Last week was really, really hard. I am not even sure why, except for a horrible confluence of problems with getting my taxes done (other people) and work (other people) and suddenly the phone ringing off the hook with people wanting stuff (other people)! There may be a pattern here.
I still feel a bit peaky this week and need cheering up. Here’s a link to a lovely essay by Ms. Ursula K. LeGuin, one of my favorite writers, wherein she explains why she is a man. This is something all of us of a certain age understand.
So when I was born, there actually were only men. People were men. They all had one pronoun, his pronoun; so that’s who I am. I am him, as in “If anybody needs to throw up he will have to do it in his hat,” or “A writer knows which side his bread is buttered on.” That’s me, the writer, him. I am a man.
Introducing Myself (pdf) by U.K. Le Guin.
Available in The Wave in the Mind, Shambhala, 2004.
Please breathe deeply and enjoy.
(Photo Dan Tuffs/Getty)