difficult easy things

in the garden, the day lilies are opening, lush and colorful. and each one, just for one day (hence their name). i just looked for a picture from last year, this is from 3rd July. kind of amazing, the parallel in timing, despite the difference in weather.

i am excited about the week to come, about the special summer feature that is playing in Daily s-Press now, starting with Elephant Summer, and now heading into the past in a joined reading endevour of a 1200-page-classic: "The Summer of Genji". and there is so much more summer to come.

one thing i liked about the Genji-concept is the approach: to tackle a 1200 page book, go for 90 pages a week. and suddenly, it doesn't feel that overwhelming. which is parallel to the approach i now follow for revision: i got stuck in front of the 50-page section that needs the most revision, and probably some rewriting. now the idea is to split it ino 10 parts. and approach one after the other. step by step. or like Nike put it: just do it.

which made me remember the start of a mail a friend sent from the East once:

"sorry to take such a long time to answer you; I know that being busy, even very busy, is not an excuse, but oddly enough, replying quickly to a mail seems to be one of the difficult things in life for me; ah, the mysteries of life! as the Chinese say, little easy things can become a problem if you don't do them and big difficult things can become easy just as you do them. and in principle, there's actually no difference between 'little' and 'big' things."

which again connects to the Annie Dillard quote:
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

and while looking for the exact wording of the quote, i came across this one:
"A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time."

Now, for the next step. And for a better standing.

.