Returning to my Roots

Literature. Siddhartha, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the newest Pulitzer Prize winner A Visit from the Goon Squad. Falling in love with reading when I was about 27, it's been a mainstay for many years! And getting to read with younger people than myself is a treat; mothers read to children, dads do too; librarians read to groups; book groups read to each other; radio hosts and authors read aloud to fans and fanatics. Reading gives and gives and gives.
In our pursuit to read Barnes and Noble has become a Saturday Disney Land. Families, singles, couples, groups, loners, seekers, readers, kids. Everyone gathers there, in and out, the doors open and close, thresholds to magazines, music, books, each other, journals, cards, calendars and more. The place is a teacup ride.

The coffee shop buzzes as peeps eat sweets and imbibe mochas and au laits, fruit drinks and teas, hot and cold. Drizzling with chocolate, strawberry, caramel, we're diving in. And until the stimulation wears off, or becomes too much, we stay, sit, stray, loaf, wander, meander and glide up the escalator to the second floor where I found a table and chair to myself, with three books and two mags for some reading, some pondering, some looking out the window, some comparing, and some contrasting.

Skinny Bitch is an author I've heard women talk about, but, because of my obsession with not reading what's popular, have not pursued. That is, until the book caught my eye. Delightful, smart, colorful, informative, this is a cookbook for any body, any palate, any time. Yum, yum, yum. With a 13% off coupon, would this be my next book?

Barnes and Noble is here to stay it seems as it's feeling less like a big business and more like an independent bookstore. Employees are super friendly, resourceful, and committed to customer service. The store is centered around the Nook kiosk, and people were milling around and keeping the sales guy busy. He looked pleased to be interacting instead of standing idle. B&N badges are everywhere and employees seem planted all over the store for helpful guidance.

Returning to the second floor, this book vied for the 13% coupon competition: Harold Bloom's The Anatomy of Influence. Ever the wishful intellectual, I can hardly follow one sentence to the next with this venerable man, a Yale professor, so I take it slow and find myself returning to Barnes and Noble in order to read this book. It's not for buying, but for using as a motivator to reading more, educating myself in what literarily I don't know ( A LOT more than I know ). At home, I found Hart Crane's To Brooklyn Bridge in a Literature Anthology. The poem Bloom suggests is as important as Eliot's Wasteland. It's a mighty read for a mighty bridge.
Two magazines remained to consider: Eating Well and Real Simple. Neither was compelling enough for the prized coupon, 13 percent off on the weekend of Friday the 13th in May. Perusing magazines is like eating hard candy, nutritionally weak, sweet in passing, and cheap now but expensive later. Maybe the coupon would end up in the recycle bin. Checking the time, Scout in the car, having given myself an hour at the min. and hour + 30 max, it was time for me to go. Escalator down, walking step by step (Tina J!) the Buy 2 get 1 Free table blocked my quick exit. Caught! for another five minutes in Disney World, B & N got their coupon back and Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage is now at my bedside.

Returning to Literature seems natural right now, and returning to my roots is always a welcome step on this journey.

That's all for now and if you've gotten this far, if you're reading this at all, thanks and cheers to healthy pursuits!

Source: dinneralovestory.com

75 degree growth

Zinnia grow with sunlight. So do peony and lavender, rosemary and oregano! How great the gardens are around West Asheville and the neighborhood Scout and I meander by day after day. Is there ever a reason to leave? It's a wonder that we seek somewhere else. Even with all the incredible weather we've had, sunshine, rain, thunder and more sunshine, and even a chill in the air seemingly a winter day, the Spring has come.

even in the bleakest yards

spring is arriving in asheville..........even though it snowed flakes of snow last night, she's arriving in all her light pink glory.....praise the fruit trees, the dogwoods, the birds tweeting news of sunshine and new grass. maybe they sense that bird feeders are full as humans awaken to our own awakeness, newly discovering what is always here: life.
even in the bleakest yards, colors amplify our senses. spring is the season of love bursting like it's never been felt before. winter has taken its toll for sure, again, but wait here's spring reminding us of love. how could we forget? easy! because putting on coats and hats and gloves and layers upon layers makes us forget. winter's hard. so we get spring to balance us out! hooray for the universe; she's the best mother nature ever.
so. enjoy your spring, however it's transforming you. good luck with your gardens, your planting, your reaping what you sow!

all in a day's play

Spring Forward

What an opportunity. I wondered how I might help the Japanese people, and walking into Earthfare found the way. There were five young girls outside the store representing the Red Cross. Accepting checks, I wrote one out to them and walked away. How easy! Thanks girls.

It's the day of Springing forward. We 'lose' an hour, adjusting to different light in our day. Earlier this morning, the day ahead looked hard; drama wanted to kick in and my thinking wanted to take off about how inconvenient this change would be. Phoo on me because now as I sit here writing at 3:44 pm, the day has been easy. So much for my thinking!

As much as I am an advocate for healthy eating, and I mean healthy eating---salads at McDonalds don't count----I do believe in m&m's once in a while, and therefore have created this Spring Forward granola. It's good!

She's flirting with us, Spring

Short Stories are feeding me lately....with rice cakes at my side...... Mmmmm, mmmm, good stuff, reading and rice cakes. They go so good together. Especially as the sun comes through the blinds and the heat warms folded legs. It's a Friday afternoon and I'm reading in the sun. Pssst, psst, Spring is Coming.....in all her Regalia, lillies and daffodils, svelte and audacious, she's on her way. Little sprites are popping out of the ground; to see them along the path is to be surprised, an instant smile inside. They are sneaky, little messengers, harbingers of long days to come. ....Maybe you'll find time to read a short story or two:

Gryphon by Charles Baxter......is magical! Or John Updike's ("Writing is a way of taming the world, turning the inchoate, often embarrassing stream into a package.") A & P. Let's just say the first one took me by surprise. I get a woman like Helena Bonhem Carter as the teacher in this story, just nutty and beauty and funny and fun! And in the second, a particular grocery store comes to mind each time I read it. I love that story, A&P.

Scout is here, the sun is out, and Spring is flirting with us. What could be better?

Timing

Who am I to write about time that Grand Marshall of our Lives? Not even Einstein could master time or its delicate nature, tick tock, but I figure, time runs me and maybe you too, so why not go for it? Sometimes you just gotta go for it!

I had my first migraine headache on Friday, didn't know it was coming. Might have asked it to let me know it was coming, but I didn't have time in all the doings of a life. Spent the day in bed not that I minded that, just didn't know how to handle the pain except handle it. Get through it, feel it and let it in since it was there to be had.

I am of the belief that things happen when they need to and on time at that. Try baking without timing right. Try jogging for the first time for hours. Try staying too long in a sauna or sitting too long in meditation, you might go loopy. Things have their time and we need to be attentive.

This morning I found the blog I needed called Slow Love Life. Amazing how the author writes with flow and kindness, attention to detail and light examples. I love her! And gorgeous photos. And gorgeous thoughts. And just gorgeousness all over the page. It's akin to the slow food movement, where we attend to love in our lives with slow care, with feeling gratitude, with loving kindness. Slow love life: at first I thought it was going to be about finding love late in life (;-) but then what it really is is just as good! S l o w i n g down certainly makes for having more time. Try it: slow down.

Calling my Dad, I need to attend to time. There's a tacit agreement: Do not call after 8 pm. I do not call after 8 pm. No one does who knows him! And we sort of love this about him, though we might mock it once every two or three years.

When I was younger, I played the "I'm won't read that book" game. That is any book that everyone was talking about I would poo-poo. Taking a superior stance I thought any book that everyone is reading can't be literature and so I won't read it. Well, I've changed. Or at least I picked up one of those books recently and I can't put it down. Ann Patchet's Bel Canto has already taken my breath away and I'm only on page 14. How is it that we get what we get when it's time?

Don't know but it's late now and I've decided to get upstairs to read.