In 1961 Maurice Sendak painted a mural on the nursery wall for personal friends in Manhattan. This wall was recently carved out and moved to Philadelphia—1400 pounds of wall. I’ve been teaching outside of Philly this year and read about this in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

 

As the end of my absolutely insane year of having no real home base (my partner is in Savannah, my house is in Maine, nothing of much is in NJ) I’ve been traveling, working way, way too much for my 44 year-old tired self—I’ve not been writing nearly as much as I ought to, I had to cancel a book-signing event at the hoitiest bookstore in Manhattan because I practically collapsed and landed in the hospital for three days (my publisher had been working on getting me this gig for months.)

 

And so all this leads to sharing with you my new all-time favorite Sendak quote, and maybe you’ll understand why:

“We’re all orphans, and all our friends die. It’s the story of life, and it stinks. You go on feeling that you failed. I don’t sit here and say, ‘I’ve got all these books, and isn’t that nice?’ Who cares! I don’t care anymore.”

Let’s admit it don’t we all want to be suffering to this degree of pen ultimate success? Don’t you feel better about your own misery? I think I do.
(PS. and no sympathy, please)