If I were to have made a resolution for the new year, it would have been to set aside time, to actually SCHEDULE time to write more. Having taught a Franklin/Covey course several years ago, I know (in fact, I preached) that there is no 'someday' on the calendar, and that I have to incorporate all my 'someday' goals into concrete plans for my actual, written-down-on-paper days. However, in spite of my thoughts in that direction, I have managed to avoid the scheduling process thus far.
But last night, at a dinner party, the conversation turned to reading, and a recently-retired friend asked "How do you schedule time for reading?" I immediately leapt into full denial mode: one doesn't 'schedule' reading; reading is something you just DO, like eating or sleeping. But my inner voice (the one I seldom listen to) slyly chimed in..."..like writing?" And I fell silent. Yes. Like writing. The particular fact that I need to face in this new year is that, for me, reading and writing both have strayed from the natural rhythms of my life into 'to-do' list territory. The particular fact is that I have let my everyday invade and conquer the part of my brain that I use to understand and make sense of living.
Realizing this is one thing; battling back is another. Adding time to read and write means subtracting somewhere else. We have an upcoming trip planned: a good time to examine the schedule and find a few gaps that can be better utilized. Maybe there's a resolution in there somewhere, but no matter. It's time to find my way back.
AND..on another matter--perhaps related, perhaps not:
With regard to that same dinner party, I had offered weeks ago to bring a dish and was assigned the job of bringing baked beans. I have a terrific recipe in my file box, given me by a friend who had copied it out for me years ago on the standard 3x5 card. Sandy had acquired the recipe from a neighbor of hers, who I also knew. (Back then, room mothers were a neighborhood all their own; we all knew each other..) In any case, when I pulled the recipe out yesterday, my thoughts immediately went to Sandy, who died some five years ago. There was her handwriting, and there also was the conversation, the neighborhood get-together that had sparked the recipe request...and, most strangely, the realization that I was preparing her recipe on what would have been her birthday.
I thought upon that odd coincidence, and this morning, in church, it occurred to me that this might be something to write about: the many times that friends and family have returned from the dead--or from long absence-- through their recipes. I was even turning over phrases in my head on the way home. Kitchen ghosts. Household haunts. Resurrection by recipe.
When I sat down to write this, I clicked on Anne Higgins' most recent blog (which sounded like me, apologizing for not writing--see above), and (in my usual scattered fashion) began to read previous entries. The following quote almost literally jumped off the screen at me:
"A good poem is made only in small part by the one who holds the pen and in great part by the ghosts that live in the writer’s house."
Book title: the ghosts in the house
Question: Who are the ghosts in my house?
Who are you, Anne, and why are you reading my thoughts? Even though I didn't think them till months after your post.
It seems that the universe is pushing me back to writing. Okay. Okay. I can take a hint. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Anne. Thank you, universe. I'll take it from here.
