Where the heart is. Three things from DAH. Free every Friday!
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DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. Things are looking up!

First up this week, Zest …  
I should use more lemon zest in cooking. It's easy to generate, if you've unzested lemons handy. And it adds something more than just a lemon-juicy flavor to preparations of all sorts. Maybe I'm just lazy, for not zesting more. English speakers adopted the word from French (zeste is the French word for citrus peel used in food and beverage). But the English appropriating adopters of zeste added to its meaning (in addition to dropping the e), giving us the notion of excitement and enjoyment (which lemon zest ought to be adding to my cooking). I make a point of smiling as soon as I open my eyes to a new day (no matter what the hour). I'm eager to test and taste each new day's zest. 

Second up this week, Zeal …  
Zeal: an eager pursuit, perhaps the natural outcome of experiencing, or wanting to experience, zest. Zeal is one thing, in my experience, whereas a zealot is something more. Something fanatic. I don't want to be that. I'm no Curtis Howe Springer (see below). But I do like the idea of living life with some little urgency, a modest zeal. Goals can be good. Especially if they allow for some flexibility in their pursuit. I have a zeal to create in the performing arts, for example. Sharing zest for something with my community, through performance, is zealous enough for me.

Third up this week, Zzyzx …  
I subscribe to the literary journal Zyzzyva, named for the last word in the dictionary (or the English language). Except it's not. The town of Zzyzx (formerly Soda Springs) is laster. Zzyzx (also Zzyzx Road and Zzyzx Springs) is inside California's Mojave National Preserve. Where? Well, near Baker CA (7 miles away on Interstate 15), with Las Vegas some 100 miles northeast. A self-promotional zealot and radio evangelist, Curtis Howe Springer, named and claimed Zzyzx and Zzyzx Mineral Springs resort in 1944. He intended his new spa to be the "last word in health." Show of hands: Who's been to Zzyzx? Who feels healthier for taking in its waters? (it's no longer a spa resort thingy). Who wants to go there, besides me?

A book I can't believe I'm reading (and enjoying): 
Boom Town, by Sam Andereson
Published in 2018, it's "The fantastical saga of Oklahoma City, its chaotic founding, its apocalyptic weather, its purloined basketball team, and the dream of becoming a world-class metropolis" (that's the book's subtitle). I had zero interest in Oklahoma City, but saw the book referenced somewhere. It turns out to be a masterful piece of nonfiction, and a fascinating only-in-America story. "Dizzyingly pleasurable ... a dazzling urban history" (The New Yorker).

And a bit more:

Zest, by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Labor not in the murky dell,
But till your harvest hill at morn;
Stoop to no words that, rank and fell,
Grow faster than the rustling corn.

With gladdening eyes go greet the sun,
Who lifts his brow in varied light;
Bring light where'er your feet may run:
So bring a day to sorrow's night.


And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.