Internet

Feeling the (Link) Love

September 19, 2014

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” Lao-Tzu

Between rain and humidity this week, I’ve spent most of my waking hours inside. (And all of my sleeping hours, come to think of it.) I haven’t spent all my time online, but perhaps a bit more than usual. I plan to make up for that IF we ever have a fall. In the meantime, perhaps you’d like to explore this collection of links I found interesting, inspiring or just plain fun.

Don’t fall into the comparison trap.

Spoken.ly is a website that allows you to make your own illustrated inspirational quotes for social media. I made the image that illustrates this blog post there, and I can’t wait to play around with it some more.

Have you heard of StoryCorps?  It’s mission is “to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives.” It’s a national independent nonprofit organization that has collected and archived more than 50,000 interview with more than 90,000 participants. Stories are recorded on a CD and preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and can be heard on your local NPR radio station, or on their own Listen pages.  StoryCorps has also compiled several books from the stories.

Wise words about mistakes from my friend Laure Ferlita.

Check out these 50 simple ways to celebrate life. My favorites: number nine, number 13, number 22 and number 50!

I love manatees, and this site combines their cuteness with encouragement. Manatees for everyone!

This isn’t new, but it made me smile. Practice your insanity!

Happy Friday!

Blossoming

In Each Stage of Our Unfolding

September 17, 2014



“We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination. This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something: the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for. So where we are—though closer all the time—is never quite enough.

“The simple rose, at each moment of its slow blossoming, is as open as it can be. The same is true of our lives. In each stage of our unfolding, we are as stretched as possible. For the human heart is quite slow to blossom, and is only seen as lacking when compared to the imagined lover or father or mother we’d like to become.

“It helps to see ourselves as flowers. If a flower were to push itself to open faster, which it can’t, it would tear. Yet we humans can and often do push ourselves. Often we tear in places no one can see. When we push ourselves to unfold faster or more deeply than is natural, we thwart ourselves. For nature takes time, and most of our problems of will stem from impatience.” 
—Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Accomplishment

Chillin' Time

September 15, 2014

More often than not, when I go to the barn to see Tank these days I just take him to graze while I read a magazine or simply watch him with nothing particular in my mind. Even our riding has become languid in the sweatbox that is Florida in September. I feel slightly guilty about this—after all, shouldn’t we always be trying to do better, learn more, grow, progress?

Well, no.


There’s a time for pushing and learning and stepping outside comfort zones, and there’s also a time for chilling out, for hanging together with no agenda. For me, that time is late summer. I’m exhausted from nearly four months of unrelenting heat and humidity and all I really want to do is rest. And not sweat.

Surely Tank must appreciate a break as well. I make sure he maintains a certain level of respect and manners, but he’s a good guy and a mature horse. He does that almost automatically. I think he enjoys his work overall, but even when you enjoy it, isn’t it nice to have a break?

So, yes, this is our fallow time. The time we spend doing nothing, or perhaps having a water bath from the hose. The time for me to listen to the cicadas, watch the dragonflies, smell hot horse. The time for him to search for the most succulent grassy patches. No, I won’t feel guilty about this after all. There will be plenty of time for games and longeing, for practicing our jumping or lead changes, when it’s cooler and we both have more energy. For now, we’ll roam the property looking for shady spots to graze, walk up and down the dirt road looking at the cows, slurp down carrots and bananas, and chill (as much as we can when it’s 95 degrees).

Why do we always feel like we have to accomplish something? Tick off a box or cross out an item on a to-do list? Do you allow yourself to have some “chillin’ time”? What do you do—or stop doing?

Tank's favorite way to chill

Doctor Who

Five Happy Things

September 12, 2014

It’s only been a couple of weeks since my last Happy Little Things post, so instead of posting about one thing at length, today I’m going to share five mostly little things that are giving me hits of happiness right now. After all, life is so much better when we stop and enjoy the simple pleasures. 

1. Fresh flowers. I love fresh flowers but don’t often spend the money for them. This week, though, for three dollars and change I brought home these gorgeous hydrangeas:


They should last at least a week, if I can keep Prudy out of them!

2. Doctor Who. I know, I know, Doctor Who has been around a lo-o-o-ng time, but it’s only been this summer that my husband and I have made his acquaintance when we started watching the reboot of the series that started with the Ninth Doctor. We’re about to move on to the Eleventh Doctor (oh, how I will miss you, David Tennant). We’ve been borrowing DVDs from the library and have quite a few seasons to go before we catch up to the current season. Which is a good thing, because we don’t get BBC America and we won’t be able to watch the current Doctor until he comes out on DVD. (If you want to know why there are so many Doctors, you’ll just have to watch the show. It’s “timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly stuff”…

3. Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks. I used the last of a gift card to buy one this morning. Yummy.

4. Freegal Music. This awesome service, accessed through my library system, lets me download three free songs every week. I’ve significantly expanded my music library, three songs at a time. You library may also offer this, so check it out at Freegal.com.

5. Airplane reservations for California! In less than a month, I’ll be visiting my family—I can’t wait. (Better start choosing books to take with me, right Danielle?) 

What happy things are you enjoying right now?

Peter Cooley

A Writer's Hope

September 10, 2014

Desk of writer Frances Parkinson Keyes
Introduction by Ted Kooser: If writers are both skilled and lucky, they may write something that will carry their words into the future, past the hour of their own deaths. I’d guess all writers hope for this, and the following poem by Peter Cooley, who lives in New Orleans and teaches creative writing at Tulane, beautifully expresses his hope, and theirs.

The One Certain Thing

A day will come I’ll watch you reading this.
I’ll look up from these words I’m writing now—
this line I’m standing on, I’ll be right here,
alive again. I’ll breathe on you this breath.
Touch this word now, that one. Warm, isn’t it?

You are the person come to clean my room;
you are whichever of my three children
opens the drawer here where this poem will go
in a few minutes when I’ve had my say.

These are the words from immortality.
No one stands between us now except Death:
I enter it entirely writing this.
I have to tell you I am not alone.
Watching you read, Eternity’s with me.
We like to watch you read. Read us again.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Peter Cooley, whose most recent book of poems is “Divine Margins,” Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009. Poem reprinted from “Pleiades,” Vol. 29, no. 2, 2009, by permission of Peter Cooley and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Books

What I Read This Summer

September 08, 2014

Here in Florida, summer—at least the weather part of it—won’t be over for another couple of months. However, since kids are back in school and fall decorations fill the stores, I’m going to pretend summer is over and do a summer reading round up. Maybe that will help fall get here sooner?

I broke with my usual summer reading traditions (no Wilkie Collins this summer—I missed him—and no writer’s biography). Instead, I’ve been steadily reading from my own shelves as well as consolidating my massive TBR (“to be read” for the uninitiated) list. As I have time, I’ve been looking up each book on my current list and deciding whether or not I still want to read it. If I do, I’m creating a brand new TBR list.  As I do this, I’m choosing a book here and there from the list to check out of the library. Nerdy as it sounds, it’s been a lot of fun!


Here are just a few highlights of my summer’s reading:

From my own shelves:

The appropriately-titled So Many Books, So Little Time, by Sara Nelson. Nelson’s chronicle of a year’s worth of reading a book a week woven into the events of her private life. I loved this and have added it to my shelf of “books about books.”

Old Filth, Jane Gardam. New-to-me author, and so good! I read about this on Danielle Simpson’s blog, and had picked up this copy at my library’s bookstore for a dollar. I will be reading more of Gardam’s work.

Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff, was another library bookstore purchase. This fascinating biography had me from the first page: “Among the most famous women to have lived, Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for twenty-two years. She lost a kingdom once, regained it, nearly lost it again, amassed an empire, lost it all. A goddess as a child, a queen at eighteen, a celebrity soon thereafter, she was an object of speculation and veneration, gossip and legend, even in her own time.”

From my enormous TBR list:

The Awakening of Miss Prim, Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera. I was disappointed in this book. It sounded like the perfect read for me, but I was left with an overall feeling of “meh.” Still, it did have this lovely passage: “Miss Prim sipped her tea and nestled down into the storeroom armchair. She too believed in the value of the little things. Her first coffee in the morning drunk from her Limoges porcelain cup. Sunlight filtering through the shutters of her room, casting shadows on the floor. Dozing off over a book on a summer’s afternoon. The look in the children’s eyes when they told you about some fact they’d just learned. It was from the little things that the big ones were made, it definitely was.”

The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters. Just the right amount of spooky, and a story I keep thinking about.

And I just finished Still Life With Bread Crumbs, by Anna Quindlen, which I loved. From page 223: “One day she had been out walking and she had wondered whether she’d become a different person in the last year, maybe because of what Paige Whittington had said about the dog pictures. Then when she really thought about it she realized she’d been becoming different people for as long as she could remember but had never really noticed, or had put it down to moods, or marriage, or motherhood. The problem was that she’d thought that at a certain point she would be a finished product. Now she wasn’t sure what that might be, especially when she considered how sure she had been about it at various times in the past, and how wrong she’d been.”

And while I didn’t read a writer’s biography, I did read Agatha Christie at Home—and now I want to visit Greenway, her home in Devon!

There were also comfort rereads: Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders and Death in the Air (also known as Death in the Clouds), and This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart. (I forgot all about The Crystal Cave…still need to check that out at the library.)

As far as reading challenges go, aside from the Mount TBR challenge, I’ve been slacking. Time to get back to the classics and the Vintage Mystery Challenge.

What were your favorite reads this summer?

Bruises

That'll Leave a Mark

September 05, 2014

Recently I had blood drawn for a physical. My veins were especially uncooperative that day, and for a while I sported a pair of bruises on my forearms from the experience. They weren’t painful, but they were noticeable (sadly, I wasn’t able to think up a more dashing story to go with them). This got me thinking about bruises in general, and scars, too.

We can’t get far without collecting our share of bruises and scars. Life, it seems, has a way of marking us, reminding us of both our fragility and our resilience. We’re so fragile that a bump can break blood vessels under the skin and cause blood to pool in the tissues, and we can easily be cut or scraped, sometimes resulting in a scar.

But we’re also resilient. Bruises fade and heal, and scars, in fact, are proof of healing, at least according to Wikipedia: “Any injury does not become a scar until the wound has completely healed.”

Bruises and scars are badges of honor. We don’t get banged up by staying safe at home in our comfort zones. If we’ve gotten a bruise or scar, we were probably out doing something, learning something, experiencing everyday adventures. 

I've had a few bruises from Tank
Sometimes bruises and scars don’t show up in our outer appearance. Sometimes the injury occurs internally, but leaves a mark nevertheless. Those emotional wounds can be more painful than physical ones, but they eventually heal, too, little by little becoming less painful. If we can remember that healing is a process and an inevitable one at that, we’ll be able to handle the initial pain better. We’ve all heard Ernest Hemingway’s words from A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

We all have bruises and scars, marks from experience won or lessons learned. We all have stories written on our bodies. What stories can yours tell?

Happiness

A Happy Truth

September 03, 2014


“The truth is, you can skip the pursuit of happiness altogether
and just be happy.”
—Joshua Fields Millburn

Jonathan Greene

One Light to Another

August 27, 2014

Photo courtesy Vyolett
Introduction by Ted Kooser: Jonathan Greene, who lives in Kentucky, is a master of the short poem, but while he prunes them down to their essentials he never cuts out the wonder and delight. Here’s a good example from his most recent book. Can you feel the exclamation point that’s suggested at the end? You can’t see it, but it’s there.

One Light to Another

The storm
turns off
the lights.

The lightning
lights the whereabouts
of the flashlight.

The flashlight
takes us to matches
and candles, the oil lamp.

Now we’re back,
revisiting
the 19th century.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Jonathan Greene, from his most recent book of poems, Seeking Light: New & Selected Later Poems, Broadstone Books, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Jonathan Greene and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The  introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Randomness

Summer Rerun--Routine or Rut-ine?

August 25, 2014

Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2010.



I was standing in the shower, puddle of body wash in one hand, nylon pouf in the other when I remembered that I hadn’t yet put the John Frieda glaze in my hair. This glaze requires three minutes of time on the hair to do its job, according to the packaging, and therefore during my shower, it must go on before the body wash step for it to have that time. My mind had been elsewhere, apparently, because OMG! I’ve already reached body wash stage and I HAVEN’T YET PUT THE GLAZE IN MY HAIR!

Armageddon. (This is what it’s like to be me.)

(Let me back up and explain the importance of the JF glaze in my life. My hair is thick and coarse, and the minute it detects any humidity in the air, it doubles in size like a frightened cat. Let me remind you I live in Florida, and it’s a rare day when the humidity isn’t detectible. Using this glaze helps keep my hair under at least partial control.)

So I stood there in the shower, debating—put down the pouf, put the glaze in my hair and hope I leave it on long enough, even though I’ve clearly missed the ideal moment? (I’ve never actually timed the process, so maybe I NEVER leave it in long enough, who knows?) Do I skip the glaze altogether? (Nope, today I’m running errands and going out to dinner so the hair needs all the anti-frizz help it can get).

Routines can be helpful, essential, even. Routines and habits offer comfort and stability. Having a routine to deal with daily tasks can often speed them up and make you more efficient. I can shower, dry my hair, put on makeup, dress and be out the door in half an hour (on a good, non-glaze-dilemma day) and routine is what enables me to do that. Laundry and cleaning have their routines. Without them, I’d be buried in filth.

Many small and sometimes unnoticed routines add pleasure to the day. They become rituals that add to the beauty of life. I spend the first half-hour of my day with coffee, a few bites of scone or muffin, and a notebook and pen. I love this ritual and find it centers me before I begin to work.

Routines can become ruts, however. Ruts can make you feel bored, trapped, or locked into a certain path and unable to alter the course of life. (Or they can leave you feeling plain silly while you stand in the shower with body wash dripping down your arm.)

It pays to examine routines now and then to see if they still serve you, or to see if you’ve become slave instead of master. My shower/glaze moment reminded me that I’m in charge of my routines, not the other way around. It’s also possible you’ve stuck with a routine that has become outdated—your life has changed, but your routine hasn’t, and maybe it should.

Also, occasionally stepping outside routine makes life more interesting and exciting, keeping routines from becoming ruts. You might change anything from the route you take to work to the day you do your grocery shopping. Order a different sandwich at your favorite lunch spot…or choose another lunch spot altogether. Listen to a different type of music, read a magazine you wouldn’t normally pick up, or stop into that little antiques store you keep promising yourself you’ll visit. Maintain the routines that keep your life humming along, but also do something “different” every week—or even every day!

Now I’m off to take a shower…and I won’t forget the glaze.

What are some of your favorite routines? What rut(s) would you like to escape from? What small change can you make to liven up your life?

A Nature Art Journal

Happy Little Things--Resurrection Ferns

August 22, 2014

A few days ago, I read this post on Elizabeth Smith’s blog, A Nature Art Journal. I recognized the ferns she described from my yard—I had just noticed them and was delighted to learn what they were called. I resolved to take some pictures of them. When I did, this is what I found:



We’ve had record high temperatures this past week, and none of the usual summer afternoon storms. Poor little ferns. However, I knew from reading Elizabeth’s post that the fronds could transform from these dead-looking specimens into something lovely. So I decided to water one group of them to see how long it would take to come back from the dead. This is what I found when I went to look later that day:


Amazing! I didn’t water the other group, but it rained last night and this is what I found when I checked this morning:


These little ferns make me happy and inspire me with their delicate beauty and tenacious clinging to life. They find a way to survive even when their environment is hostile, and with the least encouragement, burst out into their true beauty. I should be so resilient!

Please check out Elizabeth’s post for more information on the resurrection fern, and to see her beautiful drawings.

What happy little things have you discovered lately?

Jennifer Louden

Sculpting Time

August 20, 2014



“Time is never lying around waiting for us to find her. She is elusive. She wants you to sculpt her like clay, to mold her into exactly the form you desire your days to take. If you refuse to do that, if you spend your mornings worrying and your afternoons catering to others, always hoping there will be a few minutes left for you, time will play you like a sucker, making you run harder and faster with each passing week. Time wants you to realize that she is the most precious and irreducible fact of your life. Make her into what you will.”
—Jennifer Louden, The Woman’s Retreat Book

Happiness

Namaste

August 18, 2014

I pulled out my yoga mat and one of my favorite yoga DVDs on Saturday. Immediately I attracted the attention of Miss Prudy, who felt that yoga practice was not complete without her participation:




After a few minutes of licking and biting my toes, she retired to the bed where she napped until I finished my workout.


Namaste.
How was last week? Any new simple pleasures or everyday adventures to report?

Blogging

Break Time

August 11, 2014


I will be taking a break from blogging this week. Hope to see you back here soon, and have a happy week!

Gretchen Rubin

Link Love, Self-promotion Edition!

August 08, 2014



I have a travel essay entered in the WeSaidGo essay contest! You can read “The Bits and Pieces Tour” here. Please stop by and take a look.

Elsewhere on the internet:

Change your password, change your life! What a great idea. Read about how the lowly password can remind you of what you want more (or less) of in your life. 

Don’t let these habits steal your happiness. 

Want more reading time? Check out Gretchen Rubin’s “13 Tips for Getting More Reading Done.” 

Interesting piece on how getting rid of expectations can help you “master the art of living.” 

These made me laugh (and almost made me miss working in an office). 

Visit A Blog Made Vibrant for a free downloadable “Emergency Mood Booster” worksheet.

Have a happy Friday!

Poetry

Starry Voices

August 06, 2014


Introduction by Ted Kooser: Readers of this column during the past year have by now learned how enthusiastic I am about poems describing everyday life. I’ve tried to show how the ordinary can be made extraordinary through close and transforming observation. Here Tess Gallagher goes to the mailbox to post a letter. We’ve all done that, haven’t we? But notice how closely she pays attention to this simple experience, and how she fits this one moment into the meaning of her life.

Under Stars

The sleep of this night deepens
because I have walked coatless from the house
carrying the white envelope.
All night it will say one name
in its little tin house by the roadside.

I have raised the metal flag
so its shadow under the roadlamp
leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes.
Now I will walk back
thinking of the few lights still on
in the town a mile away.

In the yellowed light of a kitchen
the millworker has finished his coffee,
his wife has laid out the white slices of bread
on the counter. Now while the bed they have left
is still warm, I will think of you, you
who are so far away
you have caused me to look up at the stars.

Tonight they have not moved
from childhood, those games played after dark.
Again I walk into the wet grass
toward the starry voices. Again, I
am the found one, intimate, returned
by all I touch on the way.

“Under Stars” copyright 1987 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted from “Amplitude: New & Selected Poems” with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Gallagher’s most recent book of poetry is “Dear Ghosts: Poems,” Graywolf Press, 2006. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Alan Bennett

The Best Moments in Reading

July 30, 2014



“The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours”
—Alan Bennett, The History Boys

Are there any writers you feel this way about?

Everyday adventures

Visitors, Both Welcome and Unwelcome

July 28, 2014

Last week my friend Kerri came to stay with me, a most welcome visitor. Kerri and I have been friends since college, and now have the misfortune to live at opposite ends of the country—me in Florida, and Kerri in Washington. We haven’t seen each other in more than a year, and there was much talking (an understatement), eating, puzzling and general merry-making. We crisscrossed the state meeting other friends, both mutual and new to me (hi, Deb!). Despite our late hours and our busy schedule, I feel refreshed and energized by her visit. There’s nothing like the tonic of time spent with a good friend.

I’ll share a few highlights of our simple pleasures and everyday adventures.

Beautiful St. Augustine:
Castillo de San Marcos

Aviles Street--purported to be the oldest in America

St. Augustine Lighthouse

View from the top of the lighthouse

Our 1000-piece puzzle. It was tough!


The beautiful Rainbow River (we floated down it on inner tubes with our friend LuAnne):

On the morning Kerri left, we had a most unwelcome visitor—a coral snake:


Prudy was stalking it (!!). We quickly got her and it out of there. 

My life would be barren without friends—they are essential for my happiness. I’m incredibly lucky to have the ones I have. I need to make sure that time with friends stays at the top of the priority list.

What have you done with your friends lately?

I miss her already

Catharine Savage Brosman

Knee-deep in Green

July 23, 2014

Photo courtesy Bill Davenport

Introduction by Ted Kooser: The Impressionists, on both sides of the Atlantic, gave us a number of handsome paintings of  rural scenes, and here’s a poem by the distinguished American poet, Catharine Savage Brosman, that offers us just such a picture, not in pigments but in words.

Cattle Fording Tarryall Creek

With measured pace, they move in single file,
dark hides, white faces, plodding through low grass,
then walk into the water, cattle-style,
indifferent to the matter where they pass.

The stream is high, the current swift—good rain,
late snow-melt, cold. Immerging to the flank,
the beasts proceed, a queue, a bovine chain,
impassive, stepping to the farther bank—

continuing their march, as if by word,
down valley to fresh pasture. The elect,
and stragglers, join, and recompose the herd,
both multiple and single, to perfect

impressions of an animated scene,
the creek’s meanders, milling cows, and sun.
Well cooled, the cattle graze knee-deep in green.
We leave them to their feed, this painting done.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of  Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by Catharine Savage Brosman, whose most recent book of poems is On the North Slope, Mercer University Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Catharine Savage Brosman. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Problems

Summer Rerun--Attention: Your Peppers Are Shriveled

July 21, 2014

Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2010. 

 This is what happens when 95 degrees meets inattentive gardener:


Here’s the same plant after a drink of water and a good night’s rest:


This little ornamental pepper is amazingly resilient—I’m sorry to say this is not the first time she’s wilted in the heat. Still, she survives, even after freezing temperatures in the winter and practically dying of thirst in the summer.

If you look closely, you’ll see a few peppers still a bit wizened from their lack of water. Just like the peppers, we often wear the battle scars of what we’ve been through—in our faces, in our eyes, in our hearts. Yet still we come back for more, still we reach upwards toward the light—even though sometimes that light scorches us. For us, a drink of water and a good night’s sleep may be only the beginning of what we need to recover. We may need a box of assorted chocolates, an hour of solitude, a friend’s ear, or even professional help.

If you’re struggling right now, wilting in the sun, reflect on what you really need to get through today, and the day after, and the day after that. Be an attentive gardener—don’t wait until your leaves are drooping and your peppers are shriveled before you give yourself that cool drink of water that makes all the difference. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.

Life

More Like the Movies?

July 16, 2014

Photo courtesy mconnors

“They say the movies should be more like life—I think life should be more like the movies.”
—Myrna Loy


Which movie(s) would you like your life to be more like?

Naps

The Afternoon Nap

July 14, 2014

When I was a child visiting my grandparents for the summer, my grandmother often insisted that I take an afternoon nap. I detested this practice because I didn’t need a nap: I was far too busy running through the cow pasture or swimming in the irrigation ditch or lying under a tree reading to take a nap. Plus I was far to old to be taking naps! What was wrong with her?! (I realize now she likely needed a break from me and the nap was her tactful way of corralling me for at least an hour. And yes, much to my chagrin, I often fell asleep while lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling.)

Naps are wasted on the young. I don’t know about you, but there are many days I’d love to have the simple pleasure of an afternoon nap! Occasionally, I do take one, but I live with pets who have no compunction about sleeping whenever and wherever they want to. Need proof?




Perhaps we should follow their example and indulge ourselves in an afternoon nap now and then this summer!


How do you feel about naps?

4th of July

Writing Our Names

July 09, 2014

Photo courtesy Ryan McGuire

 Introduction by Ted Kooser: I’m especially fond of sparklers because they were among the very few fireworks we could obtain in Iowa when I was a boy. And also because in 2004 we set off the fire alarm system at the Willard Hotel in Washington by lighting a few to celebrate my inauguration as poet laureate. Here’s Barbara Crooker, of Pennsylvania, also looking back.

Sparklers

We’re writing our names with sizzles of light
to celebrate the fourth. I use the loops of cursive,
make a big B like the sloping hills on the west side
of the lake. The rest, little a, r, one small b,
spit and fizz as they scratch the night. On the side
of the shack where we bought them, a handmade sign:
Trailer Full of Sparkles Ahead, and I imagine crazy
chrysanthemums, wheels of fire, glitter bouncing
off metal walls. Here, we keep tracing in tiny
pyrotechnics the letters we were given at birth,
branding them on the air. And though my mother’s
name has been erased now, I write it, too:
a big swooping I, a hissing s, an a that sighs
like her last breath, and then I ring
belle, belle, belle in the sulphuric smoky dark.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation  (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Barbara Crooker from her most recent book of poems, Gold, Cascade Books, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Crooker and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Happiness

This Week's Words to Live By

July 07, 2014

Do you ever have words or phrases pop into your head, seemingly from nowhere? I do—I had it happen to me this weekend, in fact. I’ve been working really hard the past couple of weeks, on both writing projects and around the house, and even though I was happy with what I’d accomplished, I was feeling a bit tired out. My mother-in-law was coming to spend the night with us, and I was looking forward to a three-day weekend. But sometimes it’s hard to switch from all-out work mode to relaxation mode. Fortunately, my subconscious kicked in with these words:

“This is your one, beautiful life. Enjoy it.”

So instead of fussing and over-working this weekend, I relaxed with my family. We sat on the lanai and floated in the pool. I made cinnamon waffles for breakfast and we ate ice cream while watching Independence Day on TV. Yesterday I slept in until 8 a.m.—almost unheard of because usually my pets wake me up long before that. Before I did anything, I asked myself, “What do you feel like doing now?” (Not “What should you be doing now?” “Should” was banished, at least for the weekend.)

Even though it’s Monday and time to get back to work, I’m going to continue to hold those words in my heart: “This is your one, beautiful life. Enjoy it.” Even while I’m cleaning bathrooms, or feeding the dog, or writing an article. This is my one, beautiful life.

What words will you live by this week?


Joy

The Way to a Joyful Life

July 02, 2014




“Experience has taught me that the way to a joyful life is always fraught with fear, that to find it you must follow your heart’s desires right through the inevitable terrors that arise to hold you back. If you don’t do this, your life will be shaped by fear, rather than love, and I guarantee, the shape will be narrow and tiny compared with your best destiny.”
—Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Brought to You By the Letter "G"

June 30, 2014


Today I’m joining in a meme I read about at A Work in Progress, and originally started by Simon at Stuck in a Book. His instructions were as follows: 

I’m going to kick off a meme where we say our favourite book author, song, film, and object beginning with a particular letter. And that letter will be randomly assigned to you by me, via random.org. If you’d like to join in, comment in the comment section and I’ll tell you your letter! (And then, of course, the chain can keep going on your blog.)

You, my dear readers, are welcome to play along. If you’d like me to assign you a letter, please comment below. You can participate even if you don’t have a blog—just leave your favorites in the comments.

My randomly assigned letter was “G,” and here are my favorites beginning with that letter: 

Favorite book: Gift From the Sea. Not hard to choose this one.

Favorite author:  Elizabeth Gaskell. I have a couple of favorite “G” authors, but I think Elizabeth Gaskell ranks first. I’ve read North and South and Cranford, and have Wives and Daughters on my TBR pile.

Favorite song: “Gonna Get Over You,” Sara Bareilles. This was the hardest category to choose, but Sara is one of my favorite singer songwriters, so she gets the nod.


Favorite film: The Great Mouse Detective. I love this animated movie starring a Sherlock-Holmesian mouse. Ratigan, the villain, is voiced by Vincent Price. Great fun.

Favorite object: My girth, which keeps the saddle on my horse, is definitely one of my favorite objects!

Girths are not necessarity MY favorite objects...
OK, who wants a letter?

Poems

Be In It

June 25, 2014


If we haven’t done it ourselves, we’ve known people who have, it seems: taken a vacation mostly to photograph a vacation, not really looking at what’s there, but seeing everything through the viewfinder with the idea of looking at it when they get home. Wendell Berry of Kentucky, one of our most distinguished poets, captures this perfectly. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

The Vacation

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Wendell Berry, whose most recent book of poems is New Collected Poems,
Counterpoint, 2012. Poem reprinted from New Collected Poems, Counterpoint, 2012, and used with permission of Wendell Berry and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Automobiles

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

June 23, 2014

“Books are the plane, the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”
—Anna Quindlen

I picked up Agatha Christie’s Death in the Air last week because I had a sudden urge for one of her books (and I can use it for the Vintage Mystery Challenge). That got me thinking about books in which planes, trains and automobiles figure as settings or are otherwise integral to the story. Below is an incomplete list of transportation-related titles. Given my love for mysteries, crimes figure in many of these stories (and trains seem to be especially lethal!). Some of these I’ve read (in bold), and others I discovered in my research for this post. Many of these books have been made into movies, if you prefer your transportation stories on the screen.

Planes
Death in the Air (alternate title, Death in the Clouds), Agatha Christie. Poisoned darts and Hercule Poirot.
The Flight of the Phoenix, Elleston Trevor. A plane crash in the Sahara—how will the surviving passengers make it out alive?
I Was Amelia Earhart, Jane Mendelsohn. A “brilliantly-imagined” telling of what happened after Earhart and her navigator disappeared near New Guinea.
“The Langoliers,” a novella found in Four Past Midnight, Stephen King. And you already thought airplane travel was nightmarish.
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery. Described as “a fable of love and loneliness,” this involves another plane crash in the Sahara.
Non-fiction bonus: Listen! The Wind and North to the Orient, Anne Morrow Lindberg
When I Fell From the Sky, Juliane Koepcke


Trains
The Lady Vanishes, Lina Ethel White. Where is Miss Froy? And why does no one except Iris remember her?
Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith. Explores the dark psychological forces under the surface of everyday life.
Murder on the Orient Express and What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! (Also known as 4:50 From Paddington), Agatha Christie. Two lethal train rides.
Murder on the Ballarat Train, Kerry Greenwood. Yup. Stay off the train.
The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars, Maurice Dekobra. More adventure on the Orient Express.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, John Godey. Peril on a subway train.
Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne. Boats, trains and hot air balloons!
Non-fiction bonus: The Railway Man, Eric Lomax
Riding the Iron Rooster and The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux.

Automobiles
On the Road, Jack Kerouac. “The Bible of the Beat Generation.”
Christine, Stephen King. A boy’s first car, as imagined by Stephen King.
Sideways, Rex Pickett. A wine country road trip.
The Pull of the Moon, Elizabeth Berg. Who hasn’t wanted to get in her car and just go?
The Long Way Home, Karen McQuestion. Four women on a road trip from Wisconsin to Las Vegas.
Non-fiction bonus: The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson
Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck.

I see several titles here I want to read (I can’t believe I’ve never read Around the World in 80 Days or Travels With Charley, for example). As I said, I know this list is incomplete—have I left out your favorites? Please share!

Books

Link Love, Iced Tea Edition

June 20, 2014

Welcome to the summer edition of Link Love. Pour yourself a cold drink and explore some of the Internet’s bounty.

Twelve rituals happy, successful people practice every day. As Marc writes, “Am I willing to spend a little time every day like many people won’t, so I can spend the better part of my life like many people can’t?”

Simplifying life often means getting rid of things. Click here to read “10 Things to Add to a Simple Life.” 

Ever wished you could read more about the good happening in the world? Check out http://thisgoodworld.com/, “…a search + discovery platform that highlights and supports businesses doing good things.”

If you’re like me, you struggle with feeling driven to do more. I loved this thoughtful post at Always Well Within that helped me see my “driver” I a new light.

Here’s a list of the 100 greatest non-fiction books, according to The Guardian. How many have you read? I’m embarrassed to say I’ve only read eight.

What kind of life do you have? Brendon Burchard briefly examines three types: caged, comfortable and charged. Click below:


And finally, just for fun, five minutes of my favorite comedian, Brian Regan:


Enjoy!