Peace on earth, yadda yadda yadda

I'm carrying a lot of extra fluids and hardly eating anything; there's a bad, sort of sweet taste in my mouth that taints just about everything I put in.

Over the past couple of days, I've been trying hard to do what I'm supposed to do to rid myself of excess fluids, but it's not working. I guess I'll call for a diuretic tomorrow morning and hope they don't try to slap me back in the hospital. I have places to be.

~~~~~

I got a strange little piece of mail from a complete stranger regarding the entry about the little girl; it ended "you must really like poetry."

Well yes, yes I do; poets have a way of looking at the world through a different sort of lens. I'm not one of those people who thinks rock lyrics should be counted as poetry, although they can be poetic. There are some exceptions to this, Bob Dylan is the obvious one.

Someday, when I have the energy to do the proper research, I will tell you about my favorite poets. For now, suffice it to say that poetry paints, using words as color; I think that's beautiful.

The other day, a person I know a little quoted "The word is not the thing." I figured it was a quote because it clearly wasn't in his voice. I tracked the quote down on the web and found that it unraveled to a whole philosophy and way of thinking. When he said it, it was in the context of talking abour writers and writing. I was trying to apply it to the way I write, because the thing that hangs me up most often is word choice.

The word, I thought, is not the thing. I was inserting a qualifier: the only thing. I was trying to make the phrase tell me to concentrate on the whole and let the details fall where they may. That's not what he meant at all.

He meant that there are infinite ways of looking at any thing, and all of them are true.

Somehow, this puts me at peace. I like that.

before - after