I’ve been waiting for a cool, gray day where the seagrass sways and the rose of Sharon bows in the damp and the breeze. The curtains billow at the open windows, faithful spectrals awaiting loves long lost at sea. Come back to me, they whisper, unanswered. I don’t have the heart to tell them.
The ocean’s an unraveled bolt of fabric, pre-hemmed with white and ready to cut, too unwieldy for the machine, too expansive for the hand, destined to sit on the shelf, admired and fading, to inspire projects too elaborate for fruition, aspirations never addressed, dreams destined to remain unrealized.
A freighter snails its way along the horizon line, containers catching the view from the highest stack. “Bon voyage, mes amis!” je dis, “Et merci pour votre service!” I’ve been practicing my French again. Montreal’s this week et je suis un peu rouillée, j’ai peur.
I write at the window, sipping Earl Grey without caffeine, feeling the lack of coffee today, but that’s ok. We cut our demons for a reason, right? We feel the lack of them sometimes, but we must carry on. The golden glow of the table lamps helps to fill the void left behind by coffee’s lack. I savor over-steeped bergamot instead, robust and resonant in flavor. I warm my cheeks, my hands in swirls of steam.
I’m feeling the doubt of sharing a long-form fiction project with a handful of friends a couple of weeks ago now, doubt being my greatest talent, or at least sometimes that’s how it feels. I bolster myself. Have courage; it’s there somewhere inside your head, in your heart, in your gut. Be proud of your words, that collage of letters, chapters, characters built in your mind. You love them and they deserve the chance to be read.
It’s Monday and I’m getting excited for the new adventures this week will bring, the sights and smells and tastes and sounds of a place I’ve never set foot in before. This week, I also anticipate finishing reading a series that I’ve been reading for over a year now.
I went to forty-sixth and second in New York. They sell roses at the market on the corner across from Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. There is no turtle in the fountain, but the fountain is there and I wondered if anyone has reached the tower sitting there in that little urban oasis, tucked away from the fray, somehow in another world. In. Mid. End. Keystone. There’s just one thing left to do. Read. And then I’ll know what it was all for, this journey, this year. And when I’m done, I’ll buy a rose from the market and I’ll leave it on a bench for another adventurer to wonder at. For what is life without wonder? What is life without intrigue and imagination?
Well, hello, hello there, friends. I’m sipping decaf Lady Grey tea on the blue couch this afternoon, craving some cozy on a bit of a blustery day. Decaf- because too much caffeine makes me crazy and tea because I’ve nixed coffee once again, hopefully for good this time around, but more on that later.
There is writing and travel planning to get to. My unfinished library books were keeping me from both the past couple days, so I returned them. I figuratively hit pause on the last book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower Series as getting through this last one is proving to be a bit of a slog, not to mention a nightmare inducer. It’s a good story and well-written, of course- just very, very, very long, and very, very, very vivid and I am learning that my overactive imagination doesn’t pair well with reading horror. I figure I’ll get back to it eventually and finish up strong. I just can’t say when. So that’s a we’ll see.
I need something less horrifying, but equally good- some Maeve Binchy or some Tana French, perhaps. A re-read, most likely. My re-reads are the coziest books in my collection, the ones that bring me back to memories of reading them other times before, some of them multiple times before. They are old friends on the shelf, the slowly decaying glue of their spines, one of the most reassuring smells in the whole world. If joy was a smell, it would smell like used books.
There is a map of Montreal in my head that I need to sharpen. The lodging is booked, a pretty apartment near Chinatown and Old Montreal that I imagine I’ll write about in a few months time. The next things to plan are the sights, activities, and eats. Will I try one of Montreal’s bagels, I wonder? They are boasted to be better than New York’s, which is pretty hard to believe. Another we’ll see (but probably- I mean; who says no to bagels?)
On the subject of bread, I’m thinking back to our last trip to the Québec province, a core memory of which was the picnic basket delivered to our hotel room each morning filled with fresh fruit, orange juice, croissants, pain au chocolat, jam, and coffee. Yum. I think this is what I am craving most from a trip to Montreal, coffee aside, because the little things make me disproportionately happy and croissants happen to be a big, little thing for me.
Since learning how to eat “normally” last summer, there have been far fewer croissants, but that just makes the times I do have them even more enjoyable. Being down almost fifty pounds and still being able to eat croissants, guilt-free, is a pretty amazing feeling. There is power in control and understanding just as there is enjoyment in reasonable indulgence. You have to live well in more ways than one in order to be happy and it helps to have a handle on how to do that in regards to food and nourishment for almost a year now.
That brings me to coffee. Coffee, which I quit for five months from last May to October. Coffee, which I reintroduced, thinking there’s no harm in one cup every now and then. Then, there’s no harm in one cup a day- two even. For me, I think there might be.
I’ve wondered for years if I have anxiety. Now, I’m wondering if it was just the coffee. I don’t have a diagnosis and I am not a doctor, so really, don’t listen to a word I say on this. I only know me and how I react to the stuff. I’ve noticed, though, that since quitting coffee over a month ago and cutting way back on caffeine in general, my emotions feel much more regulated and my focus and productivity- much sharper.
Even last time when I gave up coffee, I was still drinking multiple cups of caffeinated tea per day. When my caffeine intake reduced even more, the feelings of anxiousness quieted down. My thoughts aren’t constantly racing. I have enough energy to get through the day without having to battle fatigue with a stimulant. I’ve got to say, that feels like a pretty big win.
There is one thing that seems to have gone with the caffeine, though, and that is the poetry. Hopefully that’ll come back when its ready. Another we’ll see, I guess.
Anyways, time to get back to other things now. I know it’s been a while since the last post; I just didn’t know what to write. This probably wasn’t for everyone, but it’s what I could manage and I hope that’s fine with you all. Thanks for reading, as always. All’s well here and hope it’s just so wherever you are.
We woke to mild temperatures and a low-lying mist this morning, not so different from the ones that I remember from our past trips to Ireland. Today is St. Patrick’s Day, so it seems fitting that the weather should jog my memory of one of our favorite travel destinations. The clouds have lingered into the early afternoon and the Atlantic is molten steel, capped with cotton.
Feeling culinarily ambitious and craving hearty fare for later on, I headed out to the grocery store first thing this misty morning to pick up the ingredients I was missing for Guinness Beef Stew and Irish Brown Bread. The rich scent of simmering carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, and beef mingle with that of Irish stout, red wine, stock, and thyme. The smells are starting to escape the seams of the Crock Pot lid in thin breaths in a successful effort to permeate the kitchen.
The brown bread’s baking in the oven, adding the sweet dryness of toasting flour into this afternoon’s scent medley. My hands feel soft from mixing and working the dough, something I haven’t done since we lived in Brooklyn. As I turned and folded the sticky dough on the floured counter, I thought of our old kitchen on Union Avenue and realized something. We’ve had our home in New Jersey for five years today.
When we lived in Brooklyn, I had maybe four meals that I would make on rotation, having limited cooking skills and even less patience for meal planning. Irish stew and brown bread was one of these meals and I’m sure we both grew tired of it toward the end of our time in New York. It feels nostalgic now, however, to make it here for the first time. It feels festive and like an appropriate meal to celebrate five years of living in this beautiful place together on this gray, March day.
While working in the kitchen earlier, I also couldn’t help but think of the improvements we’ve gained in our cooking skills over the past five years. We went from cooking tried and true recipes maybe once or twice a week to cooking from an expansive variety of options three to four times a week.
The kitchen has become a space for creativity in our home, for trying out new recipes and having them turn out more than half decent, most of the time at least. It’s a space for surprising ourselves, for building confidence, and for drinking red wine or a cold beer while stirring simmering concoctions in many pans and pots all going at the same time.
I enjoy the sensory experiences of cooking- the scents, the sounds, the colors. My favorite, however, is the warmth. There is the warmth of the stove burners as they glow red, the warmth of the preparing meal simmering away, and the warmth of the oven and it’s golden light as I open the door. Speaking of- the oven timer’s beeping which means the brown bread’s finished baking, so I’ll get back to this post in a moment.
The bread is golden and ugly and rugged, just how I remember it. 🙂
Speaking of ugly and rugged, I resumed my quest for Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” last week, digging in to Book V, The Wolves of the Calla, after a months-long break from the series. This one’s a continuation of King’s behemoth, western-style, adventure tale with his characteristic visceral descriptions and unparalleled creativity for the dark and disturbing. It’s far from cozy though, and I think today is a day to lean hard into cozy, so I’ll take a break from Roland and his ka-tet’s adventure in favor of one of my dad’s recommendations instead, P.G. Wodehouse’s Mulliner Nights.
Just a few minutes more until I can slice into the brown bread and see how I’ve done this time…
Upon post-slice review, I think I could have baked it for five minutes less, as it was a little more crumbly than I remember, but it will do just fine with a pat of Kerry Gold Irish Butter and a mugful of Oolong sips for now. At dinner later on is when it will really have a chance to shine, dunked in savory stew, soaking up all the hearty flavors to make for a delicious bite. Now, I’m craving that cozy reading escape before getting back to work on some fiction of my own.
I hope this post added a little warmth to your day, wherever you are. And to my friends and family who celebrate, wishing you all a very happy St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you have a festive evening whether it’s out at a pub, listening to Celtic music at home, or indulging in a hearty meal paired with an Irish stout, lager, ale, or whiskey. Thanks so much for reading. I hope you’re doing well. 🙂
A couple of weeks ago, we watched a favorite we hadn’t seen in a while, the 2009 Horror/Comedy, Zombieland. Throughout the movie, Columbus (Jessie Eisenberg) introduces his set of rules for surviving a world overrun by zombies while trying to find his way from Texas to Ohio. The movie takes a sharp westward turn soon after Columbus unites with the Twinkie-craving, trigger-happy Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), followed by the cunning duo, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The movie has become somewhat of a cult classic and leans heavily on the comedy, with the obligatory side of brains- of course.
But back to the rules.
There is one of Columbus’ rules in particular that Mike likes to quote all of the time and always in reference to yours truly. It’s Rule Number 32, Enjoy the little things. I find immense joy in little things. Couldn’t really tell you why; it just happens that way. Color me lucky, I guess.
Sometimes “the little things” are physically small objects, like the tiny rubber elephant that I bought in Seattle in 2016 and still carry in my handbag or the Christmas bird with the busted wing that I bought from Michael’s on Halloween back in 2020. These sorts of little things were very intentional additions to my happiness. I learned of their existence in the world and knew they were meant for me and so, I made them mine.
There are also the little sensory experiences that bring me a lot of joy such as feeling the heat from the stove while boiling the kettle, breathing in the earthy scent of crispy book pages, or peeling apart the golden crust of a flaky croissant, to name just a few. Think Amélie and her petits plaisirs, like cracking the caramelized topping of crème brulée with the back of a spoon. She gets it.
I collect these little moments, these “little things”.
Today, one of my little things is the combination of the cello vamp and string line in Bleacher’s “91” which I have playing on repeat as I write this post. Yesterday, it was getting a Christmas card from my cousin, Jen, the scent of warm, coconut curry that lingered long after Mike made dinner, and enjoying a scoop of Graeter’s Black Raspberry Ice Cream from a little ramekin with a little spoon. 😊
Each day has lots of these little things, lots of little opportunities to experience joy.
Today was a coffee sort of morning, thanks to the complimentary Starbucks Holiday Blend that came with our latest Hello Fresh delivery and I just couldn’t resist brewing a cup in my favorite mug (see, there’s another one right there). Sitting by the window in one of our outdoor chairs, that was recently cleaned off and pulled inside for the winter, is one of my favorite things in the colder months. I sipped and watched the waves roll in on the beach while toasting my toes beneath the electric baseboard. I wish I could share that feeling with everyone; the world would be a much calmer place.
My caffeine-induced heartbeat’s trying to match the cello vamp now, but lacks the necessary arrythmia to do so. Christmas Eve is next week, a day that feels more all-encompassing of the celebration of the holiday than Christmas Day, at least in my personal experience. The gathering, the revelry, the heraldry. And lots of little joys all around. A roaring fire in my parents’ woodstove, Celtic Christmas music playing, warm mugs of tea and their swirling clouds of steam, and lots of smiles and laughs.
Writing this post is giving me joy too. Writing most of them has, for that matter. I checked and this is number 97. Soon it will be number 100, but that won’t be a little thing at all, will it? No, that one will feel pretty big, I think.
Thank you for reading and Happy Holidays, friends. I hope you practice Rule Number 32 this season, however you celebrate. Zombies aside, it’s not a bad one to live by.
This one might stay just for me. I don’t know yet. If you are reading now, then that’s obviously not the case.
Yesterday was an anxious, distracted day, for no reason in particular. Bombarded with cravings to snack, drink coffee, and to shop for a new winter coat (despite not knowing what my current size is, let alone what it will be- come the actual colder months) while I was meant to be editing an unfinished piece introduced weighty doubt into the morning that carried on until I drifted off to sleep last night. I acknowledge that I am not even in the same time zone as the realm of perfection and some days are just bound to be spent lost in struggle city without a map. Maybe I should have given in to one of those cravings and the day wouldn’t have been such a write-off, but I resisted whether that was the right call or not. Take that as you will.
Yesterday evening I was on my own while Mike was out and I decided to revisit Beyonce’s “II Most Wanted” having enjoyed it while listening to her full album “Cowboy Carter” a week ago. The song features Miley Cyrus. The sound of Miley’s soothing, silky rasp reminded me of lyrics for one of her own songs so I queued up the “Used to Be Young” video next.
I watched a bleary eyed Miley play her vulnerability to the camera and I got chills from the top of my head down to my elbows. The video reminded me of those times when you catch yourself in the mirror when you are feeling low and suddenly see your struggle magnified. It felt like Miley was singing to herself in a mirror, guiding herself back up from the bottom of the spiral. It was inspirational and today I’m going to guide myself back up from my own depths.
My lack of productivity yesterday feels like a setback going into today and I’m just as stuck as I was when I sat down with my lap desk and laptop yesterday morning. Today, I chose a different spot. Sometimes you have to follow the inspiration to find motivation and my tiny desk looked inspiring in the filtered morning light beneath the windows in the living room. So, I am writing this sitting on the floor with my keyboard on my tiny desk and my laptop propped up on a stand atop one of our living room end tables. When my hips start to scream and my feet go numb, I’ll move. After that, there’s no telling if the magic of the location will wear off or if I simply need to wait for the pins and needles to subside to resume my work for the day in the correct place. It’s always a mystery. Setting goals is cute when it comes to making art, but art isn’t always cooperative when it comes to following the rules.
Remember to be kind to yourself. Your flaws are part of you. Your flaws give you dimension. Balance. They make the sparkly moments more dazzling by comparison.
Maybe this won’t be just for me, after all. I can’t be the only one who feels like this some days. I mean, Miley feels like this some days. If you needed this today, we’re in this together, my friend. If you didn’t and you’re thinking man, what a wackadoodle, don’t worry; I’m alright. Where there are shadows, there’s always light.
Good Morning. I’ve been hooked on an album for the past few days, filling the quiet with constant sound because it makes my brain feel good. It’s distracting in the best way and has had me dance writing in giant headphones for a few days now. If you’re feeling like you could use a little more head bobbing, leg bouncing, and shoulder dancing or just a healthy distraction in your week, join me in a listen.
I know it’s been a lot of posts lately. The reason for this is procrastination and overwhelm on my longer writing project. It’s getting there, but it can get there later for right now. I write here because if I don’t, I won’t write there. My type-A personality would have me organize my creative distractions in a spreadsheet and address them in a reasonable order, but that’s not how reality works and recently, I feel a little like a lamb searching for grass on a construction site. Huh– where did I get turned around? How long have I been gone from the pasture? This music is leading me back though. Isn’t “Dream of Mickey Mantle” great?
I went for a run along the beach trail the other day, going a little too fast because adrenaline allowed and it felt good to focus on the pleasant pain of blood pumping in my legs and behind my ears instead of other things. The wind was loud and sharp and the air was salty and fresh. I was exhausted after two miles, but the stretch after was soothing and necessary. Stairs will be tough for a day or so, but that’s part of the fun, no?
I watched Mike run his first half marathon in October my senior year of college. I was amazed that people run that much for fun and actually look happy doing it. After the race, he jokingly asked me if I wanted to do one sometime. I was like, “You’re joking, right?”
He was joking, and yet, the itch to do something BIG crawled onto my skin, seeped into my pores, and sank into my veins. Could I run 13.1 miles? Yeah; I could.
My times weren’t amazing, but I ran the North Jersey Half Marathon twice and felt good for ten miles both times and then felt like my legs would fall off for the last three, which is weird because you need legs to finish the race, and I was determined to finish. I remember a sign that one of the spectators held. She sat in a wheelchair and held up a poster board that said, “Pain is temporary. Pride is forever.” It is what got me through my first race. It is the mantra I used for my second. I think about that sign all of the time because to this day, it urges me to accomplish things that are tough.
A friend of mine recommended an incredible book by Glennon Doyle called Untamed. It is a memoir by a woman who did hard things because she realized she could do hard things and that she needed to. I know I can do hard things too. I need to do them. I know because I’ve done them before. No obstacle is too big, no distraction too consuming. If life were easy all the time, the good parts wouldn’t be so good.
What song are you on now?
To reduce less healthy distractions this week, I started listening to music while I write. Normally, I’m horrible at this type of multitasking, but for some reason, this album is fueling me and my fingers are flying. I did make the mistake of watching the music video for one of Bleachers’ newer songs, Tiny Moves, and it is incredible. Don’t watch it unless you have a nice chunk of time, because it is beautiful and you will want to watch it more than once. The video features Margaret Qualley who choreographed, starred, and co-directed the video and Bleachers front man, Jack Antonoff, her husband. I feel a weird connection to Qualley since usually, when people ask me, “You know who you remind me of?”, I could now just answer yes, since the answer is more often than not Andie MacDowell, Qualley’s mother. I shared the link for the video with my friends to whom dance was a huge part of life at some point – it never was for me; I haven’t the talent, but I always wished I could. I’ll happily settle for the talents that I can call mine though.
I got my first “real” haircut since December 2018 yesterday and honestly, it’s just fine. I never was one for salon small talk, so when the pandemic was like, try cutting your own hair, I was all for it. My self-hair cuts were fine too, not to mention free, so maybe the salon and I will do battle in another six months to see who gets to hold the scissors.
The independence of certain skills can be very freeing. Cutting my own hair and doing my own sewing alterations were difficult skills to learn, but they allow me to minimize interactions that I find tedious and that makes the pin pricks and temporarily looking like Samara from The Ring a little more worth it. Making a story outline was similarly difficult to figure out, but I know I picked up the other skills well enough so I have high hopes for what I’ve put together.
I just realized that my head has been bopping the entire time writing this. The music’s getting in my blood, the words are singing in my head. I’ll go for a run in a little bit and the wind in my ears will join the symphony and it will be a brain pounding and body pumping with healthy distraction. I will write words. I will read words. I will stretch mentally and physically, escaping into Gone Now, because it just feels good.
Have a weird day; have a fun day; have the best day you can. Get up, get dressed, brush your teeth. Do something little, because lots of little somethings lead to something big.
I’m a nervous highway driver, on occasion. Weirdly, singing seems to help with that. So, sometimes, I sing when I drive. I sing when I drive when I’m nervous, that is.
When I was new to driving as a teenager, my dad would passenger seat “drive”. He had an imaginary brake pedal on the ceiling of the car and when he’d hold his breath in silence and reach for it with his hand, my confidence would waver. I remember thinking that a very real passenger-side clutch pedal would have been much more practical because no matter how many times my dad told me at first, “G’head; ease up on the clutch. You’ll feel it,” he seemed only to be all sorts of crazy at the time and me – all sorts of confused. Of course, he was right, and if you know how to drive a manual transmission, you know what I’m talking about. For the rest of you, there is no other way I have found to explain it; so you’ll just have to trust me on this one, okay?
Before moving back to New Jersey, I was out of practice with driving, having lived in New York City for seven years where cars are things that you sometimes forget exist as modes of transportation rather than simply as perpetual enemies to face at crosswalks and invisible crosswalks, alike. I decided to ease my way back into highway driving with a nice little “test drive” by following behind the U-Haul that Mike drove during our move. White knuckled and singing, with a nice big U-Haul to tail (and the U-Haul’s being restricted from going on the Parkway), we made it, somehow. Mike was proud of me, I was proud of me, and I think it’s accurate to say we were both sort of in disbelief. Turns out I could do it all along, like the whole time probably, you guys. Who’d have even thought?
Driving and music just sort of go together for me. My sister did most of the driving when we were in high school. She knew the radio stations to preset and had taste in music that I’d not yet honed for myself. I trusted her musical prowess and learned to like the emo pop and rock bands that were so popular in my school days. In middle school or high school (I can’t remember – help me out if you know, dad!), my dad showed me how to use his and my mom’s record player and my musical knowledge expanded to include Van Morrison, the Beatles, The Who, Cream, and Emmitt Rhodes, among others, heard as originally intended. The soft thud and crackle of a needle dropped in a vinyl groove has been a very comforting sound ever since. I’ve not touched a record or a record player for years now, but I can recall that sound as easily as I can hear my neighbor’s music playing next door right now. Unexplainable, yet simultaneously explainable – you know, magic.
Nowadays, I have an included music subscription through Amazon Prime, built on a Prime Music Unlimited subscription that I paid for (and got very limited use out of if I’m being honest), for over a year. It’s basically the same as the paid version, except that I can no longer pick the exact song I want to listen to at the exact moment I think to listen to it. The song’ll come on eventually, I have learned, and I’ll hear new stuff that I’d otherwise not have known about while waiting for it to do so. I use this music subscription, almost solely for car-based purposes and it has been my co-pilot (cough – karaoke machine) for many a long drive.
My taste has since evolved into something with an identity of its own that I’m proud of and that I don’t care whether or not other people share in. My go to for driving is almost always something by Vampire Weekend (or something similar now, by the unpredictable nature of the Amazon Music roulette wheel). Before I got rid of my paid music subscription, I mourned the final days of still having the ability to play the entire Father of the Bride album in its intended order, getting lost in songs like Bambina, Sunflower, and Flower Moon. I’d like to say I sing along to Vampire Weekend, but what I actually do is try to sing along to Vampire Weekend, as, at least for me, many of the songs would take a gazillion driving listens to get the words right (as you must remember; I cannot look at the lyrics because – driving). No, I sing whatever words fit the pleasant Koenigean warbles and “my audience” is not displeased.
I think of the Beatles writing Yesterday and Paul McCartney using the original placeholder lyrics of, “Scrambled Eggs. Oh my baby how I love your legs,” and I think it’s totally reasonable to change the words to something like Diane Young, Don’t Lie, or Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa for my own listening (and driving) pleasure. Someday I’ll look up the words, though I’m happy enough with my own versions for the time being.
Perhaps my nervous reaction to driving was born from that invisible ceiling brake. Maybe it was the watching for the opposing traffic’s yellow lights while I was stopped at a red at intersections (you know – to leave sufficient time to feel the clutch). Maybe it was how fifth gear liked to keep me on my toes by sticking every once in a while when downshifting to fourth. At some point in time, specific origin unknown, it came to be, and here I live to tell the tale, much improved thanks to uninhibited car singing and an affinity for Vampire Word Salad.
I’ll end it here before this last track skips, but feel free to set the needle down at the beginning again if you so choose.
I’ve been reading a lot of Tolkien this year, among other authors, and can say he offers an escape worthy of the time and brainpower it takes to digest his world-building, maps, pronunciation guides, timelines, and versatile storytelling formats. I’d never read Tolkien’s works before, but I’d seen the Peter Jackson – helmed The Lord of the Rings films and decided to attempt the feat of pouring my eyeballs over the entire epic journey of the ring bearer and his companions in written format from start to finish, and then some.
I spent many cold, winter mornings and evenings curled up on our blue couch, or in a chair by the window, my toes cozy with the warmth provided by the baseboard heater. I’d toss a throw blanket over my lap, my steaming mug of tea or coffee or glass of red wine – close at hand, getting safely lost in the pages of a very dangerous and complicated fictional world. Let’s just say if your brain’s at risk of turning into mashed potatoes, just read through a Tolkien Appendix or “The Battle of Unnumbered Tears” chapter in The Children of Hurin and you’ll be sorted for at least a little while.
I started with The Hobbit, a prequel to “the trilogy”, after seeking the advice of a friend. As the story began, I met a Tookish hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who both craved adventure and was resistant to it. I recognized such a personality immediately, sharing in these traits myself. I joined Bilbo, Gandalf, and a company of rhyme-named, treasure-minded dwarves on a romp through parts of Middle-earth from West to East, from The Shire to Erebor, a.k.a. The Lonely Mountain.
I tasted adventure and couldn’t get enough. The names became easier to differentiate and the characters came to life in my mind. I read of trolls, a victory of wits, a rank cave of treasures, and the last homely house in Rivendell. I tensed as wargs and goblins pursued Thorin and his company. I soared to eyries on eagles’ backs and trekked through the endless darkness of Mirkwood, cowering beneath Shelob’s (chatty) spider-spawn and grew intrigued yet suspicious of vanishing, feasting wood elves. I cautioned my thirst at magical streams and hid behind Bilbo as he sweet talked a cunning dragon called Smaug. It all made real life feel a little easier, not having to face those trials first-hand. It made reading “the trilogy” a little easier too.
My Preciouses
It was helpful to come to The Fellowship of the Ring with a lay of the land, to some degree (a familiarity with the films was a helpful crutch as well). Middle-earth is a vast realm and only seems to increase in size the more Tolkien stories I read. The first book of the trilogy fleshed out the maps introduced in The Hobbit. The journey started as The Hobbit had, in the familiarity and comfort of The Shire in the most eastern lands of the old West, with my old, new friend, Bilbo. What ensued was a journey of nothing less than epic proportions, a fantastic escape like a fever dream that lasted over a month and was disappointing to wake from.
I learned that Bilbo’s ring was more than just an invisibility cloak that he employed as a party trick or escape tactic. I learned that The Shire was not exempt from the dangers of the East, as it seemed in The Hobbit, those dangers held at bay by protective, mysterious rangers, men of the sunken West. I met a mischievous, ravenous tree, and was relieved, yet wary, at the rescue of Frodo’s companions by Tom Bombadil, the yellow-booted “master of the land”, who simply is and his wife, Goldberry, the river-daughter, surrounded by bowls of flowers in their cozy respite of a home. As Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin evaded a few of “The Nine” hooded riders on horseback, relief washed over me again, followed by intrigue at the introduction of the mysterious ranger, Strider, in the Prancing Pony tavern who would come to be their guide, protector, and a major power-player in Tolkien’s complicated tale.
The journey continued on, presenting harrowing scrapes with danger, a slightly altered cast of characters from the film adaption, and what seemed like a lot of songs. Tolkien is a poet who expertly plays with words and inserts poetry into prose in a way that adds meat to the story while also explaining some of the history that is helpful to understand the state of things in the “First Age” and “Second Age” of Middle-earth a little better and to bolster the current affairs in the “Third Age” in which the story takes place. His poems sing and while the music probably sounded different in my mind than in his ear, there were indeed the makings of a melody.
Tolkien creates new languages on the basis of existing language foundations and principles, some even possible to learn if you have the interest, patience, and time. I think, personally, I’ll just stick to my Duolingo French for the time being.
Tolkien establishes relationships in the first book of the trilogy as well as an overwhelming sense of obligation, empathy, trust, and apprehension among the shepherds of the ring. Every surety is tested until it is unsure. Curiosity overwhelms and havoc ensues in the form of orc attacks and Balrog-induced cliff-hangers. There is heartbreaking loss, but temporary safety is often a close-following companion.
And then there’s Lorien.
A land of the elves, concealed amid the treetops, a place almost too glorious for human understanding, that none but Tolkien could invent and convey with his magic words.
I went out to buy the next two books before I finished reading The Fellowship.
Funny thing, when you purchase a Lord of the Rings book, it seems to serve as a guaranteed conversation-starter with the bookstore cashier. When buying The Fellowship of the Ring at Labyrinth Books in Princeton, I smiled when the cashier felt compelled to share that Andy Serkis recently narrated a new audio book adaption of The Fellowship of the Ring, just assuming I knew who Andy Serkis was while providing no additional info and ignoring the fact that I was literally handing him my credit card for a paperback copy at that very moment. Luckily, I did know who Andy Serkis was and was able to offer some sort of interested response, because it is my firmly held belief that Andy Serkis was perhaps born with the main purpose of bringing Gollum/Smeagol to life in the LOTR film franchise.
When I bought The Two Towers and The Return of the King at Barnes and Noble, I was met with an, “Awwww; Lord of the Rings! My dad used to read those books to me when I was a kid.” And that’s connection right there, people. I can attest that the secret network of Tolkien fandom is alive and well.
If I read these books as a child, without seeing the movies, I wonder how much of Tolkien’s talent I would have actually appreciated as I floundered to grasp names and races and languages and maps and quarter-turned, counter-clockwise, rotated geography for over a thousand pages. I’d have sunk like the lands in the West, for sure. No, adulthood was necessary, for this reader at least.
I finished The Fellowship and immediately went on to The Two Towers, impatient for the adventure to continue.
If you’re looking for orcs, don’t you worry. They are served up in heaping portions in The Two Towers. I read on, worried as the Fellowship separated due to the divided fates of the young hobbits. I mourned a fallen ally on the banks of the Anduin. My skin itched at the sight of two glowing orbs in the darkness and ice trickled down my spine as Gollum/Smeagol led Frodo and Sam through the Dead Marshes, the description of the faces in the bog and the thought of their cold, flacid skin, vivid as touch in my mind.
I’d walk through my local woods and recognize The Shire in the hill of the Battery, Moria in the Battery bunkers, and the Anduin in the river below. Lorien gleamed in the early morning sunlight, golden on the leaves, while Mirkwood lurked in the fading dusk, ominous with each rustling that broke the static, blue silence. Fangorn was present in the strength of the trees and Isengard invaded where trunks had been felled for restoration. There is no Mordor here, however, and the map is reversed, the lands in the West – now in the East, sunken in the sea.
I dreamed of battle encampment, my imagination hyper-activated in sleep, and the sure menace of orcs and probable doom lying in wait. I didn’t feel ready for certain defeat and stressed over having never wielded a real sword. I didn’t have the courage of the ring bearer and his company. Cold sweat woke me. Disorientation overwhelmed as I fumbled for glasses on my nightstand in the dark, slowly coming to sharpened reality. I reserved my battle-cry for next time, ultimately fading back into a safer dream, shielded by a warm quilt, soft sheets, and safe shelter, a world away from the battles of the Third Age.
Shelob was absolutely horrifying and made me realize that Samwise is perhaps the truest hero in Tolkien’s epic tale for the challenges that his creator constructed for him. (Pro tip! Don’t Google Shelob if you are afraid of spiders.)
Another cliff-hanger ushered me straight into The Return of the King and I found my favorite of Tolkien’s books, so far at least. I really think it would be a tough one to beat, however. The storytelling in this book is more well done than a steak at Chili’s. The way Tolkien unfolded simultaneous events, devoting appropriate attention to each battle, escape, and rescue, all while keeping the story going and maintaining the quality of the character relationships fed a glow of admiration within me. I know I won’t ever equal storytelling like that, but I felt lucky to read storytelling like that and that’s enough for me, I think. We’ll see.
A culminative battle brewed as the fate of the bearer hung uncertain in the hearts of his scattered company. The forces of men, elves, dwarves, wizards and a couple of brave hobbits combined to fight a growing, visible darkness. Dread prickled my scalp as a small company braved the kingdom of the dead on blind trust of their leader, he – destined to rule in an age to come. My heart pattered in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, melted in the fiery waste of Mount Doom, and soared in flight with the eagles, once again. I almost wished it had ended there and to never have known The Shire touched by darkness, but then Merry and Pippin would not have felt themselves worthy of the title of hero in the end, each earning it gloriously, like their other hobbit companions.
Tolkien tugged a few remaining threads on the seams of the story and just like that, it was finished.
I craved the first page and the unknowing mind again. Instead, I sifted through timelines and appendices and that satisfied, for the time being.
Tolkien is a tutor for what language is capable of, what the creative mind is capable of, and the influence a great creative mind can have on other artists, readers, and adventure seekers. Tolkien’s epic storytelling ability is an unreachable destination, a myth, lore – surely, right? And yet, it was achieved by a man of very human proportions (with a heavy dose of talent).
“What has [Tolkien] got in [his] pocketses?” as Gollum might ask.
I’m on a reading kick lately. Reading helps me to tune the buzzing static of my insecurities to the right station until I can sit back and analyze them with more clarity. I enjoy being a spectator to other people’s or characters’ stories for a while, particularly on rare days when I feel like a background character in my own. I overthink. I underthink. I misinterpret. I acquiesce to the harsh judgement that accompanies creative drain some days, goals crowning a mountain peak that seems to grow out of reach despite my efforts.
I pitch my hammock into the rockface and will it to hold so I can keep climbing once I’m rested. When I need a break from decision making, from world-building, from feelings of inadequacy, I pick up a book or my Kindle. When I read, the print on crisp pages takes the reins as my supply of curiosity and potential refill.
Until recently, I would buy books or borrow them from friends or family willing to lend them. I am a serial re-reader when it comes to books that I own and am careful in selecting books to purchase. I wait; I visit; I ask for advice. I will continue to buy books that mean something to me.
My shelves and Kindle are stocked with different genres: fantasy, historical fiction, murder mysteries, and a smattering of minimalism, wellness, and nostalgic childhood one-offs here and there. Books are my time machine. They transport me to different memories, different people, and I feel connected to those experiences and people again, even if they are not alive anymore or if we have simply lost touch.
To supplement my book buying practice, in the continual pursuit of living with less clutter, I finally visited my local public library branch. When I applied for my library card, the three staff members behind the circulation desk welcomed me to the area. I have lived in the area for four years. Let’s just say I didn’t admit that since there’s no excuse for it taking me as long as it did.
If you are a book lover without a library card, don’t hesitate like I did. It’s time, really.
Aside from being welcomed to the neighborhood when picking up my library card (I can only imagine the books will silently shame me forever for my transgression in waiting four years!), I was also serenaded by one of the librarians with this bad boy from 1967, perhaps more appropriately known as The Library Song written by, Fred Hertz and Joel Herron.
“There’s a place for you and a place for me, it’s the local public library. They have books and things that they lend for free It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.“
If I knew there’d be fanfare, I’d have gone sooner. 🙂
Wielding my new magic access card to hundreds of thousands of books across my county, I went “shopping” in the library, or at least, that’s what it felt like – and bonus, no buyer’s remorse! I keep a list of books that I want to read and suggestions from friends and family in my notes on my phone and it was so easy to peruse the library app to find the reference numbers and sections for the books on my list. I know! I’m late to the party and Hermione Granger is screaming at me right now somewhere in the fictional universe, but I don’t care, because I’ve finally made it. I was excited to walk out of the building with two adventures in my hands and the promise of many more ahead of me, all for the nice round price of zero dollars. In the words of Will Hunting, “How you like them apples?”
With this lifeline nearby, its shelves of plastic-sheathed, coded offerings waiting to be read and re-read, I feel calm and excited, only overwhelmed by wanting to read more stories than I have time to read. I am determined to rekindle my relationship with the Dewey Decimal System, remembering now what a great pair we made throughout my school days all the way up through college. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say, and I’ve fallen again. What else would you expect from a word nerd like me? Afterall, “It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.“
cozy does it 