Cohen on writing…

I was up really late last night, thinking.  Watching Leonard Cohen talk about writing in youtube these two particularly…

In this one, it’s the second part that really sums it up, for me as a writer:

Well, it’s a brittle morning.  Brittle in the way that some mornings of your life will be because you are thinking about the past and other corners you might have turned had you made other choices.

But there is this flash of light, blinding, like a flashbulb of an old friend’s face.  Somebody who knew you years ago.  He helped you with cameras once.  He helped you put a whole darkroom together when you were young and starting out.  You get to the middle of life and everything softens at the edges when you see someone wonderful from the past.  It’s like ghosts.

I think there is always a point of inevitability when making decisions of great finality.

I re-read “Morphine” because I put it up in FB.  This memoir is so hard, but, if it makes me cry I know it is powerful writing, and it did.

I want my cameras back, I want a place for my art studio.  I want the things that have been stolen from me.