rilke

in all the duino elegies, the line that stays with me is "what birds fly through is not infinite space."

however, i may have remembered it incorrectly, it is, i think, a little different. but it doesn't matter, because this is the line i like and it is beautiful.

the elegies are filled with references to space, birds, air, sky, angels, and love. when i am writing a story, and when i am stuck, i pick up the rilke book and just wander through it until enough beauty has saturated back into my writing brain, and i can go back to work with something that i really like.

today i tried to explain this to a student of mine, an exceptional writer who also gets hung up. i want to show her how following language can pull you out of stiff, uncreative writing.

follow the language, not the idea.

and today, the sky was so blue, the mountains had that crisp clarity as if you could trace every peak and valley and crevasse and tree from far away, and the sun was warm and it's hard to believe it's mid-november.