Reverie

Photo by 8 Eyes Photography.
Photo by 8 Eyes Photography.

I left the house early to run errands, and as soon as I sat down in the car, one of my favorite songs came on, the acoustic version of an oldie. I love it when that happens; those songs always feel like gifts–little touchstones to launch me into reverie and remind me of people and places that are often no longer in my life.

Maybe it was the music, or the way the wind felt on my face, or the way the air smelled, but I felt like I had slipped into my childhood skin. Do you know that feeling? One part deja vu, one part daydream. It hits at random times: stepping into an empty classroom, visiting an ice cream shop in a vacation town, waiting for someone at a restaurant, swinging on the swings in an empty park. I love the sensation, like time folding in on itself to give us a peek of something past.

Even after I returned home with groceries, unpacked them, and got into the business of the day, I felt residual nostalgia. Things I touched felt like allusions to other things, more so than usual: my broken rainbow coffee mug reminded me of my circle of girlfriends, Nutella brought me back to eating crepes on the Fressgasse in Frankfurt, cider evoked sitting around a campfire, and so it went all day long–little wisps of the past.

Today is the Autumnal Equinox, one of two days during the year when day and night are in balance (the other is the Spring Equinox). I started writing this at dusk, on the threshold of light and darkness. I love thresholds. I  believe that there’s magic in those in between spaces, so it doesn’t surprise me that the past was slipping in all day– looking to be remembered.

As I finish this, the sun has set, and the balance has shifted. This next half of the year belongs to the darkness, to cooler temperatures and the landscape of nature dying, to hearth fires and candles, to blankets and loved ones, to stories and dreaming and everything that keeps us warm.

Blessings of a bountiful harvest to you and yours.

fireplacelong

 

Hope and Harmony

In January, I finally finished revisions on my second book, The Supper Club. It took longer than I would have liked, but last year was full of juggling: the Fuller Award for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, work on the comic book, the death of an old friend, and the decline and death of two of my grandparents. Mixed in were creative moments and misadventures with the kids, coffee and wine with friends, and time spent writing.

I vowed that I would finish the rewrite of The Supper Club by the end of 2012, and I did at 4am on January 1st,. I gave the draft to my readers for a quick read through, then I revised accordingly.

forelornhope
Forlorn Hope 2011 Ost-Intrigen (more information at: http://forlornhopewines.com/)

The night I finished The Supper Club, I opened this bottle of wine given to me by a friend and signed by the winemaker, Matthew Rorick. It seemed a fitting way to toast the trials and triumphs of the past year.

Trillian Stars with the kids. Photo by Kyle Cassidy.
Trillian Stars with the kids at Casa del Lobos. © 2013 Photo by Kyle Cassidy.

The new year continued with visits from some of my favorite people: Maura Henn, Kyle Cassidy and Trillian Stars, as well as a party in their honor  that included a house concert by Bittersweet Drive.

Bittersweet Drive plays at Chez Lindsay's. © 2013 Photo by 8 Eyes Photography
Bittersweet Drive plays at Chez Lindsay’s.
© 2013 Photo by 8 Eyes Photography

You can read Maura’s account of the wonderful weekend on her blog. A few of us also participated in the Chicago chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America’s all-day reading of Pride and Prejudice on the 20oth Anniversary of the novel’s publication (orchestrated by the amazing Debra Ann Miller). It was fun to read Mrs. Bennet for an hour and be a part of the event which included readers from the Jane Austen Society, Terra Mysterium, local writers Jody Lynn Nye, Lawrence Santoro, Victoria Noe, and others.

"Pride and Prejudice" Readers for Chapters 18-23: (left to right): Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Victoria Noe, Maura Henn, and Madeline C. Matz.
“Pride and Prejudice” Readers for Chapters 18-23: (left to right): Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Victoria Noe, Maura Henn, and Madeline C. Matz. © 2013 Photo by 8 Eyes Photography

So it’s 2013, and I am back to writing in earnest. As I try to carve out a routine that works, I keep thinking about the idea of “finding balance” in life. As I try to squeeze everything into my day (and night), it’s a recurring theme.

When most people today talk about balance, they use the metaphor of scales: life on one side of the scale and work on the other. The challenge lies in making the two sides balance.

Perhaps it’s the wrong metaphor for balance. It’s not the right one for me. I prefer the image of a mobile, like those of Alexander Calder, with many different parts of my life suspended and in motion, swinging around as I shift my position and my focus. That sounds a lot more like my day-to-day: elements swirling around, moving in and out of the foreground.

One person’s chaos is another’s harmony.

"Streetcar" by Alexander Calder
“Streetcar” by Alexander Calder at the Art Institute of Chicago