Miles and Miles and Miles …

Miles and Miles and Miles …

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On the second day of my getaway I wrote in the morning and explored in the afternoon. About 20 minutes from where I was bunking, there was an entrance to Shenandoah National Park’s Skyline Drive. I’d been there before — it’s less than 90 minutes from my house — but I hadn’t been there in years, so I was looking with fresh eyes … with, dare I say it, eyes of love?

Virginia is for lovers, you know, though it’s taken some of us a while to love the state in which we live. But this reluctant Virginian was swept off her feet yesterday. First of all, the weather was perfect. It was almost 60 degrees, clear and bright. There weren’t many people around, and those who were there drove slowly, seemingly as much in awe as I was.

I did a couple of quick hikes, but what grabbed me most were the views. Skyline Drive runs along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains, so you don’t just have one vista, you have dozens. At some point I realized that if I didn’t stop pulling over at every overlook I would never get home.

I looked at the ridges, one behind another, as close to infinity as we are likely to have this side of heaven. In my head was that song from The Who: “I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles.”

It reminded me of flying; there was the same above-it-all-ness, the sense of seeing more clearly because we can see farther. Real world problems didn’t go away, but for a few hours they seemed smaller and more manageable. They seemed miles away too.

Hot Spot

Hot Spot

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I’ve gotten away so far and so thoroughly that I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to get online long enough to write this post. As it is, I will make this one quick because I’m using my phone’s “hot spot,” and I’m not sure how long it will last.

The little cabin where I’ve escaped prides itself on lack of connectivity. There’s even a cellphone lockbox where you put away the pesky item while you roast marshmallows over the fire and look at the stars.

Alas, though I am not addicted to the internet in general, I have become pretty attached to writing this blog, so I have circumvented the cabin’s best intentions and have gone online anyway — but gone online only to extol the pleasures of being away from things, out of the loop, disconnected.

It’s ironic … but true!

The Gift of Time

The Gift of Time

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This morning I embark on a two-day writer’s getaway, courtesy of my daughter Claire, who decided last Christmas that what I needed most of all was the gift of time. She was amazingly kind and wise beyond her years when she made this decision, because I need it so much that I’m only now using it 11 months later.

Time is what writers need and what this writer lacks. I’m not complaining. I would much rather have more ideas than time than be twiddling my thumbs with vacant afternoons and nothing to say. And yet, it often frustrates me that my own writing time (writing what I want to write, not what I’m paid to write), is crammed into the bits and pieces of a day: scribbling on Metro, rising early, retiring late.

Today and tomorrow is a break in that routine. Two days to unwind and charge the creative engine. I always remember what happens to those who don’t, beautifully articulated by the poet Mary Oliver: “The most regretful people on earth,” she wrote, “are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

Thank you, Mary Oliver. And most of all, thank you, Claire!

Eat Dessert First

Eat Dessert First

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Long ago, when I was a musical purist, I would have thought it gauche to listen to only one movement of a recorded symphony. In most cases, I enjoyed the entire piece anyway, but even if I didn’t, diligence kept me on task. If I was going to thrill with the allegro, then I would muse with the adagio.

For several years now, though, my approach to music has been the aural equivalent of “eat dessert first.”  If I feel like listening only to the last movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, then that’s what I do.

Maybe it’s a matter of time, or lack thereof. Maybe I’m just giving in to a need for immediate gratification. I could also blame it on Washington’s classical radio station, which routinely cherrypicks the most notable movements of a concerto or symphony and seldom plays a piece in its entirety.

No doubt about it, listening to an entire work is a different experience, more ennobling, a journey rather than a destination. But these days I’m discovering the particular pleasures of listening to what I love best. In other words, to co-opt the catchphrase … Life is uncertain. Last movements first.

Counting the Carbs

Counting the Carbs

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Planning the Thanksgiving menu is not rocket science. You basically make every carb under the sun to go along with the turkey. Every year I have fantasies of roasted root vegetables or braised leeks — and every year I fall back to what I know.

Which is not to say I haven’t tinkered a bit with my mother’s menu. My brother upped the ante years ago when he took over the Thanksgiving meal. His turkey was brined, his broccoli was capered, and his homemade cream of mushroom soup was to die for.  And I have my own spins on the seasonal classics: a cranberry salad with cream cheese dollops, and herbed stuffing with walnuts and (this year) dried cherries.

But somehow, no matter what I prepare, the meal always ends up being one big mess of carbs. Tis the season, I guess!

Muted Palette

Muted Palette

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An early walk today amidst a muted palette of autumn color. The pink of the sunrise sky set off the glow of those leaves that still cling to their branches. The air was mild with a feeling of warmth and moisture. A flock of birds passed overhead.

We are heading for a monochromatic world, I know that. Already more limbs are bare than leafed. But it was hard not to revel in the beauty of the moment, not to get from it an optimism about things in general.

The kwanzan cherry tree, which was slower to change and has held its color longer than most, is finally shedding leaves at a frantic pace. But it’s all to prepare for next spring when it will send forth its big-fisted blossoms in a riot of pink.

Yes, there is winter to get through in the meantime. But today, or at least this morning, it was easy to forget about that.

Because Internet

Because Internet

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While at times I wanted to shake my fist at Gretchen McCulloch’s Because Internet, I lapped it up and took scads of notes on it. There will be others like it, maybe there already are, but to me it seems utterly original. To survey how the internet and social media affect the way we communicate is not only useful but necessary.

McCulloch approaches her vast subject with a linguist’s eye, and notices things I’ve noticed but didn’t know others paid attention to (I’m leaving that preposition hanging out there because I know McCulloch would approve). Things like how spellcheck and autocomplete cause writer’s block because they draw our attention to small details when we’re just trying to get the danged words out any way we can. And her observations on typographical tone of voice, which I’ll cover in a separate post.

Where I take exception is McCulloch’s quickness to condemn “book English” (my quotations, not hers) and the stodgy, class-laden thinking she believes goes with it. This makes me defensive, of course, not only because it threatens my profession (do we really need professional writers and editors if “idk, maybeeee we should taaaalk about it … lol” is perfectly acceptable?) but also because she seems to assume that writing well, with grace, is somehow false.

Writing well is not just a matter of following rules but also of breaking them — and breaking them to more brilliant effect when they’re not broken as often. Writing well is putting words together in a way that is fresh, original and utterly you (whoever you are). If striving for subject-verb agreement makes one stodgy … then I’m guilty as charged. In the meantime, though, I’ll be thinking about McCulloch’s points, and maybe loosening up just a tad because of them.

A Windfall

A Windfall

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The Fairfax County Library system has many benefits, chief among them the fact that I can order books online and pick them up at my branch — not a high-tech offering, I’ll admit, but a generous and handy one.

Of course, this means I usually have more books on my nightstand than I can possibly read and must stay on top of a wide array of due dates. It’s a task I’m more than happy to undertake given the pleasures it provides.

Usually I have a little slip plus an email reminder that tells me when the books are due. But this time the email failed to arrive, so I went online to check the due dates. And lo and behold, I found a brand-new catalog and extended deadlines — two weeks longer! — for the three volumes I have.

Though I know the extension is due to the new catalog, it feels more like an early holiday gift for those of us whose reading eyes are bigger than our stomachs. It’s positively a windfall — and I’ll enjoy every (extra) minute of it!

Foggy Memories

Foggy Memories

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A foggy dawn has given way to a partly cloudy — wait a minute, make that sunny — morning.  But my head is still in the clouds as I remember great fogs I have known.

There was a stretch of misty weather in Chicago long ago, unseasonable November warmth that steamed up the city’s windows for days. I walked from my house to the corner where I met my ride as if in a dream, passing stately homes and the distinctive domed church on Deming, pretending I was in Europe instead of the Midwest.

And then there were the pea soup fogs in Arkansas, so thick they made it impossible to drive the 25 minutes from Petit Jean Mountain to Morrilton. Since there were very few services on the mountain, a few days of fog created a desert-island feeling.

Finally, there were the fogs of my youth, which swirled around the big oaks in the Ware Farm behind our house, making those open fields look haunted and lonesome. The farm is filled with houses now, of course. But through the miracle of memory, the fogs and the fields are there for me whenever I want to see them.

Train Spotting

Train Spotting

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The windows of my new office overlook the main north-south railroad line in the eastern United States. So as I conduct interviews and write articles, I keep one eye peeled for the sights and sounds of a passing freight or passenger train.

Whether it’s the Virginia Railway Express commuter line (one just zoomed by!), the quicksilver flash of an Amtrak engine heading up the Northeast Corridor, or one of the lumbering freights that seem to go on forever, I find this new pastime more than a little distracting.

Usually, the work of the day creates a vortex on the other side of the glass, and there could be a circus train chugging by and I wouldn’t have time to ogle it. But early or late, when my eyes are prone to wander … do I ever have a lot to see!