Indira Ganesan, Tulip with Effect, 2012

One of the pleasures in small time life, as well as living in a small town, is locating a local florist.  I’m lucky because our florists are both sophisticated and kind.  If on a winter day I wander in, and all that is on my mind are tulips, I’ll get tulips and boxwood, which I hurry home to place in a vase.

Indira Ganesan, Simple Black and White, 2012

Later, I take iphotos.  A friend of mine, a photographer, uses a Leica, because she finds in it the beauty I find in an Olivetti.  She also uses her Leica to take photographs, whereas I merely admire old typewriters.

Indira Ganesan, Tulips & Jasmine, 2012

I’ve rearranged my work space, hoping in the process to find a writing process that will stick.  I have a prized office, but I am going to make it into a library and meditation space.  I’ve moved my desk upstairs, where my perspective has more depth.  I know I am trying to recreate a design that took me two years to achieve in Boulder, where I rearranged furniture constantly in order to let the novel write itself.  It is an exercise in futility, but I think it has some purpose.  I need time to sit comfortably–indeed, find my comfortable seat.  One has to trust the environment implicitly to get to work.  Moving is arduous.  One feels guilty in leaving behind friends, one wonders why it was even necessary, why the hand was forced for economics, and then one wonders what it is one is trying to achieve.  Some can write anywhere, and so one feels guilty that one is squandering a space of time.  Then one looks up, sees the time, and gets to work.  The  flowers are essential, crucial.  Our lives are delicate and strong.  I don’t know how to end this piece without acknowledging the terrible loss suffered by parents and family and friends in Connecticut today.  I don’t know how we bring ourselves to this moment.

I advocate for banning guns.

An argument from Bill Moyers: http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-living-under-the-gun/