{"id":3610,"date":"2009-03-03T13:08:34","date_gmt":"2009-03-03T18:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3610"},"modified":"2009-03-03T16:53:27","modified_gmt":"2009-03-03T21:53:27","slug":"a-half-dozen-words-which-say-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/a-half-dozen-words-which-say-you\/","title":{"rendered":"A Half-Dozen Words Which Say &#8220;You&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.northerncostarica.com\/arenal-volcano-photos.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Active volcano in rear-view mirror (click for info and original)\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/arenalvolcano_rearview_sm.jpg?resize=500%2C333&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the spirit of many mothers, my own wishes that I were more of a committed churchgoer, less a dilettante of formless spirituality. She doesn&#8217;t bother me about this at all, let alone nag me, but every now and then there&#8217;s a little tap on the shoulder just to let me know it&#8217;s on her mind.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last week, she gave or sent to my sisters, brother, and me one of those little daily-devotional booklets, spanning the part of the Christian calendar called Lent.<\/p>\n<p>I (and my sibs) thought that today&#8217;s item was especially interesting, and I (and maybe my sibs) think so especially for writerly and word-nerd reasons. Shorn of its theological trappings, it says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>How would you summarize your life in just six words? The online magazine <em>Smith<\/em> asked readers to do just that. <em>[JES: <a title=\"SMITH Magazine: Six-Word Memoirs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.smithmag.net\/sixwords\/\" target=\"_blank\">link<\/a>]<\/em> It was based on Ernest Hemingway&#8217;s response to the same question: &#8220;For sale: baby shoes, never worn.&#8221; The result is a book called <em>Not Quite What I Had Planned<\/em>, a collection of six-word memoirs from folks famous and unknown. A few examples:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;Well, I thought it was funny.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;I still make coffee for two.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears.&#8221;<\/p>\n[&#8230;]\n<p>So if you were to try to summarize your life in six words, what would you say?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Any takers? (I&#8217;m thinking on mine.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>4:50 pm\/edit to add:<\/strong> <em>No one noticed (so he thought).<\/em>*<\/p>\n<p>________________________<\/p>\n<p>* The man does like ambiguity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the spirit of many mothers, my own wishes that I were more of a committed churchgoer, less a dilettante of formless spirituality. She doesn&#8217;t bother me about this at all, let alone nag me, but every now and then there&#8217;s a little tap on the shoulder just to let me know it&#8217;s on her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,247,5],"tags":[1062,1063,1064],"class_list":{"0":"post-3610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-06_writing","9":"tag-mom","10":"tag-daily-devotionals","11":"tag-your-life-in-six-words","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-We","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3610"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3617,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3610\/revisions\/3617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}