I hope I dont get in trouble by reprinting this without permission. Hopefully, it will help sell her books. Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor. Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster. Throw the cracked bowl out and dont patch the cup. Dont patch anything. Dont mend. Buy safety pins. Dont even sew on a button. Let the wind have its way, then the earth that invades as dust and then the dead foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch. Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome. Dont keep all the pieces of the puzzles or the dolls tiny shoes in pairs, dont worry who uses whose toothbrush or if anything matches, at all. Except one word to another. Or a thought. Pursue the authentic-decide first what is authentic, then go after it with all your heart. Your heart, that place you dont even think of cleaning out. That closet stuffed with savage mementos. Dont sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth or worry if were all eating cereal for dinner again. Dont answer the telephone, ever, or weep over anything at all that breaks. Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life and talk to the dead who drift in though the screened windows, who collect patiently on the tops of food jars and books. Recycle the mail, dont read it, dont read anything except what destroys the insulation between yourself and your experience or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters this ruse you call necessity.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 15:04:04 +0000
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