The Dixster
I have delusions of grandeur and often thought on returning to New Orleans that I would become a columnist at the Times Picayune much in the same way that Herb Caen was for the San Francisco Chronicle. I had dreams of singing the praises of this grand old dame of a city and its denizens and culture. Instead I came home to monumental changes – Katrina and the subsequent Federal Flood, the decline of newspaper readership, circulation not to mention columnists. And so I blogged thinking that through this medium I could accomplish much of what I wanted to do.
This morning the Times Picayune has an article about Dorothy Dix, a writer and columnist from New Orleans who was the first advice columnist, one of the first highly paid female writers and a New Orleans gal. She lived in a house across from where I lived on General Pershing back in the day, which was inhabited by a couple with a black standard poodle. I walked by Dix’s house everyday and thought about her and thought about the writing life.
It is a life that needs time – time to contemplate and to reflect – which does not really equate to the life I live now. My reflections are done in the space of seconds and not hours or days, my contemplation is only accomplished on dog walks, bike rides or drives across town. I’m a woman and writer and mother in search of time to be.
Dix had Ten Rules of Happiness that was reprinted often and everyone of her rules have crossed my mind, my writing, my blog at one time or another, mostly multiple times, mashed up in many scenarios. My ten rules could be summed up this way:
Fake it till you make it
Be grateful
Laugh at yourself – whatyagonnado?
Nod at the Cassandras
Quit catastrophizing
Forgive – especially yourself
Throw a party
Don’t wallow
Perform a mitzvah
Engage in work you love