Credit Where Credit is Due

I keep meaning to explain the title of my blog and give credit where it is very much due. Now I will do this. Perhaps my favorite book of all time--oh, so many favorites, how can I just have one?--okay, the book that has perhaps influenced my way of thinking about life more than any other is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. I have put off writing this post because I have oh so many gushing and doting things I could say about Annie Dillard, and I simply do not know where to start.

Maybe with a little sample? Okay. Here you go: "It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your simplicity bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get" (from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek). Oooooh, I love it.

In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard basically goes out in nature and writes down her observations about plants, animals, bugs, life in general, and the meaning or lack thereof that moves behind the whole show. The reason I love her books (another great one is The Maytrees) is that they strike me as so true. Does that make any sense? If not, you really should just go check one out at the library.

One of the chapters in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is called "Seeing." In this chapter, Dillard writes about a book she's reading in which blind people have been given an operation and are able to see for the first time. One of the newly sighted people describes seeing a tree for the first time. The woman sees not a tree-shaped object called "tree" like we see when we walk outside, but a "shape with lights in it." Throughout the rest of the book, Dillard describes looking for the tree with the lights in it. It's all about seeing the world with new eyes, seeing it afresh. I love that, and it strikes me as a good title for this blog, in which I am recording things that mean something to me and have helped me to see life with new eyes.

The bottom line: Annie Dillard is fantastic. I am indebted to her for my blog title and for my way of thinking about life.