Five minutes everyday makes Jill a good girl

April 22

I began subscribing to a professional writer (Daphne Gray-Grant)'s newsletter, and took her "write for 5 minutes everyday" advice to heart. Here's some from today... Trying something new. Writing for 5 minutes everyday. Whenever, wherever. It is not unusual to find framed pictures of family members in co-workers' office spaces. Spouse, children, pets, sometimes extended family and friends. It reminds one that humans need a receptacle, a repository for their love. So, a pet suffices when fellow humans fail. OK, I failed after 3 minutes....I think. Yes, that's my attention span these days. Three minutes. How did we ever last those interminably long examinations made mandatory by the State Board of Education? At our peak, we would be writing for 2-3 hours every day separated by a lunch hour, on two completely different subjects. So, not only did you need to be focused, your mind needed to be agile enough to switch from one paradigm to another - say, Maths to History, in a span separated by parental affection and milky sweets. Hot summer afternoons and the call of the "Asian Koel" (before being interrupted by a call, I was informed by a bird-acquainted friend that the koel/kokil is not equivalent to a cuckoo, and that it's a different species). And, that concludes my 5 minutes of writing for today.
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April 23

Today's 5 minute investment is triggered by an author I have never read - Penelope Lively. Primarily her memoir Dancing Fish and Ammonites, where she writes that she was born in Cairo. How exciting! While I cannot comment on her writing, an interview with NPR shines light on her take on 'possessions' in old age and how it echoes my feelings. She no longer feels the urge to accumulate things/stuff in her house/life now that she is eighty. This minimalistic lifestyle has often made me feel inadequate. I have visited houses that are ornately decorated (an instant turn-off) and habitats that are tastefully but sparsely decorated - and it is the latter that has made me marvel at the woman (more often than not)'s aesthetic sense. Aside from those brief lapses (and about twice a year, I realize that I am a woman and that I am supposed to accumulate stuff and decorate my surroundings, transform the yin of the bathroom with the plush yang of rugs, towels and heady perfumes), I tend not to feel the urge to buy things. However, this is also accompanied by a vague sense of discomfort and of not being worthy of the feminine kin. Comments like Penelope's root my senses and I tell myself I'm okay, not too far off from the mean - well, maybe a few standard deviations but that's cool.