Downtime

Quiet few days in the midst of so much travel. We drive to Massachusetts on Thursday and drove back on Sunday, but the Deerfield show was lovely. I didn't see much I couldn't live with out, but I saw loads of beautiful things I'd like to live with. I don't know the first thing about art. My only art appreciation class was in eighth grade, and what I remember most is a cute student assistant, a charcoal portrait of myself from childhood, and the orderly joy of a drafting table. Still, I love paintings. I could cover every inch of wall space with art and still fill racks in storage. This would lead to conflicts as I also need flat wall space for bookshelves, so it's probably a blessing that my finances limit me.

We stayed at Purple Gables in Amherst, which was cozy and peaceful. I had my same regrets - that we stay in lovely places that we really just get to sleep in. Saturday, we left around 9:00 a.m. and returned around 10:30 p.m.... And we got to see friends, and had popovers at Judie's. What more could you want from a whirlwind trip?

And I love traveling with my husband. I love that he talks and that he's quiet, I love that he can stop for all sorts of entertainment or ride for 13 hours to make it all the way home in one day. I love that he will drive 15 miles out of the way for local pizza of unknown quality or just grab a muffin at Starbucks and keep moving. His innate ability to be whatever the situation requires makes going places with him a joy. And I love driving. Driving has always been my healthiest form of avoidance. You feel like you're moving forward, leaving worries behind you. I always have a feeling of self-reliance when we travel; just the two of us with maps and no plans, free to wander and stop and look and talk and be silent. Of course, Andrew still laughs at me when I tie my head to the seat so I can sleep, but otherwise, we're quite companionable travelers.

Tonight, we have a charity auction, tomorrow an antiques show, and then in two weeks we're off to Delaware for a few days. We return home to a downhill slide to auctions and holidays and shopping, but right now, I'm sitting contentedly in the eye of the hurricane, which is a feat in itself. Normally, I can only dread what I know is coming, but I've achieved a Zen-like level of Now, drinking tea, finishing novels and indulging cats. For just a few seconds, the wisdom of the ages makes sense, and I can believe that there really isn't anything else - nothing exists but right now, and it's already gone.

Nothing to Read

I occasionally suffer from the syndrome of full closet and nothing to wear. This is my own fault. I shop at Goodwill and tend to purchase discount sweatshirts, and when the time comes to donate to Goodwill, I tend to pillage my husband's ratty dress shirts. (This is useful - the sleeves are long, so if I button the cuffs, I can tuck my thumbs through the cuff slits and have gloved hands in the winter. I'm thinking ahead!) I don't buy dress clothes often, and as a result, when I do it's with a complete abandon and utter disregard for anything but aesthetics. I have a nice selection of beautiful things that do not "go" with any of the other beautiful things. Anyway, a problem of my own making.

Which is why I was astounded today to discover this problem with books! Let me be clear - we are not short on books around here. The built-in shelves we designed were the first project we finished after we moved in - they're an impractical 11' high by a staggering 17' wide, and they stay full, despite my best effort to carve out some small spaces for decorative odds and ends. We have a database, so I can say with certainty that the number of books in this house tends to hover around 1400-1500. We have advanced reader copies tucked into every nook and cranny, and we "distill" our books regularly at Half-Price Books, converting four or five small boxes of books into just four or five books. And they know who I am at both local libraries.

For months now, I've been looking at the shelves (and windowsills) and thinking, "I'm falling behind! I'll never get all these books read!" And then all of a sudden, just yesterday, I couldn't find a single thing that fit. I had to resort to "trying" books on, retiring to bed with a large stack with everything from pop culture (Linda Fairstein) to the literary (Margaret Atwood) to the academic (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich). I like trying on books about as much as I like trying on clothes; I just want something to fit, and everything that doesn't fit makes me feel bad about myself. ("Too tight? Too fat!" becomes "Too weighty? Too stupid!") Still, at the end of the day, shopping for books is still better than shopping for dress pants!

Animal Magnetism

The first sure sign of cold weather is that I begin to sprout furry, purring, cat-sized tumors. They grow on my head when I'm sleeping, in my lap when I'm working, and I often even have a sweaty cat fur glove on my left hand when I'm reading. I wake in the middle of the night to discover fuzzy growths under either arm and on the tops of my feet, and while their locations may change, they never detach.

And it's not just cats that I attract. Of course, every insect in the free world has discovered the weakness of our defenses - worn sills, old caulking, paper-thin weatherstripping - locating a crack, crevice, nook or cranny to sneak in. Fruit flies, who ignored us all summer, now seem aware of their brief lives and have mounted an assault on three spotted bananas and a bowl of tomatoes with a vengeance. Spiders have set up housekeeping on every glue block in the place, leaving the floor around the furniture legs littered with carcasses and carnage. The skunk pillaging my compost bin has stepped up his efforts, and a mouse has set up camp in an eggshell half, probably consoled not only by the convenience of snacks but also by the warmth of rot. And then, there was the nest of baby snakes in the dryer vent.

Honestly, this might be a case of being careful what you wish for. I feel like my teenage wishes for popularity are being visited on me now, and I should have been careful to specify what kind of popularity. General popularity with the universe has its drawbacks vis a vis dryer vent snakes.