From Annie Dillard's The Writing Life:
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend
it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard
what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it,
give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place
later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later,
something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.
Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only
shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly
becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."
What wise words. Erma Bombeck always said to use your good china every day because the second wife is going to. I think of all the things I've held back for a more special occasion. It's taken me a lot of years to get to the point that I can't really think of a more special occasion than this one precious moment. So maybe I'll pull out the good china for dinner tonight...but it doesn't go in the dishwasher, and Dillard didn't mention that.
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