Spring often conjures thoughts of spring cleaning. It’s more like spring purging around here these days as we go through cupboards and drawers and hidden corners of the basement eliminating the things we don’t use and no longer need. With the exception of my garden (crammed with plants,) my bookshelves (crammed with books) and an impressively stocked kitchen pantry (eight kinds of rice at last count, and herbs and spices into the triple digits) I’m something of a minimalist.
Part of it is necessity – a writer’s salary isn’t large (at least this writer’s salary isn’t large) – and part of it is the way I’m wired. I don’t love shopping. I don’t hate it, but it’s not what I do for fun or for relaxation. Reduce, reuse, and recycle was part of my lifestyle before it was trendy, back when it was considered weird.
So I was keen to pick up and read Cait Flander’s Year of Less. After getting rid of 70 percent of her belongings, Flanders stopped shopping, other than for necessities (and those were very narrowly defined), for an entire year. Unfortunately, the book didn’t have the depth I was hoping for. It wasn’t so much a memoir about living with less as it was a memoir about a millennial struggling with love, loss, career and family angst during a year when she also stopped shopping. It was a fun, easy read but it didn’t speak to me in quite the way I’d hoped. So if you’ve read any great books on minimalism, let me know. Spring purging should only go so far.
Here’s what I’m reading this month:
At the gym: Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen
Beside the bed: The Year of Less by Cait Flanders
On the weekend: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Books read to date in 2018: 31
Diana Gabaldon is also a dog lover. Her Twitter feed occasionally features pictures of a pug (a grand pug if the comments are to be believed) or one of her dachshunds. For a time, Gabaldon was an ambassador for Bianca Associacao, a Portuguese shelter that rescues and rehomes 600 dogs and cats annually.
I had a cat once, for about a decade. Juna was a stray who adopted us, and even though I’m allergic I couldn’t say no. She used to wake me up every morning by delicately licking my eyelids. It did nothing for my allergies but it was good for my soul.
Before we had kids, we had our rescue Pekingese pups, Clementine and Winston. The latter was named for Winston Churchill and the former was named for his wife (and, yes, there is a visual similarity; google Clementine Churchill)
Some books are sleepers. Michael Morpurgo told me that years ago (if you’re not familiar with Michael’s work take a minute and google him). It’s not that I put any less effort into what I call my sleeper books. They take as much effort as any other novel; some come together relatively quickly and others take a long time to jell. But sleeper books start out quiet. They don’t generally make a splash out of the gate; in fact, they might never make a splash. That doesn’t reflect on their quality. They’re good books but quieter ones, often modestly reviewed, rarely gathering much attention or getting nominated for awards.
The daffodils are blooming and so are the cherry blossom trees. Spring officially arrived yesterday. The air, which seems to get warmer by the day, is fragrant with possibilities. Life is especially sweet at this time of year . . . and especially so if you have a good book to read. Here’s what I’m reading this month:
For those who note these things, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Life inevitably has its messy, difficult times and that’s been true around here since mid-December. I’d managed for a while by scheduling everything in advance but lately even that’s proven challenging. So while this blog and my social media presence is on something of a hiatus, I’m hoping I won’t be away too much longer. My reading has taken a hit lately too, though I’m managing to squeeze in a few books here and there. And I’m gravitating to upbeat escapism whenever possible. Here’s what I’m reading this month:
They say this past January was the fourth wettest on record. I guess I wasn’t around for the first three because last month was the wettest January I can remember. We were hit with a series of back-to-back rainstorms and clouds so dark and persistently low that many days it was hard to believe it was day, and not night.
Last year, if my record is accurate, I read eighty books. Funnily enough, I apparently read eighty books in 2016 too. That works out to a book and a half a week. Broken down like that, the number seems low because I always have two or three books on the go at once, and most weeks it feels like I get through at least two of them. So either I’m forgetting to note some titles down or I’m not reading as much as I think I am. Either way, I’m not really bothered. I have a record of what I’ve read and enjoyed over the last few years, and more than enough titles on my ‘to be read’ list to keep me going for a long time yet. And here’s what I’m reading this week:
Many years ago, when I was feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities and uncertain about what writing project to tackle next, a good friend asked me a very simple question.
Last January I started a gratitude jar. Whenever I thought of it – sometimes every day or maybe a few times a week – I’d jot down something I was grateful for and slip the colorful Post-It note into a jar. This practise has been around for a while; I’m sure you’ve heard of it.
Gardeners and farmers know the importance of fallow ground. Allowing a field or a garden bed to rest for a bit – to go fallow – gives the soil’s nutrient balance a chance to naturally restore itself. As the ground rests, fertility can be restored. Letting ground go fallow was a common practice centuries ago, but it’s not as common anymore. As commercial fertilizers became more readily available and the agricultural industry became ever more competitive, it became less and less popular to leave land fallow. Constant production was the goal.
Comments