Settled and not

[Soon I will run out of Canada pics and will have to take current ones. But I like the cushion of time off from shooting.] I forgot to say that I had found my favorite dress of the season, by Doo-Ri Chung. It reminds me of the rainbows in Korean tapestries. I had met Doo-Ri briefly when I was working in SoHo and she still had her little shop there. She was on her way to something big then, and it just keeps blowing up, which I love to see. Today was delicious: reading The Writing Life, working, watching "The Snapper," having good home cooking, and eating yummy red bean buns.

Along with that were two requests from friendly acquaintances for advice/leads. While sending out the info, I realized again that I know a LOT more about my field than I give myself credit for on a regular basis. I have tons of valuable, sometimes random, but always pertinent-to-someone information. I'm becoming the person I wanted to be years ago - feeling around in the dark, finding things, continuing on after they've been illuminated, growing richer all the while, and seeing w/my hands that this tunnel is much longer and more convoluted than it first seemed when I squeezed into the hole.

Sometimes I've wondered if I could make a living as an advisor of sorts, but I can't get my head around how that would actually work w/o getting ugly. Due to a few burns, I've also gotten paranoid about being taken advantage of. I always assume some kind of propriety, tacit limits on how much should be asked of me after I've already given a lot, but that isn't always the case. I love helping people, but at the same time know that too much of that takes away from my own work, especially since I am prone to overdoing. But I also ask for help from those who are wiser. So I'm not sure how to balance, especially since I want to stay in the abundance camp: as long as I continue to give genuinely and in a positive spirit, it will all return, and there truly is enough for everyone. So I loved reading this today, as a reminder:

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

--Annie Dillard, The Writing Life