…I’ve never been able to see the point of emptying one’s mind of thought. Our thoughts are all we have. I love my thoughts, even when they take me up and down sour-smelling byways where I’d rather not venture. Whatever flickers on in my head is mine and I want it, all the blinking impulses and inclinations and connections and weirdness, and especially those bright purple flares that come streaming out of nowhere, announcing that you’re at some mystic juncture or turning point and that you’d better pay attention.<\/em><\/p>\n I love my thoughts, too.\u00a0 Mostly. Wandering, discursive, curious; linking and connecting; interpreting and inventing and basically making stuff up, <\/em>gold from straw, like the spinning maiden in Rumpelstilstkin\u00a0<\/em> – where would I be if my mind was empty? I wouldn’t be a writer, that’s certain. For years I’ve wondered if I could write and at the same time achieve that possibly mythical but much desired state of ‘living in the moment’. I’d be happier, perhaps. But maybe I wouldn’t be able to write. And that would make me unhappy. It’s a matter of balance – like everything, I suppose – and patience. I get stuck – enmired is Tim Parks’ word –\u00a0 in kitchen renovation and Donald Trump and general discontent, and then get jolted out of it by a parrot or a blade of new grass.<\/p>\n It seems that often my random reading continues a kind of conversation in my head. After writing my last post, on Tim Parks’ book, I’ve been thinking about thinking. The problem of too much thinking. Thinking when I’d rather not. … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DSC_3323.jpg\")
<\/a>PS. Does anyone read Carol Shields any more? She was a terrific writer. I read The Stone Diaries<\/em> (shortlisted for the Booker in 1993, it won Shields the Pulitzer in 1995) when it came out, and was amazed at how wonderful and deep and engrossing and illuminating she’d made an ‘ordinary’ woman’s life. This year I’ve found The Republic of Love<\/em>, Larry’s Party<\/em> and Unless <\/em>in various Opportunity Shops. Mary Swann<\/em> was in the library’s shelf at the railway station. So random! Shields’ books are sophisticated and ingenious, funny as well as dark, and particularly good on ‘domesticity – the shaggy beast that eats up 50 percent of our lives’<\/em>.\u00a0 She died too young, in 2003, at 68.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"