This month, probably because of my birthday, I’m sitting through one of my quarterly info panics, wherein I become convinced that my near constant checking of RSS feeds and Twitter streams and tumblelogs is destroying my brain, my personal relationships, and whatever small amount of literary talent I once possessed. And in the midst of this, I stumble across Salon’s 1998 interview with poet and novelist Jim Harrison, who I am convinced said the following just for me:

Before I went to Paris I did an old traditional ritual. I went up to my cabin and vomited up the world for five days. No contact with newspapers, radio, nothing but running my dog. I think even Jesus said you have to step aside in the wilderness and rest awhile, an interesting view. You have to avoid suffocating in lint. We’re not choo-choo trains on a track. Nothing tells us we can’t swim across a lake and climb a tree. We’re human beings.

I will now spend the rest of the day trying not to buy Harrison’s entire back catalogue. And reading this lovely, lovely poem, “Awake.”