Several years ago in a used bookstore in Columbus, Georgia, called “Beetlebinders” that now no longer exists, I found a very old book called Day Dreams.
It took me a minute to figure out that the formless white shape on the cover was a genie being released from a lamp. Reading is a lot like rubbing the lamp.
Day Dreams is an anthology of poems selected by Daphne Dale. One of my favorites (by an anonymous author) is titled “The Things in the Bottom Drawer.”
It was published in 1892. For Christmas that same year, Ralph Davis’ mother gave this book to him as a present.
I was in my study on the phone wishing my father a happy day when I glanced out the window to see what my father thought, from my description, was a hawk on the roof of the old swing set, and I called to my son, home from college, who came in and took these two pictures.
“The day grew light, then dark again–
In all its rich hours, what happened?”
Jane Hirshfield, “Apple”
So this morning, at the suggestion of a reader, I took myself outside before I did anything else. Up and out my driveway for a walk–to wake the mind and the body at the same time.
Seventy-four degrees in Columbus, Georgia, with a light breeze. Wonderful in the shade.
And on my walk it came to me that I hadn’t taken an essay I wrote for my last packet of the semester (dropped in the FedEx box last night around six) far enough. This is the kind of thought that’s most likely to occur when my mind is free to roam. Which underscores the importance to writing of time away from desk or computer.
From The Maytrees:
Every book he read was a turn he took…He started new notebooks without having made the least sense of any old notebook.
It looks like spring here in Georgia. The daffodils are pushing out of the ground. The cherry blossoms are blooming.
And it sounds like spring. I’m going to betray my ignorance here, but on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday a flock–as in 50 or more–very excited birds played in our yard. Flying back and forth, singing, having a great time. A bird party.
Just a few minutes ago, I took out my Audubon guide to identify what kind of bird it was–brown belly, dark coat. A Robin. “Popularly regarded as the best sign of spring’s arrival…”
It feels like spring. It’s 62 outside right now, but the sun is so bright, it feels warmer. Even though it went down to 42 last night, according to the weather people, it will be 72 before the day is over.
Last year, I couldn’t wait for March 1st–the day I’d designated to put color back in the header of the blog. Then on the first we had snow here, and I couldn’t bring myself to write the spring post I’d counted on. This year, March 1 came and went without my even realizing it was time.
Richard Yates wrote in Revolutionary Road, “What is spring but a mindless rearrangement of cells in the crust of the spinning earth as it floats in endless circuit of its sun?”
At 10:15, this day appears to be another one of those where I feel like my right arm is going in one direction and my left in completely the opposite, the same with my legs, and my head just might explode. I want to do so many things ALL AT ONE TIME.
Each thing I do leads me not to an end but to a new beginning. Case in point: I post a comment and the reply comes with a question. I want to make a post but it turns out I really want to make four: on the frozen state of Columbus, Georgia; on the pictures I took in Vermont; on what I did in Vermont; and on how to read a story like a writer–how to take it apart.
So often on days like this, I end up frozen and accomplish nothing.
I remind myself, one thing at a time, one step at a time:
There’s something about the sound of water–the ocean, rain, the trickle of a fountain. We don’t live on the water, but a few years ago, we splurged on a fountain for the front yard. This is the way it’s looked ever since I got back from Vermont–frozen solid, a block of ice:
Georgia
Columbus, Georgia, has had 11 consecutive days where the low was below freezing and the high has not exceeded 47 degrees.
Writer Anna Clark is doing a series on her blog, Isak, suggesting that we all choose books as gifts for the holidays. Each almost-daily post in the series suggests not only the title of a book, but also who that book would be perfect for, what edition to buy, and where to buy it.
There is also a Buy Books For the Holidays website that hopes we will “make this holiday a literary season.”
I agree. I hate shopping, but choosing a book for someone does not feel like shopping. It feels like getting lost in a library. I love to give books. I love to receive books. Most hardbacks are $25 or less. Wonderful paperbacks can be found for $15 or less. And for $9.95 a month, there’s BookSwim, a kind of netflix for books. Gifts of words, of stories, of lives…
One of my other favorite gifts is to plant a tree in honor of that person. I started doing this in 1998 through an organization called Forevergreen that planted trees in Minnesota. I’d seen a segment about their work on TV. Now there’s Trees Columbus.
If you have questions about giving any of the books I’ve written about on the blog, please leave a comment and I will try to respond quickly.
I thought if I wrote about it here either I might figure it out or maybe one of you would. You see, I’m working on my third piece of fiction where he tries to make an appearance.
Which he in fact did last night in Columbus!
In a 2001 (early, early) draft of my first novel, I opened every chapter with a few words from a Jackson Browne song. In July of that year, Howard Norman in a writing workshop said ever so gently, “Man, I just love Jackson Browne. Those quotes really took me back. But they’ve got to go. Your writing has to stand on its own.”
Perhaps you’d like to see what he was referring to:
Chapter Thirteen: “Whatever it is you might think you have/You have nothing to lose/Through every dead and living thing/Time runs like a fuse/And the fuse is burning/And the earth is turning.”
Chapter Fourteen: “And the heavens were rolling/Like a wheel on a track/And our sky was unfolding/And it’ll never fold back/Sky blue and black.”
Chapter Fifteen: “Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder/Where the years have gone/They have all passed under/Sleep’s dark and silent gate.”
Then there was a draft of a story I sent through my writing group in September where two characters were listening to JB in the car. Not working was the consensus.
Last night I was beside myself, as the saying goes, in my front row seat. At 7:30 Jackson Browne appeared out of the darkness onto a stage set up with 16 guitars and a keyboard. He was wearing dark blue pants, a dark blue shirt, and black shoes. His long straight hair is tinged with gray.
He had no setlist but chose songs that appealed to him from those that the audience members shouted out, commenting late in the show that we were “a fractured group.” Several times he commented that he was concerned with trying to string the songs together in the right way, that he wanted everything to be “just so.” Then he said, “Really, when I think about it, it is ‘just so.’”
With the exception of a fifteen minute break, he played until 10:00. 1-Barricades of Heaven 2-I Thought I Was a Child 3-Looking Into You 4-Jamaica Say You Will 5-Running on Empty 6-Don’t Let Us Get Sick written by Warren Zevon 7-Naked Ride Home8-For Everyman 9-Late for the Sky (better than I ever heard him play this before) 10-In the Shape of a Heart 11-Giving That Heaven Away 12-Rock Me On the Water [break] 13-Something Fine 14-Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate 15-Going Down to Cuba 16-Lives in the Balance 17-Redneck Friend 18-Time the Conqueror (which he endearingly forgot the words to) 19-new song for a movie Here Without Her (title?) 20-Doctor My Eyes 21-These Days 22-Just Say Yeah 23-For a Dancer 24-The Pretender, and for the Encore: 25-Take it Easy (which he also forgot the words to), and 26-Our Lady of the Well.
He was amazing. See for yourself on my first (and shaky) YouTube video:
*the sneeze at 38 seconds belongs to my husband : )
This new piece of fiction that I started six weeks ago? Yup. “Running on Empty” is the name of a little coffee shop where Angelina likes to stop after work. Maybe this one will work, and I’ll be cured.
I wanted to do a post today. Usually I post much earlier. This is my fourth try.
Each time--writing about a book, about my writing process (ok, obsessed), and even about a single picture I had taken on Tuesday--I was not happy with what I was doing.
I kept wanting to include not one but three pictures. Just a minute ago, I interrupted my last attempt to post so I could accompany my 16-year-old to the door. He was leaving for a late basketball practice.
As I shut the door, I saw the last light of day caught in this dogwood tree. And I thought, I give, as I went in search of my camera.
Tuesday night around 8:00 I got in my car to drive to the soccer field for registration. Most of the day, I had been sitting in front of my computer. My brain felt like it was off-duty.
It was starting to get dark as I pulled out of the driveway. The song “Wishful Thinking” by Wilco came on from my ipod. I was singing along,
what would we do without wishful thinking.
I wished I knew what CD of theirs this song was on, partly because that’s the way my brain works but also partly because I remembered a conversation I had with a friend that involved the same question. But because of the way my ipod is set up to work on my car’s CD player, I have to work off playlists. This was a Wilco playlist, not a certain CD.
Which led me to visualizing album covers, Carol King’s “Tapestry”, Jackson Browne’s “The Pretender”, The Eagles’ “Hotel California”, “Abbey Road”. And I thought it was sad that we no longer got attached to individual CDs in the same way because really most of us used ipods, downloading music from itunes.
Which led to me thinking about the Kindle in my purse and then to
what would we do without books.
I pulled into a gas station. No, it was a convenience store with gas pumps. I pulled over to the side, put my car in park, pulled a pad from my purse and wrote the post down in about 5 minutes. It just poured out of me. Which is unusual. Usually I have to pull it out of me kicking and screaming.
in my backyard yesterday
Yet, this is not the first time I’ve had to pull over to the side of the road to write. This is, in fact, how I started writing in 1995. I had majored in French and Linguistics, gone to law school, worked through 2 children. Something had to go with number 3. Number 4 was in a car seat in the back. He was two. I was just starting to be able to breathe again. That day, we were on our way to Atlanta to visit my grandmother who had had a stroke. We went every Tuesday. That was 14 years and a lot of words ago.
It was for Number 4 that I was driving to the soccer field Tuesday night. Next week he turns 16, and will begin to drive himself around.
