(Video link here.) One of the very best things in the New York Times’ recent The Lives They Lived was a clip from Terry Gross’ last interview with Maurice Sendak;  Christophe Niemann found and illustrated it. It is full of achingly tender, wise words from the 80-year-old Sendak:

There’s something I’m finding out as I’m aging — that I am in love with the world…I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio, and I see my trees, my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are.

Our friend Maureen Rolla turned his words into a New Year’s blessing:

With homage to Maurice, I hope you will have time to…

– Enjoy the trees outside your window

– Write, draw, or make something artful

– Remember your friends, living and dead

– Most of all, “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.

Related posts: “don’t give up!” (the inspirational letters project)
maira kalman on life, death, work, love…
‘ordinary people, extraordinary lives’
bathroom read: esquire’s “what I’ve learned”