On my first evening in London, the view from my window:
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So, it’s been a week since I last posted. Truthfully, last Friday I just forgot. And having skipped one day, it was easy to skip the next, and the next, and the next… I don’t want to view blogging as a chore, because writing is something I love to do. I so enjoy constructing sentences and searching for just the right word to convey an emotion or thought. And yet sometimes it’s difficult to summon the discipline to write every day.
sigh.
I’ve just spent an amazing week in London and have stories waiting to be told. It’s good to be back.
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Tonight we went to Night Life at the Academy of Sciences. It occurs every Thursday evening, with djs, bars and half price admission. Quite a different crowd from the elementary school field trip crowd the museum sees during the day.
The aquarium was outstanding. Several displays of jelly fish, tropical fish, and a tidal pool where you could handle starfish, sea urchins, and anemone. The best exhibit, however, was the patrons. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a social situation where the clientele were so varied. There were people of all ages, seemingly from all walks of life. At one point, we sat on a bench and observed the people. That in itself was worth the $12 admission.
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I read somewhere that this week is National Letter Writing Week. I love writing letters. I love picking out stationery, heavy paper, with just a hint of design, so that it doesn’t overpower the message. I love thinking about what I’m going to say. Not thinking in the sense of “how can I say this in 140 characters or less?” but thinking as in “what is the essence of the message I want to convey?” What words or phrases will let the reader know this message is especially for them? And I love the physical act of writing. Of placing dark ink on heavy paper and making slightly angular, slightly curved connecting letters, slanting slightly upwards.
But most of all, I love the intimacy of a letter. The suspense before opening the envelope. Holding the paper, reading a message intended for one person only, not for a hundred followers. Knowing that a part of me is with the recipient, a shared experience for just the two of us.
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I marvel at other people’s collections. I’m fascinated by their ability to choose one point of focus and create a unified collection around it. When I think about starting a collection of something, I change my mind too often. Today I like this, tomorrow that.
My friend Warren has an unimaginable magnet collection. Enough to cover multiple refrigerators. And the amazing thing is, he didn’t buy any of the magnets. The first magnet was a gift to his dad (a doctor) from his secretary (more here). And a tradition was born. After dad retired, he passed along the collection to Warren. Now Warren encourages new additions to the collection. I like adding to someone else’s collection.
Warren recently decided to join in the Post a Day challenge, highlighting one of his thousands of magnets each day at Magnetboard. The blog went live today, with this entry from the Newseum. Until I can decide on what will be in my own collection, I’ll vicariously collect though Warren (and maybe even contribute a magnet or two).
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It pleases me to no end when someone presents me with a witty pun or clever play on words.
I recently sent my aunt and uncle a thangka painting I obtained on one of my recent trips to Nepal. Thangkas are detailed artworks, generally painted by monks, and depict either a mandala or a scene from the life of Buddha. They tend to be incredibly intricate, with animals and people often painted with a single hair brush. A small thangka may take months to create. I love the detail of a thangka, as well as the colors, which tend to be deep jewel colors highlighted by gold.
I wasn’t sure if they would like the painting. Picking out art for someone else can be tricky. I know that my aunt and uncle and I are similar in many respects, but would we have the same artistic sense? Would they see the beauty in the piece I had selected?
I received a lovely email from my aunt this morning, with the subject line
“Wow!! Thangka you so much!”
That subject line was her gift to me; I haven’t stopped smiling since.
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I had forgotten how much I enjoy, no, I love, The Sound of Music. Over the Christmas holidays, it came on tv and I sat there, mesmerized once again, by Maria and the von Trapp family.
I enjoy it for so many reasons:
- the songs are familiar, and bring a smile to my face as I sing along. Isn’t it glorious to sing along to “Doe, a dear, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden sun…”?
- It’s a quintessential love story – between Maria and the Captain, between Liesl and Rolf, between Maria and the children and vice versa.
- It’s a story of survival and beliefs in one’s ideals.
- And it’s a story that celebrates music.
My favorite scene is the one where the Captain hosts a formal dinner party. Maria is on the veranda, teaching the children an Austrian folk dance, when the Captain intervenes. The Captain and Maria dance together, and as he twirls her they stare into each other’s eyes, falling in love. I know it’s predictable, and it’s cliche, but it’s still one of my favorites.
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I’m fascinated by major events, but not compelled to attend unless there’s a personal connection. I’m intrigued by the common attention on one event and the energy that comes from so many people focused on the same thing. When friends asked me to join them in Barcelona to attend the Formula 1 Grand Prix a couple of years ago, I thought, “How iconic. The Grand Prix. Let’s figure this out.” It’s not something that I would have sought out to attend on my own. However, I went, and had a phenomenal time. Who knew I would enjoy racing so much?
Very dear friends moved to Louisville, Kentucky, recently. About a month ago, he sent out an open invitation for friends to join them in May for the Kentucky Derby. The Kentucky Derby? Yes, let’s make this happen. The Kentucky Derby stirs up such romantic images of horse racing, refined gentlemen in seersucker suits, ladies in lovely hats, roses, and mint juleps. Tickets are booked and come May I’ll let you know how the perceptions and the reality converge.
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I like to gather writing ideas from many different sources. Many of my stories come from everyday experiences that I find entertaining, or from reading other people’s blogs and having their stories remind me of something that happened to me, and sometimes I use writing prompts.
As part of The Daily Post challenge, WordPress is offering writing tips as well as daily prompts. Some of the prompts come from here. This prompt was from yesterday:
I was traveling through Australia at the time. I had gone there with the intention of studying abroad for a year, but after one semester decided my time there would be much better spent exploring the country. My parents were not especially happy with my decision to drop out of school for a semester.
I was in Alice Springs when my cash was stolen from my backpack at a youth hostel. Too proud to ask my parents for money, I decided to get a job. Someone at the hostel said they knew someone looking for some help and kindly drove me to a gas station. There, I was introduced to an elderly Greek man, Yiorgos, with a thick accent. “You pack ice before?” I smiled, “No sir, but I’m a quick learner.” He snorted, then decided I would do anyway.
He led me to the back of the gas station where an ice truck sat, one of those white trailer-esque vehicles that magically produced crushed ice. He sat at one end of the truck, shoveling ice into plastic bags. When he was done, he passed the bag to me, where I would twist the top of the bag and attach a twist tie. I would then stack the bags on a dolly to carry into the freezer bin in the gas station. My hands went numb while sitting in the ice truck, handling the bags of ice. “WHERE’S YOUR GLOVES?” Yiorgos yelled at me. I looked at him, unsure how to answer. Why would I have brought gloves to the desert in the middle of the summer? How could I have ever predicted I would be spending my days sitting in an ice truck?
This lasted two days before I set aside my pride and called my parents, asking them to wire me money. Probably the shortest job interview, as well as the shortest tenure at a job, I’ve ever had.
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There seems to be a lot of discussion about the virtues of books vs the Kindle. Pros for this medium, cons for that one. I thought I was a die-hard print book supporter. I love the feel of a book in my hands. I love the weight of the paper, the anticipation as I prepare to turn the page to read the next word. About the only downside to physical books were their weight when I traveled. My work trips kept me gone for many weeks at a time, and I usually hauled four or five books with me. That weight adds up when you’re trying to pack light.
I bought a Kindle about a year ago. And after one trip with it, I fell in love. It’s lightweight. I don’t feel guilty about taking four books on a trip and only reading one. I don’t feel frustrated when I finish all my books in the first three days of my trip. I have options. I can read what I’m in the mood for, not necessarily limited to what I’ve brought with me physically. I can download new books at any time. If I feel like a historical novel, it’s there. If I feel like business strategy, it’s there. If I feel like a sappy novel, that’s there too.
The one feature that I love/hate about the Kindle is the built-in dictionary. I love the instant gratification of understanding an unknown word. The definition is right there at the bottom of the page. It’s easy and efficient. I understand the meaning and continue with my reading. So why would I hate this feature?
When I read a printed book, I mark my place with an old business card. When I come to a word I don’t know, I write down the word and the page number. When I get to a stopping place, I pull out my print dictionary (yes, I still have one), and look up the word. I let my eyes roam over words near the one I’m looking up. I marvel at all the words I’ve never heard of before and study their etymology. I look up the word in question and I volley the meaning around in my head. I go back to the page in the book and see if the passage makes more sense. And then, when I’m finished with the book, I toss the scribbled-upon business card into a drawer. Weeks, months, years later when I find the card, a memento of the original reading, the story returns to me.
As much as I love many features of the Kindle, the one thing I think I’ll always miss while reading on it is my convoluted process of documenting and discovering the meanings of new words while reading a physical book. Which is why you’ll always find a bookshelf overflowing with books and drawers filled with scribbled-upon scraps of paper in my home.
LoriLoo 