Beth Kephart's Blog, page 323

And then when it isn't white, it's sky

I don't remember when this day began. Was it with the midnight text message from my son, or the one he sent at 1:08 AM? Was it when I heard him come him an hour later, or when I finally gave up on the possibility of sleep and got up to get client work done? Perhaps we'll call the beginning of this day Zumba at 5:45 AM (or the cha-cha Zumba around 6:10, or the Charleston jive twenty minutes on).

Or let us say, instead, that this day had no beginning.

But look: Just look at its spectacular e...

The Divinity of Whiteness

Twice each week I drive by this horse.
On this day she stood knee-high in snow.

She's like the pure white cat who still at times stops by.
I wonder, often, what all this whiteness means.

Water. Tea. Words: my office, earlier today.

(but no novel gets written, and no novel will now, for quite some time, as work settles in for a long stretch of good)

Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business

I sometimes talk about Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business, the corporate fable I co-authored with Matt Emmens, who is now the CEO of Vertex and chairman of the board of Shire. I explain the book to those who ask as an Alice in Wonderland-esque fable about the power of the imagination in corporate America. The story features a character named Moira, who wears read shoes and fine, striped socks as she winds her way through a sclerotic bureaucracy in search of a way to make a difference. ...

Crow Planet

They are everywhere, and late in the afternoon their noise overwhelms. It's as if black umbrellas are being open and shut all across the sky, as if these crows—so wild, so raucous, so seemingly undecided about their branch on the tree—are simply not going to put up with us humans any longer. They come in force. They rule.

This afternoon, working on client stories, I could hardly think past their sound.

Finally, I picked up my camera, leaned out of my office door and snapped this shot. Then ...

Accidental Truths

[image error] Yesterday, while walking to my local Whole Foods store, I saw an accident in the making. Two cars backing up, each in the direction of the other. I started running, but it was too late. There was the tinsel shatter of a split SUV fender and the corresponding yelps.

No one was hurt, of course, but what happened afterward was instructive. One driver was clearly far more to blame than the other (she had continued accelerating, while the other vehicle had stopped), but it was that driver who w...

Light, Brandished

Yesterday we celebrated the first birthday of the absolutely stunning Miss Eva, who receives the love we want to give her with the greatest graces possible. We have watched Eva grow into the glory she is. She has touched her hand to the light shim of our earrings, held tight to the leather string about our necks, danced with us and for us, breathed her brand new soul into our hearts. Eva gives us back some of what all our years of living took away, and she doesn't even know yet, and perhap...

Verb Wars

Whenever the book that I am writing isn't working, the problem lies mostly with the verbs. Nouns can be too easy. Adverbs and adjectives, used injudiciously, obscure. But if the verbs are wrong (dull, passive, unlustered) then the story is wrong, too—flat and fizzled.

I've got myself a verb problem right now. I need lift and soar.

Hookless and Committed

I've now read at least a half dozen reviews of Elizabeth Gilbert's new mega-memoir, Committed, including the Curtis Sittenfeld version that appears on this weekend's cover of the New York Times Book Review. I've watched her talk. I've read the interviews. And it occurs to me that, were I to read this book, I probably wouldn't know much more about Gilbert's travails or voice or happy ending than I already do. There's a remarkable sameness in the press, in the reviews. There is little vari...

My Niece

I took a picture of her hair.
I liked its glow.