A Good Quiet Set of Directions – An Essay from March 2019
A good quiet set of directions
1000 Words on the Pleasure and Pain of Instructions “I was up there in my room, reading some directions. That’s something I find I like to do when I have a few minutes to myself – I don’t know about you. How to put on furniture polish, transfer patterns with a hot iron, take off corns, I don’t care what it is. I don’t have to do it. Sometimes I’d rather sit still a minute and read a good quiet set of directions through than any story you’d try to wish off on me.” – Edna Earle from Eudora Welty’s ThePonder Heart
Yesterday, I needed a nap. I’d been down to the charity shops in Sydenham, near where I live in London, and I came across a good book on Paper Mache. So, I snuggled under the duvet (what we call a comforter back in Virginia) and began to read directions. There were lists of supplies, there were cautions about inferior materials, there was encouragement about improvisation. Then, there were directions for specific projects, and I fell asleep in the m…
Yesterday, I needed a nap. I’d been down to the charity shops in Sydenham, near where I live in London, and I came across a good book on Paper Mache. So, I snuggled under the duvet (what we call a comforter back in Virginia) and began to read directions. There were lists of supplies, there were cautions about inferior materials, there was encouragement about improvisation. Then, there were directions for specific projects, and I fell asleep in the m…
