Remedies: The Writings of Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry died this week. I’d have felt the loss at any time, but especially now, I feel like I’ve lost one of my quarantine allies. His writing has helped get me through this dark and isolating year.
Photo by Will Porada on Unsplash
The first Larry McMurty book I remember reading was Cadillac Jack when I was in college. It must have been around 1982. I remember it as a breezy, road novel, dotted with interesting characters and situations. Chances are I’ll read it again soon, along with rereading and reading many other McMurtry titles.
This past summer, I read Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo. Both were engrossing tales and wonderful remedies to what could have been a bleak quarantine summer. Later, Susan and I watched the miniseries based on both books. Lonesome Dove was a rewatch from me and I was surprised how much I remembered about the show and how much I enjoyed it again decades after my first watch. Next week, I’ll start reading McMurtry’s first novel, Horseman, Pass By, for the first time.
Larry McMurtry died this week. I’d have felt the loss at any time, but especially now, I feel like I’ve lost one of my quarantine allies. But who am I kidding? Long after the quarantine is over, life will continue to present challenges. And I’ll still need remedies and escapes to help me live with and through them. I expect McMurtry’s works to continue to sustain me long after I’ve had my vaccines and put the masks away.
Thank you, Mr. McMurtry, for your words and stories that provide me comfort from these storms. Long will you ride.
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This Week’s Remedies: Dog Doodles
This week’s remedy: Dog doodles. What are your remedies this week?
It’s been a good week for dog doodles. What are your remedies this week?
Remedies: Bird Watching
Happy National Bird Day! Birdwatching outside my home office window, one of my remedies.
Happy National Bird day. One of our best decisions of 2020 was creating a bird haven in our front yard with feeders, wildflowers, and a busy birdbath just outside my home office (formerly our dining room) window. A few minutes of bird watching throughout the day provides a great respite from a solid schedule of Zoom calls. To celebrate January 5, National Bird Day, here are a few images of our feathered friends from yesterday and today.
Remedies: Drawing and Writing My Life
How a regular practice of drawing and writing has become one of my life’s remedies.
In August 2019, I took a class that changed my life. Lynda Barry’s daylong writing and drawing workshop Writing the Unthinkable opened me to the possibilities and benefits of the practice of daily drawing. Here are just three of those benefits:
Regular drawing improves my writing and idea generation by getting me to think and act visually.
This practice also gives me a new way to document my life and share it with others through “visual letters,” often accompanied by stories and poems.
Finally, my drawing practice helps me develop calm, focus, and balance. I find that drawing can be centering and meditative.
I kept up my practice into 2020, aided by Barry’s wonderful books Making Comics and Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor, and Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti.
Then, midway through 2020, I discovered the Friday Comics Workshops held by The Believer magazine and Black Mountain Institute. These free classes were invaluable for both the instruction and communal experience they provided. You can still view the archived 2020 classes. I’m looking forward to the 2021 sessions that hopefully will begin soon.
Full disclosure: I’ve yet to develop the discipline and rhythm to draw every day, but I’m working on it. It helps that I’ve realized that the days I do draw, I’m more focused, creative, and productive. More simply put, when I draw, I have better days.
Notes:
I can say I was taught by a MacArthur fellow.
The Near-Sighted Monkey (Lynda Barry’s blog).
Writing the Unthinkable 2019 playlist (on Spotify). Lynda teaches us to write to music. Here’s a playlist full of inspiration.
Who is the artist known as “Slowbreak?” In Lynda Barry’s workshop, you choose an alias for yourself. I chose Slowbreak, because all those years ago when I played pickup basketball, I was never accused of perpetrating a fast break.
Each week, typically on Sunday, I share one of my remedies. What are my remedies? The people, places, practices, and things that improve my life and help get me through the day.
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