While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

#####

“I believe that misery doesn’t need company as much as I believe misery is company.”
———Hanif Abduraquib
———There’s Always This Year

I missed my walk today.

My feet left the house, but I lingered inside my mind. Since the gas bill was extra high this month, was it a good idea to shop for a new bag (well, yes)? I still needed to replenish my supply of healthy food from the over-priced organic grocery store.

In my absence, maybe my feet admired the willow around the corner, relished the crunch of broken acorns, and reassured the hounds that bayed a warning from behind their fence.

My walk ended before I caught up.

It was a poopy few weeks leading up to the eclipse. I missed several of my self-imposed deadlines for completing Stumbling toward the Buddha, 10th Anniversary Edition, which caused a lot of moping. Friendships were in upheaval. I suddenly hated the movies I used to love. White privilege was in my face. My car stopped working.

Please resist the temptation to tell me things will get better. Please don’t point out the inherent beauty of my rotten month. Please don’t offer to clear my lower chakras of the energy blockage that is obstructing light-filled messages from my guardian angels.

I’m not one to make lemonade from lemons.

Silver linings clash with my complexion.

Rose-colored glasses obscure my view.

Dung beetles serve as my gurus.

They eat manure, fight over it, and build nurseries in it.

If they lose their way while rolling a dung ball down the road, they climb on top of it to navigate by the stars.

And they wear dung as as flip-flops to protect their tootsies from the baking savanna.

With 8,000 species of dung beetles, you’ve got to figure they know what they’re doing.

If life continues to pile on like steaming elephant poop, I’ll burrow right on in and make myself at home.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

#####

“No one could rival Arthur Less for his ability to exit a room while remaining inside it.”
—Andrew Sean Greer
--Less

Diversity training session in a small conference room. Except for the facilitator and me, everyone in the room was white. The facilitator instructed us to pair up with the person in the room we knew least well. I was a new employee. My co-workers barely knew my name. Circling the conference table like ring-around-the-rosey, they all paired up, leaving me standing by myself.

The facilitator and I exchanged a look of disbelief.

I don’t know what happened after that, because my soul walked right out the door.