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Painting With A Turtle Hair Paintbrush

On retreat in an anonymous motel, writer Jim Harrison discovers that the unique life of his dreams is the only true story he can tell.

Jim Harrison

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When mentally fragile, I like to drive to a far city, say at least a few hundred miles from any of the three modest places my family lives, check in to a somewhat pathetic brand-name motel with the pleasant feeling that I won’t know a single soul in the local phone book. And that my own phone won’t ring except in the case of a dire event, because my wife is well aware of my motives for staying in the anonymous room. Here I have shorn myself of my support systems, and there is a fairly good chance that in a day or two I’ll discover the etiology of what ails me, keeping in mind that the overexamined life is also not worth living.

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