Saturday, December 19, 2009

"M" and "S" - A Giddy Mystery

I've written before about my love of receiving anything personally handwritten in the mail.

I opened my mail box and there sat an envelope, addressed to me but with no return address.

Excited giddiness....what was inside? And who sent it?

Inside was a small piece of torn paper with a quote on it and two glittery sparkly letters... "M" and "S". Are they someone's initials or are they part of a word? What could this mean as I begin to read the quote:

"Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round
your life, as a dog does his master's chaise.
Do what you love. Know your own bone;
gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."




I google the quote and find out it is written by Henry David Thoreau and learn that it ends with:

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good - be good for something."

I google further and find a quote by Anne Truitt (a sculptor) in Annie Dillard's book "The Writing Life" in reference to Thoreau's:

"Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment. "The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's own most intimate sensitivity."

Currently I have several bones I am gnawing on and am about to embark on a new one next month.

I love receiving personal handwritten envelopes, I love googling and learning about authors and quotes and the synchronicity of one thing leading to another. And I love a Giddy Mystery!

2 comments:

  1. Aunt Bobbie this ending was rotten!
    You ended a good story with out the end.


    Who sent it??

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ohhhhh, what a fun surprise to receive in the mail!

    ReplyDelete