Unplanned vacation

Little did I know, when I wrote my last post, that I would not write another for an entire month. The truth is, I could not bring myself to the keyboard. I was trying to create the mental equivalent of an island retreat—lying in an open-front grass hut, thinking of nothing, listening to the waves roll in.

What have I been doing? Reading. Not much writing, other than faithful morning journaling, and a few poem notes/drafts. Making three new ribbon-bound journals and two perfect-bound notebooks (one for Princess Two, who needed an assignment book for sudden-onset piano lessons). Playing a lot of piano and trying to improve my French horn.

What did I read? I re-read ninety percent of Patrick O’Brian’s third Aubrey/Maturin novel (the mental equivalent of comfort food). I read Teach Your Own by John Holt. If I hadn’t already been convinced we should homeschool, this book would have convinced me. It did encourage, inspire, and energize me for this new venture. I read Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender. In its pages, I found plenty of quotations that I coulda/shoulda pinned above my desk; but primarily I found reassurance that my mental vacation was in fact long overdue, direly needed, worthwhile, and plain OK. Apparently the creative spirit needs rest and rejuvenation. Thank you, Sue Bender. I am finding the same kinds of reassurance in a slightly different form as I continue to sip my way through Susan Wooldridge’s Foolsgold.

Meanwhile, I have started reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, recommended by a discerning friend. This book is both a record of one family’s year-long quest to eat only what they could produce on their own farm or buy locally, and an exhortation for us all to think about where our food comes from and how we can treat our earth and our bodies better. Depressing and inspiring at the same time.

So, dear reader, like Persephone and the daffodils, I have returned from the dark depths to soak up some sunshine. I’ll radiate as much as possible.

Thirty-nine: 7-9

Today, some thoughts on writing:

7. Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer

8. …[T]heir talk ran on about the novel, the process of writing a novel, the lively fruitful fluent pen and its sudden inexplicable sterility. ‘I was sure, last time I was in Sydney,’ said Paulton, ‘that I should finish my fourth volume as soon as I was back at Woolloo-Woolloo…but the weeks went by, and never a word that I did not strike out next morning.’
—Patrick O’Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation

9. A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
—Thomas Mann

Eleventh day of Christmas books

This gift came from my youngest sister. It is not actually a book, but got me thinking about them…

The Dread Pirate Game by Front Porch Classics. Anyone who knows me can guess the first “Dread Pirate” that came to my mind—the Dread Pirate Roberts from William Goldman’s brilliant book and book-into-movie, The Princess Bride.

From there I got to reminiscing about some of my other favorite books featuring pirates:

Tanith Lee’s young adult fantasy novels Piratica and Piratica II

Ian Toll’s history about the early U. S. Navy, Six Frigates, which includes some fascinating material on the Americans’ struggle with the Barbary pirates at the turn of the 19th century

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, in which pirates pop up in various exotic waterways

I also realized the biggest omission in my trove of pirate literature is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, which has been on my to-read list for far too long (though I recently watched the Muppets movie version).

Thanks, sis, for the fun pirate times, and Merry Christmas!