Chapters In My Life

The wonderful Oliva Reader, my faraway friend, one of the first in this land o' blogs, asked me to do a guest post for her Chapters In My Life series.

I found it challenging (but ultimately rewarding) to think of five books that have defined the different chapters in this life of mine. I changed my selections countless times and I still wonder about my choices.

Because how can you actually define a life through just five books?

You can find the post here.

The Nice People. The Kind Ones.

She's a nice person. Oh, yes, he's very kind. Phrases that people overuse. Perhaps a rather generic and dull way to describe someone.

But this week I've been thinking about these virtues. I value them above almost all else. I only keep those in my life who possess them. I try my very hardest to live with them always at the heart of what I do. It's never enough. But I try.

Sometimes, at my job, I get to work with young people. And I have the great fortune of working with one such young person who is pure light. Always laughing. Always smiling. Her eyes growing huge when she talks excitedly about all the things that are happening to her. I'm going to have hot chocolate! I'm on the student council! I'm going to learn chinese!

Her mother walks in with armfuls of books she wants to recommend. We thought of you, she says because we all discuss books when we see one another. When will we see you again? She always wonders, a look of geniune concern on her face that we may not see one another for a while. And I'm always surprised that it matters to her. That she cares.

What I'm trying to say is these are the people I am talking about. These kind people. Nice people. This is that mother and daughter pair.

Yesterday I talked with this mother about her daughter. How incredibly alive she is. And she told me that her daughter is so rarely unhappy, almost never upset. But when she is, because of course, it happens, it is an incredible sadness, deep and gutwrenching, like nothing else she sees in her other children. Her daughter just can not comprehend why anyone would be mean to her or anyone else. And it worries her.

It struck me because I remember sitting with my mother at the kitchen table. I don't remember how old I was or what had happened but I was in absolute hysterics. And my mother was getting upset because she could not calm me. I distinctly remember her saying: I worry about this, Melissa. I worry that this is going to be a big issue for you. For the rest of your life. You don't understand that people can be mean.

So, during a week of some disappointment, mean people stomping in and having their way, I think about this sensitivity. This flat out, I'll admit, naivete. And I think about my young friend. And all the other people in my life, who I keep in my life, because they don't understand the mean-person syndrome either. And I don't know if it is an issue. A problem. A worry.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: The Hum, The Moving Forward

I found these abandoned trolly cars, on their track to nowhere, last week. I sat with them a long while. I've always been fascinated with trains. Not the mechanics but the feeling I get when I ride them.

I am unable to read or sleep while riding in buses, planes, and automobiles. But I feel at peace on the train. I can always write. Always read. Always drift off to sleep.

I think it is the hum. The moving forward.

I always thought, I'm going to fall in love on a train.

It didn't quite happen that way. But it's a nice thought.

Do you like trains?

Book Birthdays! You Are My Only and IQ84

Today's the day. It's finally here. Two of my favorite authors. Two book birthdays that have me singing. I hope these books will not spit too hard when they blow out the candles and ruin towers of ice cream cake (because ice cream cake is the best cake. It is ice cream and cake...in one.)

I was fortunate enough to read Beth Kephart's You Are My Only early on. It releases today! (Congratulations lovely Beth.) My thoughts on this beautiful book are here. You can buy it here.

Spit-spot, I say, in my best Mary Poppins impression, a flower sticking out from my imaginary hat. Even though I'm always the one lagging behind, the one stopping to look at a pretty tree or a happy cloud, I have little patience for those of you who are lolling about when it comes to this book. It's time you read it. It's time we talk about it. In fact, I don't know what on earth you're waiting for. It's TIME. I just broke out a Mary-Poppins-I-mean-business impression. This is about as strict as things get in Melissa Land.

And the English translation of Haruki Murakami's IQ84 also releases today. I have long tried to understand and articulate my love for Murakami's work. I have since given up trying. My latest philosophy is: Don't question it! Just do it! (The Saturday Night Live Dora parody Maraka anyone? Anyone?)

I realize this kind of attitude can have only the most dangerous consequences. It is the same philosophy that left me blind, dazed and confused after seeing a recent Edward Albee play (His work is another one of my inexplicable, tongue-hanging, head-bobbing, whatever-you-say obsessions.) Despite the fact that IQ84 is a 932 page book, a three-volume series condensed into one 5 pound dead-weight in the United States, I'm ready to take the journey. I am, after all, just a cog in Murakami's robot machine.

Anyway, it's not often that, in one serendipitous fell swoop, two of my favorite writers send their books out into my world. It's a happy day.

Any book birthdays you'd like to celebrate?

Overheard: That's What Life Is All About

She stood in line at the Met grocery store with a wild puff of uncombed brown hair. Ran her fingers across all the chocolates. Balanced on the edge of the shopping cart and did not flinch when she teetered. Huge blue eyes with razor sharp focus.

"What's your name?" she asked the woman in front of her.

"Amber. But I already know you. Emerson. Right?"

"Yup. I'm six years old and I lost three teeth." She stuck her neck out, grinned to reveal the gap.

"Wow."

"Six years old. Three teeth." She repeated. A serious measure.

Amber paid for her groceries, waved goodbye.

"You're Amber." She stated. And just like that she was off the cart, spinning on one toe.

"That's right. Amber. Goodbye Emerson."

"Goodbye Amber."

She did not look at Amber go. She did not look up to her father, who held her rainbow backpack. On his arm, it looked too small, too clumsy. Instead she was completely focused on her balance, arms out, toe pointed as she made her delicate turn.

"Daddy. That's what life is all about. Meeting new people."

This Is Where They Are

I took the day off to write and read. Today is my birthday, so I gave myself that gift.

I was desperate to get through a passage of my novel which I have been struggling with for weeks. So I sat down with it this morning and I knew what a mess it was. I could not understand why every paragraph started on the off beat, why each word came in on the wrong note.

I sat for a long time. I rearranged. I rewrote. But it still wasn't right. Why couldn't I be in that scene? What was it I couldn't understand?

Then I said, "That's it. I'm going there."

I grabbed my notebook and a purple pen. I got on my bike. And I went to the pier.

It's only a few minutes away. Why hadn't I thought of it sooner?

I pictured all of my characters in the very place I sat. It was, after all, the exact setting I had imagined when I first wrote the scene.

And I wrote, far away from my little office, away from my computer. In these wild winds swooping across the pier. In the daylight. On paper. With a (gasp) pen.

And I thought: Yes. This is where they are. Exactly where I always imagined them being.

It was such a relief.

Somewhere to Be

It's autumn and Brooklyn is beautiful, alive. But I seek quiet. I need space.

I've been thinking lately that I need a place to go. I need somewhere to be.

I'm looking for a just-mine spot.