The Sunday Salon: Slow is Beautiful, A Guest Post by Barbara Richardson

The Sunday Salon is  about gathering together to talk about all things bookish, and I’m pleased to have a visitor this Sunday to do just that. 

Settle in, let me pour you some tea or coffee, and say hello to Barbara Richardson, whose novel Tributary was one of the books I thoroughly enjoyed during My Summer of Reading Historically. 

Slow is Beautiful

I remember a Rilke quote, an insight from that wise and sensitive poet, suggesting life is a closed envelope and nearly all of us just pass the envelope along to the next generation. Few open it. Few even try. Almost no one realizes the envelope is addressed to them. To us. To you.

That letter from the universe waits in your hands. You are the recipient. The mystery, of course, is how to open the envelope. Every day. Every minute of every day.

I know one thing that will raise your odds: slow down. I learned this from my own speedball past. I have actually been called “Speedball” by a loved one. And, by a co-worker, “a squirrel on crack.” Being speedy meant I could deliver, oh, a few thousand unopened envelopes a day and still feel ridiculously disconnected from my life.

E. M. Forster, another wise sensitive writer, says, “Only connect.”

When I move slowly through my life, I recognize, “I am the envelope.” The objective of my days is to open and see and receive. If you find yourself unhappy and unfulfilled, try slowing down and savoring. Honestly, the human system is made for that. You’ll be good at it. When you try.

By the end of my new novel Tributary, my heroine Clair Martin receives and opens her life letter. What is inside that letter? I hope you’ll go with Clair on the journey to find out.

Speed gets you nowhere quickly. Please slow down. Be an elephant. Spray sun-warmed water on your dry back. Roll in the dust, remembering your eternal connectedness.

There IS no time like the present. And Elephants never forget.

I couldn’t agree more, Barbara. Life is best lived when savored slowly and mindfully. The modern world doesn’t make that easy for us, so thank you for this thoughtful reminder.  And for something to enjoy from the kitchen, visit Barbara’s blog to get Clair Martin’s yummy recipe for Clair’s Windfall Applesauce.

Write On Wednesday: Editor at Large

This process of moving house has become an exercise in revision. For weeks, I’ve been going over all my possessions with a fine tooth comb - must I have four sets of casserole dishes? five travel mugs? half a dozen different styles of placemats? How many black purses do I really need? So I red-pencil items like a good editor would do extraneous words, consigning them to trash bags, donation bins, Craig’s List.

It’s been surprisingly easy to jettison all this baggage, and I feel lighter and freer by the moment. I’m almost loathe to take anything at all to the new house, am delighted at the thought of being pared down to the most bare of essentials.

That’s what a well-written piece of writing is like, isn’t it? Pared down to bare essentials.

The key is knowing what words are essential.

“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,” writes William Zinsser in On Writing Well, a copy of which I found buried in a chest of drawers in my bedroom during yesterday’s cleaning. “Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb which carries the same meaning that is already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what - these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence."

Like my cupboards overflowing with coffee mugs and dresser drawers spilling scarves, socks, and costume jewelry, Zinsser shakes a red-ink stained finger at clutter - “the disease of American writing.”  Clear your head of it, he exhorts the writer. “Clear thinking becomes clear writing."

But I can’t help but wonder (a phrase Zinsser would strike right through with red pen) - can things be too clear? Does writing stripped so clean and uncluttered lack some undefinable personality, a spark of cachet to endear it to the reader? This comes to mind as I peruse the top of my piano, the family photographs, the crystal candlesticks, the tiny sculpture of a woman with arms spread wide in joy. Each of these items could be classified as clutter, yet each one means something to me. Like beautiful, descriptive language, each one adds a touch of beauty to the room.

It’s a fine line, this process of revision.

What to leave in. What to leave out.

While my impulse at this moment is to clear out all the clutter, when all is said and done will I survey my surroundings and feel that something is missing?

The challenge is to strike a balance between the two.

I hope I’m up for it.

Off Kilter - But Who Cares?

It’s no surprise that my schedule (schedule? I have a schedule?) is awry. Moving has a way of throwing all of one’s best laid plans into a tizzy. My grand plan in consolidating my three blogs was to write about Life in General on Mondays and Fridays, leaving Wednesdays for Write On, and Sunday’s for The Sunday Salon book talk. Last week, none of that really happened.

Oh well.

I’m seriously unflappable these days. That's surprising considering my life is about to go catty-wumpus with the final move about three weeks away, followed closely by my Grandson’s first visit to Michigan.

But just when I’d expect myself to be frantic, I’m feel like I’m floating -  simply doing what I can do and not sweating the rest. It’s a little bit like being on anti-depressants. Everything feels pretty darn good, and I want everyone I know to be there with me.

This is such a big departure for me, and I’m almost afraid to say it out loud lest I awaken the sleeping giants of anxiety and depression that usually haunts me whenever a big change is in the wind. For the first time in my life, I’m allowing myself to believe in signs, to follow my instincts.

And this overall sense of well being has to be a sign that everything we’re doing is right.

My presence on these pages is likely to be amorphous for the days and weeks ahead.

Just think of me - not with my nose to the grindstone - but wafting through cyberspace on a cloud of pleasant anticipation and contentment.

I wish I could beam you all up here with me.

The End of Summer

  In my mind, Labor Day weekend always marks the emotional end of summer.

The first imprecations of autumn have already begun creeping in. Though there will still be plenty of hot days, still be plenty of occasions for wearing shorts and sandals, there is an undeniable hint of chill in the morning air. Dusk falls faster and earlier. Clothes take longer to dry on the line.

Things are changing, friends.

This weekend I will put up my summer purse, lay aside my white sandals and shorts.

I will place mountainous pots of yellow mums on the front porch at Brookwood Court.

I will search out t-shirts and blouses in colors like sage and cranberry and ochre.

I will open a brand new spiral notebook, take out a shiny new pen for new stories to write.

Soon I will also cut back the dried hostas and daylilies for the very last time.

Wind up the backyard clotheslines, perhaps forever.

Put the old back porch chairs out front on trash day.

The emotional end of summer this year is also a rather emotional end of my last full season in this house. I am mindful now of all the things I do for the last time. There is still a sense of unreality to it, this moving business. Even though this week I emptied all the drawers in my writing room desk, transferred the clothes from the winter closet to the new house instead of to their home in my bedroom here. There are bags and boxes scattered throughout the rooms here, separated for trash, for donation, for re-homing to Brookwood Court.

When people ask me if I’ve moved yet, I keep saying that “it’s a process.”

Like the changing of the seasons, little things are happening which herald the big change to come.

Emotional endings, all around.

Distraction-less

This week I’ve been working at The New House while a very artistic friend (and neighbor, as it happens!) works her magic on the first floor powder room. She’s changed the walls from a shocking persimmon color to a very relaxing oceanic green. So when you open the door now you can sigh in relaxation rather than thinking “AWK!” and stepping backward. Anyway, while Ellen paints, I work upstairs in my new writing space.

And I love my new writing space.

But there is no internet in my new writing space.

And I’m beginning to love that about it even more.

This morning, in just about two  hours I completed a significant section of a work assignment, wrote a short piece for All Things Girl and prepared some interview questions for a Conversations Over Coffee I’m doing with one of my favorite blogger friends (nope, not telling who just yet).

PLUS, I did some clerical work for the theater company.

That’s right, in just about TWO hours.

You know why, don’t you?

There is no internet in my new writing space.

Granted, there was some information I needed for the work stuff that I couldn’t research without the internet. And I couldn’t email the interview questions, or type my article into the website for ATG without the internet.

Still, those pieces are easy enough to add into the puzzle later on.

I was able to accomplish SO much more without the internet to distract me.

Plus, I felt more calmer, more in control, more focused.

In fact, I think having the internet in a room is something like having the walls painted persimmon. It automatically sends you into a bit of a tizzy.

Rooms that have no internet are soft and relaxing, like the lush blue-green-grey tones of the ocean waves.

Tomorrow, while some very beautiful hand-painted stencilling will complete the look of my beachy powder room, I will have one more day to work free from the distractions of the internet.

And I will try to make the most of it.