"...But really, I think that any life that's interesting, lived, has a lot of pulls in it. It seems to me natural that I'd be pulled in those ways. When you've got children, you don't want to just hand them over to somebody. It's interesting how children grow and you deprive yourself if you give too much of it away. I don't mean that you don't want to be free, you do, you want all that. But that's again a pull, you're pulled, and it's only one life for Christ's sake. And you are privileged somehow to do as much as you can. I wouldn't give any of it up. And I've talked a lot about this with women's groups because I think that in whatever is gained, that everything, that the world should be gained. But that nothing should be given up. I think a good hard greed is the way to approach life."

—Grace Paley, from An Interview with Grace Paley, Boston Review, Fall 1976

Lately I've been reading Daily Rituals: Women at Work by Mason Currey. It gives me the feeling of being surrounded by women who are artists, scientists, philosophers...women who have contributed much to the entire world from the strength of their individuality. It's a difficult thing to do.

I want more of this feeling, so I went to the library and went through each woman profiled, one by one, and looked for a biography on her life. The library I went to was small, so it was rare that I'd find something, but I ended up with probably 20 biographies, now stacked in a tower to be put in my little shelf that contains all my friendly book-companions for the path I'm currently walking.

Will I read all of these? Certainly not. But they are there for me, and I like that. A few that I'm especially interested in include:

Grace Paley (above): I love how she's come to terms with all the tensions in her life; that she is unwilling to give up any good thing, and somehow that doesn't torture her all day long as it does me.

Susan Sontag: "More than ever—and once again—I experience life as a question of levels of energy. What I want: energy, energy, energy. Stop wanting nobility, serenity, wisdom—you idiot!"

Nikki Giovanni: She did her best work while just puttering around. I love puttering and don't often allow myself the luxury because it often produces nothing. But for her, she valued it, and didn't worry about producing anything. She often told her students that reading every day was far more important than writing every day, which soothes my soul.

Harriet Martineau: She experienced extreme emotional resistance to her work, but always got over it by working for 15 minutes at a time; she figured out the pomodoro technique more than a century before Cirillo coined the term.

Julia Ward Howe: Probably my favorite in the way she lived her life. She was the best at integrating all the things she loved and needed to do into one beautiful, harmonious whole. She used to say that the ideal aim of life was "To Learn, To Teach, To Serve, And To Enjoy!" She did this with utmost flair. Also, she kept publishing even though it made her husband angry.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Somehow wrote for 3 hours a day in a life where her domestic duties were significant. "Since I began this note I have been called off at least a dozen times—once for the fish-man, to buy a codfish—once to see a man who had brought me some baskets of apples—once to see a book man...then to nurse the baby—then into the kitchen to make a chowder for dinner and now I am at it again for nothing but deadly determination enables me to ever write—it is rowing against wind and tide."

Seeing how people live their lives is one of my great curiosities—especially people who have a lot going on and who somehow manage to center their own creative work in the middle of it.

I do think, at the end of the day, a good hard greed for life is maybe the best strategy I've heard.

Thanks for being here,

Sarah Avenir