The Purple Chair Revisited

February 14, 2012 journal entry
I just want to sit and escape from the world for a while. Maybe escaping for a while is okay. Just not forever. The world has been a scary place recently and I've need to get away from it for some time to rebuild my strength. I held it together for so long but now I need to rest. Start from the ground up. The purple chair is a blue love seat that thankfully doesn't smell of old cat urine. Plus I don't plan to retreat so completely as to read a book everyday for a year no matter how attractive that does sound. 

Nearly eight months ago I wrote of the grief over my father's death. My mother and I had brought my dad back from the hospital so that he could die at home. There is no rest for us this year. At the end of June we placed an aunt in the nursing home and she passed away two days ago. Once again we find ourselves planning a funeral. I am exhausted and seek only to take to my bed with a book and read. I crave comfort which can only be found under the covers of my quilt and between the covers of a good book. Maybe Nina Sankovitch had it right in her memoir, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, there is a way through grief by a dose of daily reading.

What now?

I think Susan Hill has put it very well in her book Howards End is on the Landing, "But I was looking for a book. I have no option but to find one here, in the house, for this is my year of reading from home and suddenly there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I want to take down and open, to read or re-read. I don't think the fault lies in the books, the feeling applies to the wardrobe (nothing to wear), or the full larder (nothing I want to eat). I daresay very rich people with the private jet standing by have the same problem- no where they want to go." (page. 77) I have finished the book and now I need another. 

Bad news came last night with one of those heart thumping, jarring awake from sleep telephone calls. Someone dear had passed away. It was expected and it's a blessing that the suffering was little and quickly over. But now I was wide awake and I needed distraction from the thoughts in my head so I turned to the book and finished it off. Then I was able to sleep once more. 

Thank God for the comfort of books. It has been a year of needing comfort and escape when life has just become to over whelming. Every once in a while the struggle comes when I go to the book shelf for the next volume only to discover I'm not really thrilled with any of the choices there. Oh there are plenty of choices, and just like Susan Hill I could used to go a year without buying anything new (in fact the year before last I vowed to read from my collection or that of my local library). Oh just pick one, try it, if it doesn't work out try another. I often do that only to find a week maybe two goes by and then I find my way back to the discarded choice to pick it up and avidly read it to the end. Sometimes there just must be the right time for the reading of a particular book. The old saying goes "the teacher will appear when the student is ready," in this case it is "that the book will come along when the reader is ready!"

The comfort of books

Today has been a trying day. Life is a tidal wave crashing over my head right now. I've retreated to my bed where I now sit ensconced in my comfy "jammies" and fleecy bathrobe, tucked up seeking solace from a book.  Tonight it is Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing a look at one woman's committment to reading from the books found on her own shelves. I loved her description of the SDD - small dark den, the sitting room with its window seat, and the Shakespeare Professor's lair at the top of the stairs which are all sources of shelved reading materials that have been forgotten about, put aside for later, or the much loved and rediscovered. It's satisfied my yearning for a get away to the quintessential English cottage, a lovely mental holiday.   Instead, I find myself in my very New England style cape cod house with its gabled window and slanting front wall, but snug as a bug escaping from my trying day. Thank God for a brief moment to rest the weary soul with a pleasing and restoring distraction. I know that tomorrow I will have to pick up where I left off and go on with the story of my life. In the meantime I can read the story of someone else's life tonight.

I want to be visible

I finished Calling Invisible Women last night. A rather fun read disguising a really deep emotional message, the need to be noticed by others. It's premise (spoiler alert coming) is that a strange pharmaceutical cocktail of prescriptions from the fictitious Dexter-White company is causing middle aged women to become invisible. For many of the victims they had been feeling invisible to family, friends, and employers and now there was no longer a face staring back at them in the mirror. Clover Hobart the narrator of the story is one such woman. She takes us along to support group meetings where she learns about the cause of her physical change. But more than that she takes us along as she discovers the power within.

As a result of her new condition she discovers the urge to right some of the wrongs around her. Who hasn't dreamed of having invisibility as a superpower? Clover takes the plunge and does a few reckless things. What she really learns and tries to teach the rest of us is that we can't lose sight of our passions in life.  We need to shine and maintain our visibility. As a middle aged woman there are days I feel invisible. There are days when I question what is my true passion, will I ever figure it out, and if I do will there be enough time to pursue it.

Not going to tell you how things end, but sometimes I too wish for a superpower. Then again maybe I am super enough already.

Getting back to the blog

I haven't posted to this blog in quite some time. In fact not since life took its dramatic turn over Christmas break when my father fell ill. What a whirlwind experience that was, from bringing him to the hospital thinking he had a small stroke to finding out that his symptoms were a result of the cancer that would swiftly take him by February 1st. What kept me going besides faith and the love and support of family and friends were the words. The words I produced in countless journal entries and the many books I read over the last ten months.

Journal entry from 2/13/12
Today I began reading Nina Sankovitch's memoir Tolstoy and the Purple Chair about her year of reading as a way to deal with the grief of her sister's death from cancer.  I had picked the book up off the library shelf before only to put it back down. I wasn't ready for it yet. 

"I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened and they make it all real. Words create the stories that become history and become unforgettable." ( p. 108) 

I certainly haven't had the luxury of taking a year off and spending it snuggled up in my favorite comfy chair with the goal of reading a book a day and reviewing them, but I have read. I have read lots of stories some have been for pure escape and others to help me find my way. That's where I am now on the journey of making sense of where life is taking me now. Things change in the blink of an eye. Sometimes we must cling to those things that bring normalcy to our lives like a cup of coffee, a comfortable spot to sit, and a book in ones lap.

Writing

In touring colleges with my daughter I realize that there is a frustrated English major in me dying to get out. All those years ago I chose to go into Science. Now don't get me wrong, I do love Science. In fact I'm passionate about Science but there is a part of me that loves words and wishes I could spend more time working with them.

"I met people of all ages, everyday of my working life, who were writing because they couldn't stop themselves." (p. 506) Thoughts of Edith the narrator of Kate Morton's The Distant Hours. She's an editor who's just discovered that her own mother had a passion for writing and gave it up years ago, and is a bit too afraid that she can't begin again at the age of 65. This quote gave me hope that perhaps that inner wordsmith has time to come out and create a bit. In fact last night I signed up for NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month a program that encourages the writing of a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It is all about getting the words out and onto "paper" (nowadays it's electronic paper), quantity over quality at least for the first pass. That's what I need right now because the editor in my head wants to get it down perfectly the first time and that simply can't happen. But if I don't have a goal to sit down and do this writing I might never do it. I have the story idea in my head and notes are beginning to form on paper. In fact I was quite pleased with the ideas that were coming to me today. The challenge will be to schedule enough time to sit and write during the period starting 11/1/11 at 12:00am. I can tell you that I will not be up at midnight starting but I'll get to it some time. Plus the challenge to get it done and uploaded by 11/30. Even if I don't make it at least I will have tried. One of my co-workers went through this process two years ago and the book has been published. There's hope for me yet!

Hector and the Search for Happiness

I was just reading through some notes I made after reading Francois Lelord's Hector and the Search for Happiness, and thought they would make a good post. This book is the story of Hector a successful psychiatrist (even if he doesn't believe that to be true) and his search to find out what makes people happy or unhappy. He has a wide variety of patients some of whom are mental hospital inpatients and others who are "everyday" people who outwardly appear to have everything but are dissatisfied with their lives. Have they pursued the wrong career? Are they in the wrong relationship? Or are they simply bored? Hector decides to travel the world in search of an answer.

I found a quote that struck me as poignant to my own exploration of what happiness is all about. Hector has traveled to Asia and is speaking to an old Chinese monk, "The first time we met, you said to me: it's a mistake to think that happiness is the goal...I was referring to the goals which you  in your civilisation are so good at setting yourselves, and which incidentally allow you to achieve many interesting things. But happiness is a different thing altogether. If you try to achieve it, you have every chance of failing. And besides, how would you ever know that you'd achieved it? Of course one can't blame people, especially unhappy people, for wanting to be happier and setting themselves goals in order to try to escape from their unhappiness." (p. 151-152)

As my life changes I see that my concept of happiness is changing. I too want to have happiness and more so, contentment. Joy is fleeting, contentment more lasting. I've been rushing around working at finding happiness when most of the time it is right in front of me. Sometimes I wonder if I don't allow myself to be happy. Is that a throw back to old fashion Catholic guilt? Are we not allowed to be happy? Did I just experience so much unhappiness in my early life that I don't know what contentment is? Do I spend too much time comparing my self to others and wanting for something to happen that will bring me happiness? It is something for me to contemplate. Sooner or later I will need to quiet my mind and get in touch with my feelings.

I've worked so hard at setting goals and achieving them, but then spend little time enjoying the completion and attainment of those goals. I'm caught up in the cycle of planning and setting a new goal to work on. I need to learn to savor the success for a while before I go haring off after another goal. It's true, acheiving one goal after another doesn't necessarily bring one closer to happiness.