Just reading Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” and laughing out loud at some of her drolleries. It struck me how marvelous to put something out in the world that can cause physical pleasure twenty years after you laid it down. How some guy you’ll never know in North Carolina is At This Moment appreciating your voice. Then I thought of Shakespeare, who is – as you probably know – long dead. The immense joy his brief years of work have brought, long beyond his knowing or caring. (He, in all probability, cared most about the day’s receipts in the cashbox. But maybe, hopefully, not.)
Of course, this applies to other media. Crying along with Patsy Klein as she admits, “She’s Got You”; shaking your head in amazement at Vermeer’s brushwork in “Girl with the Pearl,” basking in the beauty and originality of Marlon Brando in “Streetcar Named Desire.” And it is pleasant to think, on some much smaller stage, that my books and drawings might well bring pleasure to some child on another continent (thank you, Amazon), or cause some yet-to-be-born husband to ask his yet-to-be-born wife, “what are you laughing at, honey?”
“Oh, a book by some dead guy,” she’ll say.
And that’s just cool.
Although, I admit, I do spend some time wondering what today’s receipts are like ( and I’d bet Anne Lamott occasionally does, too). But the unparalleled treasure is the one I’ll never see, but one I get only hints and echoes of.