Comfort and Joy

Some things have been added to my home this week - some very important things that add another dimension to my level of contentment. My bookshelves arrived, and I've been happily unpacking and arranging the books I brought with me so far. I realized this is the first time in my life that all my books are together in one place. For years they've been scattered haphazardly throughout the house. And although I could pinpoint in my mind's eye where each volume was, it's ever so much nicer  having them arranged all neat and orderly on the shelves. I also have a comfy chair, a reading lamp, and a warm blanket in case of a chill.

Plus, you can see there is ample room for additions to the library.

That makes me very happy indeed.

Still basking in this bookish glow, another exciting arrival brought even more joy this week.

Since we moved here, I've been without a piano in the house (for the first time in 50 years!)  I decided against bringing the grand piano, and instead moved this pretty little console that was my birthday present back in 1962. It's still in beautiful condition, and with a good tuning it will serve my purposes just fine.

So now our cozy basement is a haven for all my favorite things, and I have especially enjoyed it on this cold and snowy Friday.

Having these two all-important portions of my life settled into place reminds me to honor what  makes life interesting for me. It's never changed much, since I was a little girl just embarking on a lifelong love of books and music. My parents bought the piano for me (after much wheedling and whining, I might add) on a pure leap of faith, unsure whether I would stick with it. After all, the whims of a six year old are not known for their reliability over the long haul. But when we were moving it the other day, my mother recalled the day it was delivered as "one of the happiest days of her life." She remembered my excitement, but she also remembered my grandmother sitting down and playing her favorite hymns. "I thought to myself, what could be better than this?" she said fondly.

I can still recall with exact precision of feeling the jaw-dropping wonder I felt when I came home from school and saw it sitting in my living room. I started playing that day, and haven't stopped.

And books - well, books and stories soothed me through childhood illness, kept me company during lonely times, taught me about life and educated me on the ways of the world. As we were assembling the bookshelves last weekend, I was remembering a little two-shelf bookcase I requested one Christmas when I was about eight  years old. It matched my maple bedroom set, and when it was delivered I filled it up with my Nancy Drew's, Trixie Belden's and Little House books.

Then I took a permanent marker and wrote in the appropriate Dewey Decimal numbers right on the surface of the shelf.

Yikes.

But no one scolded me for it. My (very forgiving) parents realized that I had a plan, and were wise and kind enough to let me play it out the way I wanted.

I think we all need certain things in our lives that bring us comfort and joy. I was lucky enough to find mine very early on, and they have stood me in good stead for more than half a century now.

I hope you have yours close at hand on this winter's day.

State of Contentment

When we moved to Brookwood Court, I had this pretty vision of how I wanted my daily life to be - the early morning coffee in my bedroom reading nook, walking the pups along the ponds, writing or working in the sunny corner of my upstairs office. Afternoons chores and errands, followed by reading in the living room with a cup of tea, or curling up in the cozy library corner of the basement when the weather was cold and gray. Preparing meals in my large, bright kitchen, with some Chopin, Debussy, or Secret Garden playing softly in the background. Well, guess what?

My vision came true.

That doesn't often happen in life, does it?

Real life rarely looks like what we picture in our minds. And even when life mirrors imagination, sometimes it doesn't turn out to be as fulfilling as we had hoped.

But a good number of my days play out exactly as I imagined they would, and they feel as right as I had hoped.  I have such an overwhelming sense of contentment here, a feeling of being in exactly the right place at the right time. The restlessness that plagued me for the past few years is gone.

I feel at home.

If you know me, either "virtually," or  in real life (or both!) you know how much of a homebody I am. Sometimes I love my home too much, want to cocoon myself safely away from the rest of the world which seems more and more cacophonous and intrusive. I don't fight it anymore, but simply indulge myself in the need to nest, trusting the instincts that tell me to say home, be quiet, revel in the stillness.

The real world constantly urges our participation, invites us to expect big things, exhorts us to make something happen.

We're forever being nudged to the next big thing.

Right now I'm just letting contentment happen, and for me that's something big.

How about you? What's the big thing in your life right now? 

Write On Wednesday: Fear of Writing

Sometimes writing scares me. I have things I want to write about, exciting ideas that often come to mind while I'm doing something completely un-writerly like grocery shopping or exercising. My heart races a little bit, a shiver runs down my spine. I rummage around looking for a notebook and pen, a leftover to-do list, something to make a note of this amazing idea before it gets lost in the detritus of everyday thinking. Then comes the scary part.

No matter how good I think the idea is, I'm afraid to start writing about it. Afraid to sit down in front of that blank computer screen and do the labor to bring that idea into the world.

What is so frightening? What is it that stills my fingers and pushes that idea to the back of my mind? Is it the fear of failing - that I won't be able to do this thing justice, make of it what I know it could be? Am I worried that this magical notion really isn't magical at all, and that once I begin to flesh it out on the page it will turn into a deformed monster rather than a beautifully realized story?

Could it be that I'm terrified of what I might discover about myself if I go deep enough inside my heart to bring this story to the world? Terrified to take the risk of exposing myself, my talent (or lack of it), my story?

"The risk of writing is an internal risk," says Laraine Herring in her book Writing Begins with the Breath. "You brave the depths of your own being and then bring it back up for commentary by the world. Not the work of wimps. Many writers would likely rather climb Mt. Fuji than go in there, but in there is precisely where you must go. You can't really prepare yourself for what's in there because you don't know all that's in there."

I'm not a mountain climber. Sometimes- especially when it comes to writing- I'm a wimp. I'm afraid of the unknown, afraid of change.

I don't like taking risks.

But I do know that the well of ideas and emotions living inside me need to find their way into the world, need to come to life on the page. And I must find the courage to start putting them there.

Anaïs Nin once wrote this: And the day came when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.

I think I'm ready for that day.

How about you? What fears stop you from writing? Are you able to take the risk and bloom?

*this post was originally published on the Write On Wednesday blog, September 28, 2011

Loud and Proud

Sunday night I spent some time watching The Golden Globe awards. I'm not really star struck, I  just like to see what everyone is wearing. I know that sounds suspiciously like the old excuse men used to give for having a Playboy magazine in the house. ("I only read the articles, honey!" Right.) Anyway, I wasn't giving the show my entire attention. The other half of my brain was surfing the internet, looking at bracelets on Etsy. (What can I say? It was Sunday night, it was late, I felt like doing something mindless.)

When I realized that Jodi Foster was getting some sort of  lifetime achievement award, I started paying closer attention. Jodi Foster is younger than I am. Why were they giving her a lifetime achievement award? I wondered. Did she have some terminal illness I hadn't heard about?

No, it seems the Cecil B. DeMille award is a prize that recognizes "outstanding contributions in entertainment." So not really a "lifetime" achievement, even though she is the second youngest person every to receive the award. Judy Garland was the youngest, receiving it in 1962 at age 39.

I digress. The award isn't the interesting thing here.

Her acceptance speech was the real stunner. Af first it seemed like some rambling stream of consciousness diatribe. But then it took a different tack, although her tone continued in the same satirical and humorous vein. "I guess I have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public," she said. "So, a declaration that I’m a little nervous about...but I’m just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m going to need your support on this. I am single."

Of course that wasn't the important declaration at all - Foster was talking about the fact that she is gay.  She went on to say she "did her real coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age, when a very young girl opened up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and, gradually, proudly, to everyone who knew her and everyone she met. She poked fun at the current trend of celebrity confessionals, but then stated something quite thought provoking. "Seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy.”

I have to make a confession of my own. I didn't even GET it until the next day, when I read about it on the internet. While I was watching the speech, my attention must have strayed for a moment (those dang bracelets on Etsy). I missed the "loud and proud" reference, missed the reference to her "real coming-out about a thousand years ago."

Now she's become the center of a little whirlwind, is being both praised and vilified by Gay Rights activists and the general public. Praised for at last verifying what inquiring minds apparently have wanted to know for the past 20 years, vilified for not being more forceful about her declaration, for not be "loud and proud enough" to come out and say the words "I am a lesbian," but only to dance around it with rhetorical humor.

It doesn't matter to me what Foster's sexual orientation is, which is probably why I missed the reference in the first place. I admire her acting, her directing, the classy way she has conducted her long life in show business, but I've never given her private life much consideration because she herself has never made an issue of it (unlike many celebrities whose lives become part of their "brand.")

But I'm wondering (because I'm always all about why people do what they do) if she does indeed "value privacy above all else," why did she feel the need to make that public declaration now, after a lifetime of maintaining at least of modicum of privacy about her personal life. What compulsion led her to jump on the Honey Boo Boo bandwagon and put it all out there in this particular forum?

Because it seems to me she has defeated the decades of privacy she evidently worked so hard to establish.

Perhaps she was simply thumbing her nose at the public or the entire celebrity culture. Or perhaps, as she told  her two sons who were in the audience, "this, this whole song, was all about them," about demonstrating honesty and forthrightness and being proud of who you are.

About being able to tell your story.

I believe so much in the power of stories. They connect us, they equalize us, they inspire us, they provoke us. Telling your story to one person or one million people is a gift to you and to the listener.

But I also believe the way we tell those stories is important, that it should be in kind with type of life you've lived, the type of reaction you want to inspire, and the reason you're telling it in the first place.

And I wish Foster had chosen a different way to tell hers.

The Sunday Salon: Some Tame Gazelle

Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:

Something to love, oh, something to love.

~Thomas Haynes Bayly

Ah, something to love. That is indeed a major focus in Barbara Pym's delightful novel, Some Tame Gazelle, in which we find a small clutch of English matrons looking for someone on whom to bestow their ardor. For Harriet Bede, it's the village curate of the day, the hapless young man who has been assigned to their parish and by default becomes the objet du jour of Harriet's affection. In today's parlance, she would be called a cougar for the merciless way she flirts with the young men. But in the confines of the 1950's when this novel is set, there's something rather sweet about it- even though Harriet keeps refusing the marriage proposals of the ever so proper Count Bianco, who would be a perfect match.

And then there is Harriet's sister, Belinda, who reminds me of a tame gazelle, all gentleness and shyness, trying so hard to please. Alas, Belinda was not fleet enough to snare the love of her life, the imperious Archdeacon, whom she has loved since the days of her youth but whose affections were given elsewhere. And now she follows him around the parish like a sad puppy, hoping for a crumb of attention here and there.

Barbara Pym (1913-1980) was a very young woman when she wrote this (it was the first of her novels to be published , in 1950  but was written years before), and I'm amazed at how well she captures the poignancy of middle age spinsterhood at her young age. She later said the novel "proved therapeutic, and helped her release some feelings she had been having difficulty with at the time." One can only imagine what those might have been.

Pym's novels all extol the virtues of life in the English countryside, and she has been compared to a modern day Jane Austen with her keen eye to manners and relationships. If you love Austen, you will enjoy Pym. She examined relationships -especially unrequited love - with an amusing and loving eye. Her work is laced with a deliciously ironic sense of humor, and I alternately laugh and cry about her characters the quietly absurd situations in which they find themselves.

2013 is Pym's centenary, and apparently LibraryThing is hosting a year long reading event to coincide. I first read about it at Ali's blog so decided to join in. I've had several of Pym's books on my shelves since the early 1990's when a friend introduced me to her. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to re-read my favorites and introduce myself to the rest. I also hope to read a bit more about Pym herself.

Here is the reading list if you're interested in joining in this event:

• January 2013 Some Tame Gazelle (1950)

• February 2013 Excellent Women (1952) • March 2013 Jane and Prudence (1953) • April 2013Less than Angels (1955) • May 2013 A Glass of Blessings (1958) • June 2013 No Fond Return of Love (1961) • June 2013Quartet in Autumn (1977) • July 2013The Sweet Dove Died (1978) • August 2013 A Few Green Leaves (1980) • September 2013Crampton Hodnet (completed circa 1940, published 1985) • October 2013 An Unsuitable Attachment (written 1963; published posthumously, 1982) • November 2013 An Academic Question (written 1970-72; published 1986) • December 2013 Civil to Strangers (written 1936; published posthumously, 1989)