest Element On The Periodic Table. Even A Tiny Fleck Of It Stops Time.

On Some Summer Days In New York City, The Air Hangs Thickly Visible, Like The Combined Exhalations Of Eight Million Souls. Steam Rising From Vents Underground Makes You Wonder If There Isn't One Giant Sweat Gland Lodged Beneath The City.

Look At Your Feet. You Are Standing In The Sky. When We Think Of The Sky, We Tend To Look Up, But The Sky Actually Begins At The Earth.

Words Are Small Shapes In The Gorgeous Chaos Of The World. ... They Bring The World Into Focus, They Corral Ideas, They Hone Thoughts, They Paint Watercolors Of Perception.

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We Have Vexed And Bothered Every Plant And Every Animal On Every Continent.

Smell Brings To Mind... A Family Dinner Of Pot Roast And Sweet Potatoes During A Myrtle-mad August In A Midwestern Town. Smells Detonate Softly In Our Memory Like Poignant Land Mines Hidden Under The Weedy Mass Of Years.

If Cynicism Is Inevitable As One Ages, So Is The Yearning For Innocence. To Children Heaven Is Being An Adult, And To Adults Heaven Is Being Children Again.

As The Most Social Apes, We Inhabit A Mirror-world In Which Every Important Relationship, Whether With Spouse, Friend Or Child, Shapes The Brain, Which In Turn Shapes Our Relationships.

Important Relationships

To Begin To Understand The Gorgeous Fever That Is Consciousness, We Must Try To Understand The Senses And What They Can Tell Us About The Ravishing World We Have The Privilege To Inhabit.

If A Mind Is Just A Few Pounds Of Blood, Urea, And Electricity, How Does It Manage To Contemplate Itself, Worry About Its Soul, Do Time-and-motion Studies, Admire The Shy Hooves Of A Goat, Know That It Will Die, Enjoy All The Grand And Lesser Mayhems Of The Heart ?

The Idea Of Safety Had Shrunk Into Particles - One Snug Moment, Then The Next. Meanwhile, The Brain Piped Fugues Of Worry And Staged Mind-theaters Full Of Tragedies And Triumphs, Because Unfortunately, The Fear Of Death Does Wonders To Focus The Mind, Inspire Creativity, And Heightens The Senses. Trusting One's Hunches Only Seems Gamble If One Has Time For Seem; Otherwise The Brain Goes On Autopilot And Trades The Elite Craft Of Analysis For The Best Rapid Insights That Float Up From Its Danger Files And Ancient Bag Of Tricks.

It Began In Mystery, And It Will End In Mystery, But What A Savage And Beautiful Country Lies In Between.

Nothing Reveals More About The Inner Life Of A People Than Their Arts.

Give A Man Enough Rope And He'll Wrap Himself Around Your Little Finger.

Our Relationship With Nature Has Changed Radically, Irreversibly, But By No Means All For The Bad. Our New Epoch Is Laced With Invention. Our Mistakes Are Legion, But Our Talent Is Immeasurable.

Who You Are Isn't Tied Solely To What You Say, Even Though It May Feel That Way To You Now.

The Brain Is Only Three Pounds Of Blood, Dream, And Electricity, And Yet From That Mortal Stew Come Beethoven's Sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's Jazz. Audrey Hepburn's Wish To Spend The Last Month Of Her Life In Somalia, Saving Children.

Wonder Is A Bulky Emotion. When You Let It Fill Your Heart And Mind, There Isn't Room For Anxiety, Distress Or Anything Else.

We're Dabbling In Eugenics All The Time, Breeding Ideal Crops To Replace Less Aesthetic Or Nutritious Or Hardy Varieties; Leveling Forests To Graze Cattle Or Erect Shopping Malls And Condos; Planting Groves Of A Few Familiar Trees That Homeowners And Industries Prefer.

Adult Bats Don't Weigh Much. They're Mainly Fur And Appetite.

I Think That Very Often Younger Writers Don't Appreciate How Much Hard Work Is Involved In Writing. The Part Of Writing That's Magic Is The Thinnest Rind On The World Of Creation. Most Of A Writer's Life Is Just Work. It Happens To Be A Kind Of Work That The Writer Finds Fulfilling In The Same Way That A Watchmaker Can Happily Spend Countless Hours Fiddling Over The Tiny Cogs And Bits Of Wire. ... I Think The People Who End Up Being Writers Are People Who Don't Get Bored Doing That Kind Of Tight Focus In Small Areas.

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Ecstasy Is What Everyone Craves - Not Love Or Sex, But A Hot-blooded, Soaring Intensity, In Which Being Alive Is A Joy And A Thrill. That Enravishment Doesn't Give Meaning To Life, And Yet Without It Life Seems Meaningless.

Choice Is A Signature Of Our Species.

Which Is Crueler, An Old Man's Lost Memories Of A Life Lived, Or A Young Man's Lost Memories Of The Life He Meant To Live?

Poetry Had Everything To Teach Me About Life.

Variety Is The Pledge That Matter Makes To Living Things.

A Flower's Fragrance Declares To All The World That It Is Fertile, Available, And Desirable, Its Sex Organs Oozing With Nectar. Its Smell Reminds Us In Vestigial Ways Of Fertility, Vigor, Life-force, All The Optimism, Expectancy, And Passionate Bloom Of Youth. We Inhale Its Ardent Aroma And, No Matter What Our Ages, We Feel Young And Nubile In A World Aflame With Desire.

Our Sense Of Safety Depends On Predictability, So Anything Living Outside The Usual Rules We Suspect To Be An Outlaw, A Ghoul.

As Anyone Who Has Received Or Dispensed Psychotherapy Knows, It's A Profession Whose Mainspring Is Love. Nearly Everyone Who Visits A Therapist Has A Love Disorder Of One Sort Or Another, And Each Has A Story To Tell - Of Love Lost Or Denied, Love Twisted Or Betrayed, Love Perverted Or Shackled To Violence. Broken Attachments Litter The Office Floors Like Pick-up Sticks. People Appear With Frayed Seams And Spilling Pockets.

Shaped A Little Like A Loaf Of French Country Bread, Our Brain Is A Crowded Chemistry Lab, Bustling With Nonstop Neural Conversations.imagine The Brain, That Shiny Mound Of Being, That Mouse-gray Parliament Of Cells, That Dream Factory, That Petit Tyrant Inside A Ball Of Bone, That Huddle Of Neurons Calling All The Plays, That Little Everywhere, That Fickle Pleasuredome, That Wrinkled Wardrobe Of Selves Stuffed Into The Skull Like Too Many Clothes Into A Gym Bag.

It's Essential To Tailor Rehab To What Impassions Someone. The Brain Gradually Learns By Riveting Its Attention-through Endless Repetitions.

Living With Anyone For Many Years Takes Skill. To Keep Peace In The Household, Couples Learn To Adapt To One Another, Hopefully In Positive Ways.

Love Is The Best School, But The Tuition Is High And The Homework Can Be Painful.

Life Becomes A Lot Simpler For A Creative Person When He Or She Finds The Routine That Works Best. ... Get In The Habit Of Going Through The Routine Every Day, And On Some Of Those Days, You're Going To Be Lucky And Have Done Some Good Work. ... Go To Your Study, Close The Door, Invent Your Confidence.

It's So Acceptably Easy For A Woman Not To Strive Too Hard, Not To Be Too Adventure-crazed, Not To Take Too Many Risks, Not To Enjoy Sex With Full Candor ... It Isn't Seemly For A Woman To Have That Much Zest.

In The Early Years Of The Uprising, We Survived On One Meal A Day Of Horse Meat And Soup, But By The End We Ate Only Dried Peas, Dogs, Cats And Birds.

Who Would Deduce The Dragonfly From The Larva, The Iris From The Bud, The Lawyer From The Infant? ...we Are All Shape-shifters And Magical Reinventors. Life Is Really A Plural Noun, A Caravan Of Selves.

A Life Like An Intricately Woven Basket, Frayed, Worn, Broken, Unraveled, Reworked, Reknit From Many Of Its Original Pieces... Life Can Survive In The Constant Shadow Of Illness, And Even Rise To Moments Of Rampant Joy, But The Shadow Remains, And One Has To Make Space For It.

... Love Is An Act Of Sedition, A Revolt Against Reason, An Uprising In The Body Politic, A Private Mutiny.

Look In The Mirror. The Face That Pins You With Its Double Gaze Reveals A Chastening Secret.

Knowing Who You Are

Keeping Secrets

Above All, We Ask The Poet To Teach Us A Way Of Seeing.

Human Beings Are Sloshing Sacks Of Chemicals On The Move.

The Great Affair, The Love Affair With Life, Is To Live As Variously As Possible, To Groom One's Curiosity Like A High-spirited Thoroughbred, Climb Aboard, And Gallop Over The Thick, Sunstruck Hills Every Day.

Mystery Causes A Mental Itch, Which The Brain Tries To Soothe With The Balm Of Reasonable Talk.

An Animal On A Leash Is Not Tamed By The Owner. The Owner Is Extending Himself Through The Leash To That Part Of His Personality Which Is Pure Dog, That Part Of Him Which Just Wants To Eat, Sleep, Bark, Hump Chairs, Wet The Floor In Joy, And Drink Out Of A Toilet Bowl.

A Kiss Is Like Singing Into Someone's Mouth.

I Watched Her Face Switch Among The Radio Stations Of Memory

Nature Is More Like A Seesaw Than A Crystal, A Never-ending Conga Line Of Bold Moves And Corrections.

In The Absence Of Touching And Being Touched, People Of All Ages Can Sicken And Grow Touched Starved. Touch Seems To Be As Essential As Sunlight.

Fear Is Danger To Your Body, But Disgust Is Danger To Your Soul.

An Occasion, Catalyst, Or Tripwire?permits The Poet To Reach Into Herself And Haul Up Whatever Nugget Of The Human Condition Distracts Her At The Moment, Something That Can't Be Reached In Any Other Way.

Libraries Change Lives. They Are The Soul Of A People.

Words Are Such Small Things, Like Confetti In The Brain, And Yet They Are Color And Clarify Everything, They Can Stain The Mind Or Warp The Feelings.

I Like Handling Newborn Animals. Fallen Into Life From An Unmappable World, They Are The Ultimate Immigrants, Full Of Wonder And Confusion.

Words Are Small Shapes In The Gorgeous Chaos Of The World.

I Don't Want To Get To The End Of My Life And Find That I Lived Just The Length Of It. I Want To Have Lived The Width Of It As Well.

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Florence Griffith Joyner

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