literature threads, fabric of life

I feel as if I were born wired to love literature and the written word. I was writing stories at age six, I wrote my first book at age eleven (it was not good, by the way). I would devour stacks of books from the library and during summers, I would lavishly read into the early morning hours. Sweet memories indeed. 

Make Way For Ducklings! Boston Public Garden

Literature has woven itself through the threads of my life. I can see a book on my shelf and be momentarily transported to the place where I read it. Non-fiction and especially fiction has met me at crossroads in my life, helped me view my world through another character's eyes, it has helped mold me into the woman I am today.

I remember summer evenings devouring the newest Christy Miller book by Robin Jones Gunn. These characters became a part of my heart. No book series has impacted my life to a greater extent than these treasures.

I read Atonement Child by Francine Rivers curled up on a beanbag in my basement bedroom of the house I lived in during college. I now read this book every year. It pushes my heart to pray, to not become numb to the world around me, to see God's sovereign hand in everything.

I read Canary Island Song by Robin Jones Gunn the second time in a French hotel in Luxembourg City. My dear friend and I had walked the city (one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen) all day in brisk and damp weather. We were chilled. We ordered tea service and curled up under blankets to read our books. I finished it on the train, the Luxembourg and Belgium countryside creating a watercolor painting through the train windows. This is another story that I love. Each time I have read it, it speaks to my heart in a different way. And it makes me want to visit the Canary Islands....

tea in Luxembourg and Rhubarb my travel polar bear...

the lovely, terraced Luxembourg City

I read Pollyanna Grows Up (sequel to Pollyanna) by Eleanor H. Porter while visiting my brother in Boston. I walked down Commonwealth Avenue to the Public Garden and could picture Pollyanna's stroll and world perfectly. The story is so very sweet and it captivated me.

Boston's Public Garden

Commonwealth Avenue..."Comm Av"

Brownstones on Commonwealth Ave.

I read Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott (sequel to Eight Cousins) sitting along the North Shore of Lake Superior where my husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. As the waves lapped against the rocky shore, we sat and read, chatted intermittently and ate our take-out lunches. It was a beautiful day accented by a beautiful story. A pristine moment.

The North Shore of Lake Superior

I read An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott curled up in my over-stuffed chair, covered in blankets on a cold winter evening. I wasn't expecting to get pulled in, but I just had to finish it. My husband came down at one point to see if I was coming to bed. I pretended to be asleep, so he would leave me alone. Yes, I did just write that. He went back upstairs and I finished the book by about three in the morning. Guilty.

This is a sampling, I have so many more. Moments with my husband, my kids, my friends, my family, and by myself. I've heard that the sense of smell is the strongest memory, I would probably agree, but for me, literature life moments are a close second. Pristine moments, carefree moments, introspective moments, cathartic moments, they are all sacred to me.

springtime~Hearst Castle

Tis the season, I'm into spring. My son teases me because I use the phrase "Tis the Season" quite often. I love seasonal anything. Whatever is seasonal, especially food, I grab it. Last autumn, while shopping at Trader Joe's, every pumpkin-themed item in the store found its way into our cart. My husband rolled his eyes multiple times. He says that advertising was created especially for me...the target for all seasonal "propaganda."


I love seasonal food, but I also love seasonal activities. I won't miss the aspens changing in the mountains and the elk bugling season, and I won't miss the blossoming trees in spring. No matter if I'm home or traveling, I search out seasonal gems. My favorite season in which to travel is autumn, but a close second is spring. Late spring, you can usually count on good weather and as I said, every place has its spring gems. My brother and I toured Hearst Castle, several hours south of San Francisco. A beauty.

those March days, the first samplings of spring

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." ~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Spring where I live sometimes bears a striking resemblance to winter. In spite of knowing that heavy, wet snow will come, the clustered buds appear on our trees, new green peeks out from the ground, fledgling leaves prepare to welcome the cherry blossoms. The sun shines bright, the air is fresh and cool, it's like breathing hope into my lungs when I step outside. Cabin fever flees our home. I look at the world with visions of daffodils and tulips dancing in my head, remembering my excitement when I saw these flowers bloom in my mom's garden as a child.

Spring is not predictable, but that's okay. The unpredictability makes it beautiful. No matter what assails it, we know the fruit of spring. Even a little battering cannot quench its bloom.

Crocus blooming at the botanical gardens...

"In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours."

~Mark Twain

“The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the [land] will rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus

It will blossom profusely
And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy...

They will see the glory of the LORD,

The majesty of our God.

Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble.

Say to those with anxious heart,
'Take courage, fear not...'”

Isaiah 35:1-4

...Hope

read it again, and again, and again

“The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers ‘I’ve read it already’ to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. We have all known women who remembered a novel so dimly that they had to stand for half an hour in the library skimming through it before they were certain they had once read it. But the moment they became certain, they rejected it immediately. It was for them dead, like a burnt-out match, an old railway ticket, or yesterday’s paper; they had already used it. Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life.”

—C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

I have a "stack" of books I read over and over again. Once a year, twice a year, each year at Christmas, it depends. In the last number of years I've started to go back to classic authors. I had read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and that was it as far as reading for fun and not for an English paper. Now three of her novels are ones I go back to again and again. It's sad to say that I never read Pride and Prejudice until after I graduated college (and I was an English major!). I've now added two of Austen's other novels to my repeat list. I see new details and dimensions each read. This choice to not only read those books labeled "best-selling" and "trendy" has been good for my soul. These works have stood the test of time.

My personal list of  "great works":

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion by Jane Austen

Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

Pollyanna and Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter

Boston's Public Garden from Pollyanna Grows Up

My survival repertoire while my husband travels...

We're settling in the for the week as my husband is traveling for work. It has definitely gotten easier as the kids have gotten older. When they were young Monday quickly felt like Thursday. Now, the time flies, or swirls much like a tornado vortex.  And although by all standards my kids should not wake up in the middle of night, when my husband is gone, one of them usually feels nostalgic for middle of the night one-on-one time. They know their dad is gone. It'll probably be my six-year-old who the other night decided that the time was right to have a tea party with her dolls at 4 a.m.  complete with a tea table (upside down basket), tablecloth (her blanky), dishes (dollhouse dishes), an LED candle, and friends (little Barbies). Oh, and she was decked out in her Elsa nightgown and Cinderella shoes. She kills me and cracks me up all at the same time. My husband was up for that one, I got to laugh about it in the morning.

All that being said, I have a few tactics for surviving sanely while my husband is gone.

Pickle, the travel lion, making sure he doesn't get left behind...

1. I adjust my schedule. We homeschool so I don't expect to achieve the same amount of productivity. I work on the most necessary subjects, the ones where we need the most repetition or the ones where we have fallen behind. More time is given to keeping the house from imploding. More mental and physical energy is required. Something's gotta give.

I had a week where I scheduled the kids' well-child checks (too many shots to count), neutered our puppy (I mean a vet did it...), took the car into get repairs and reorganized the whole house, plus hosted a ladies' night. Yes, this is a true story and it was a mistake. Meltdown. Supermom in swift order became psycho mom trailed by snippy mom.

Every mom faces a different reality, some may work outside the home, some may work from home, others have kids in public school along with sports and commitments that cannot be altered. Life doesn't stop, I get it, and sometimes my weeks while he's gone are nuts. It happens, but I do what I can.

2. I plan something fun. We go to a museum, take a field trip, get together with friends at a park, or go a movie. Something that gets me out of the house and keeps their minds off of the fact that their dad is gone. Sometimes we go out for breakfast and then take a walk depending on the weather. A treat, special time and memories for us to share.

3. I don't cook. I used to raid the freezer section, like pirate-style, pillage, plunder, leave no stone or frozen appetizer left unturned. D would look in the cart and ask when his daddy was leaving. For awhile he called our airport "daddy's airport" which just about killed my husband. D has always been a food purest and would rather have a home cooked meal.

Now that the kids can make their own food, I let them pick, but it has to be simple. We buy cereal, eggs, bread, cheese, hot dogs, fruit and veggies, and they are welcome to grab what they want from the freezer section too. One night is usually pizza night. I like to cook and I spend a lot of the time cooking and cleaning the kitchen during normal weeks. I realize how much time this takes during the weeks I don't cook. Also, a clean kitchen brings much peace to our home, decreases my stress, and frees up a whole bunch of time.

4. We "tailgate." This is our family term meaning "eating on a picnic blanket in the living room while watching a movie or a television show during dinnertime" (a tradition set by my mom). Not our usual routine, but a treat.

5. They go to bed earlier. We're talking 7 or before. I don't require them to go to sleep, but they must be in their rooms reading, drawing, playing quietly, listening to music or audio books or a combination. I'm an introvert and after a whole day of noise and no "pinch hitter" coming in, this is a must for me.

6. Travel animals! Cece is especially sensitive when her daddy is gone. So her daddy took her on a special date and they chose a travel animal. A lavender wide-eyed bunny (named Lavender) that she only gets when he is gone or I am gone. Just recently Belle picked her own travel animal on a special date with dad--an aqua, sparkly owl named Violet. My husband also has a travel animal. When D was little he chose a lion and named it Pickle. D remembers to pack it in his dad's suitcase almost every trip (even though he's 11, it's tradition). My travel animal is a polar bear named Rhubarb.

Violet and Lavender

7. Coffee. In ridiculous quantities. All day long.

8. Get sleep. I never do (and not because of the coffee I drink all day long). I'm not self-regulating at all when my husband travels. And I'm a night owl, so it's a compounding problem. But if you are smarter than I am, get sleep.

9. Connect. Between the time zone difference and my husband's commitments when he travels, we don't always catch each other. My husband talks on the phone with the kids sometimes, he has read Narnia books on speaker phone other times. Sometimes, we miss each other and we just send texts or pictures. It helps.

10. Take a moment. The demands are higher and more exhausting when I'm on my own. As I mentioned, I'm not disciplined per se at going to bed when I should and therefore I don't get up before my kids. I still take a moment for myself, maybe several. I clear the kitchen table, light a candle, make a latte, and read for a few minutes. I've had these moments in quiet and I've had them with Sesame Street playing in the background. Everybody is different, this works for me. Whatever "a moment" looks like for you, take it.

11. Remember there is grace. Sometimes my achievement of the week is that the kids are still alive at the end. You laugh, I'm serious. Did I feed them? Check. Did I strangle them? Nope. Did they watch too much TV? Check. But His mercies are new every week, every day, every minute every second. It'll be okay. Did I love on them? I hope so. Did I ask forgiveness when I lost it? Please say yes.

This morning I woke up in a funk. I felt edgy and a little bit sad, but couldn't quite diagnose it, nor did I have time for introspection. It was one foot in front of the other, one word, one action, one prayer at a time. We made it.

I'll sign off. I have a phone call to make.

saying yes, a toast to sidewalk picnics

sidewalk umbrella picnic

I often feel quite grouchy as a parent. We recently read Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery and for the first time I related to Marilla. I really disliked this realization. Not that she is a villain, but one definitely wants to be more like Matthew or Mrs. Allen the pastor's wife.

My kids ask 50,000 questions a day. They disagree with this assessment, but they are wrong. And as much as I want to say yes and be gracious and ungrudging and non-condescending, I can't seem to manage it. I have a lot to do. I have a lot on my shoulders, that's just the reality.

We've had fabulous weather and on this particular day, I decided to say yes without a sigh. Yes to school outside, yes to reading on the front lawn and the front porch, yes to a sidewalk picnic under umbrellas and yes to chalk artistry. No, we didn't get as much done. But the fresh air was lovely, the kids were peaceful, it was well, lovely.

I hope they remember these hazy days of childhood. Blue skies, brown prickly grass waiting for the cue to shoot up green, light breezes and brilliant spring (technically winter) sunshine. It's good to say yes.

happy, happy spring! (flower field bonanza follows...)

It's the real deal, folks. The flower fields of the Netherlands are as advertised...and to ride through them and up to the North Sea was euphoric, amazing, breath-taking (the air smelled of hyacinths for miles). Every minute was a blessing.