I am dating the official start of my new life as a full-time children's book writer as this past Monday. That was the day that classes began for the fall semester at CU, and I was not there handing out my syllabus and greeting my students. I celebrated this huge life change by heading out early with my friend Rowan and my little dog, Tank, for a hike on the Shanahan Ridge trail, followed by seriously facing the revisions I have to do on the second book in the Nora Notebooks trilogy. Hooray!
But exhilaration lasted only a short while, alas. I got two good hours of work done on Monday, one good hour done on Tuesday, and yesterday, a grand total of nothing, no work at all.
What did I do instead? I did amazing amounts of walking, logging steps like crazy on my new adorable Fitbit, which I bought myself as a big 6-0 birthday present, It's basically just an extra-small and extra-cute pedometer, but it also syncs with your computer, keeps track of all your walking activity, and allows you to compare results with any friends who are Fitbit fanatics, too. I started using the Fitbit mid-day on Monday and racked up over 10,000 steps by the end of the day. The next day I walked all over town on errands and racked up over 20,000. And yesterday I came close to 20,000 steps, too.
Go, me?
Well, not really. I didn't leave a well-paid, satisfying position as a philosophy professor just to be able to brag to my friends how many steps I take. Fitness is important, yes, but it's not everything to me. And in all honesty, I've been logging fewer minutes on my feet than I have on Facebook. I've felt sadder and sadder about myself as the days passed, until yesterday I found myself Googling "inertia" and "stuck" and other similarly dispiriting search terms.
But then I realized: I already know what to do to make things better. All I need to do is the same things that have worked for me my entire life.
1. Get up early. Even if I have all day to work, in theory, I now know that I won't get any work done at all if I don't face it first thing. So this morning I forced myself out of bed at 5, even though I now know the joy of luxuriating under the covers until 6. I did good work BEFORE I walked at 7.
2. Don't think of yourself as having all day. Think of yourself as having, yes, one hour. This morning, I turned over my cherished cherrywood hour glass once again and clocked one sweet productive hour as its sands slipped away.
3. Give the hour to what you love best, or at least, what most needs doing so that your spirit won't be utterly crushed under the misery and dread of having to do it. Today I didn't give my hour to my Nora revisions (what I love best), but to writing a last-hurrah tenure/promotion review, a leftover obligation of my professor days. That has been hanging over my head all summer, and now it's done, done, done, oh, joy, oh, rapture, a full four days before the September 1 deadline.
So I need to do what works. Different things might work for you, but for me, all I need to do is to get up early and spend ONE HOUR doing what's most important to me for the day.
It's a bit deflationary to realize that my new life is going to be built on the exact same principle of my old life. I was already devoting an early morning hour to what I love best over the course of the last thirty-five years of writing around the confines of my day job. If the new life isn't going to be appreciably different, why did I walk away from the money, prestige, and satisfaction that my other career brought me?
I don't know the answer to that yet. I'll have to figure that out as Act III of my life continues. For now I know to start by sticking with what has always worked for me. My early morning hours have to stay unchanged. I can reinvent myself all I want during the rest of the day. But tomorrow at 5 a.m., expect to find me lying on my couch, mug of hot chocolate by my side, writing.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Curtain Rise, Act III
Today is my 60th birthday.
Today is the day the curtain rises on Act III of my life.
Act II ended when I turned in the keys to my philosophy department office at the University of Colorado on the final day of May and ended my 22-year tenure as a professor there. This summer has been one long sweet intermission leading up to this milestone birthday and to this coming Monday, when classes begin again at CU and I won't be there. And now Act III begins, the best act of all.
I started a new little Act III notebook to write my goals for Act III and little bits of wisdom to guide me along the way. Much of the wisdom came to me via my sister, Cheryl, who posts a wonderful quote every day on Facebook from some famous person in honor of his or her birthday. Of late, so many of them have been perfect nuggets of Act III wisdom.
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is give us." Tolkien
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year." Emerson
"Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming." Alice Walker
And this one I clipped from the most recent issue of the Oprah magazine:
"On the day I die, will I be glad I did the thing I'm doing now?"
The theme for Act III is the awareness of mortality and how it increases the preciousness of each moment and gives a new urgency to the question of how we spend our days. I no longer have any time to squander.
Now, it's important to be clear on what counts as "squandering." An afternoon spent reading in a hammock is not a wasted afternoon. An evening spent walking with a friend or a dog is not a wasted evening. A morning spent gazing out at the mountains is not a wasted morning. At the end of my life, I'll be glad I did all those things. My four pillars have always been the same, the four things that make every day a joyous one for me: writing, reading, walking, friends. Those will be what structure my third act as well.
But Act III is also a last chance for even bigger adventures. If I'm going to live in a garret in Paris, or go on a walking tour of children's literature sites in England, or write the best book I've ever written, I'd better do it now.
Of course I know that Act III will also bring with it the challenges and undeniable losses that come with age. In case I had forgotten, I got a birthday email this morning from the Boulder Institute for Sports Medicine, where I had my broken foot treated this past spring, a seeming reminder that they're standing ready for my upcoming wrenched shoulders and fractured hips. Thanks for the nudge, Boulder Institute for Sports Medicine, to savor every single day that I can walk unaided, to savor every night that I can sleep without pain. And without challenges and losses, what would be the plot of Act III? Any writer knows that the ending is only sweeter for some struggles along the way.
At least that's what I'm telling myself on this beautiful morning of my 60th birthday, as I await with the excitement of a small child (and the hard-earned wisdom of a woman no longer young) for what the next thirty or forty years will bring.
Today is the day the curtain rises on Act III of my life.
Act II ended when I turned in the keys to my philosophy department office at the University of Colorado on the final day of May and ended my 22-year tenure as a professor there. This summer has been one long sweet intermission leading up to this milestone birthday and to this coming Monday, when classes begin again at CU and I won't be there. And now Act III begins, the best act of all.
I started a new little Act III notebook to write my goals for Act III and little bits of wisdom to guide me along the way. Much of the wisdom came to me via my sister, Cheryl, who posts a wonderful quote every day on Facebook from some famous person in honor of his or her birthday. Of late, so many of them have been perfect nuggets of Act III wisdom.
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is give us." Tolkien
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year." Emerson
"Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming." Alice Walker
And this one I clipped from the most recent issue of the Oprah magazine:
"On the day I die, will I be glad I did the thing I'm doing now?"
The theme for Act III is the awareness of mortality and how it increases the preciousness of each moment and gives a new urgency to the question of how we spend our days. I no longer have any time to squander.
Now, it's important to be clear on what counts as "squandering." An afternoon spent reading in a hammock is not a wasted afternoon. An evening spent walking with a friend or a dog is not a wasted evening. A morning spent gazing out at the mountains is not a wasted morning. At the end of my life, I'll be glad I did all those things. My four pillars have always been the same, the four things that make every day a joyous one for me: writing, reading, walking, friends. Those will be what structure my third act as well.
But Act III is also a last chance for even bigger adventures. If I'm going to live in a garret in Paris, or go on a walking tour of children's literature sites in England, or write the best book I've ever written, I'd better do it now.
Of course I know that Act III will also bring with it the challenges and undeniable losses that come with age. In case I had forgotten, I got a birthday email this morning from the Boulder Institute for Sports Medicine, where I had my broken foot treated this past spring, a seeming reminder that they're standing ready for my upcoming wrenched shoulders and fractured hips. Thanks for the nudge, Boulder Institute for Sports Medicine, to savor every single day that I can walk unaided, to savor every night that I can sleep without pain. And without challenges and losses, what would be the plot of Act III? Any writer knows that the ending is only sweeter for some struggles along the way.
At least that's what I'm telling myself on this beautiful morning of my 60th birthday, as I await with the excitement of a small child (and the hard-earned wisdom of a woman no longer young) for what the next thirty or forty years will bring.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Honey Pie
The fourth book in the Franklin School Friends series is going to be a spelling bee book, starring good-at-everything Simon Ellis, who offered keen reading, math, and running competition in the first three titles. Now Simon has to wrestle with the dark side of being such a gifted kid: what if in winning the spelling bee he loses his best friend?
A recurring character throughout the series is Franklin School principal Mr. Boone. He promised to shave off his big, bushy beard as a reading contest reward in Kelsey Green, Reading Queen. He let himself be dunked multiple times at the school carnival in Annika Riz, Math Whiz. He sprained his ankle on Field Day demonstrating hoppy ball prowess in Izzy Barr, Running Star. So of course he's the all-enthusiastic cheerleader for the spelling bee in Simon's book. This time he's offering a pie buffet to all the champion spellers, where the crowning glory of the pie selection will be his famous honey pie. (Bee, honey, get it?)
I sent the book to Margaret Ferguson for her editorial suggestions and received plenty of brilliant comments to strengthen the book in revision. She also asked, "Should we include Mr. Boone's honey pie recipe?" Why yes, we should. The only problem was that I didn't have Mr.Boon'e honey pie recipe. It was my own authorly fabrication. And now I needed to find it.
Hooray for Facebook! I put out a call for honey pie recipes and had a lovely selection of them within an hour. Best of all, one came from author extraordinaire Lisa Graff, also a baker extraordinaire, who includes amazing, fabulous, mouth-watering cake recipes in her hugely acclaimed recent middle grade novel A Tangle of Knots.
I tried baking Lisa's pie yesterday. Here it is in all its splendor:
The honey/sugar in the pie caramelized, giving a pleasing creme brulee effect. I didn't use her home-made crust, of course, as I am not a baker extraordinaire myself. But it was fine with a refrigerated ready-to-bake crust from King Soopers, sweet and creamy with coarsely ground sea salt sprinkled on top. Now I'm going to try one more Facebook offering, a Greek honey pie with ricotta cheese in it. Then I'll let my family vote on which recipe, tweaked a bit, will become Mr. Boone's specialty in the book.
Sometimes it's hard to live with an author, I'm sure. But sometimes it can be quite tasty.
A recurring character throughout the series is Franklin School principal Mr. Boone. He promised to shave off his big, bushy beard as a reading contest reward in Kelsey Green, Reading Queen. He let himself be dunked multiple times at the school carnival in Annika Riz, Math Whiz. He sprained his ankle on Field Day demonstrating hoppy ball prowess in Izzy Barr, Running Star. So of course he's the all-enthusiastic cheerleader for the spelling bee in Simon's book. This time he's offering a pie buffet to all the champion spellers, where the crowning glory of the pie selection will be his famous honey pie. (Bee, honey, get it?)
I sent the book to Margaret Ferguson for her editorial suggestions and received plenty of brilliant comments to strengthen the book in revision. She also asked, "Should we include Mr. Boone's honey pie recipe?" Why yes, we should. The only problem was that I didn't have Mr.Boon'e honey pie recipe. It was my own authorly fabrication. And now I needed to find it.
Hooray for Facebook! I put out a call for honey pie recipes and had a lovely selection of them within an hour. Best of all, one came from author extraordinaire Lisa Graff, also a baker extraordinaire, who includes amazing, fabulous, mouth-watering cake recipes in her hugely acclaimed recent middle grade novel A Tangle of Knots.
I tried baking Lisa's pie yesterday. Here it is in all its splendor:
Sometimes it's hard to live with an author, I'm sure. But sometimes it can be quite tasty.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Home from Hollins
I'm back now from my blissful six and a half weeks away, first presiding over the annual conference of the Children's Literature Association in Columbia, SC, and then teaching my chapter book writing class for six weeks at Hollins University in Roanoke. I was a tad apprehensive about my homecoming, the return to real life after so long in the enchanted world of children's books, what one friend calls my "Betsy-Tacy bubble." But it turns out that home is pretty sweet, too.
Nowadays, with daughter-in-law Ashley in residence, I return to a sparkling kitchen, well-stocked fridge, and elegantly lettered message on the dry-erase board saying WELCOME HOME, CLAUDIA! Now, with grandbaby Kataleya in residence, I return to this:
Need I say more?
I've already been back to church for a wonderful guest sermon by the chaplain of the campus Wesley Center and exhilarating music from a world-class trumpeter who plays in the summer Colorado Music Festival orchestra and uses our church as practice space. I've attended my writing group and toasted one member's just-signed screenplay contract. I've laughed and prayed with our church's summer women's book group: we're loving Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith by Michelle DeRusha. I've taken little dog Tank on daily walks; he writhes with rapture at the sight of me approaching leash in hand, or even at the sight of me with hat and sunglasses on. I've eaten cherries by the pool with my friend Rowan and celebrated her birthday at a delicious breakfast outside on the terrace at the Buff (where I also enjoyed one of their 99-cent mimosas). I sent last comments to my Hollins students, faced the copy-edited manuscript for my Ethics and Children's Literature collection, wrote a blind journal review for an article on The Hundred Dresses, and started on final revisions for the Simon spelling bee book.
I even dealt with a leaking upstairs bathroom shower drain and a ruined downstairs bathroom ceiling, with two visits from a plumber to deal with the former and two from a carpenter to deal with the latter.
It's a little more than two weeks now to my 60th birthday, when the curtain will go up on Act III. I've been calling this summer "intermission," but now I'm starting to hear the distant strains of the pit orchestra tuning up for the overture. And I like what I'm hearing.
Nowadays, with daughter-in-law Ashley in residence, I return to a sparkling kitchen, well-stocked fridge, and elegantly lettered message on the dry-erase board saying WELCOME HOME, CLAUDIA! Now, with grandbaby Kataleya in residence, I return to this:
I've already been back to church for a wonderful guest sermon by the chaplain of the campus Wesley Center and exhilarating music from a world-class trumpeter who plays in the summer Colorado Music Festival orchestra and uses our church as practice space. I've attended my writing group and toasted one member's just-signed screenplay contract. I've laughed and prayed with our church's summer women's book group: we're loving Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith by Michelle DeRusha. I've taken little dog Tank on daily walks; he writhes with rapture at the sight of me approaching leash in hand, or even at the sight of me with hat and sunglasses on. I've eaten cherries by the pool with my friend Rowan and celebrated her birthday at a delicious breakfast outside on the terrace at the Buff (where I also enjoyed one of their 99-cent mimosas). I sent last comments to my Hollins students, faced the copy-edited manuscript for my Ethics and Children's Literature collection, wrote a blind journal review for an article on The Hundred Dresses, and started on final revisions for the Simon spelling bee book.
I even dealt with a leaking upstairs bathroom shower drain and a ruined downstairs bathroom ceiling, with two visits from a plumber to deal with the former and two from a carpenter to deal with the latter.
It's a little more than two weeks now to my 60th birthday, when the curtain will go up on Act III. I've been calling this summer "intermission," but now I'm starting to hear the distant strains of the pit orchestra tuning up for the overture. And I like what I'm hearing.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Ah, Sweet Messiness of Life
I now have just three Hollins days left before I fly home to real life on Friday.
How happy these six weeks have been. The daily early morning walks, two or three times around the 1.75 mile perimeter of this beautiful, pastoral campus with fellow writers Candice and Elizabeth and whoever else cares to join us. Stimulating classes with my seven creative writing graduate students, each one doing her best to meet my challenge of drafting an entire 15,000-word chapter book in a month: two have turned theirs in to me already. Weekly one-on-one meetings with most of them, sometimes in my office, sometimes curled up on the couch in the third floor lounge in Swanannoa, sometimes over a meal, sometimes while eating ice cream. Evening talks several times a week by the greats of our profession - Candace Fleming, Han Nolan, fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes - as well as emerging new voices. Reconnecting with so many dear friends from my past.
During this six week span, I wrote the entire draft of my spelling bee book, received probing editorial comments on it, leaped into revision mode, and emailed it off to my editor this morning, with a somewhat feeble "Ta-dah!" but a "Ta-dah" nonetheless. I worked through the copy-edited manuscript of my Nora ant farm book. I sent the fifteen copy-edited chapters of my Ethics and Children's Literature collection to the contributors for their final approval. A slacker, I have not been!
Yet, despite many, many hours spent writing, teaching, and talking to students, it's been an enormously restorative, even restful, six weeks for me. I eat my easy-peasy meals in the Hollins cafeteria or cut up a farmers' market peach topped with Greek yogurt, a handful of blueberries, and a drizzle of honey. I have only the clothes I brought with me in my carry-on luggage. I am far away from so many cares.
Come Friday, I'll have to deal with the leak that ruined the downstairs bathroom ceiling at home while I was away. I'll have to figure out if I can really live on the amount of money I can earn with my pen. There are people there who need me. I may even have to cook a meal or two!
My dear wise friend Billie pointed out to me that if I stayed at Hollins longer, it would become real life, and then it would become messy, too. Real life is messy. There's no getting around that. In real life, real people need us, and real leaks cause real damage leading to real repairs followed by real (and really expensive!) mold mitigation (as I know too well from how I spent the first half of June before departing for Hollins).
But that's okay. Real life also has a grandbaby to hold, who turned five months old while I was away, and who can now laugh and roll over from back to tummy. Real life has my summer women's book group at church, and hikes with my friend Rowan. Real life has lots more writing in it, and I do love to write. Real life is messy, yes, but there is sweetness in the glorious mess of it, too.
How happy these six weeks have been. The daily early morning walks, two or three times around the 1.75 mile perimeter of this beautiful, pastoral campus with fellow writers Candice and Elizabeth and whoever else cares to join us. Stimulating classes with my seven creative writing graduate students, each one doing her best to meet my challenge of drafting an entire 15,000-word chapter book in a month: two have turned theirs in to me already. Weekly one-on-one meetings with most of them, sometimes in my office, sometimes curled up on the couch in the third floor lounge in Swanannoa, sometimes over a meal, sometimes while eating ice cream. Evening talks several times a week by the greats of our profession - Candace Fleming, Han Nolan, fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes - as well as emerging new voices. Reconnecting with so many dear friends from my past.
During this six week span, I wrote the entire draft of my spelling bee book, received probing editorial comments on it, leaped into revision mode, and emailed it off to my editor this morning, with a somewhat feeble "Ta-dah!" but a "Ta-dah" nonetheless. I worked through the copy-edited manuscript of my Nora ant farm book. I sent the fifteen copy-edited chapters of my Ethics and Children's Literature collection to the contributors for their final approval. A slacker, I have not been!
Yet, despite many, many hours spent writing, teaching, and talking to students, it's been an enormously restorative, even restful, six weeks for me. I eat my easy-peasy meals in the Hollins cafeteria or cut up a farmers' market peach topped with Greek yogurt, a handful of blueberries, and a drizzle of honey. I have only the clothes I brought with me in my carry-on luggage. I am far away from so many cares.
Come Friday, I'll have to deal with the leak that ruined the downstairs bathroom ceiling at home while I was away. I'll have to figure out if I can really live on the amount of money I can earn with my pen. There are people there who need me. I may even have to cook a meal or two!
My dear wise friend Billie pointed out to me that if I stayed at Hollins longer, it would become real life, and then it would become messy, too. Real life is messy. There's no getting around that. In real life, real people need us, and real leaks cause real damage leading to real repairs followed by real (and really expensive!) mold mitigation (as I know too well from how I spent the first half of June before departing for Hollins).
But that's okay. Real life also has a grandbaby to hold, who turned five months old while I was away, and who can now laugh and roll over from back to tummy. Real life has my summer women's book group at church, and hikes with my friend Rowan. Real life has lots more writing in it, and I do love to write. Real life is messy, yes, but there is sweetness in the glorious mess of it, too.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Summer Bucket List
1. I absolutely MUST spend some time writing at my new favorite coffee shop, Cups, in the Grandin neighborhood of Roanoke.
2. I absolutely MUST have a grilled cheese sandwich at the little place around the corner: Pops. Not one but TWO of my students have told me this.
4. I so want to attend the playwriting-for-children workshop led by Nicole Adkins, and hear the talk "Mirrors of Antiquity in Modern Fantasy" by Bryn Mawr classics professor Benjamin Stevens, and the keynote address of our Twentieth Annual Francelia Butler Student Conference on Children's Literature by legendary fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes.
5. I want to sit writing at least one more time in a rocking chair on the verandah in the quad, and in the reading loft which you reach by ascending a tiny spiral staircase in the library, and on the cozy couch in the third floor lounge in Swannanoa Hall.
I think I'm going to be able to do all of these things! I already have plans with two students for an outing to write at Cups on Saturday morning, followed by grilled cheese at Pops. Lisa, Hillary, and I are meeting for a critique group session tonight; I suspect that a margarita may be involved as well. I've blocked out time for all those delicious talks in my planner. As for writing, I do believe I can write on the verandah today, and in the reading loft on Sunday, and in the Swannonoa lounge several times next week.
And if there is anything else that clamors for inclusion on my summer bucket list, I may just have to see if I can return here to teach in some future Hollins term, and start my list all over again.
Friday, July 11, 2014
"When You Come to a Fork, Take It"
Yogi Berra is remembered as much for his "Yogiisms" as for his distinguished career in Major League Baseball: sayings such as "It ain't over till it's over" and "You can observe a lot by watching." One of my favorites is: "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."
Lately I've been coming upon lots of little forks in the road of my daily life, opportunities to do activity A or activity B. Should I accept a new friend's invitation to go with her on a Saturday morning to the farmers' market in downtown Roanoke, or devote the day to writing my chapter book? Which chapter book: should I be working on my spelling bee book or on my third Nora-with-the-ant-farm book, both with looming due dates? Should I go with my friend Rachel to Williamsburg (on the other side of the state) for opening night of Julius Ceasar, where her son worked on the set in summer stock? Or use the time to catch up on some work before two girlfriends from our University of Maryland days descend on us for a delicious reunion?
Inspired by Yogi Berra, rather than trying to decide which tine of the fork I should take, these days I'm trying to find a way to take the whole fork. Which one should I do? Both!
The farmers' market/writing choice was really a no-brainer. Get real, Miss Claudia! You already know that an hour a day of writing is plenty! Write for your hour, write HARD for your hour, and then head off to buy South Carolina peaches (so good!) and have a Bloody Mary with lunch in the courtyard of a Creole restaurant. With the book writing: the spelling bee book is shorter and due sooner, and I was stuck on the other one, anyway. So I'll do both, but first this one, then that one. For this weekend's fun, I'm so glad I decided to do all of it. I had a 30-hour jaunt to Williamsburg where I saw beautiful scenery in Shenandoah National Park, walked in the rain down Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg with my author friend Brenda who lives in the area, had dinner with Brenda and my wife-and-husband librarian friends Noreen and Alan, saw the play (focusing as much on the ingenious set as on the famous speeches), and am now back at Rachel's house awaiting the arrival of our friends Robin and Lori. As for the work I meant to do, it will get done. Work always does. In fact, I might take a few whacks at it right now.
When in doubt, do both. While no one wants a life that is uncomfortably crammed, I want to err on the side of saying yes to it all, stuffing each day full of joy, love, and beauty. Just about all of my regrets from the first sixty years have been not for things I did, but for things I didn't do. In Act III of my life, I want to grab the whole fork and eat my way through the full buffet of the glorious possibilities laid out before me in this, my one and only life.
Lately I've been coming upon lots of little forks in the road of my daily life, opportunities to do activity A or activity B. Should I accept a new friend's invitation to go with her on a Saturday morning to the farmers' market in downtown Roanoke, or devote the day to writing my chapter book? Which chapter book: should I be working on my spelling bee book or on my third Nora-with-the-ant-farm book, both with looming due dates? Should I go with my friend Rachel to Williamsburg (on the other side of the state) for opening night of Julius Ceasar, where her son worked on the set in summer stock? Or use the time to catch up on some work before two girlfriends from our University of Maryland days descend on us for a delicious reunion?
Inspired by Yogi Berra, rather than trying to decide which tine of the fork I should take, these days I'm trying to find a way to take the whole fork. Which one should I do? Both!
The farmers' market/writing choice was really a no-brainer. Get real, Miss Claudia! You already know that an hour a day of writing is plenty! Write for your hour, write HARD for your hour, and then head off to buy South Carolina peaches (so good!) and have a Bloody Mary with lunch in the courtyard of a Creole restaurant. With the book writing: the spelling bee book is shorter and due sooner, and I was stuck on the other one, anyway. So I'll do both, but first this one, then that one. For this weekend's fun, I'm so glad I decided to do all of it. I had a 30-hour jaunt to Williamsburg where I saw beautiful scenery in Shenandoah National Park, walked in the rain down Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg with my author friend Brenda who lives in the area, had dinner with Brenda and my wife-and-husband librarian friends Noreen and Alan, saw the play (focusing as much on the ingenious set as on the famous speeches), and am now back at Rachel's house awaiting the arrival of our friends Robin and Lori. As for the work I meant to do, it will get done. Work always does. In fact, I might take a few whacks at it right now.
When in doubt, do both. While no one wants a life that is uncomfortably crammed, I want to err on the side of saying yes to it all, stuffing each day full of joy, love, and beauty. Just about all of my regrets from the first sixty years have been not for things I did, but for things I didn't do. In Act III of my life, I want to grab the whole fork and eat my way through the full buffet of the glorious possibilities laid out before me in this, my one and only life.
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