What cause, you may rightly ask, does a twice-divorced woman who is not in a relationship; a woman who as a child never, ever won first place in a Valentine’s Day box decorating contest; what cause does that woman have to enjoy Valentine’s Day?
After black, red is my favorite color. Maybe that is why I love Valentine’s Day – why, single or in a relationship I have always celebrated. It’s not expensive like Christmas – unless you are expecting diamonds. It is home grown, self-crafted, and red. I have heard it has a history – something about forbidden lovers, a little like A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream. More importantly, it has a history for me. Memories of heart-shaped sugar cookies sweeten my childhood. Memories of heart shaped boxes of chocolates given to my grandma or my mom and shared with me. Bouquets of roses for the brief years I was pursued. Memories of red and pink and purple saccharine-sweet stuffed animals given to my own children to celebrate the day – a way to say I Love You! In so many ways.
My husband of 10 years found yet another way to tell me he loved me. “I still love you and want the best for you. This relationship is over. Go have a good time in Washington D.C. Don’t scruple to find someone else.” It was mid-July. He had served me divorce papers the week before. Happily for me I was at a book convention with my favorite cousin – the one who had always been a twin sister to me. We visited Georgetown on a rare free afternoon. We learned the proper way to say crepes and to enjoy eating them. I stepped inside an impeccable little gift store and lost my heart. It was all hearts. Everything imaginable with hearts. I was smitten and knew immediately how I would support myself in the coming months of singleness. I would transplant this idea of a gift store with all hearts to my hometown. But I would add music. Heartsong – it would be all love and music. (You can read the fictional account here…)
Heartsong was launched and feted and failed and resuscitated and dead and buried in the space of twelve months. Have I ever recovered completely? One thing I do know is the music, the music plays on. And the love? Love has never left me. Furthermore:
“The piano is not firewood yet…everyone knows you’re going to love…but there’s still no cure for crying.”
Friends, I hope you have a fabulous Valentine’s Day!
The hash marks chalked on the concrete outside my window indicate 30 days since our local public library closed by mandate. I don’t have enough data to stream Netflix. That being the case, I’ve re-watched a lot of DVDs that I own. Turns out living in housing with limited signals these past four years was a good thing – for my movie collection. My daughter and I tag team storage and living space. She took her essential DVDs with her on 90 days temporary. I am left with her castoffs and my 75 top picks that I granted space when I culled and moved in February; Musicals, recents such as Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born, Narnia, LOTR, a couple personal favorite chic flicks, The Hunt for Red October, The Kid, and any thing Jane Austen. I have watched Sense and Sensibility so many times I probably need a new DVD. The acting is superb and the script tight. Emma Thompson is excellence in all she endeavors. I also have two versions of Emma (I prefer Kate Beckinsale over Gwyneth), and would like to own every version of Pride and Prejudice ever made. It is the book I reread most often.
Pride and Prejudice
What young woman wouldn’t want to be Elizabeth Bennett? Even Keira Knightly wanted to be Elizabeth and, as a pirate, she already had her choice of men (I know because I also have a small Johnny Depp collection). Lily James is credit worthy in Pride and Prejudice Zombies. In past, I have greatly enjoyed the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series – but I think my daughter has both those DVDs with her (yes, both the Zombies and Colin). So I am reduced to watching Pride and Prejudice 2005 or Bride and Prejudice 2004.
I ordered Bride and Prejudice for my daughter several years ago while searching for Pride and Prejudice Latter-Day Comedy. I enjoyed watching it once and that was all I needed. Like so many books, once is good and you move on. I pulled Bride and Prejudice from the stack the other night – the stack my daughter left behind-and watched it again. Again the next day. Again that night. Why? Because Elizabeth Bennett (in this case, a Hindi; Lalita Bakshi)is not afraid to speak out on issues. She speaks humorously and with knowledge and she is beautiful. But my favorite scene is where she tells William Darcy,“You’re the last person I’d ever want to be with.” She walks away. With confidence. Not in anger, but with resolve. We don’t see the end of her path. It may be long. It may be lonely. But she walks away – and she doesn’t look back. She doesn’t throw a glance over her shoulder to see if he got the message. She doesn’t turn to see if he is following her with his eyes. It doesn’t matter. She knows who she is. She moves forward. And that is why we want to be Elizabeth Bennett! She knows who she is.
She had always been fascinated by what makes people tick, the difference between introverts and extroverts, melancholies and cholerics, Myers-Briggs categories and –more recently- Enneagram personality types.
COVID-19 lockdowns, quarantines and isolations reveal a lot about our personalities. She was reveling in people watching; and best of all – from a distance! What a comfort is distance to the introvert! From her solitude she contemplated: Which of us are rule followers? Who is naturally rebellious? Who panics? Who doubts? Who hides? Who are the altruists ready to pitch in for the common good? Which of our acquaintance are conspiracy theorists? Who sees every crisis as opportunity? Who will seize the day?
She encouraged bicycling, as something you can do alone. She didn’t have a bicycle at the moment, but as an avid hiker she was quite used to sharing the trail with cyclists so she knew a bit about them. She was pretty sure bicycling belonged on the list of things you can do whilst thriving solo. What continues to surprise her is the number of bicyclists that persist in riding in groups – gangs even.
I’m not talking about the family groups, the bearded dad and the lithe young mom and the eight-year-old voice that pipes up, “on your left,” while the endearing four-year-old sibling, balancing solo on a 12-inch tries his best to repeat the alert while still maintaining proper balance and social distance. That’s a forever memory – a keeper from the crisis. My surprise, my thinly veiled criticism, is for the pack of five fifteen-year-olds I met on the concrete river path yesterday- obviously quintuplets because they had a mom and a dad with them. But they were far from identical. In fact, a couple of them had to bark at their buddy – I mean, their brother – for not paying attention, for veering into the left lane and nearly pinning me against the railing as I attempted to keep proper social distance. Obviously, he couldn’t see me since I was wearing a facemask. But wait, I don’t wish to throw stones (that would be against the rules). My purpose is to let her speak about the Enneagram Cyclists she meets.
She has been a rule-follower from the get-go. At first she thought it was just the way her parents raised her, but no. No amount of peer pressure has ever dislodged her from her innate fixation on doing things right. Oh, she is nice about it. As loyal as she is to keeping the rules, she is also humble – shy really – and will quickly step out of the way and hide her eyes when others insist on not following the rules. If you are going to keep rules, you must keep abreast of the rules – and she does! She reads the signs, she keeps a lama between you (and a slide trombone fully extended and the length of a mattress and the width of a car). She also knows the trail rules: Hikers yield to horses, bikers yield to hikers. But knowing she has the right-of-way does not stop her from stepping aside to let the cyclists pass. She hears them coming (thank God for good hearing on twisting treed mountain trails), she understands something of the difficulty of losing momentum once you start an incline, and the danger or impossibility even of stopping too fast as you barrel down a plunge. Besides, if you are quick on your feet and see a clear space to step aside, it is just common sense to do so.
Over the past decade, she has met only three Type One Enneagram cyclists. She knows they were type one because they insisted on keeping the rules. One dismounted and insisted on letting her pass – which she found embarrassing as she had already found a good rock to stand on. One simply said with a smile, “bikers yield to hikers, you go first!” The other one, also friendly, called out, “you have the right of way!” Mostly, bicyclists and hikers simply share the trail. As I said, she steps aside whenever she can and the majority of cyclists simply say, “thank you.”
They might be peacemakers, or enthusiasts, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Sevens or Nines. Some Twos consciously move aside for her and she says thank you. And they reassure her that it is no problem.
Some, like the teen girl she met the other day simply don’t know which end is up. They have never been taught. She was hiking at a good pace down a slight decline through pine and oak as she caught sight of a cyclist approaching a trail junction some 30 feet ahead. When she saw the cyclist acknowledge her presence and yet turn to proceed up the trail, she slowed her pace and looked about for a wide space. Oak brush, yucca and small cacti slid downward on her right. Tree trunks and sage ascended steeply to the left. To the rear, 50 feet more of the same narrow trail. It was indeed, very single track. She came to a halt, toes teetering on the edge of the trail and called to the approaching cyclist who was pushing the bike, “It’s very narrow right here.” She looked pointedly over the young woman’s shoulder to the junction not more than 15 feet distant where the trail was broad and wide and turn around space existed. “I’ll just go here,” said the young woman, doggedly pushing past at the narrowest part of the trail and nearly shouldering her off and into the yucca, while missing only by a hairsbreadth treading on her feet and ankles. So much for yielding and common sense. At least the young woman was alone. Not so on Saturday when she met the cycling gang. Three of them. Full speed in spandex. Traveling so fast she had time only to jump between two sagebrush as they sped by, heads down, no face masks. From the sagebrush, she followed their trajectory and noticed a single cyclist, uphill bound, who hastily pulled off the trail to save his neck. She kept her place and waited aside for him to resume and pass, still shaking his head. She shrugged, “some people don’t even take time to wave.” He smiled, “I don’t think they get it.”
A few paces forward and the light dawned. They were eights! All of them. Imagine three eights in the same group!
So you think you can stop me! Nothing can stand in my way! Get out of my way I’m an eight!
She was being a good, conscientious citizen; following the rules, staying home except to hike alone – at great distances from anyone else. In addition, she was honing her great writer skills-using this crisis as the perfect excuse to write every day – to reread, to attack those old manuscripts with a fine tooth comb. Now was the time for those WIPs to become works in print! After three days of reading and rewriting, Five Men Well (or, The Bed, or What Do You Really Want to Do? or Smelling Like a Rose, or The News and Ancient Literature) or whatever the heck she was going to call that manuscript, she laid it aside and took up another work in Progress; Feed My Sheep.
Ahhhh, nice voice. This one read smoothly. All the ephemera was historically correct for 1989. This she knew without a doubt for she was already an adult in 1989. She also knew the hard times lived by the main character were authentic. And then, right there on page 85; Twenty-two thousand, seven hundred twenty-four words into the story, 1989 hit her in the face like it was 2020: Toilet Paper!
***
After the first of the year, the food situation was particularly grim. Classes would not resume until January 13. The food pantry would open the following week. Nearly three weeks! Carrie shuddered at the looming specter of hunger. Already, they were out of toilet paper. During her last trip to the store, Carrie opted for food in place of paper products. Table napkins were no problem, they still had a nice stock of cotton ones from wedding gifts. Baby washcloths worked for Abby and could be thrown in the wash along with Abby’s diapers or training pants. Toilet paper for the adults presented a bigger challenge. Jon pointed out the obvious, there were no woolly mullein leaves to be had along the big city highways. Woolly mullein was well known to backpack campers and apparently cross-country motorcycle riders. Stranded in the big city in Texas with no woolly mullein, Carrie would have to think of something just as innovative. She wracked her brain. Somewhere from out of the past, memories of Carrie’s six-year-old summer came floating by. For the summer, she was allowed to go visit Grandma. Grandma was an old school “waste not, want naught.” Grandma was green out of a sense of frugality before it was popular to be green. That summer they lived in the sun, weeding around an acre of assorted vegetable plants; tending rows of corn, tomato plants, cucumbers. In the middle of the farmland stood an old outhouse, maintained and tidy, always painted to match the farmhouse two football field lengths away. In that outhouse, much to Carrie’s surprise, were two old Sears Roebuck catalogues. In the beginning, Carrie had complained to grandma that she could not read the catalogues because there was no light in the outhouse – besides, one of the books was obviously ripped.
“Oh, Caroline, honey,” responded Grandma, “those books are not for reading, they are old catalogues. They are in the outhouse for their second use – to serve cleanup duty. Just rip a page and use it as you would toilet paper.”
When she thought of it now, Caroline was horrified at the amount of petroleum based print that must have ended up contacting tender bottoms. Fortunately, many print dyes had been changed to organic material. She collected the giftwrap from Christmas just past. Thankful that most of it was white tissue paper, she cut it into small squares. These days, with organic dyes, the squares were only dangerous to the plumbing system. A wastebasket close-by addressed the disposal problem. Carrie threw the refuse in the neighborhood dumpster along with the usual garbage. When the squares ran out? Well, they would just have to use old patterns from Carrie’s sewing closet.
***
And just how should you be weathering this current COVID-19 crisis? Like it’s 1989, Baby!
I finished a book yesterday, stayed up late reading it actually, but was unsatisfied with the ending. Does a book have to be satisfying to be a good read? To be time well-spent? Can a poorly written book still have a satisfying ending or a great plot?
There is such a wide difference between classics and chic lit; pulp fiction and historical fiction; a gourmet meal and fast food.
So yes, let’s talk about food. What did you have to eat a moment ago? I had two small muffins and a cup of turmeric tea. Earlier, I had oatmeal – my standard, healthy, go-to breakfast for every day of the year. I don’t indulge in muffins very often, but today felt like a great day for baking – you know – cloudy and isolated. Once every few months I have a hotdog, every four or five weeks I may stop for fast food, but generally, I prefer the healthful, hearty and fresh, savory and nutritious.
My eating habits are a pretty good metaphor for my reading habits. A touch of C.S. Lewis; a dollop of Tolkien; an entrée of Jane Austen; a desert of something modern, maybe Gabrielle Zevin, or Doig or Winspear. Once in awhile I’ll snack on short stories. In between, I might pick up an indie book, or simply a cover that appeals to me or a random Christian women’s fiction book. When I find something that satisfies, I’ll look up the author and go back to her or him over and over. Something unsatisfying, on the other hand, begs to be analyzed. Why is it unsatisfying? What might the author have done differently? How would I rewrite the story? Some stories are so downright disappointing they can only serve as encouragement: If they could find a publisher, so can I. Speaking of me; here is my own intensely personal list of books worthy of a reread – over, and over and over.
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Persuasion
Any thing else by Jane Austen
The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength)
Till We Have Faces
Anything else by C.S. Lewis
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Marquis’ Secret, George MacDonald
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
The Mapping of Love and Death, Jacqueline Winspear
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Shaffer / Barrows
Cordelia Underwood, Van Reid
The Girl in the Glass, Susan Meissner
Those are just the re-reads, the must-have books that I cart around with me from pillar to post for times of necessity – like quarantine.
There are many, many good books out there – books I have borrowed and returned, books I have checked out from the library and returned, books I have purchased, read and passed on to someone else.
A pandemic has necessitated that we shelter in place – go ahead – indulge – READ!
Admittedly, it did take a certain amount of stoicism to weather what she had just been through. Sometimes it is necessary to turn inward to keep your head held high-to rely on yourself and nobody else. Sometimes, life throws you a curve and Stoicism is your own choice. But did you know? the basic idea of Stoicism is: don’t freak out about what you can’t control. Apparently if you do stoicism right, you can thrive.
Silly me. I thought the basic idea of stoicism was to act like nothing is bothering me. To be strong and do everything on my own. To not let anyone know I have feelings. To keep a marble-like unruffled face. In other words: Frozen.
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see, Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don’t feel; don’t let them know….
But no! Stoicism is much more and so much better than that – and – it’s something you can do alone very well – and thrive. Thankfully, in my isolation, I stumbled on a great article from Raptitude where David Cain referenced Elif Batuman who in turn recommended three major Stoic works, classics by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius (Epictetus, Aurelius – let them roll off your tongue, add a little rhythm and I feel some new song lyrics coming on….) Hopefully, we will not have quarantine time enough to read these three volumes. So here you go in a nutshell:
don’t freak out about what you can’t control
divide your moment-to-moment concerns into two bins: the things you can control, and the things you can’t.
The first bin is small and it’s the only one for which you are responsible
The second bin is the responsibility of the gods – let it go!
From Raptitude: You can feel free to leave the gods’ enormous bin entirely up to them, as long as you do your best to tend to your small bin of personal choices and habits. Of course, the larger bin still affects your life, even though you can’t (and shouldn’t try to) curate it. It contains matters such as when and how you die, how others act, the weather, and the stock market… Obviously we have a stake in how those matters turn out, yet these outcomes aren’t really up to us, and we shouldn’t make ourselves miserable wishing they were. You will be treated unfairly, you will get sick, you will lose everything, and you will die, and the gods (or whatever forces there are) will deliver those fates to you as they please.
But don’t just read the quote above, click on over to Raptitude and look at the two diagrams. Don’t you feel much, much better now with a manageable sized burden?
If she took a hike every day of her life, would it be enough? When you hike you learn something new every time; something new about Nature, something new from Science, something novel about people – maybe even something new about yourself.
Better yet, hiking is something you can do alone, solitary, at a proper physical distance during times of quarantine.
It was the seventh day after implementation of proper social distancing in Durango, Colorado. Not the seventh day after discovery of Coronavirus, not the seventh day after cessation of hand-shaking. No one had been shaking hands for two weeks. But it was the seventh day since library and public places closure. It was also a Sunday. and recreators were out in force – albeit, maintaining a six to ten foot social distance between parties – often even persons in the same group.
Blue sky and wispy cirrus clouds were overhead. She had walked a good three miles at a fast pace in the best combination of places; beside running water, through trees and grasses and other vegetation and rocks. She had nodded and waved to passersby from a safe physical distance and tried not to breathe – neither out nor in – when others came too close. She was a good person and always, always tried to obey the rules. And the rules of this beautiful day? Look around you. Breathe deep. Enjoy nature. Be grateful to have landed in this wonderful place. Be at peace. Be healthful. Be restored. Once or twice she pulled out her phone to snap a picture. She wanted to remember. She wanted a record of what Nature whispered.
A guttural bray split the silence some 100 yards behind her. Again it honked, loud, forced, like an angry human deliberately trying to disrupt the stillness and beauty with a manufactured cough. Or did someone need help? She turned.
Have you ever heard the cry of a wild animal in distress? It is an awful bellow. More blood-curdling than the midnight call of a fox on the tail of its prey. She was once awakened in the middle of the night by just such a cry from a rabbit fatally harassed by neighbor dogs. This wild animal was twenty times bigger than a rabbit and ten times louder and whatever this animal was, it was being pursued downriver by another large mammal. The two mammals emerged around the bend like overgrown children playing crack-the-whip, for the animal in pursuit had attached itself to the hindquarters of a doe in flight. Both were kicking and swimming for dear life.
If there was one safety rule she knew, it was not to interfere with nature. She watched. She made sure she was in a protected place behind a tree. Those animals, now only 30 yards away down a riverbank, might separate and escape up the bank, straight at her at any moment. She took out her camera and focused on the harsh realities of nature taking course in the water. Suddenly, two young women appeared around the bend; one at river level in hasty and desperate pursuit of her dog, which turned out to be the pursuing mammal; the other, fifteen feet away at trail level. “What are you doing?” yelled the near woman. “Are you recording this? Delete it right now! Don’t you dare post that!”
She looked up from her phone in surprise, “This is important,” she said mildly.
“No! No it’s not important,” spat the young woman, “put your camera away.”
On the rocky river beach another scene unfolded. Miraculously, the first young woman got hold of her dog, separated and leashed him, handed him over to a seasoned canine owner amongst the bystanders and returned to check on the doe. Meanwhile, a fisherman from upstream had waded quickly through the current and, sportsman that he was, proceeded to do his best to get the doe to solid ground. Others ran to find phone numbers and contact wildlife officials. Someone murmured about fines leveled at dog owners when wildlife is injured.
Feeling not very helpful, she turned and continued her final mile on the trek home. Saddened by Nature. Disappointed by irrational humans. Uplifted by the beautiful day. How she wished she had that fisherman’s rescue on tape. It reminded her of a positive video she once saw online. But alas, though the video button glowed red through the entire incident, the record button was never engaged.
Okay folks, we are now in quarantine mode. Do you know what that is? It is The Last Holiday mode. It is use the good china, light a fire in the fireplace, sleep as late as you want, attend to the bucket list, embrace forced retirement mode – – And for goodness sakes, write 2,000 words a day!
WRITE! Writing is up there on my must do daily list – right there with hike and play the piano – right there as an essential activity on the Things You Can Do Solo list. Best of all? It is something else you can do with your hands -before you wash them and after you wash them.
This is what you have lived for, planned for, saved for and longed for time out of mind. Get to it! Pick up that quill. Open that laptop. Write that novel. Write that short story. Write that letter you have been putting off. Address that postcard. Write.
I am not going to tell you to get off the internet because internet is where most of your audience is right now. The libraries are closed. The bookstores are online only.
This was a perfect storm and you are called to navigate it, finally shaken from your lethargy.
Write.
And be ready. The libraries and bookstores and publishing houses will not be closed forever.
Be prepared. Be ready. …Now, where did I put that sidewalk chalk?
It happened so swiftly she didn’t know what hit her. Yet, always prepared, she knew just what to do.
Well-salaried position to boxes stacked in a new locale 260 miles distant in 72 hours
Final load of earthly goods settled in Durango, Colorado complete in 10 days – including changing horses in the middle of the stream
A sudden move. Yet, she was nothing if not prepared – just not as prepared as she wanted to be. At the age of 65 the concept of retirement had been thoroughly considered, characteristically planned. “Someday,” she said, “I will retire in Ouray. I will write. I will play music. I will hike. I will attend cultural events. I will soak my weary bones in the hot springs daily. Ouray is both my church and my hospital. I will retire and heal.” The best laid plans often go astray. No affordable housing was available in Ouray. Durango-only 74 miles distant-offered refuge; a private place to write, room for musical instruments, plentitude of cultural events, a hub of education, most importantly: hiking trails accessible from the front door.
“I will get a fun job,” she said. “Part time or full time – something to protect my savings account from decimation.”
And then: coronavirus. The churches closed first. Then the schools. Then bars and restaurants. Finally the train. Every last place that promised entertainment or held potential for a fun job: shuttered. Choral groups cancelled concerts. Symphonies ceased to gather for rehearsal. The unemployment rate rose to 30% and continued to climb. But she had learned something in her 65.75 years. Don’t quit on your music. Music is something you can do alone or together. Times of solitude and hibernation are times of preparation. She flexed her 10 fingers and applied them to 88 keys. She added a few new songs to her repertoire, mixing them with the tried and true standards. When she tired of the piano bench, she picked up the guitar – daily – because once you build those callouses you don’t ever want to lose them and start over. And, still having time on her hands, she unzipped – for the first time in five or more years – her bass case. My, my, the interior of that case smelled so good-almost like opening a book – and the strings felt resonant in her hands. No amp, but she is gonna be hot, hot, hot by the time this pandemic is over. Time to revisit the bucket list. What can you do, during isolation, self-quarantine and physical distancing? May she suggest: Play the piano. Play the guitar. Learn a new instrument. Because that’s what people do in times of trouble. They record the times through art. They make music. You got this! Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Young man pictured playing guitar alone, outdoors, at proper social distance during pandemic
Today’s episode is titled: Things you can do solo. Here’s a quick list:
Take a Hike
Play the piano
Play the guitar
Read a book
Write a book
Eat healthfully
Keep a healthful schedule
Drink water
Talk to friends and family on the phone
Write letters
Watch a movie
Photography
Fishing
Learn to play a new instrument
Take online instruction
Skate
Skateboard
Bicycle
Deep clean and organize
Reimagine and redesign everything from your wardrobe to your entire life
The first ten items on the list are my daily essentials – in order of importance -things I must do every day to survive mentally and emotionally. Following that are some additional activities I want to explore in the coming days, both alone and through this blog. What can you add to the list? Join me next time when I write about Hiking – keep putting one foot in front of the other!
Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!
