"We learn the rope of life by untying its knots."
— Jean Toomer
American Writer
1894 - 1967)
Many people wish that what they know at sixty they had known at twenty. Unfortunately, life does not work that way. Life is a process of learning and growing. The mistakes we make at 20 help make the person we become at 60. And for writers and artists the same is true. We perfect our art as we grow. What we write at 15 is not the same as what we write at 30.
What knots have you untied? What have you learned that has made you a better person?
Here is a poem by Jean Toomer.
Portrait in Geogia
Hair--braided chestnut,
coiled like a lyncher's rope,
Eyes--fagots,
Lips--old scars, or the first red blisters,
Breath--the last sweet scent of cane,
And her slim body, white as the ash
of black flesh after flame.
