Success/Failure

She would often say that she was "drawn to people who seem to have been born defeated or, even, profoundly lost". That affinity was at the centre of her work. The world divided, according to Fitzgerald, into "exterminators" and "exterminatees"
---Hermione Lee, on Penelope Fitzgerald.

I don't know why, but this immediately reminded me of Hannah Arendt. The drowned and the saved.

Ali wrote to me about how some man (in Afghanistan, perhaps), thinking that there was so much evil in the world, wouldn't let his kids out until they were sixteen. The strange thing is is that I didn't find that a totally obnoxious idea. In some sense, I really don't want to step out myself.

Anton pointed me to these words/thoughts:

It is discovery without ownership, it is trading a word for a vision, it is touching without possession.

(Who understands his own ambition, dare anchor in a sense of his survival, pocket a life and let the profits pass? None is quite arrogant or sure enough)

Not sure which words are Elizabeth Jennings's and which anton's. Doesn't matter, really.

To see ourselves and others in the right light-if only we could. I hold a picture of myself closely; it is hardly recognizable now and the edges have turned up, as if the picture wanted to curl up.  The grey in old photos glows in a way that it doesn't on our face now.  No matter how many poems you seek out, none will match this mystery.

'The sight at any moment
is as complete as the heart is.'
---K. Irby.

One does not want to say it, but I feel blessed with good fortune. 

Someone told you recently that God tests everyone only according to their capacities. I felt like saying: "please, I don't have any."

You meet an old friend, just catch a glimpse of his familiar face and turn to stop. He looks world-weary, his flesh withered by doubts and confusion or some inner turmoil. "I need to re-invent myself," he tells me, with a hint of desperation in his voice. This seems to be the mantra of my generation, or at least of a significant proportion of them. Not success or 'validation' but something altogether more startling: survival. 

The storm is on us, blowing through us. Not many can look up. Some think they can make preparations, arrangements. 

Today I tired on a brown Fedora. Yeah, I know, who am I kidding!  Two sizes too small. If I can save up enough I'll buy a bowler hat this summer. I used to be able to stand in the winters with a t-shirt as long as I had my coffee in one hand. But now the times have changed and my old head dimly understands this. Understand this.