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It was a very quiet weekend. Despite a to do list as long as my arm, this weekend I have mostly been sleeping and I am still extremely tired.  After the outing with Gail on Tuesday that I wrote about, we had our regular fortnightly pub meeting with friends in the evening,  my parents came over for a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon and in the evening I had my T’ai Chi class. I visited  Gail with my other friend Lisa for couple of hours on Thursday night. Those things together were enough to wipe me out for the whole weekend. I spent most of it asleep. Recently I had been feeling better than I have for two months and I really don't want this recent exhaustion to be the start of a major setback, so I am just listening to my body and if it wants me to rest and sleep that's what I am doing. 

I know what you mean about literary criticism. I finished my rereading of the Time Traveller’s Wife a couple of weeks ago  and have been reading all the posts on the Summer Readalong with interest, but haven’t posted any thoughts on the book myself. I enjoy reading along with everyone’s reflections, but then feel I don’t have anything else to add. Sometimes it is hard to get my thoughts and feelings about a story to coalesce.  It’s easy to read someone else’s writing and think Yes! That! but less easy to formulate my own response. I do feel though, that it helps to work out what I like or don’t like about a book, so I try at least to reflect on other people's responses, even if I haven't got much to add.

I love the piece you wrote on your blog, you have a real gift for writing straight from your heart. That's not something I always find very easy. Until the last few months I hadn't written for years, so I am still finding out what I like to write, enjoying the process and seeing where it takes me. I agree that other peoples' writing, both in books and online, whilst being very inspirational to read, can just serve to make me feel worse about my own by comparison! You're right, we all need to write with our own voices and from our own experience.  I think it is often that voice of authenticity that comes across and makes a piece of writing resonate with me. 

As for the internet....yes, I have been avoiding it. I love the internet, the people I have met there, the ideas and inspiration...but sometimes it feels, as someone else said to me once, like everyone is shouting for my attention at once. Steering clear of the internet helps quieten my mind. Sometimes I get very tempted to unplug for a week or more, don't you? We had no internet on honeymoon and I really enjoyed the peace.  I hope to do more reading, more writing and to have some quieter head-space this week. 

Reading and Writing

Happy Monday!  It started off to be a busy weekend here.  The girls went to a ballgame and I went out to dinner with a friend from work Friday night (two nights out in one week, hey).  No great photos like you had it was dark and noisy and my friend is very camera shy.  Saturday we hauled around town, farmstand, grocery, shopping etc.

Today, Sunday, I have found myself attached to the couch.  A pillow, a book and a blanket.  My cousins daughter is here visiting so the girls were mostly occupied with her today.

I almost finished The Time Traveler's Wife today.  I'm very glad you recommended it to me, it has been on my "to read" list but that is ten miles long so it may have taken me awhile to get there.  I think I am finding a special place in my heart for it.  So having a lazy day I am almost done.  It felt good to laze about. 

I have never made a comment though on the book discussion.  I read the book discussion notes in the back of the book today as well and thought: I wouldn't know what to say about the theme of death, I just really, really, like the story.  I felt this way when I was in school and I took a Literary Criticism class.  It was all about reading what people had written about books and discussing it and it was actually the only English class I took that I disliked.  I couldn't help but feel inferior when I didn't get all these great cosmic nuances of the stories.  And who is to say that I read the story incorrectly?  Isn't the best part of reading the fact that you get to personally take something from it?  And doesn't everyone get something individual to themselves out of the tale?

So I tend to shy away from book discussions.  What I can tell you though about this book (and so many others) is they sometimes make me feel inferior.  I love excellent writing but sometimes with my favorite authors and even some of my favorite friends, I think wow, what they have written is beatiful and so eloquent I could never even hope to throw my own writing out there.

Then I realize that the literary world would be quite a dull place if we all wrote with the same voice.  What I have to remember is the words that I string together, the stories I have to tell are that, they are mine and they must be told my way, to the best of my ability.

No one could write what I write so therefore I couldn't dream to write like Audrey Niffeneger, Alice Hoffman or even you or Sara.

I have come to realize that writing for me comes from what I know best and right now that thing is motherhood. I find that is where I find my best voice, where the words tend to flow easiest from the well.  In my heart I guess I know that I should start with motherhood, with daughters, with this experience I've been given and work from there.

Friday, I wrote this piece that I have posted on my blog today about a fight I had with Emily that morning.  I wrote it at lunchtime at work, because it was still on my mind.  I don't think I could write anything with such heart that I didn't have my heart invested in.

On another note, you've been quiet this weekend.  I hope you are well.  I hope perhaps you are taking that Internet break you've been threatening.  I know I could sometimes use it myself. I look forward though to see what's going on over there across the sea.

The World Tour List

I will travel Ireland in  a  horse drawn caravan, drinking  Guinness in roadside pubs. I will spend a few days in a yurt,  glamping. I will take photographs in Marrakesh,  visit the ruins at Pompei and Herculaneum, and go on a boat trip on Lake Garda. I will revisit my beloved Isle of Wight, where I have been many, many times before. I will see the hot springs of Iceland and the Northern Lights. I will visit my friend who moved to Lancashire. Once again I will walk beside streams on the North Yorkshire Moors, where I walked for hours and hardly saw another soul. I'll see the Rockies, and the Blue Ridge Mountains,  and have a long weekend in New York where I will ride in a horse drawn carriage through Central Park. I will stay in gîtes and visit the medieval villages of France. I will visit Greece again and drink a glass of wine looking out to sea, à la Shirley Valentine. I will sit with you on your porch.

All of these, and more, are on my World Tour List, a list of places I want to visit which currently resides inside my head until I get around to writing it down. Some are more achievable right now, others will be possible one day, I hope, as I hope yours will be too. 

I hope you enjoy your quiet week alone. I hope you can use the time to restore and rejuvenate yourself . Read, eat good food, and treat yourself to your favourite things. Try not to worry about your girls, though of course you will miss them. The Young Philosopher went on holiday with my parents for a week when he was seven. I kept his bedroom door shut the whole time he was gone, so that in the evenings it was as if he was sleeping there in bed, which made me sleep easier. 

As I have been writing this an idea has taken shape. I have a week alone coming up soon, as.the Prof is away at summer school, so it will be just me and the Young Philosopher. He is mostly either in his bedroom or out, which is how it is when they are nearly 20. I have a mad idea to go off on my own for a few days. It is just a glimmer of an idea at the moment, but it would be wonderful if I could. I am thinking of a little bed and breakfast place in the countryside, quite near to my friend in Lancashire. I could spend time with her when she isn't at work, and the rest of the time go for walks, read, write. Treat myself to some nice meals and just be alone with myself. I wonder if I could. 

love of books.

I loved what you said about anticipating spending time reading the books you had from the library.  I was in the library as well this past Saturday, picking up The Time Traveler's Wife for the book read you mentioned.  I also got another book and two cookbooks.  I am a cookbook fiend, browse them in bed like a magazine.  I love the library...so many good books.  I'm a sucker for a good cover, sometimes it's turns out worthwhile sometimes not.  I remember times before I had the girls that I would just go in and wander up and down the aisles taking down books that looked good until I had a whole stack.

These days I don't have as much reading time, but I'm trying to carve a place back in for it.  I sat down for two hours last weekend and finished my last book, cleaning being banished to the back burner.  The photo above is of the books currently residing in my house that I have yet to read, or yet to finish.  Remember back in the beginning when I said I was working on becoming a better "finisher of things".   So these are in addition to the library books.  I find though that I have to be in a certain mood for certain books, so I am sure I will find my way back to them.

We drown in books in this house, the girls each have overflowing bookshelves of books they cannot part with going all the way back to Karelyn's favorite Goodnight Moon.  With money being what it is I tend to rely on the library more and more.  It is a good thing to have a librarian for a sister!  When I do find books I really, really want to keep for inspiration or for another read, I check out used bookstores online.  I have gotten great used library copies of books for as little as a couple of dollars.  I don't mind that they are marked up or rough around the edges, I figure that's the sign of a well loved book.  One time I got a copy of a book with the little card in the back where it listed the names of the library users and the dates they checked the book out.  Seems so far from our automatic check-outs these days. 

So that's all for tonight.  It's late, very tired as it's been a long week already.  Now to settle into bed with a hot cuppa tea and that book I was talking about.  They say the best writers are avid readers.  Until tomorrow......

Greetings!

Hello, I am Debbie, or Deb, or Debra - I answer to all of them. I live with Philip, my husband of one month and my almost 20 year old son, Joseph. We have a tiny little house, not much more than two up and two down, on the edge of London, England.

I love my little house. It needs decorating, and it is cluttered up with too much stuff, but for many years Joe and I lived in a flat, and I longed for such exotic pleasures as being able to have a proper washing line to dry the laundry on outside and to grow sweet peas, my favourite flower. Joe longed for a house because I had promised him a dog if we moved, so we also share our house with Star, his black Labrador.

I can sign, and for a few years I worked with Deaf children, but in January 2010 I had to stop working due to illness and a few months later I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. CFS affects many aspects of my life, but I try not to let it limit me too much and I hope eventually to recover. It does mean I have had to slow down a lot, and I can't do as much as I would like to.

I was a single parent for seventeen years, since before Joe was born. Parenting alone was very hard at times and sometimes isolating, but also very rewarding. Just to make life even more challenging, I educated Joe at home from the age of eleven. It was daunting at first but turned out to be very enjoyable for both of us. Joe and I have always been very close. When I was 40, I found Philip and later that year, he came to share our home. I am so lucky that Philip and Joe get on together very well and Philip treats Joe as his own. On 23rd April this year we were married and Joe was my Man of Honour.

I am the oldest of two children, my brother is four years younger than me. He lives just a few minutes away, as do my parents. We are a close family and see quite a lot of each other. I also have extended family, aunt, cousins, grandparents, all within less than 45 minutes drive away. We have always lived in this area, though I have longed to get away for as long as I can remember. When I was young I used to want to live in the hustle and bustle of the City, and now I am older I would like to live closer to the countryside, but not necessarily in it! I know myself well enough to realise I need things to do, nice restaurants and decent public transport.

I do indeed still have my list of dreams handy, Jen! I remember when we were doing the Mondo Beyondo course and were asked to write our dreams down, I found it very difficult to do. It took me days to write. Having been a single parent and not having not had much money for many years, I always tried to make a point of not coveting what I thought I would never have. I wouldn't look at houses in estate agents' windows, or browse in furniture stores, I wouldn't even watch holiday programmes on the television. I just got on with life, cleaning, cooking, bringing up Joe, home educating him, I had not even thought about what I might like to do, and found it very hard when asked to 'dream' on paper. I didn't feel that I had any dreams. I certainly didn't really have any big ones.

I did come up with a small list of little dreams eventually, and was looking at it just the other day. Some of them are starting to happen. I know some of yours are, too! It's amazing how once an intention is set, things seemingly start to percolate away by themselves.

One of the things on my list was to start a blog, which I did some months ago now. That was a big enough leap for me, I didn't dream that we would be starting another one together now, and I am really looking forward to seeing where it takes us!

hello, from me.

hello.  it's me.  jennifer.  here's a little about me to begin.

I was born in a rural small town in Maryland on the East coast of the United States.  I live in that same town right now about twenty minutes from my childhood home.  I am the oldest child of three.

I don't have a specifically big family, but we are all right here so sometimes it seems that way.  I love my family more than anything in this whole wide world.   Family=Love.   It means so much to me to be able to sit on my mother's porch, drink a glass of wine with my brother and sister and laugh the night away in the place I started to become.  I live on the land of my Great-Grandparents, right next to my Grandparents, who I have had a close bond with since I was just a wee thing.  It was in this place that my Grandfather chased me around the yard with his camera and my Grandmother rocked me in her rocker, patting me on the back and singing to me.  And it is here in this place that I chase my children (and sometimes sneak up on the same Grandfather) with my camera, and where I hush my girls to calm.  Still to this day, sometimes I want to sneak into my Grandfather's old dark room or walk up the path, climb on my 80 year old Grandmother's lap and have her pat me on the back and sing to me on a really bad day. I make do with sneaking down the path from her house with a slice of homemade pumpkin pie.

It is a house of girls here where I live.  Even the dog, the cat and the rabbit are female.  But really it's the place I make home with my two girls (Emily, age 10 and Karelyn, age 8).  I became divorced in 2007 after almost eleven years of marriage.  My ex-husband battled addiction based on medical problems.  In 2006 we pretty much lost everything, and well, I started over.   Alone.  Well, not really alone, because there are the girls, and then of course, there's that family I was just talking about.

Getting divorced, changed my life.  I was miserable and defeated in that marriage, battling to overcome an addiction that held onto him stronger than I could.  I battled myself with depression and anxiety.  I never in a million years imagined I would be raising two children by myself.  In ways it's not so hard as I was scared it was going to be, but it's so hard some days I lock myself in the bathroom for a good cry.  My girls mean everything to me and sometimes it's hard to give them everything I think they deserve.

The year after I left the marriage I picked up my camera.  Then in another year, I got a bigger, nicer, camera.  Now it's hard to find me without my camera.  I think my camera has given me a different look at the world and also of myself (see goofy self-portrait above).  Shooting photos and writing my thoughts down are my therapy and my passion.

I have a lot of hopes and a lot of dreams.  Sometimes I get so filled up with them I think I might float away in excitement.  Other times the thought of reaching them makes me want to run in the other room and hide away.  I am a true Pisces (though not a huge believer in Astrology) in that I get really, really excited about ideas and projects and then turn tracks halfway when some other sparkly idea catches my eye making me run off and start another route.  I am apparently a great "starter of things".  I am hoping to become a better "finisher of things".

When we met we made a list of hopes and dreams.  Do you remember?  It was last year.  Do you still have yours handy?  I want to go back now and revisit what your dreams were so that I remember.  I want to write about them now, but feel it would best be posted another day.   I do know that I am glad that our dreams brought us together this way and we get the opportunity to take this journey together.