“What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow. There’s a time in our lives when we all crave the answers. It seems terrifying not to know what’s coming next. But there is another time, a better time, when we see our lives as a series of choices, and What Now represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life.”
– Ann Patchett
Image: Chippewa Harbor Sunrise by Ray Dumas via Flickr
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
Rudri, I think I’m in the middle of a what now. Again. I appreciate this quote as it feels to me a reminder to be patient. Sometimes the answer to the question feels like an empty silence until we realize that in the silence we’re being fed. In the silence we’re being loved.
I love how you describe waiting for an answer to a question. Yes, to empty silence and the feeling of being loved. Thank you so much for adding this insight. xo