Mundania 17

Darren has husband points coming out his ears. On Saturday, I left the house at 9:30am and didn't get home until 8:00pm. I shopped for new clothes, ate out for lunch and supper, sat beside a stream, got coffee, napped in the car, and with my good friend the dana, wrote the beginning of a new story.

And THEN, yesterday afternoon, I took off again -- this time to a coffee shop to meet with a writer's group I've just joined. I was a little nervous, as there seemed to be an overabundance of poetry. My usual reaction to poetry is, "Can't you just SAY what you're talking about?" Dana L, married to a poet, advised me that it's best not to look too deeply for meaning -- just comment on the vivid imagery. I went into the meeting with the words "vivid imagery" clutched in my sweaty hand. It turned out that I really did have other things to say.

Music finds: From "Classical Baby: The Music Show," I discovered Bartok's "Stamping Dance" which the kids like. It has a haunting, wistful sound. I also had Darren find an arrangement of "O Mio Bambino Caro," also on the Classical Baby show. Pretty much I get all my ideas of music to play for the kids from DVDs.

For myself, I bought the soundtrack of "Prince Caspian" for a single song: "The Call" by Regina Spektor, played over the closing scene and credits. I got one of her CDs to try out, too. I love her voice, I love the spare style of some of her music, but I don't like the songs. They're all sad and seedy. (Twelve tracks on this CD... couldn't she come up with ONE song that wasn't about lost love and grimy memories?) However, words aside, I love "Fidelity," "Samson," and "On the Radio." I guess I can always just wait for the Christian imitation to come out.

Things that annoy me: in a Christian Book Distributors catalogue, the ongoing trend of Amish Fiction. You'd think they'd have explored all the possibilities of living and leaving the Amish faith by now, but there's always at least one new one in every cataglogue. But, sensing a dry vein, one author has branched out: she set her book in a Shaker community. Not to be confused with pacifist Quakers, which I always do, the Shakers were a gnostic (spirit good, body bad) cult that believe that all sex -- no matter with whom or under what circumstances -- was evil. So they lived in male-female communities, but strictly separated. Even family relationships were discouraged: once you entered a community, you were no longer father, daughter, mother, son. You were only brother and sister. Not very surprisingly, the faith died out. So this new book is set among the Shakers, and the description refers to "the chaste community." Darren and I both object: chastity doesn't mean No Sex; it means the proper use of sex. Absolutely forbidding it and calling it evil is not a proper use. The Shaker community could properly be described as "repressive." Probably I won't read this book.

And another book I won't be reading is a post-Civil War novel about somebody named Willow Madison. There's the much-older Silas Sterling who has offered marriage, but what about handsome Tucker Grey? I figure, if I can tell what's going to happen merely by the names the author chose, then probably I won't expend energy on the story itself. P.S. The title is "Twice Loved."

What About Socialization? Addie and I went to get haircuts last week. She spotted a nine- or ten-year-old boy waiting for his mom to be finished. She walked up to him and said,

"Hi! What's your name? [Nonplussed, he answered, "Jamie."] My name is Adelaide, but Addie is my nickname. Pleased to meet you, Jamie. [He awkwardly shook her outstretched hand.] This is my favorite book. I like to read. But would you like to play while we're waiting?" And he got down on the floor with her, and they played with cars until he had to go.

-- SJ