Soporific

Last November, I took the National Novel Writing Month challenge and produced 54,000 or so words of fiction in 30 days. The idea is to punch out a draft, and punch it out I did. But at the end of the month I tucked it away on my computer hard drive and barely looked at it again.

Until my recent getaway, that is. Curious to see just how bad this thing was, I opened it up, held my breath and started reading. And I learned that, well, it wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be.  Which is not to say that it's ready for the New York Times bestseller list — or for any eyes other than my own.  But it has a couple of likable characters.

This morning, I discovered that the novel, which I call For Sale, has another attribute.  I'd been trying to read myself back to sleep for almost two hours without success. But after 10 minutes of For Sale I was out like a light.

Perhaps this could be a marketing tool. Watch out, Ambien, here I come!

First Thing

Today, I took an early walk before the heat began building. The sky was full of light but still uncertain. The day did not yet know what it would become.

This is one reason to walk first thing in the morning: the freshness of the air and the sense of possibility.

But there is another. There is the fact that the walking itself shapes the day, makes it more than it would be otherwise.

This doesn't happen all the time, but it did today. And I'm grateful for it.

(No, I wasn't walking on a beach, but I was remembering it.)

Holding On

What helps the beach state remain? I'm asking myself that question today, as I feel it slipping away.

I was off to a good start on the way home: a plane so empty that each passenger had his or her own row of seats.

Then a late-day landing that showcased the Washington Monument and the Capitol, the graceful spans across the Potomac, the compact graciousness of the place.

But today there was the long commute into Arlington, the work call that came in before I reached the office, the emails, the to-dos that piled up when I was gone.

Welcome back, they say.  I try not to listen. I hold onto the beach state for dear life!

Beach State

Today I leave the beach. That much is indisputable. But I hope to keep the beach state.

The beach state, as you might suspect, is the habit of pondering clouds and palm trees. It's also the habit of not caring as much about every little thing. It's the habit of letting go.

Beaches, after all, are receptacles. Onto them is thrown the flotsam of the sea, and from this random collection of shells and plastic bits comes sand both smooth and powdery (depending upon how close it is to the ocean). The beach, in short, is accomplished at acceptance.

This is something I would like to emulate, the beach state of acceptance. So it's that I would like to take home with me.

It's easy to think about retaining the beach state with the smell of sun on my skin and a tropical breeze moving palm fronds to and fro. Much more difficult when I'm standing on a crowded Metro train or sitting at my office desk, up to my ears in work.

But that's when the beach state is needed most of all.

Beach Clouds

Beach clouds differ from their mainland cousins. They cluster in the distance, looking gray and ugly. They throw down sheets of rain, giving themselves away.

Sometimes they scoot over the beach, leaving just droplets in their wake. We beach-goers take the brief pelting and shrug. We can see the sun breaks up ahead. We know we will have blue skies again soon.

I used to dread clouds at the beach; now I welcome them. They block some rays, cool me down, let me stay a few more precious minutes on the shore.

The Contemplative Life

Shortly before leaving the house on Saturday, I panicked about what books to bring.  I jettisoned the hefty library book, a novel scheduled for September book group. There will be plenty of time for it, and it hadn't grabbed me yet.

I thought about packing a book I'd already read, a security blanket of sorts. But that seemed too unadventurous.

I ended up with Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life, by Patricia Hampl. It is part travelogue, part memoir and part spiritual exploration.

The contemplative life is what Hampl is after, but to get to it she takes a walking tour to Assisi, home of St. Francis.  The walking feeds the contemplation, and provides authentic moments like the one when a woman in a kerchief runs out to offer the pilgrims two bottles of her homemade wine, a gesture "a million years old, far beyond courtesy, rooted in ancient communion."

"Walking allowed such timeless moments, making us slow-moving parts of the landscape we passed through. Maybe the world isn't, at its daily heart, as modern as we tend to think. As we walked, it kept reverting to an ancient, abiding self."

And it is in that "ancient, abiding self" that Hampl discovers — and perhaps all of us could find — the lives we are looking for.

The Vacation Typo

If relaxation means typing "vest" instead of "versa" or "swet" instead of "swerve" then I'm officially in vacation mode.

Those errors, since corrected, remind me this morning that my editing eye must be officially closed for the duration.

What I hope is not, what I hope is wide open, is the "inward eye," the one that helps me notice all the hues in pool water, the liquidity of the cerulean, the merging of the teal and the turquoise, the azure and the ultramarine.

That's the part of me switched off too often, the part bypassed for efficiency's sake. And oh, how I want to reawaken it!

I've Got Rhythm

It's the rhythm that does it to me, the waves lapping, advancing and retreating, moving in and out.

It's the palm trees swaying and the birds here, different from the ones back home.

It's the landscape. Semitropical, lush — hot, yes, but where isn't it hot these days?

The rhythm of Florida has become the pace of relaxation for me.

Bach to the Beach

One of the joys of a beach vacation is how few decisions need to be made. I love the hustle-bustle of a traveling getaway, one where you must decide which states or countries to visit, which sights to see, where to stay, which routes to drive.

But on a beach vacation you know what you'll do. You'll walk, read and swim. You'll look at the ocean and marvel at the immensity of it all.

Yes, you must decide how to divvy up your days. Beach in the morning, pool in the afternoon — or vice versa?

And what you must also decide is what to listen to while striding down the strand. Yesterday, it was Bach. To "Sleepers Awake" I watched gulls swoop ands swerve. To "Sheep May Safely Grace" I dodged lizards in the dunes. To the "Toccata and Future in D" I saw thunderheads pile up in the east.

They almost chased me inside, but I kept walking and they blew over ... for a while, at least.

Blast Off!

Today, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and humankind's first footsteps on the moon, I take off for Florida, the state which launched that famous spaceship.

Even on television a rocket launch is a grand and awe-inspiring sight. Here in D.C., they've turned the Washington Monument into a light show of the Saturn V rocket, an inventive and whimsical creation that seems just the right touch for the day.

However you celebrate it, July 20 is an awesome day to be an American, and, as always, an awesome day to be alive.

A Diller A Dollar

I miss reading Mother Goose rhymes to little people, but this morning it was almost like I was reading one to myself.

Into my mind, unprompted, came these words:

A diller, a dollar, a 10 o'clock scholar
What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at 10 o'clock,
But now you come at noon.

I know why this nursery rhyme suddenly came to mind.  It's the first day of my vacation, and I slept from 11 p.m. till 9 a.m.

The feeling, like the nursery rhyme, is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. And, like both, it is much fun.

Walking to Metro

I hadn't done this in a while, had forgotten how exhilarating it can be to park at the high school and walk to the Metro station.  But when I saw the open parking spot, I impulsively pulled in, covered my window with a sun shield, locked the car and took off.

The pace set my mind spinning and the rhythm of footfall turned an ordinary commute into a tiny adventure. Yes, tiny. I don't want to over-dramatize this. But when the conditions are right, parking and walking not only saves $5, but also provides a jump-start on the day.

Like all walks, this one has segments: crossing at the corner, trudging up the hill, turning into the neighborhood, walking through the "tunnel" (which is not really a tunnel but a passageway under an overpass) and then passing alongside the garage on the way to the station and train.

There's only one problem now: This afternoon, I'll have to walk back.

Writing a Life

An article in yesterday's Washington Post says that writing a narrative of one's life helps prepare one for death. It makes sense to me. But I would amend it slightly to say that writing a narrative of one's life prepares us for ... life!

I've been keeping a journal since high school, and wouldn't trade those books for anything. They are a motley bunch of spiral-bound and hardbound volumes, with writing cramped and tiny or loose and free depending on my mood. They preserve more than I could ever remember — and quite a bit I'd rather forget. But they are a record of my life, for good or ill, and as such are valuable to me.

An expert quoted in the Post article mentions that merely listing one's life events doesn't work. It's creating the narrative that brings perspective, linking one incident, one person, to another, a chain of belonging, a chain of being.

In other words, it's figuring out the question that Charles Dickens so aptly asks at the beginning of David Copperfield. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

(If life is a journey, it is also a narrative.) 

Midsummer

Days like this seem like they will never end. Up late with an orange moon, up early with a red sun. And in between, seeking shade and the cool interior.

Listening to the insects, their chirps and crescendoes, their cascading calls to one another, all of it music, summer music, an aural expression of freedom and relaxation.

I want to capture midsummer, bottle it, preserve it.  And then, one bitter winter morning, take it out and spritz it on my wrists and behind my ears, wear it like perfume.

Small Fry

I tore through Lisa Brennan-Jobs' memoir Small Fry in a few days. It's honest and it's titillating, since Lisa's father is Steve Jobs, and his paternal behavior is quite strange, to put it mildly.

Steve has little to do with Lisa and her mother (who he never married) in the beginning, and only acknowledges paternity under duress. Eventually, he has a relationship with Lisa, albeit an unusual one. They skate together, have dinner together and in high school Lisa even lives with Steve and his wife and son. But it's a relationship fraught with uncertainty and even meanness. Steve won't admit he named his Lisa computer after his daughter. He belittles Lisa and refuses to pay for her last year of college. Lisa has the final word, though, in the way of all memorable memoirists.

What I liked best about Lisa's writing was when she described the California of her youth, the sights and smells of the land she came alive to: "Here the soil was black and wet and fragrant; beneath rocks I discovered small red bugs, pink- and ash-colored worms, thin centipedes, and slate-colored woodlice that curled into armored spheres when I bothered them. The air smelled of eucalyptus and sunshine-warmed dirt, moisture, cut grass."

It reminds me of George Eliot's line: "We would never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it."

Too Much and Too Little

Charlotte Airport, 9 p.m.

Modern travel has much to recommend it. More people can be whisked to more places than ever before. But as anyone who has flown recently knows, modern travel can also be a headache.

Yesterday I spent 12 hours getting home from Little Rock. I could almost have driven in that time. Thunderstorms were the culprit. They grounded planes, which then caused a cascade of delays that rippled through the East Coast and beyond.

That much couldn't be helped. But as I walked through the Charlotte Airport I couldn't help but see deeper problems. There were plenty of places to spend money, but no comfortable seats. The place was so cold that my fingers were numb by the time I boarded the plane. And while the airline wheeled out a cart of snacks and drinks, there weren't enough attendants to help the stranded travelers get where they were going.

There was, in short, both too much ... and too little.

National Airport, 3 a.m.

Smelling the Roses

It's been a short trip to the Natural State. I leave later today. Amidst the work I absolutely have to do, I find time to visit with people I don't usually see. It's what makes it rich, and it makes me think how shallow life can be when efficiency rules.

Dozens of times each year I vow to be less efficient, to smell the roses, to take life easier. And dozens of times I break that vow.

But I'm an optimist, so I think ... maybe this time it will be different. It probably won't be. I know that. But I can always try.

Highs and Lows

A few weeks ago, the Arkansas River, which now flows placidly less than a quarter-mile from my hotel, rose and raged and overflowed its banks.

I was trying to imagine the flooding last night as I strolled along the river walk. There was a large hose, some matted greenery, but nothing else to give away the inundation that was. Instead, there was sultry air, graceful bridges, crepe myrtle in full bloom. 

It made me think about the changeability of the natural world, its highs and lows, of what Emily Dickinson described when she said:  "Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem."

Up in the Air

Sooner or later, usually sooner, the modern-day traveler runs into a delay,  cancellation or other snafu. This time is was my turn. The flight that was supposed to get me to Arkansas Sunday night with time to check in, have a good night's sleep and then slide easily in the work week ....  was cancelled.

Instead, I went back home Sunday night, left my bag checked at the airport and made my way to the local office yesterday morning ... in a monsoon. Inches of rain an hour, wind blowing it sideways, puddles so deep they covered my shoes.

Even a quick dash across the street from the "tunnel" to the door of my building left me drenched to the skin ... and of course I was wearing the clothes, shoes and socks I'd be traveling in until almost midnight last night.

No matter. The clothes dried, the new flights (both of them, to Chicago and to Little Rock) took off on time ,and my suitcase was waking for me, having apparently spent Monday in Little Rock.

Well, at least one of us did!

West of the Mississippi

I'll spend most of this week in Arkansas, a place that was briefly my home decades ago and is the official headquarters of my employer. It's a work trip through and through, but it's also a change of scene, and will put me somewhere I enjoy being ... west of the Mississippi.

Crossing the Big Muddy has always been a milestone in the long drives west. The river doesn't evenly bisect the continent, but the spirit of the country changes on the west side of the river. It loosens its shoulders, drawls a little more. It's friendlier, too.

I'm hoping this touch of the west will rub off on me a little while I'm there. Will slow me down and loosen my shoulders, too.

Blossoms in the Dark

In honor of the photo I received too late yesterday to include in my Friday post ... a salute to Thursday's fireworks display, one of the longest and most spectacular of recent memory.

Reports from those who went downtown to see the pyrotechnics were that the smoke obscured most of the show.

But from our perch in Arlington's Cherrydale neighborhood we had a wonderful window on the exploding lights and colors ... on the blossoms in the dark.

(Photo: Claire Cassidy) 

Home with Humidity

These days the air is so moist it seems to hold itself up, a scaffolding of water droplets. The slow walks I take with Copper give us both time to take in the humidity, he to pull and tug his way through it, me to wander through it as if in a dream.

Humidity is no fun when you have to mow in it, or hoe in it. Or for that matter, when there's no respite from it. But when you're strolling through it leisurely it can be good company.

"Home is where the humidity is," read the T-shirt of a friend I saw last night.

To which I say, you're darn right it's home. Humidity: bring it on.

Happy Independence Day!

On this Independence Day I imagine the sweep of this wide nation: its mountains and prairies, its red rock canyons and natural bridges, its cities and towns, filled this day with crisp flags flying.

I think of the cool stone walls along Pisgah Pike outside Lexington and the lilacs that hung heavy along Martins Pond Road in Groton. There were orchards there, too, and I would wander through them with Suzanne in a baby carrier on my back. She was just coming alive to the world.

I think of stepping out of Pennsylvania Station onto Seventh Avenue in Manhattan or standing on the brow of Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas or snacking on wild blueberries outside Bar Harbor, Maine. And as I imagine all of this, I hear the cicadas singing and the crows cawing in my own backyard.

What holds these images in my mind, what makes them dear, are the people I love who have been with me on this journey. But beyond them is the beauty of a land loved and cared for — and the more than 327 million people who live in it.

It is a nation founded on liberty, a nation we celebrate today.

Happy Fourth!

Ah, Nuts!

Today I finished off the last few pistachios from a giant bag that's been hanging around for weeks. I enjoyed every last morsel, and found myself thinking about the first time I ate one — and crunched into the whole thing, shell and all.

Pistachios were the expensive nut I could never afford with my allowance, you see. When someone bought them for me as a treat, I couldn't believe my good luck. But having only admired them and never tried them ... I didn't know the shells weren't edible.

The early confusion hasn't stopped me from loving them, though. And they are instructive, an early lesson in how things aren't always what they appear to be.

Embracing the Puritans?

I'm finishing up Marilynne Robinson's book What Are We Doing Here? Throughout her career, Robinson has been fascinated by erasures and omissions, and in an essay titled "Our Public Conversation: How America Talks About Itself," she asks us to rethink our Puritan heritage, its spirit of reformation, its genius for education and institution building.

Puritans get a bad rap, Robinson says, in so many words. Some of their greatest achievements have been forgotten, including a code called the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) that anticipates the Bill of Rights. The abolition movement flowered in colleges founded by Puritans. There is much to appreciate about them. But they are not hip.

This latter point is my own opinion, and an extrapolation, but I make it because Robinson opens her essay by mentioning an article about herself in which she is described as "bioengineered to personify unhipness."

She laughs off the characterization — figuring that it's because she's in her 70s, a Calvinist and lives in Iowa — but she takes seriously the fact that Americans are inclined to "find their way to some sheltering consensus that will tell them what to wear, what to eat, what to read, how to vote, what to think."

Anyone watching the Democratic debates last week would be hard pressed to disagree with her.

(Picture of the Westminster Assembly by John Rogers Herbert, courtesy Wikipedia)

Butterfly Garden

Morning in the backyard, monarchs light on the coneflowers. I only capture one each in these photos but there have been pairs and trios and even more.

Meanwhile, in another section of the garden, a female cardinal splashes in the bird bath, wiggles her little body around, then jumps out.

A small plane and a loud lawnmower provide the background noise to this seasonal tableau. It's July, summer's in full swing.