written while finishing JUST A NOTE II

‘priorities‘ and ‘expectations‘ have always eluded me, but they shouldn’t at all

I avoid expectations + priorities as much as I avoid pain. Funny, because Great Expectations is one of the books that got me back to reading in my 20s (after The Sun Also Rises, which I read because someone asked me how could I, being Spanish, which I am not, I speak it, have not read any Hemingway? Yes, I was shamed into it. Thank goodness.). It got me to begin reading the classics, after which I could not read contemporary literature for over ten years — except for Hemingway. Of course.

It is March 2020, and a lightbulb went off — sparked, really. Instead of striving to do, I could abstain (definitely a topic for another day). I endeavor to keep my word, to stop doing things as supposed to begin doing. WHAAAT? How could I not have seen that before?

In the morning, I wrote a fragment of something I read:

In changing her perspective and reorienting her focus, everything became revolutionized — (from Awaken)

With shepherd’s pie* in the oven, while reading in the living room tonight, I read:

I could hold out for thirty days on anything.
(from Girl, Wash Your Face)

I can hold out, too. And for longer than that. So I am abstaining from putting off.

* … and no, no peas or carrots in my shepherd’s pie. thank you.