Things I've Come to Realize in the Past Few Days (No. 1)

By Patsy Moore

From creative multi-hyphenate Patsy Moore comes this collection of 25 thoughtful insights on "navigating the zigzags of existence"—presented as essays and confessional stories, and based on an ongoing popular series of social media posts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patsy Moore
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943844517

Patsy Moore

PATSY MOORE is a death-defying polymath and frequent maker of small things (songs, films, essays, and poems), which customarily explore big ideas. She has resided in Los Angeles, California since 1996.

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THINGS I’VE COME TO REALIZE

IN THE PAST FEW DAYS

PATSY MOORE

ScrawlHaus

Los Angeles, California

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at [e-mail].

Patsy Moore/ScrawlHaus

Los Angeles, California

Book Layout © 2014 PMOS

Cover Design by Krishna

Interior Illustrations by Andreea Mironiuc

Copyright © 2014 P. Alexis Moore

All rights reserved.

FOREWORD

A summer weekday morning in 2013, I posted (as a Facebook status update) a list of five recent firsthand insights and titled it Things I’ve Come to Realize in the Past Few Days. There was never any plan to make this an ongoing public exercise, but I felt compelled to come out of the closet, under­standing that as everyone’s navigating the zigzags of existence, checking in with each other, on how all that’s shaping up, can be helpful.

More than a year later, the lists continue, their sole guidelines being that (1) they happen on Sundays, but only if the preceding week’s goings-on patched through a wake-up call; (2) they’re composed on the spot; and (3) I’m honest. These shares are personally freeing, unstudied, and predominantly met with rousing choruses of affirmation, which I’m in­clined to believe have very little to do with me and very much to do with us—ever-interested in substantiating that we’re not alone. Once in a while, they lead to respectfully ro­bust give-and-takes about how best to be among the living. (I like that sort of thing. It can’t hurt, in the long run.)

I’ve finally decided to oblige requests to assemble selected entries into book form. I fought this for some time, because I’m principally hesitant to be per­ceived as anything other than someone with more questions than answers, but it’s dawned on me that what readers glean from TICTR isn’t for me to hypoth­esize or parse. I trust that its strong following is proof enough of its usefulness, and I’m elated to be part of a larger, soul-stirring con­versation. (I have a friend who’s a rabbi and, on occasion, when I’ve ap­proached him with a niggling existential query, his hugely liberating and emi­nently humble comeback has been in the spirit of: Who knows? Good on ya for asking, though. So... yeah. That. And amen.)

This is the first volume of handpicked notes with several fresh afterthoughts presented, by turns, as essays, stories, confessions. I hope you find at least as much value in reading it as I found rescue in writing it.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ONE: TIME SPENT LOVING ANOTHER

TWO: SADIE

THREE: DISAPPOINTMENT

FOUR: STATEMENTS OF PRIORITY

FIVE: MIRACLES AND MYSTERY

SIX: SPITTING INTO THE WIND

SEVEN: THE FALLACY OF PERFECT

EIGHT: POSSESSION IS TEN TENTHS OF EXPERIENCE

NINE: STORIES

TEN: WIPE YOUR FEET

ELEVEN: CATS GET IT

TWELVE: CORROBORATION

THIRTEEN: WILLINGNESS

FOURTEEN: OUR LIVES ARE PRAYERS

FIFTEEN: SENSE MEMORY

SIXTEEN: IMAGINATION

SEVENTEEN: THE DISTRACTION OF DETRACTION

EIGHTEEN: NO TWO PEOPLE

NINETEEN: SUBTERFUGE

TWENTY: CANDOR

TWENTY-ONE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION

TWENTY-TWO: ON THE TOPIC OF EXTEMPORIZATION

TWENTY-THREE: PROXIMITY

TWENTY-FOUR: THE BEST POSSIBLE DECISION

TWENTY-FIVE: SCARS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For exchanges and encounters that escorted many of the following thoughts from darkness to daybreak, I’d like to thank:

Jesse Brune-Horan

Don Champion

Sabine French

Matema Hadi

Niki Haris

Haize Hawke

Maria del Mar Hobbs De Lemus

Marcia James

Bikki Johnson

Michael Lennox

June Moore

Sushant Naidu

Alitha