Bookstack: The Sunday Salon

Friday afternoon the POD containing all the furniture from our home in Florida arrived at our new home in Northville. Saturday we - along with the help of Eric and Lee, two extremely nice young men who unloaded the POD for us - we arranged furniture and started digging into the boxes that we packed four months ago. It was a little like Christmas, unwrapping all those things, trying to discern by feel what each item was.

“Maybe these are the coffee table vases,” I kept saying, searching for three delicate glass bud vases I had purchased at an Art Fair in Naples. There were sighs of relief (found the vases all intact), surprise (I forgot we packed this!) and remembrance (remember when we bought this?)

Of course there is much left to do, but I’m beginning to see glimpses of the MY house peeking through, the vision I had for this new space.

Today we’ll be going back for more unpacking - making a start on the kitchen boxes today. But I’m planning to take a book with me for a short break of afternoon reading.

The burning question is - what book shall it be?

Because the first book I read in my new house can’t be just any old book. It needs to be something special - something new that I’ve been dying to delve into. Or maybe (and this could be even better) something old - a favorite re-read that always inspires, comforts, sustains.

My new book choices are somewhat slim. The only things sitting in my new TBR pile are The House I Loved, by Tatiana Rosay, which certainly sounds appropriate for the occasion, and How to Be A Woman, by Caitlin Moran.

The To Be Re-Read pile is much larger, and things like TheWhole World Over, by Julia Glass, Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo, and The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell.

An embarrassment of riches, to be sure.

But one of those will likely be the one I spend a few stolen moments with this Sunday afternoon, here in my new living room at Brookwood Court.

I’ll keep you posted.

How about you? What are you reading this Sunday, and where are you reading it? 

Worth Keeping

My husband and I were having a late breakfast yesterday morning on the patio at George’s, the restaurant located in our new condo community.  The weather has turned slightly cooler, with a definite tinge of fall dampness in the air, and our conversation naturally turned to the regular routine of fall activities that would soon be starting. “I don’t know,” I said. “Somehow I’m not in the mood for going back to the same old stuff.."

“You’d like to just start fresh?” he asked.

I laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed,” I said, “I’m really in the mood for getting rid of things, for wanting to make a clean sweep of EVERYTHING."

He looked slightly askance at me. “Just as long as that doesn’t include me,” he said. “Just don’t get everything the way you want it and then tell me to get out too."

I laughed. “Not much chance of that!” I told him.

“I don’t know,” he replied, more seriously this time. “Your dad did it, you know. I hope you aren’t going to take after him."

Well.

It’s true - my father really did walk out on my mother after 42 years of marriage. He really did run off with his secretary, just like a bad Lifetime movie, moving out of state and out of our lives for what seemed like forever. It was a horrible time for our family. But over the past 22 years we’ve all made our peace with it.

At least I thought we had.

Friends have asked me if my fathers actions make me uncertain about my own husbands fidelity, less trustful of men in general. But I’ve honestly never felt anxious about my husband’s loyalty, at least not because of what my father did.

It never occurred to me that he might feel anxious about me because of it.

The “midlife crisis” is an old joke by now, but there are some things about it which are fatefully true. When you advance into that “second half of your century on earth” (as I call it), it’s not unusual to start thinking about all the things you haven’t done, the feelings you haven’t felt. You pine for the excitement of youth, the delicious anticipation of romance, the thrill of dreaming big dreams.

And you realize that time grows short. Every day you hear of another friend in your age group with cancer or heart disease. Someone dying or already dead.

It’s depressing.

It’s frightening.

Looking back on it, I understand how my father became a victim of all these feelings, how he allowed them to override not just his common sense but his moral character and sense of responsibility. So his actions definitely had an effect on the way I look at my own midlife experience. I understand the longings, but I also understand how easily one can get carried away by them and make huge, life altering mistakes.

It’s possible that my burning desire to get rid of all this “stuff” that’s been accumulating for the past 35 years, and this huge impetus I’ve felt to get settled and squared away in a new neighborhood that will last us into our old(er) age, is my own personal reaction to the kind of middle-aged crisis that struck my dad so hard.

Perhaps I do take after him, do need to make some big changes in order to move forward at this time of my life and not feel like I’m being buried by the past.

“Getting rid of stuff is one thing,” I told my husband firmly. “But getting rid of your life’s companion is something else again. I only have one of those, and I intend to keep him.”

I hope I reassured him.

I hope he’s feeling some of the same excitement about our future that I am.

Because I want to go forward into the second half of our century together.

And he’s definitely a keeper.

Write on Wednesday: Streamlined

I just euthanized two of my blogs. And no, I’m not in mourning. Not even sad.

It was time. Everything has a season, and it felt like the blogging season as I once knew it was waning.

I had a lovely conversation  - a real live conversation! on the telephone! - with one of my favorite fellow bloggers on this very subject. We talked about how blogging has changed in the years since we started, about the growing tendency to use blogs as one part of a “platform,” about the way social media like Facebook and Twitter have risen to prominence and almost usurped blogging as a digital network.

The conversation was a good one because it helped me recall the reason I started blogging in the first place (I wanted a place I could express my ideas in writing and share them with others), why I want to continue with it (to share those personal stories which I believe create connections between people), and what I hope to gain in the future (the impetus to continue writing, continue connecting with others, continue exploring life in general and my own in particular through the written word).

But it also made me realize that blogging has revealed other ways to satisfy my urge to write, that same urge for connection which provided the impetus to register a blog and push “publish” for the first time. Because of my involvement with blogging and other social media, I can write for e-zines like All Things Girl. I can connect with other readers through Goodreads and my Bookstack Facebook page. I can even go old-school and call people like Angie on the telephone.

I don’t need three blogs to do any of those things. So instead of three separate blogs, there will now be just this one, the place where I started almost seven years ago.

The place where we meet to talk about life in general.

I hope you’ll join me here.

The New Order

Simplicity. I’m embracing it wholeheartedly as I begin the process of moving out of the home I’ve lived in all of my adult life and into a new condominium in a neighboring town.

There will be ruthless shedding of stuff in this process - certainly real physical stuff, but also shedding of habits and routines and all sorts of emotional baggage.

I’m looking forward to this new home, to starting out on a new journey. I want to make life simple, at least as much as can be in this crazy whirlwind of a 21st century.

In the interest of such simplicity, I have decided to discontinue Write on Wednesday as a separate blog. Posts about writing things will now appear at Becca’s Byline, under the Category “Write on Wednesday."

I hope you’ll follow me there to find out what’s going on in my writing life, and also what’s going on with Life in General. I will also be writing regularly  in my role as Contributing Editor at All Things Girl magazine. Please subscribe for  all sorts of interesting reading- about writing and the arts and lots of other things.

Because no matter what else happens in my life, writing is - and will always be - a very important part of it for me.

And I know it is for you, too.

Bookstack: North and South Readalong

It’s been a summer of reading historically, so when Andi announced a readalong of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, North and South (first published 1855), I decided to jump right in. I’m familiar with Gaskell’s writing through her very definitive biography of Charlotte Bronte, who was not only Gaskell’s  writing contemporary but a personal friend. The biography led me to read two of her other novels Villette, and Wives and Daughters, both of which I enjoyed.

In all honesty, I sometimes find the nineteenth century writing style a hard go. It definitely takes more attention to read, almost like setting your mind to a math problem to figure out the construct and meaning. Gaskell’s work seems more accessible, as if she already had a foot in the 20th century.

North and South is really interesting to me on several fronts. The basic story centers around the conflict between industrialization and gentrification, specifically the Hale family and daughter Margaret, who leave behind the simple life of their country parsonage to take up residence in the industrial city of Milton, where they interact with the Thornton’s, son John, a wealthy (but “unread” mill owner), his mother and sister.

Of course you can see the romantic possibilities coming a mile away -Margaret sets out abhoring these “shoppy’s”, people who make their living manufacturing and selling goods, rather than engaging in intellectual pursuits. But naturally, she finds herself falling in love with John Thornton, despite his bourgeoise class standing. For his part, he is smitten almost immediately, even though he is appalled at Margaret’s obvious disdain for his lifestyle.

It seems to be a tenent of thinking during this time that people who worked in the manufacturing sector couldn’t be educated or well read, which is a fallacy we’ve carried over into our society as well. From the time you enter school, it seems as if you’re either on the college track or the technical track, and after you’ve learned the basics it’s never the twain shall meet. Why should we be surprised that a carpenter paints landscapes, or a welder writes poetry, or an electrician plays classical guitar?  Or that a novelist rides dirt bikes, a painter goes bowling, or a musician moonlights as a handyman?

There are also some very interesting family dynamics going on in North and South, and these are illustrated especially clearly in this week’s reading (chapters 15-27). Mrs. Hale has been diagnosed with a fatal illness, and her dying wish is that she be able to see her son Frederic one last time. But here’s the rub- Frederic is in hiding from the Royal Navy and if he were to show his face in Britain he would likely be captured and executed. But no matter to Mrs. Hale, she is determined Margaret must write and ask him to come to her. And so Margaret does, giving in to a request that seems utterly selfish. Mr. Hale has also preyed upon Margaret’s strength and good nature. When he decides as a matter of conscience that he must leave the Church of England, give up his living in lovely Hampshire and move the family to Milton, he’s hasn’t the guts to tell his wife of this decision. No, he asks Margaret to do it! And, ever the dutiful daughter, she’s the one who breaks the life-altering news to her mother.

Meanwhile, the romance between Margaret and John Thornton is heating up, although she still won’t admit her feelings for the poor man who makes a fool of himself proposing to her and then get utterly crushed in return. Margaret’s playing fast and loose with the man’s feelings, that’s for sure, and even refers to the fact that he’s her “first specimen,” as in the first industrialist/business owner she’s ever met, so she’s trying to figure out what makes him tick and whether he’s worthy of her time and attention.

Not such nice behavior for a clergyman’s daughter.

But Margaret has so much to learn, sheltered as she has been. I try to overlook some of her bad attitude, and she’s beginning to redeem herself  - with her visits to Bessie, one of the millworkers daughters who dies (presumably of consumption) during this week’s reading, and with her behavior during the strike, where she comes down firmly on the side of fairness to the worker but also comes to a better understanding of  the businessman’s (Thornton’s) need.

Reading this Victorian novel reminds me how much we can learn about history from novels, and what a great tool they are for teaching. I don’t often participate in readalongs, but I’m so glad I decided to join in on this one.

How about you? Have any favorite Victorian authors?