Writing About Cookies: 20 Inchworms/Day: And Judson Brewer’s Rule One

When I’m angry, I write. When I’m happy, I write. When I’m sad, I write a lot.

It took me a long time to understand cookies.

I wondered why Proust had written pages upon pages about them, but more importantly, why I couldn’t get past them. Then it hit me: It’s not about the cookies.

It wasn’t only nostalgia or fond memories, either. It was Proust’s way of staying present. In her book ‘How to Live,’ Sarah Bakewell describes it perfectly.

“The trick is to maintain a kind of naïve amazement at each instant of experience — but, as Montaigne learned, one of the best techniques for doing this is to write about everything. Simply describing an object on your table, or the view from your window opens your eyes to how marvelous such ordinary things are. To look inside yourself is to open up an even more fantastical realm.”

I’ve said it before, lifting a classic line from an endless list of better authors than myself, but…