Lunch–not luncheon

Lately, I’ve fallen completely off my normal disciplined focus, distracted by seemingly important, but really mundane quests for knowledge.  For example:

• If it’s yellow, is it still a ladybug?
• What’s the difference between lunch and luncheon?
• If Chinese is the most spoken language in the world by population, what do most people eat for breakfast?
• Why is it called cocoa if it comes from a cacao plant?
• Is winter (in Ohio) really more gray than other seasons?

I have to admit, I’m delighted and wish I had entire afternoons during which I wish I could learn a hundred other mundane things.

Ladybugs are actually not bugs, nor are they all ladies.  They’re beetles, and they come in pink, red, orange and yellow.  In England, they’re called ladybirds.  In other places that speak English, they’re called lady cows.  Most entomologists call them lady beetles because they already knew they weren’t bugs.  My grandmother used to call them “potato bugs,” and after spending several rainy hours reading about these bugs, I think I know why.  Most ladybugs are considered helpful in the garden because they eat the eggs and young of other bugs that eat the plants.  However, a subfamily of the group (Epilachninae) are known to eat plants like grains and potatoes.  Since we never grew grains, I imagine she must have had a family of the Epilachninae in her garden once.

The difference between lunch and luncheon is far less stimulating.  Lunch is simply a casual meal eaten in the middle of the day.  Luncheon, on the other hand, is a formal midday meal taken as part of a business meeting or entertaining.  Turns out, I eat lunch approximately 90 percent of the year.  It makes me think that the next luncheon I attend, I should be more formal.  Usually, I am though–already dressed in a business suit armed with business cards and a lipstick smile.  The few luncheons I have attended taught me something else extraordinarily interesting.  Assigned table seating is a God-send!

Like most of my endeavors, I usually attend luncheons alone.  The past few have been in celebration of or education about international diplomacy…and in a different city than my own.  So I know no-one and the networking half-hour prior to mealtime is frightening.  I would have left the first one except just as my fear was nudging me to the door, a very kind gentleman with a clipboard asked my name and escorted me to my assigned table.  Then, checking his clipboard, he introduced me to my tablemates.  There was a student, a retired former-ambassador to the Ukraine and Norway, his wife, the treasurer of the hosting group, and a shy member of the city’s Somalian delegation.  Whew!  I immediately wanted a clipboard for myself someday…but now I realize it was actually the table assignment that saved me.

I don’t yet know what most people eat for breakfast, but I do know that it varies greatly around the world.  I guess I’d hoped it would settle the question about what I should eat for breakfast once and for all.  However, I find lots of reasons to like and dislike lots of these options.  A croissant or left-over dinner tart or toast is so classy with my tea, but leaves me hungry early.  Eggs and bacon leaves me too full and my entire meal regimen is undone for the day.  Cereal—well, I just can’t bring myself to eat it knowing it’s pure propaganda from Misters William Kellogg and later Charles Post and filled with all sorts of chemicals to make it practically glow.  Rice has been an interesting option.  Porridge, not so much.  And I haven’t even yet explored the African, Indian or Russian traditions.  I’ll have to continue my research, Gentle Penguin, and get back with you on this one…

But it was in my quest to understand where the heck oats came from that I came across a reference to the definition of “oats” in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (circa 1775).  In it he defined oats as: “A Grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”  As you might imagine, the Scots were not amused.  (Perhaps this one of the underlying pains that gave cause for wanting to separate?)  Anyway, which writer in their right mind wouldn’t be TOTALLY taken in by the idea of a dictionary written with personality?  I kind of want to write my own dictionary now!

So, in reading more, I learned that in this same dictionary, Mr. Johnson accidentally left off the definition of the word “coco” and instead placed the definition of the word “cocoa.”  Coco, by the way is a palm tree that produces bowling-ball sized “nuts” that have holes in them often resembling a smiling face.  The word “coco” is Spanish for “grinning face” and has no relation to an animated cuckoo bird who likes puffs made from a different cereal conglomerate.  Meanwhile, “cocoa” is the English bastardization of the Spanish word “cacao,” which is a tree that produces small nut-like seeds that when fermented, dried, smashed and crushed produce cacao paste from which chocolate is made (with heaps of sugar, of course).  Before the addition of sugar, Mesoamericans considered anything made from cacao to be the most manly of all foods or beverages and were forbidden to eat or drink them unless you were willing to serve in battle.

With sugar added, the drink and food are now the purvey of doting grandmothers, women looking for love, and little children who will later make you want to drink.

But sugar isn’t the important differentiator–it’s butter.  When the butter is removed from the crushed nibs, it becomes a dried powder cake—called cocoa.  This bastardization of the plant is relatively new, dating back to 1828 and a Dutch chemist.  Hence the difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate is that one is made from the powder and one is made from the paste–or solid bar made from the paste.

Something I will also have to look into (or rather, I already have begun, but once begun is not quite done) is this recurrence of chemists in our food history…breakfasts, chocolate, wine…

But first, I must discover whether Ohio is really more gray in the winter than any other season.  I don’t want to believe it’s true, but all indications point otherwise.  So, like I did once in grade school, I will spend the next five (or six) months charting the weather.  Today, by the way, has been both sunny and gray.  I’m not sure how I will mark that.  But, I figure, I’ll figure it out…after I try to do some work.

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Punctuation

The silence is beguiling now that I’ve put down my phone and shut off my radio.

Snow is creating a halo around the lampposts which throw off a lollipop pink light that turns the door across the street orange without the lift of a single brush.

The cars on the street go and stop and go again followed by the ghosts of their own power—some long and training, others stout and curling, but all of them contributing an underlying rhythm humming a contribution to the faint ringing in my ears so that the silence sounds more like music than discomfiture.

A shadow leaves through the orange door and for a moment the door is painted brown, no red, no green until it is orange once again and shut tight up against the pink glowing lights of the street.

A quotation mark of shadows pedal by, one holding a bag of something loose and dangling in his hand.  What would they tell me if they could break through the noise of my silence?  Something inspiring no doubt.

But lo, a semicolon shadow appears, and I want to laugh and cry and shout out for him to stop to hear the joke that recently amused and depressed me.  But our language is changing rapidly, and I find I’m uncertain how to proceed.  Not because I don’t know how, but because our language is the one thing I can’t bear to live without.  It matters a lot to me.

Where are the quotation marks from a moment ago?  They are gone in the time it took Jupiter to appear from behind the cloud cover.  But Jupiter won’t help me say what I need to:

“Please stop winking at my daughter; I may never understand her otherwise.”

And she would never know about the orange door, the pink lamplight, the humming of the cars and Jupiter rising above her classroom door while I wait for her to emerge as an exclamation point and put a stop to my silence.

But the ringing in my ears will remain; I just won’t hear it.

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Once Upon a Time

I cannot even believe I’m about to do this. But I am.

As part of my post-vacation depression therapy, my daughters have insisted—no, demanded—that I watch TV.

Their theory is that since I’m in search of stories everywhere I go (it’s true, and the primary reason for all of my vacation destinations), it’s a story that will ease my return to “normalcy.”

Which is how I came to be entranced by a wicked witch’s spell and a quest not unlike my own, struggling to understand the power of choice and use it properly, to find true love, to believe good will always win. Because “there has to be more than this.”

I hear their stories, I feel their despair, I can even smell their coffee brewing as they struggle with each new choice as if they were in the midst of a chess match. Then I sit for an hour or more while my brain rapidly and randomly makes connections with other stories, other ideas, other loose ends.

Or maybe I’m just crazy.

After all, it’s just a story. Right?

“But what are stories?” asked a character on cue as if reading my mind…or the Fates were once again insisting I listen and learn.

What if a story could reach inside you to remind you that you are capable of making a different choice than the obvious one? A better choice. Perhaps something you didn’t even expect. What if a story could reach inside you to remind you that there IS more to life than this? There’s hope, and joy. You know, the kind that makes you feel 15 years younger and gives you energy.

I know what it’s like to feel trapped between the rock and the hard place. The problem is, I see it too many times on people’s faces. All the time now. Trapped. In a job, in a relationship (or not in a relationship), in an expectation, in a stage of life, in a city, in a state of mind, in a dependency. And in every case, I find desperation, crutches, self doubt, fear and sadness.

What story could I tell? Is it one of fairies? Or witches? Or leprechauns? Or genies? Or magic? Or pirates? Or of heroes and angels? Doubtless, it’s a story I could tell over coffee, tea, beer or wine. And doubtless, it’s one of the few places where people would listen.

What if people believed that good would win? What if people believed that, given some soul searching, we could always make the right choices? What if people believed that listening to your heart was truly more powerful than listening to your head? Would it make a difference?

I know it does for me. Even now, watching TV.

But perhaps I’m wrong. Or I’ve been lost in this musing too long. Or I really am too caught up in my romantic notions, thereby losing touch with reality.

But what if I’m right? What would I write?

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Mindfulness

Anymore it seems that everywhere I turn there are messages about mindfulness.

Just still your mind and you will achieve happiness, health and nirvana.  Or so it seems to me.  Unfortunately, I will never know.

It turns out my mind has the activity of a three-year-old who just spent the morning eating every possible form of sugar at a fair, has been dragged away from the rabbit barn or merry-go-round kicking and screaming and told to sit still in a stifling hot church on a wooden bench.

Which is to say that I don’t know if my mind can be still.

Another helpful option is to pay attention to the moment you’re in to fully appreciate the beauty of life.  That works fine when I’m reading a book, or watching my daughter’s soccer game, or walking the dogs at the dog park.  But how about that two-hour commute I have several times a week?

During that time, my mind finds all kinds of fancy thoughts to keep it busy.   Mostly of sprites creating mischief just out of view in the woods on the side of the road, and some of the people in the cars next to me who I just know are really aliens dressed up as people trying to blend in, and elaborate embassy balls where the quiet writer in the corner turns out to know seven languages and is an accomplished dancer.

Which is to say that I seem to fully appreciate the beauty of life by making up my own version of fairy tales as I move through space and time.

My children find this failing to be wildly amusing.  Especially when we travel and we see people boarding airplanes dressed like spies, or submerged rocks that look suspiciously like submarines or narwhals, or old surfer dudes in mid-driff tops who we once actually mistook for trolls.

My parents do not find this propensity to story-ize amusing.

It’s not that I’m irresponsible.  Just, perhaps, incorrigible.

So how am I to get to nirvana?  How am I supposed to create more white space in my brain?  And achieve total health?

A quick search on the health benefits of imagination tells me that perhaps imagination is important for children, but few reputable results appear for adults.  Does this mean I’m doomed?

I can see it now, someday I’ll be that old lady wringing her gnarled hands coughing incessantly in worn out clothes telling total strangers as they pass to be careful going to the library because they keep retired Keebler elves to watch over the books in the basement and they’re changing some of the words…

Then again, perhaps by the time I’m invited to that elaborate embassy ball I’ll know nine languages, be an accomplished writer, an accomplished dancer…AND quiet.

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Language of Wine

I’m at the National Wine Marketing meeting presently and a couple thoughts have already blown my mind…so much so I haven’t been able to concentrate on the Point of Sale (POS) session (which is probably okay since I don’t have anything to sell…just yet).

The main thought preoccupying my mind at the moment is this: is language a deterrent to wine drinking, or at least enjoying wine drinking? After giving it considerable thought over the past hour since I heard it mentioned, I think it is.

I have to admit, I don’t know the difference between “earthy” and “woodsy” and so I never use either adjective…along with hundreds of others that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish. Would you?

If someone said to you, oh average wine drinker, “that wine is full bodied,” what does that mean to you? Is that what it means to me? Or the bartender pouring your wind?

What about if someone asked you if you wanted a sweet, dry wine? Does that mean it’s white? Or can it be red? And regardless, can I eat it with a steak, or does it have to be with poultry and fish?

How about if I talked to you about the Parkerization of wine. Or terroir? Would you be able to give me your opinion on whether that was good? Or bad? Or even know what it is, either one?

Does all this make you want to drink more wine? Or would you grab a beer instead?

However, what if I said “I like wine so smooth it’s like sucking on dark chocolate.” Or “When I grab a white wine, I want it to make my mouth feel like it’s tingly–from the first taste–like when I eat grapefruit without sugar sprinkled on it.” Not knocking my unrefined tastes, would this tell you more about me as a wine drinker? Or make you want to split a bottle with me?

Don’t get me wrong, I do know quite a bit about wine, but the language hasn’t served me well. Because I like to drink with you, Oh Gentle Reader, and friends. It leaves so much unknown. And I want to know what you like to drink.

(I’ll be at the National Wine Marketing meeting for the next few days. You can follow me on twitter #mmews to see what else I learn that excites and surprises me.)

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Cloud Cover

Do you ever wonder about the clouds? Tonight on my way home, I swear I saw a beer stein foaming over all bubbly on the edge. Perhaps it had just been a long day and I was thirsty?

But then, a little ways up the road, I swear there was a cloud the spitting image of a champagne glass with bubbly in it. Think about that. Picture it. That’s an unusual cloud. Perhaps I just wanted to celebrate a little victory I experienced today?

Still, I disbelieved. I shook my head, rubbed my eyes and refocused on the road. But it wasn’t long before a car in front of me began to look like an Arabic coffee cup, you know, the kind that’s all short and squat and just slightly rounded on the edges with steam rising high above it as if it were a mystic’s fortune froth.

No…it had to just be the changing temperature and the humidity on the roadway.

I think the gods were less than amused with my dismissals for that’s when I saw the clouds converging. They were brown and dark gray in the distance with an oddly blue glowing set up front. I longed to pull off the highway and dig around behind me for my camera, but I was already an hour late getting home and my daughters were ringing me constantly to remind me that they needed attention…and to tell me my camera was at home. Rats!

That’s when it happened, of course. Those blue clouds bunched right up and spelled out the letters “C” “U” “P”.

I’m not kidding.

CUP.

Right there, plain as the nose on my face, the clouds were spelling out a message for me. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent my afternoon meditation praying for a sign. Or perhaps I should have used the bathroom before I left the Cincinnati office more than 50 miles away from my home. Or perhaps I should have brought a lemon tea home with me. Regardless, it was a sign. There was no denying the certainty of the spelling, or the handwriting.

I guess when you’re driving isn’t the time to ask the universe about bringing hope and joy to more people—people who are tired of their careers, people who feel trapped in families with demanding spouses or children, people who are lost, people who just need the sick-cycle-carousel to slow down, and people who wonder why they must wake up tomorrow to repeat this seemingly-neverending madness.

I stared at the clouds the entire way home hoping I could turn them into a vase, or faces or some other optical illusion to no luck. All I could see was “C” “U” “P”.

It reminded me of my most loyal prayer. “Dear God, please bless the tea growers and all those involved in their growing, cultivating and bringing it to me.” I’ve prayed that prayer every day for most of my life. On the first sip of the first mug in the first light of day. Every day. It also reminded me of my most fervent prayer now. “Please let me gather with friends over tea, coffee, wine or beer in an unhurried discussion of life, love and the discovery of happiness so that I might learn how to master time, rather than have him always master me.”

Did I mention I was late getting home then? And people weren’t happy about it.

I went in the house looking for my camera only to find myself distracted by a beautiful patch of grass aside of my house split evenly between untainted glistening snow and bright green, newly grown grass. I took a picture of that instead as the sun set behind my house and when I turned for the clouds, the letters were gone.

Maybe that’s just what happens to people who like to drink. Or rather those who know that drinking is a natural sign of joie de vivre, or relationship, or socialization (not talking facebook and twitter here, but real-life, can-smell-the-brew-in-your-mug-and-hear-your-sighs-of-pure-enjoyment conversation).

Still, it was just as well. I had to go to the bathroom.

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Last of the Summer Wine

I used to not be a TV watcher. In fact, my television is probably one of the smallest ones you can purchase these days, and unless the kids are home, the TV is almost never on. Except I’ve found myself looking forward to, craving, wanting to find myself in front of the TV in the evenings to watch a group of mischievous old men concoct scheme after delightfully humorous scheme to amuse themselves and those in their village.

They treat each other jovially with playful disrespect, but also caring watching their backs and covering their tracks.

Never have I witnessed a group of friends I’d most like to be a part of…that’s even counting the Mamma Mia’s trio. These men wonder the countryside or have a drink at the pub and toast that hated manager they couldn’t stand who quit the co-op to join the marines during the war only to end up dead, but honored by the men who couldn’t stand him.

Their humanity isn’t sterile or stuffy, rather it seems so crisp and clean and joyful and honest, even as they pull practical joke after practical joke thinking their tricking the people who know them as well as they know themselves.

I envy them that.

I don’t know my neighbors. I know quite a few people in my City, but not so well that I could watch their back or claim an intimacy. In fact, now that I think about it, I couldn’t claim close friends the way they do.

Mostly I admire the way that amidst their days and schemes, they always have time to consider each other, to listen, to raise a glass…of caffeine or beer for each other’s health, happiness and harmony.

I think about my stressful days and about the lives of the people around me. Time to consider, to listen or even to scheme don’t exist. You might say there’s time to raise a glass, but it’s usually squeezed between two other meetings so that you spend half your time watching your watch and that’s after showing up late because of traffic, or trying to squeeze too many things in to too little time.

I drive home hoping I make it home in time to watch the Last of the Summer Wine only to find myself listening to several stories on the news about obesity, about the nation’s mental health crisis, about the rise of fractured families…and I wonder, could my interest in beverages actually be the answer?

It seems it might be.

But how do you share that with others?

Easily! I think to myself…share a glass or a mug or a cup with someone. Do it every day. Do it twice a day. Make it last, and make it matter.

That’s easier said than done though.

I go home, make dinner with my daughter and deal with household paperwork, dog duties, phone calls and other client emails until my daughter shouts from the other room, “it’s on!”

Then I pour myself a snakebite and curl up with her and the dogs to watch Truelove, Hardcastle and Smedley at the local pub taking turns convincing Marina that her teenage love now haunts the outback of Australia wrestling crocodiles as he nurses his broken heart over her indiscretions from 50 years earlier…just so their friend Howard will hopefully better understand the mysterious ways of the female, and cool his heels, if only for a while.

I think about my evenings spent in pubs convincing and consoling and counselling and realize all I lack is fellow schemers.

I watch the women sipping tea at the shop talking about how working yourself to worry leaves you anxious and old and usually broke and wish I had the counsel of women who could see my situation clearly and give it to me straight over a cup of steaming infusion. Too bad I had to cancel my tea time this week with just two ladies over client needs.

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it’s not so difficult. Perhaps all it really takes is an invitation to start.

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Reflection

I have tested every value I cling to during this year of Reduction. I have purposefully sought dissent, tried the opposite of what I would normally do, kicked, screamed, cried, laughed and discovered that I believe strongly. Sure, I shook loose tears, ideals and beliefs. I pulled out some baggage, some fears and some gray hairs. And what was left resemble principles identical to what I believed at an earlier point in my life.

So I went in search of the book that first introduced me to those principles. I have it in my floor-to-ceiling-wall-to-wall library. Somewhere amidst all the books that made me think, gave me joy, taught me about life. … There.

Blowing off a layer of dust, I noted that there were papers stuck inside it.

I don’t know why, but finding papers inside a loved book ALWAYS excites me. I eagerly retrieved them, noted their haphazard folding, the neat handwriting in blue ink and the uneven rip line along the edges of several papers.

Papers stuck in a book are like a time capsule. They reveal some truth about a different time and place and life.

Mine consisted of a story I wrote about my (then) young cousin, a personality test report, several poems I had written even earlier, and an e-mail from a former friend. We’ve since lost touch, but seeing her name and her words were like getting a hug from her anyway.

Lovingly, I read every paper. I marveled at how much my handwriting looked like my mom’s. I remembered secrets from a time gone by. I read and saw my future predicted.

With my eyes blinded by the time warp, I flipped through the book. There I found other writings, drawings, notes to myself, and highlighting. And I couldn’t help but laugh, smile and like this girl who would one day become me.

Every year—at the end of the year—I marvel at how much I’ve grown, who I’ve become, and I strive to improve. To always learn and find my way. But this girl from 13 years ago, this girl I’ve come from, she’s pretty neat!

Perhaps in trying to improve every year, I lose something. For instance, I was surprised to learn that even 13 years ago I loved fairy tales—truthfully, I thought that was post-divorce (11 years ago). And drawings—my goodness how many drawings, surprisingly good drawings, drawings about things I don’t remember paying attention too. I didn’t realize how much I used to express myself through drawing…I thought I just wrote.

There were parallels. Like secret yearnings—for quiet peaceful moments, for thunderstorms, for poise, for tea. One entry mentions watching a movie and longing to have chic pajamas like the main character. How delightfully kismet to read that passage one day after purchasing new chic pajamas because of something I read about a character in a book!

I am so me!

Which somehow surprises me. I’m not so different from 13 years ago—except I’m more me. I don’t think it’s because of time and space, but rather circumstances and choice. Which would make me think I’d be more different.

But, perhaps regardless of what curriculum I choose each year, what choices I make, what circumstances I find myself amidst, I will always be me. The thought gives me comfort and somehow relief.

That’s when the arresting thought hits me—perhaps all along I have been worried I might be trying to become someone else. And that could never be. Because I will always be me.

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Methuthu

I am obsessed with this idea that there used to be just one language.  Almost every culture has a story about people starting off with one language.  But whether through reward or punishment, gift or curse, the languages split.  And so did the people.

But it wasn’t until I came across an interview by an Inuit woman that I realized, that one language might have included animals and nature.

the very earliest time
When both people and animals lived on earth
A person could become an animal if he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
and what people wanted to happen could happen–
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody could explain this:
That’s the way it was.

 — Nalungiaq

I’ve witnessed the power of such a language.  The language of the Universe, isn’t that what the shepherd learned in the desert?  But was it possible to remember that language?  Somehow, I think that’s what I’ve been trying to learn my entire life.  I read more.  I followed the thoughts that occurred to me, that plagued me and I found myself revisiting the book Great Elk Speaks, which led me to an article about naming a tree after a deceased grandparent, which led me to Grandmother Willow.  (I don’t know she swallowed the fly…I just get lost on tracks like these and find myself back at music.)

Que que na-to-ra
You will understand
Listen with your heart
You will understand
Let it break upon you
Like a wave upon the sand

I have three trees—a large Maple in my backyard and two smaller Maples of a different variety in front of my house.  I don’t know what kind of Maple trees any of them are.  I simply know they’re Maples.  While I care about them, I hadn’t ever thought about naming them.  Until now.  Would this be my chance to practice the Universal language?

I approached my large Maple, and before I even reached out to touch his bark, the large Maple tree told me his name.  Grandfather Buffalo.  I have no idea where it came from.  It just came.  Perhaps I was listening with my heart.  Perhaps the one language we all used to know isn’t quite dead…

But Grandfather Buffalo sounded so—well, normal.  What would the natives have called this tree?  I wondered.  Where I live in Ohio, the land once lived with the Shawnee.  So naturally, I looked up the Shawnee word for Buffalo:  meθoθo…pronounced may-thoo-thoo.  Then I looked up the symbolism of the Buffalo:  survival.  Yes, that would work.  Grandfather Methuthu watches over my little spot of nature in this great big world.

But what to name the front trees?

Honestly, I don’t know.  They seem tricky to me, like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.   I approached them only to find myself standing there staring at them, all around me quiet.  I couldn’t help thinking of their wonderful skill at being umbrellas in the rain, but also their propensity to invite birds to sit and drop bombs on my windshield in the spring and summer, then they themselves drop leaves and helicopter seeds and twigs on my car during the fall.

Still it’s quiet.  Perhaps the Universal language is yet a mystery to me.  No names have come.  Perhaps tomorrow…

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Letter of Intent

Dear Gentle Penguin,

After having spent the last four days rereading two of my top ten favorite books, I find myself closer to answering my ever perplexing question of “what should I do with my life?”

As I made my way through Atlas Shrugged, I felt strong and determined, empowered and understood, but also a tad bit frustrated that I have no railroad to run, no copper mine to destroy, no new metal to create and manufacture.  Instead I kept hearing the “Who is John Galt?” question of my time and location whispered ghostly and ghastly in my ear “Who’s going to build the boats?”

My city is seeking a leader of John H. Patterson proportions to revitalize it and while lots of great things are going on here, lots of excitement is building, many things are in the works…they have been for some time and it seems there is no king about to emerge from the rubble to help us reclaim our former glory.  Perhaps it’s because after all our patents and Patterson we became a city of factory workers who merely did what we were told for so long.  Can a city out grow that?  I don’t know.

But that doesn’t help me with my destiny.  What am I going to be when I grow up?  Yes, I own my own business.  Yes, it’s successful.  Yes, I have claimed one focus over another now and then, I like them all too much to give any of them up.  And so I vacillate and stress about my railroad…or lack of one.

Immediately (like within minutes!) of completing that book, I felt compelled to grab another and dove head first into The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

I would like to write letters for a living.

Yes, it’s true.  Letter writing is my all-time-most-treasured-favorite pastime.  So I guess it’s only natural that my favorite spot in the entire world is my writing desk in my bedroom.  It sits between my bed and the wall by my closet, next to the window looking out on the tall pine tree of the abandoned house next door.  The tree is dying, but don’t tell that to the squirrels, the birds, the crickets and the cicadas that have made it a home.  Often a raccoon sits on the roof across from me and stares.  I wonder what he’s thinking.  I don’t dare ask for he might find it an invitation.  And I don’t want to have tea with a raccoon.  At least not today.  I’m often not brave when it comes to animals.

The moon is often visible riding across the arc of our dome.  But stars are rarely bright enough to pierce through the refracted glare of the street light nearby.  During the day, clouds tumble by, rain streaks my window or the light filters through the gauzy white curtains.  It doesn’t matter which, I find it always inspirational to my writing.

The desk is mahogany and just the right height for my waist, my arms and my legs.  I got it as a present upon high school graduation.  My parents and I picked it out at a garage sale as perfect for the college-bound me.  We took it home and under my dad’s supervision, I sanded it and restained it.  I love that desk. Cards, stationary, envelopes, pens of every color fill the drawers on one side while Moleskines and journals and star charts fill the drawers on the other.

I keep the top of my desk completely clean with the exception of a glass jar filled with bits of sea glass gleaned in Nova Scotia; a crystal cup overflowing with rocks, pottery shards and other beach treasures I picked up while on the coast of Albania; and a small pot with miniature white roses which I religiously keep tended.  They are some of my favorite treasures.

There’s a water stain on the top of my desk from where my former favorite tea mug leaked unbeknownst to me one day.  Lazily, I left it sit over night and long into the next day before I removed it to find the leak and the stain.  “Shame on me!” I think to myself when I see it and tsk-tsk my tongue at myself.  I should probably buff it out, but instead I place my new favorite tea cup on the spot to keep it covered while I write.  Or a wine glass.

In the corner sits a long branch from one of my small Maple trees out front.  It split off in a storm last fall and lost all its leaves.  When I picked it up to place in my wood pile, I thought the curves of the twigs were so beguiling I knew it needed to find a place in my home.  So it stands at the edge of my desk curving in front of the window as well as next to the wall by my closet where I’ve hung a plastic replica of the moon that lights in various phases of waxing and waning and full depending on how many times I push the button on a garishly colored remote control that came with it.  When I’m feeling extra creative I’ll write by the light of both moons…the real one outside my window and the plastic one on my wall.  I imagine I’m on Tatooine…though without the sand creatures.

A stack of children’s books that are too precious to donate or sell, but too redundant to keep, lay on their sides next to my desk.  I intend to give them as gifts to children who matter to me.  Nieces, nephews, children of friends, pupils…I love books.  I love how they change me, soften me, empower me, make me feel, give me an escape, teach me, comfort me, inspire me.  Every child should experience this too.  Don’t you think?

But I digress.  Or do I?

There is no escaping my destiny as a reader if I’m also a writer.  That I’ve already accepted whole-heartedly.  But right now, thanks to Juliette and her adventure, I want a pen pal.  I want to feel my pen flowing across paper the way an ice skater smooths across the ice.  I want to see my handwriting, strong, beautiful, curvy and pointy in the same turn, laughing and friendly as thoughts about the mundane become important and transformed into a story about life and living.

My daughters will be home from their dad’s tomorrow, so I’m losing my best pen pal (only one wrote me back!).  So I’ll need a substitute.  Or maybe it’s the romance of Guernsey for which I’ll need a substitute.  I admit I’m dying to go there to see it.  (I saw a documentary on the channel islands the other day…Fascinating stuff!)

But then again, two books are already queued up for me—one to share with my youngest who is dying to know why Kate and I insist towels are important tools for intergalactic travel—and another that (based on its dust jacket) will likely remind me of the romance of writing in a journal.

Either way, it’s a joy to know I can always write to you about books, musings,  life and living.  I’m thrilled you’re my pen pal.  Though, I wish I heard from you more often 🙂

Yours ever,

-Monica

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