The Magnificent Sendak

While the amount of time I spend on Facebook is criminal, I sometimes receive a gift that justifies the hours of mindless scrolling. Below is an excerpt of an interview Maurice Sendak did with Terri Gross that showed up on my feed the other day. I was once a buddy to an elderly woman who shared Sendak’s point of view on getting old and closer to death. Whether I live another year or another 30 years, I hope to cultivate the same grace, gratitude and unconditional love of life.

"I'm not unhappy about becoming old. I'm not unhappy about what must be. It makes me cry only when I see my friends go before me and life is emptied. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again. And it's like a dream life. But, you know, there's something I'm finding out as I'm aging that I am in love with the world.

And I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio and I see my trees and my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they're beautiful. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are. It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music.

You know, I don't think I'm rationalizing anything. I really don't. This is all inevitable and I have no control over it. "Bumble-ardy" was a combination of the deepest pain and the wondrous feeling of coming into my own and it took a long time. It took a very long time, but it's genuine. Unless I'm crazy. I could be crazy and you could be talking to a crazy person.”
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