Open Book

Stop counting crayons,just draw pictures.

1. Searching for a quote to title this week's edition of Thursday Thirteen, I stumbled upon this beauty by Mark Scharenbroich. It sings to me, on about seventeen different levels.
2. At the bookstore, we are always debating the proper categorization of certain books. The classics section spurs some particularly contentious - albeit friendly! - discussions. After reviewing lists from a multitude of literary powerhouses of some repute and getting no satisfaction, we recently resorted to posting a Facebook poll about The Bell Jar. Classic or not a classic - what say you?
3. During our recent trip to Maine, we made the requisite pilgrimage to the L.L. Bean complex in Freeport. I purchased a few several a multitude of items, including a pair of brown "Perfect Fit" pants, which have quickly become my very, very favorite pants ever in the history of the all-time world. So when I got home, I ordered three more pair ($39.50 each + free shipping? Yes, please.) I may never wear anything else ever again.
4. These pants are a combination of jersey knit and lycra, with an elastic band waist and - here's the cherry on the cake - pockets. Deep, wonderful, perfect pockets. I realize they sound dreadfully like the ultimate "Mommy pants," but they don't wear like them, or look like them, and I'm not just saying that to make myself feel better about living in them. It's like getting away with wearing your pj's to work, while putting on a dressy-casual front. Perfection. Seriously.
5. Today is the last day of Street Cleaning Season. Meaning no more evil little green tickets tucked into windshields when you can't remember which side of the street you're supposed to move your car to/from on Tuesdays/Thursdays, and at what time. It's a real pain in the ass, and I have a sneaking suspicion these $25 violations ($50 if you don't pay within 10 days) probably fund 68% of our city's fiscal budget. Give or take.
6. I'd hold a celebratory bonfire fueled by an all-neighborhood collection of unpaid tickets in the middle of our street tonight if it weren't raining. And if it wouldn't earn me a probable triple digit fine.
7. Do any of you watch The Fabulous Beekman Boys on Planet Green? I love them with my whole entire heart. Even Alice Waters is a fan. ALICE FREAKIN' WATERS. The boys recently produced a cookbook, which I ordered for the store - and for myself - on its release day. It's beautiful. Wonderful. Superb. If there is a cook in your life, or a naturalist, or maybe just someone aspiring to be a better human being, it would make a perfect gift. I'm giving it to at least three people on my Christmas list this year. IT'S THAT GOOD. (P.S. Their website is well worthy of bookmarking for daily visits, too.)
8. While we're on the subject of TV (sorta), I must express my disappointment with the new slate of shows this season. The only new one I watch with any regularity, wherein regularity = if I happen to come across it while surfing channels, is 'Whitney.' I am also disappointed in the toilet diving that the once original and acerbic 'House' is engaging in this year. Were it not for sports, 'Parenthood' (best show on TV right now), the occasional movie, HBO documentaries, 'Criminal Minds', and 'Modern Family', my television would serve no greater purpose than background noise. (I am also a 'Family Guy', 'American Dad', and 'Squidbillies' addict, but some things are too embarrassing to admit in public.)
9. We are going to Charlotte this weekend. We'll be staying with my BFF and her husband, and there are plans afoot for much fun, food, friendship and frivolity. There are also plans to knock yet one more thing off of my 100 Things with a Twist life list.
10. Don't get too excited...the item to be crossed off involves attending a little football game. Which thrills me to no end; I mean, it's on my LIFE LIST. But I appreciate that you may be yawning over some of my choices for inclusion there, especially those involving sports.
11. ANYWAY, the point I am TRYING - and failing fabulously - to make is this: it's high time for a 100 Things with a Twist list update. I've had the good fortune to actually achieve several items on it in the past couple of years, even if in slightly modified fashion, and a few more of them are just not really applicable or desirable any more. Time passes, bucket lists change, and re-visits are called for.
12. Heh. Curiosity got the best of me and I just clicked through to my original 100 Things post. Wowsers. Pardon me while I LOL. Time passes, and bloggers change, too, as it turns out. I'm actually a bit surprised by how much of it holds up, but it could certainly benefit from a refresher, as well. Also too.
13. Our daughter forwards us a weekly email from a website that has made its name comparing babies-to-be to Farmer's Market produce. These emails are a highlight of any day they are received. This week, my granddaughter is a rutabaga. A rutabaga! I had to Google it. Please tell me the picture of the Rutabaga Royalty three rows down made you snort coffee out of your nose. No? Just me? Really? Okay then. Carry on.

As fast as thou shalt wane,so fast thou grow'st.

When I decided against buying the store a few months back, all of the thought, work, effort, brainstorming, calculating, researching, hoping, dreaming, and what-if-ing that had been fueling nearly every waking moment came to a sudden (and somewhat rude) dead stop.

It was a jolt, even though I was the one working through the details and arriving at the conclusion, precisely because I was the one working through the details - for months. Every day was centered on a mission: figure this out. To take the plunge or not? That was the question, and sussing out the proper answer required a lot of time, a lot of focus, a lot of attention.

Once the decision was made and none of that was necessary any more, I felt myself pulling off to the side of the proverbial road until I eventually landed in an inevitable, not so proverbial, rut.

I'm good with ruts. Well, maybe not "good" with them; I mean, that defeats the purpose of a rut at its core, right? Let's say I'm...strangely comfortable with ruts. Ruts are familiar territory for me. I tend to drive myself into them with stunning regularity. And if there isn't one conveniently available for the driving into, it's not uncommon to find me digging away until - lo and behold, would you look at that? - there's a nice little rut, ready for duty.

After nearly five decades of living with myself, there are some things you'd think I'd have figured out. Granted, there are a multitude of things that I've mastered the fine art of pointing out. But figuring out? Not so much.

Anyway. Where was I?

Oh, yes.

In a rut.

Again.

It's like this big algebraic equation in my head. While I was working toward the very possibility of owning the bookstore, I was working toward a purpose. A tangible thing. A raison d'etre, if you will. When the math didn't work, instead of accepting the decisive outcome as a well-justified, reasonable result, my mind insisted the right answer was less a satisfactory conclusion and more a completely voided [ null ]  that required recalculation, additional variables, and new integers in order to be solved.

Now, I suck at math. Always have. We've discussed this before, at length.

Which may explain why I was able to convince myself that the Great Meaning of The Calculated Decision Outcome was that my life is somehow less than whole; that by not confirming the original hypothesis wherein {Jennifer x Destiny}/(Sentimentality) = BOOKSTORE, a new hypothesis was born. Wherein {Jennifer x What Do I Want To Do With My Life}/(Woe is Me) = RUT.

The past few months have been spent floating just beneath the surface of my own life, deep enough in the murky waters to obscure a decent view of my own reality.

I applied for full-time, low paying jobs I'm vastly overqualified for, for no good reason beyond ... well, for no good reason. I wrote up a business plan to resurrect my old company here in town, even though my heart is nowhere close to being in it. I made a million lists without ever intending to check off a single item, just to give myself demonstrable proof of my myriad shortcomings. I held back, just enough, from giving my whole heart to things I love: taking care of this house, for one example. Writing, reading, cooking, adventuring, volunteering, art making, planning, for a few more. I just sort of...stopped. I settled into my comfortable little rut of stagnation, waiting for something - what? - to rescue me.

It's just so incredibly stupid.

It's just so incredibly petty.

It's just so incredibly messed up.

It's just so incredibly self-loathing, self-centered, selfish.

It's just so incredibly ... worthless.

All the more so because I am so vividly aware of it. I see it, and recognize it, and at times even (shamefully) encourage it, every single day. And if it dares look back accusingly at me, I toss it a scornful glare and a half-assed, "So?"

So?

So?!?

*sigh*

It doesn't even take hindsight to realize the ridiculousness of it; I can see the self-pity with great clarity, even as I'm wallowing in it.

It's part of the game, right?

Here's the thing: I always, eventually, snap out of it.

Always.

Eventually.

Yesterday, while finishing up a project for a friend that took me out of my own head and comfort zone for hours at a time, I felt the earth begin to shift. Ever so slightly, but enough. I paid attention. I leveraged it. And I climbed out of my rut.

Today, the world feels right again, and I feel right in it.

Maybe tomorrow, I can work on figuring out why I ever waste time allowing myself to settle for anything less than just exactly that.

 

____

*Title from Shakespeare, Sonnet 11.

Say hello to my little friends.

There is a quote I've stashed away somewhere, uttered by someone who - at least once in their life - had something of value to say. I can't for the life of me remember who that someone was, but I've got their words memorized.

Life is like a library owned by the author. In it are a few books he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.

Now, I can see how you could take a superficial glance at those words and brush them away as useless or trite. But I love them. They could have spilled out of my own mind, at any one of a hundred points along the spectrum of this life I've lived thus far, and been solidly timely, wholly right, and steadfastly true.

My life, the entire breadth and width of it, as long as I've been aware of it, has been inspired by those books others wrote for me.

Not literally, of course. It's bigger than that. It's the metaphorical manifestation of how I experience life, learn knew things, see the larger world around me. Nowhere is this more vividly realized than through the people I've met in the magical land of blogging.

I've been doing this for eight years, give or take. In that time, there are people I've "met" through this medium who have become part of the fabric of my (for lack of a better word) "real" life. Some of you have been with me since I started this little adventure and have become honest-to-goodness hand-to-heart friends. Without ever meeting in person, without every sharing a conversation over coffee, without the benefit of geographical closeness. Without any of that, we've managed to establish fondness and genuine bond; we've cultivated and earned the symbiotic ties of shared history.

Over the past year or so that I have struggled, when endeavoring to maintain this little journal could overwhelm me with such conflict - ennui? arrogance? - and other social media venues requiring sporadic thought in 140 character bites or less threatened to eclipse my need for it, those friendships kept me tethered here.

And now, when the very idea of letting this journal fall into a state of irreparable disrepair fills me with despair, it is the discovery of a whole new collection of you that inspires me to carry on.

Today I just want to pay small tribute to three of the amazing women I've met (or stalked. whichever) this past year, who have nourished my mind, touched my heart, or just simply encouraged me (through no fault of their own) - often without even knowing the place they hold in my heart.

The best way I know to do that is to introduce them to you.

There's Kim, for a start. A beautiful soul from the Great White North, she is one half of the duo behind the wonderful daily dispatches from The Deep Old Desk. We share a great love of books, and food, and tea, and introspection. You can read a bit about her here, and while it might give you a small sense of why she's quickly become one of my favorite people, it won't tell the whole story. Dig deeper. You'll figure it out for yourself. In the meantime, allow me to say - without hesitation or overstatement - that she is one of the kindest, most genuine human beings alive, and I'm so lucky to know her.

There's the irrepressible, wiser than her years, utterly beautiful Stereo. There is no way I can come up with an introduction to top the one she's written about herself, so I won't try.

"Stereo. twenty-something London based lady. Nigerian to the core. Landlady. possessing of a dry wit & a razor sharp tongue. I listen to music you'd probably hate, I speed read, I have an extensive vocabulary, I drink sugar-free soda, wear jeans almost everyday, and have not quite yet escaped all of my tomboyish tendencies. I'm not au-fait with what's "in", I paint my toenails but not my fingernails, I spend too much money on cushions and pretty-smelling lotions, I write until my fingers cramp, I sing tunelessly and with no shame, I have small eyes, small ears and big hair and I own roughly 38 pairs of jeans. Often raw, but always soft-hearted. Zero patience for tomfoolery. I speak as I find."

She speaks as she finds. And I absolutely, positively ADORE EVERY BONE IN HER BODY for it.

And lastly - for now - there is Mrs. Mediocrity, who is - trust me - anything but. She has a unique take on life, and her photos make me feel like I'm getting a hold-your-breath sneak peek into a window on her world. But her words! I find myself engaging in a bit of mind wrestling: is it inappropriate to use a full complement of words, words, words, to tell you about someone with breathtaking skill at paring them down, distilling them to their most useful, powerful essence, no muss, no fuss, full impact? I think it might be. So I'm going to borrow a few of hers, to pair with this verbose minefield of mine, that sum it all up nicely for me: it's true what they say...opposites attract.

There are more. So many more. But I think I'll pause there for now, and live to revisit this sharing practice another day.

For this day, I'll leave with a simple note of heartfelt thanks to these lovely ladies.

I hope you know how much I treasure the volumes you've written that are now securely ensconced in the library of my life. It is a vastly richer place with them in it.

I had some dreams,they were clouds in my coffee.

 Ah, Sunday morning.

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

The husband is already up and away, working in one of the last golf outings of the year, which promises to be a day-long affair. Before he left, he brewed up a full pot of coffee that was ready and waiting on me when I finally made my way to the kitchen. THAT, my friends, is both the meaning of life and the very definition of love, in my book.

The house is full of that peaceful quasi-silence wrought by solitude.

I'm in my pj's, curled up in my corner of the sofa, cup of coffee within easy reach on my right and a snoring pup tucked in close on my left.

The options are limitless; a virtual smorgasbord.

Finish the last few chapters of this book? Work my way through weeks of DVR'd goodness? Commence to scanning still more old family photos? Outline a plot of achievement for the week ahead? Merge the multiple old address books into the brand new one, purchased for the job?  Clean? Work up an inspired menu of meals for the next few days?

None of the above? Tiny bites from each course of possibility? Act on a spontaneous, heretofore unconsidered idea?

This is the thing about Sundays in my world...so many choices, more often than not, leads to not actually making any, until, before I know it, Sunday evening is fading to black and the only option that remains is waking up to the harsh reality that is Monday morning.

Even so.

Sunday mornings, taken on their own merits, are worth all the Mondays in the world.

(Feel free to remind me of this next time I wake up pouting with less-than-righteous indignation about being forced to endure the putritudinal indignities that are Monday mornings. It's coming. You know it. I know it. But on Sunday morning, all of that feels so very far away, and I am content to just...roll with it.)

_________________

 My head has been a fuzzy navel of a place for the past few months. Full and empty all at the same time; racing in place, no direction known. One nice thing about blogging all these years is the ability to scan back through time and recognize that this is less cause for alarm and more an annual, seasonal retreat of the grey matter.

I always thought the idea of a "light box" was pretty goofy. Even when every blurb or bit I read about them is doing everything but screaming my name. Clearly, the shorter days and cooler weather of my favorite season enjoy playing with my emotional stability, whether I'd care to acknowledge it out loud or not. Still, a light box? It just seems...silly.

I, being me, prefer to cater to my inner warrior-wannabe, riding the rollicking autumnal tides sans assistance. Or safety net. Because I'm a stubborn creature of make-the-road-as-difficult-to-navigate-as-possible habit, more comfortable plodding along in her own long-trodden footsteps than admitting she doesn't always know the way.

So is this leading to a great revelation? Is this the part where I tell you I gave in and confronted my own obstinacy? Sat before the reportedly mighty box o' light and, lo, healed myself?

No. Not exactly. This is the part where I say I took the path most traveled by, endured and came out the other side, yet again. This is the part where I admit it's not the best way, but refuse to concede I might try an alternative next time. This is the part where I share my relief that the fuzz of fog is once again, knock on wood and thank the stars of luck, waning, lifting, clearing.

I am nothing if not doggedly consistent, right or wrong.

I am nothing if not me, good or bad.

One of these days, I'm going to reconcile what that means, exactly.

In the meantime, it's only fair to confess that when I am in the throes of these mentally challenging periods, there is one thing I can focus on all too clearly: my singular attention to the tendency of self-destruction.

It's almost a hallmark of mine. And while I don't like to believe it's one I'm proud of, I certainly can't deny that I foster it. Protect it. Preserve it. Document it. Examine it. Own it. Know it.

But I've never allowed myself to fully understand it.

It's been the circular, running inner monologue of my life for as long as I've been aware of such things. And still, through all the years, all the examination, all the awareness, I've opted to be a passive observer of it. "It." As if it's not "Me."

I bring this here because I want to evolve past this; I want to be an active participant in owning it. In knowing "Me," or, maybe more to the point, in becoming me.

And one way I can do that is through writing.

Writing is a Great Love of My Life. For the past couple of years I've willfully allowed my writing muscle to atrophy through the abuse of disuse. This alarms me. It's an inexcusable, inexplicable truth in my own mind, and one I plan to fix.

I give great weight to the belief that writing down the bones is - for me - a path to happiness, wholeness, comprehension. It's a path to simple abundance, something more, something better. It's a path - for me - to taking care of myself, protecting myself...being myself.

Writing is the great equalizer. It crystallizes and purifies my state of mind. It draws out truths all too easily ignored when left unwritten. It clears the cobwebs and sheds light and broadens horizons, internal and external. It frees me.

And so I will write. Here. Every day. Pithy or poignant, silly or somber, humiliating or humbling, rambling or coherent, inconsequential or insightful...I will write.

Here.

Something.

Every day.

For me.

Because I'm worth it.

You, on the other hand, may consider yourself warned.

And I took the one less traveled by.

We left two weeks ago for our long-anticipated vacation getaway to New England. Rising before the sun, the plan had been to make our way to Burlington, Vermont, in time for lunch.

 

The drive through New Hampshire.

The airline, as it happened, had other plans, as we were informed by the big red letters spelling out CANCELLED on the departure board in DC. After much wrangling, we jumped a flight to Albany, New York, arranged to pick up our rental car upon arrival there, and decided to make the best of a situation gone wrong. And we did. Right up until it was discovered that our luggage didn't make the trip to Albany with us, as promised, but instead took two separate flights of their own, with one bag arriving in Burlington (without us. WTH?) and the other landing in Portland, Maine - which was our ultimate destination, although not via air.

The utterly amazing Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

I've given up trying to explain or rationalize how, exactly, the airline decided - seemingly at random - to ship a piece of our luggage to a place they had no idea we'd be going to, but it happened. The day we intended to spend in Vermont was spent instead hanging out in a crowded airport with a bunch of pissed off people, spending a night in a city we never intended to visit, driving from Albany to the Burlington airport, and then, finally, making our way onward, eastward, to the Maine coast. And it was, in the end, all good.

The iconic Portland Head Lighthouse.

As a modest bonus, I got to add New York's gothic wonder to my collection of state capitols visited. So, there's that.

I actually added four to my collection this trip: Albany, NY; Montpelier, VT; Augusta, ME; and this lovely Capitol Building in Concord, NH, with Daniel Webster standing guard.

By the time we pulled up to the entrance of the wonderful Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the travel woes were forgotten (if not exactly forgiven), and in the easy blink of an eye, we both managed to slip quite easily into something a little more comfortable; namely: vacation mode.

The view from our beach, at dusk.

And trust me...these environs make it one easy mode to slip into, one deep, satisfying breath of fresh air at a time.

Lobster, lobster, everywhere.

I love New England. All of it. Everything about it. From the scenery to the food, from the quaintness to the accents, from the mountains to the sea, from the compactness that makes everywhere a short trip away, to the majesty that makes you feel so very small in the scheme of things.

This, for me, is iconic New England.
This particular steeple was in Kennebunkport, Maine.

I can't even pretend - if the opportunity ever presented itself to move to that part of the world, I would go in a heartbeat.

Purely by luck and happenstance, we discovered that the road less traveled by leads to the most inpsiring discoveries. In this case, Robert Frost's home snuggled in the middle of nowhere, secluded and surrounded by the beauty of a small New Hampshire town.

Maybe quicker.

 ________________

 

If your heart might so desire, you can see the rest of my pics here.

And if you want still more, my baby girl has done up a series of beautiful photo-filled posts describing their own babymoon to Maine, taken just a couple of weeks before our trip.