The Sunday Salon (on Monday): Setting My House In Order

It’s one of those times when I’m having trouble keeping my reading “house" in order.

You probably know what I mean: I’ve got too many books on the go at once - the one I’m reading as research for a writing project, the one I’m reading as inspiration for the Writing Life in General, the novel I’m reading for “entertainment.” I’ve known for a long time that it doesn’t suit my reading personality to be in the middle of too many books. I like things nice and neat and orderly in all my houses. 

Plus, all this dithering around with books has gotten me behind on my 100 Book reading challenge for the year too, which is nagging at me.

So yesterday I made one an those executive decision: set aside the novel that’s not really engaging me anyway and finish the other two books, one of which is The 10 Letters Project, by Jen Lee and Tim Manley. 

I must tell you that The 10 Letters Project is filling me up with so much goodness - so much inspiration; so much thoughtfulness between these two correspondents who write to and of each other which such care and kindness; so much YES, ME TOO in the stories they share about their lives and work. This book makes it hard to read other books. I want to crawl in here and live with Jen Lee and Tim Manley for a while. I want to insert my story in the margins. In fact, I’m already planning to go right back to the beginning as soon as I finish reading it, pen in hand, to underline, notate, and interject my own two cents into the correspondence.

Through all of this, though, I was reminded of how much I just love BOOKS. Saturday my husband and I sat out on our deck for most of the afternoon. Yes, I sat there too. I spent nearly three hours sitting in one place with a pile of books on the table next to me. I let myself just be there, enjoying the picture perfect day, the quiet in the neighborhood (for a change, no construction, lawn mowers, or mulch blowing!) Even the dogs were quiet and undemanding - we took them to the park in the morning and wore them out on purpose, so they napped inside under the ceiling fan all afternoon.

But, back to books. And I mean real, physical books, not the digital facsimiles that will never replace them in my lexicon.

All afternoon, I could feel my husband becoming more and more frustrated by a failure in his technology. One of his favorite “apps” had been updated, and now no longer worked properly on his old iPad, or even his new iPad. (He has an upstairs and downstairs iPad...yes, I know.) He kept muttering and sputtering about all the things that were now “screwed up.” He was emailing customer support, internet chatting with customer support, going back and forth between the two devices to see just how many common malfunctions there were.

Meanwhile, I sat quietly with my book. I jotted notes in my writing journal, copied down some favorite quotes in my Day Book. Sometimes I just looked at the blue sky and listened to the birds.

Books are so easy. They feel good in your hands, they are lovely objects with real weight - not ephemeral and fickle like technology. Books don’t need to be updated, they are never too ancient to handle new software, they don’t have bugs or need fixes. 

They are quiet, good, and faithful companions. 

My house will never be without them.

And the Livin’ is Easy

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? The Grasshopper, by Mary Oliver

I haven’t quite eased into the summer routine yet, haven’t given myself the permission I need to relax and let go of some of my schedules and obligatory to-do’s.  I haven’t quite learned to “be idle and blessed,” to “stroll through the fields.” It’s always a struggle for me to truly sink into down time. I can’t quite give up the notion that I should be accomplishing more every day, especially when the days are SO long.

I was talking with a friend the other day about living more pro-actively, about planning in terms of large blocks of time so I don’t feel so bogged down reacting to minutiae. On the surface that sounds like more control than I should be concerned with, especially in the summer; sounds like just another way to put pressure on myself to follow the schedule or the plan. 

But as I experiment with thinking this way (and as my friend reminded me it’s all just an experiment, nothing is written in stone) I find it actually feels freeing, to think about what I can do in a week or month, to look at an entire year’s calendar and notice those times when I might need some extra rest because of a busy concert schedule, or when other obligations are lighter and I could dedicate more time to creative projects, or when I might be emotionally tender and need to treat myself with extra gentleness.

 I've started looking at my life with a different lens, sort of a wide-angle perspective rather than the narrow up close view that leads to knee-jerk reactions, and I find it feels safer, as if I’m not just a sitting duck in an arcade game waiting for someone with good aim to blast me off my perch. I could actually be someone who has a thoughtful, informed outlook on how to manage my life in a way that I enjoy it more and feel the most satisfied and happy.

So this easy livin’ summertime thing with all these hours of unstructured daylight - what does that look like for me?

For one thing, I’m sleeping SO much better - in fact, last night I was already falling asleep even when it was still light outside, so I just went upstairs and crawled into bed where I slept peacefully until my normal wake up time this morning. 

I’m drinking infused water - my favorite is with oranges and strawberries - and make a pitcher  every morning to sip throughout the day.

I’m eating lots of fresh salads and vegetables - lunch these days is often power greens with a mixture of toppings: feta cheese, chick peas, grilled chicken or salmon.

I’m sitting still - outside on my deck surrounded by huge pots of flowers, upstairs in the soft chair by my desk, curled up in a corner of the couch where I can catch a glimpse of hummingbirds whirring up to the feeder.

I’m reading  - volume 2 in the Outlander series (Dragonfly in Amber), my “guilty pleasure” summer reading series this year. Also The Ten Letters Project, a book that is just grabbing my heart with one “Me too!” moment after another. I’m also reading some interesting books for a new writing project, which I’m not quite ready to talk about yet, but I find myself pretty engaged in it.

I’m writing  - on this new project, and also committing to my three weekly blog posts.

I’m watching - Grace and Frankie a great series on Netflix starring Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, two long time friends re-inventing their lives after a major upheaval. (Hint: It involves their husbands, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, who have been business partners for 30 years and are taking their partnership to "another level”.)

The danger zone in my summer days is always late afternoon into early evening. Jim has been working long hours for the past few months, and often doesn’t get home until 7:30 or even 8:00. Although this pattern isn’t totally unfamiliar, it’s been quite a few years since we’ve consistently lived with this schedule. I find it hard to be home alone during that time period, find myself restless and bored. I can’t seem to settle into reading, I feel like I need something more active than that, but I’m never in the mood to do anything. It’s times like those that I wish I could do needlework - I seem to need to so something with my hands. So I’m making a list of things I can do during that time to engage myself. Playing the piano is an option. So is trying some kind of simple art projects - coloring? collage? 

Sinking into summertime, to the idea of easy living, of enjoying my one wild and precious life - that is my work for the world these days. And how blessed I am to be able to discover it.

Write On Wednesday: Into the World

Tonight I will be doing something brand new for me, at least new for me as a writer. Tonight I am attending a book club meeting in the role of “author,” a word I still feel strange applying to myself. It’s a momentous occasion, and, as you might guess for this introverted person, a little bit terrifying. 

But still, it’s something I have been so looking forward to doing, something I was honored to be asked to do. And in the end, I keep reminding myself, these women in the book club who read Life In General are women very much like me. They are in the throes of this Life In General business just like I am. I am hoping there was something in my book, something in the words they read there that has connected with their heart and spirit.

This week I’ve been reading The 10 Letters Project, a book by Jen Lee and Tim Manley that captures a year’s worth of emails between these two creative people, emails in which they discussed the intersection of life and art and work. It’s the perfect book to read this week, as I prepare my thoughts for tonight’s gathering. Six months after the publication of Life In General, I’ve been able to see more clearly the importance of putting our voice into the world and gain some greater perspective on the reasons this endeavor was so important for me personally.

And because my original expectations for my book were small, I’ve felt continually bowled over by the reception it’s received. I have been given the gift of being heard, of connecting my story to the lives of other women, many of them total strangers, who now know me in some way, who carry a small piece of me around with them. 

Make no mistake, it’s a scary thing to put your life out in the world for all to see. I have said jokingly to people that “my life is now an open book,” but it’s really true. There is part of me that sometimes want to pull it all back in, to run around and grab everyone’s book and say, “Just erase all that drivel from your mind.” That is the part of me that thinks my life is so ordinary that it’s not worth writing about, and certainly not worth reading about.  

But then one of those readers will reach out to me with a comment like, “I feel so much better since I read the chapter you wrote about church and religion.  I thought I was the only one who felt that way!” 

The gift of a message like that is two-fold: of course it’s validation that my words and experiences can mean something to others. But it also gives me the gift of knowing I’m not alone either. And for someone like me, whose circle of family is SO small, it helps to know I’ve left something of myself behind, let it loose into a world of people that become a little bit like an extended family to me.

“The truth is,” Lee writes, “that with all of our work we are asked to do it on faith. Faith that it is worth making whether we ever see the difference it makes or the pleasure it brings or not, because we never really get to know how far it travels and how much it means and to whom.”

Tonight I will get a glimpse of where Life In General has traveled, and I’m thrilled to go out into the world along with it.

The Heart of the Matter

We’re just home from a short trip to Florida - to the Disney World Resort, where we have a membership in their Vacation Club, which gives us the ability to stay in any of the properties scattered across the mecca that is Walt Disney’s magical “World.” We bought our membership back in the early 1990’s, and have used it to good advantage over the years.  Now that we have a child in the family again, I expect we will continue to make good use of it as we introduce Connor to the wonderful world of Disney.

The resort we like best is Old Key West - it’s style and architecture is modeled after the Florida Keys, and our one bedroom apartment offers a view of a quiet lagoon, with blue herons standing knee deep in the rushes, and willow branches sweeping gracefully over the balcony.

On this occasion, the trip was just for Jim and I, a few days getaway from the pressure of the nine-to-five. Or in his case, the nine-to-seven-or-eight, as it’s been many nights for the past few months. His work life has been extremely harried of late, something he’s not had to contend with for a number of years. So he was definitely in need of a respite. 

As was I. You’ve read my posts about the difficulties of this past winter, the chronic illness, the constant cold weather, the feeling of sadness and want and need that seemed to pervade my spirit. All of those feelings were evident in my writing, and certainly in the way I conducted my life in general here at home. I could put on a pretty good front in public, but at home the guard came down and the frustration and irritability took their toll.

These past few days as we meandered around the resort, wandering hand in hand along familiar sidewalks and avenues, lingering over a glass of wine at outdoor cafe’s, we began to feel all the tensions of everyday life disappear, and with it the tensions that had grown between us. We realized it had been almost two years since we had been away together as a couple. We’ve not been able to travel much recently, and when we have it’s been with friends, musical groups, or family. As enjoyable as those trips can be, it’s not the same as having unscheduled time for just the two of us, where we have only ourselves to amuse, only our own timetable to meet, only our own pleasure to consider. 

It was wonderful and much needed. 

When you’ve been married for nearly four decades, it’s natural to let many things go unspoken. You develop a short hand language - a glance here, a sigh there. Sometimes a raised eyebrow or an irritated shake of the head. There is a collective intelligence you have as a couple based on years of experience and daily life: each individual knows their role, and it’s easy and expedient to remain in the groove of it, to silently follow the familiar path you’ve created. 

But sometimes in marriage, as in life, it’s important to stand back and take stock of where that path has led you. Perhaps it’s to a place as lovely and tranquil as our resort in Florida; but perhaps it’s a prickly thicket of weeds. 

Perhaps it’s a little of both.

Part of the appeal of our trips to Disney World are all the memories we have there. For nearly every place we go throughout the 17 miles of “world” we found ourselves recalling a moment from the past. “Remember when we took Brian and his friend James on the speedboat ride at night to watch the fireworks?” "Remember when we came with the Birkby’s, and Cara was dressed up as Snow White for the Princess Breakfast?” “Remember when we would come here and spend the weekend while Brian was in college?” “Remember how Brian loved to swim in the pool after dark?”

We remember it all. Fondly.

But we aren’t the same people we were in those days. We’ve suffered losses, our health isn’t always good, we get tired much easier than we once did. We worry a little about keeping up with Connor on all those trips we hope to have with him here in the future. We worry a little bit about what life will be like for us in the years ahead, knowing how easy it can be to drift apart, to huddle silently in separate corners of misery.

Katrina Kenison writes about this very thing in her book, Magical Journey. “To grow without growing apart,” she says, "to allow the one you love to be different today than he or she was yesterday and to love him or her anyway, even as you struggle to figure out what has changed: Perhaps this is the challenge that must ultimately be surmounted in every long-term relationship if it’s to remain fresh and resilient, rather than growing stale and stiff with age, too brittle to bend and stretch with time. 

As we age and mature into marriage, we define and redefine “love” so many times. What was considered love in the early days - the intimate pleasure taken in all those “firsts” as a couple; the excitement of building a home and a shared future - all that changes as the “first time experiences become few and far between, as the future begins to look a little grim with worries about health and finances and long-term care. 

“I know my husband and I love each other,” Kenison goes on to say. “But it seems we’re both coming to see that love alone isn’t enough to keep a commitment alive; we need imagination, too. And enough courage and creativity to create a new form for our marriage, a marriage that’s growing old and being forced to adapt, just as we are.”

And there’s the heart of the matter. “Love” - however you define it - isn’t always enough. Yes, it takes imagination to find new ways of relating to one another. Yes, it takes courage to veer off those tried and true pathways, even if they are flat and devoid of scenery. It also takes time and energy, and all too often I spend so many of my resources in those areas on other things that aren’t nearly as important.

Already this morning I awoke feeling threatened by the overwhelming “to-do” list that runs like ticker tape through my brain. Make doctor’s appointments; straighten out a mixup with my mom’s medications; cut the dog’s hair; water the plants; steam clean the wood floor in the kitchen; have the windows washed; return all those shorts I bought that didn’t fit; go grocery shopping; take shirts to the cleaners; write reviews for those books I read; clean the stove in the kitchen...You all know the kinds of lists I’m talking about. They’re all things it seems necessary to get clear of before I can focus on the things that are my true heart’s desire.

The past few days reminded me of how much my husband and my marriage really are my heart’s desire, and how (despite a long daily list of chores, tasks, and modern-day dilemmas) finding ways to make that relationship a priority is what will make my heart sing with true happiness.