Renaissance Dilettante

That's what we decided were some of the perfect words to describe Richard. I am printing out Richard's Live Journal. LJ makes this easy by letting you transfer the journal to pdf then download it. It's saving an enormous amount of time. Anyway the memorial service/celebration of life is tomorrow and I was asked to provide a couple of quotes for the booklet. And I thought, as general quotes, they would be excellent to post here. The first is a flight of fancy that isn't terribly usual for Richard, but the rest are.

And Richard was a writer as well as a reader, deep appreciator of music, guitarist, juggler, tarot reader for fun. He participated in NaNoWriMo more than once, both before I was struggling to get published and later.

So here goes:

I got completely lost in the sinuosity of bare branches against a blue sky. Layers and layers of them, splitting endlessly from enormous trunks into black chaotic lace, the way trees have done since the beginning of time. Bosch and Gorey to the life. Nasty, ugly, stark trees, gorgeous with detail and vividly strange. I am not used to staring at plants, especially huge plants without leaves. Gave me a turn, it did.


Being smart isn't quite enough, and working hard at something incomprehensible to bring it into focus is incredibly rewarding. A lesson I have mostly ignored.

I wish I lived in a world where the Denver Public Library had a space fleet. Where that made sense. Where increasing a library's collections through interstellar travel was an unquestioned societal priority.


My life carries the eternal paradox of parenthood. Love and fury, cuteness and mania, all that and more. You know the drill.


Every day I plan to: 1. Exercise. 2. Face fears. 3. Work hard. 4. Play. 5. Avoid something. I figure I get a lot of satisfaction out of avoiding things, so might as well factor it in, instead of letting it take over completely.

Mysteries deepen as I get older, but they don't bother me as much. We're all talking monkeys, and the stuff we create is just as absurd as you'd expect talking monkeys to come up with. That doesn't make any of it any less precious or divine, though. Talking monkeys, to begin with, are a freakin' miracle, and wise, strong, sad but joyous talking monkeys, even more so.


**Robin again, the first photo was taken a year ago February during his wife's birthday party by my wonderful artist friend, Laura Givens. NOTE, NUDITY She wanted shots she could massage for artwork, (if you recall, she did me as Miss Muffett hunting spiders).

That's the news on this front, except my throat is feeling suspiciously raw, so I'll tuck myself into bed with my baby namer since I need to rename a character. Probably be asleep quickly.

May you fashion the quotes of a lifetime today.
Robin