steps, the Arts of Peace, and where to start

today: this garden moment
today: yellow thai curry
today: reaching day #83 in a rain drive
today: next step, next step, next step, milestone :)

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and 2 quotes. the first is from a longer Arts essay, i got back to it after reading Tania Hershman's blog post Upside down world: "It may be seen as ridiculous to be worrying about short stories - about fiction, about the arts in general - when looters are smashing windows around England.." - in a comment reply, i posted a part of John Crowley's Arts essay:

Practicing the Arts of Peace

My work and the world: I was asked by somebody back at the time of the invasion of Iraq how we could all just go on writing or funny little stories, especially we fantasists, and I said that in my opinion what we were doing was practicing the arts of peace.

What we want is a world in which funny fantastical stories are possible and are valued. In which there is nothing so dreadful or urgent that it causes the writing of such things to stop or be stopped.

Worlds where the arts of peace can't be practiced are wounded worlds, and that's why we have to go on practicing those arts, so that our worlds don't die.

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and a second quote, via Jessie Carty' page of quotes

Where to Start

"Where to start is the problem because nothing begins when it begins and nothing’s over when it’s over, and everything needs . . . a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events. . .. Still, there are definitive moments, moments we use as references because they break our sense of continuity, they change the direction of time." - Margaret Atwood