Evening Pages ~ A Couple of Books, Reading, and Fancy Rice

A couple of weeks ago I started reading a book called Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever by Mem Fox. I finished it this morning. I was pulled toward this book because of my future volunteer work as a reading tutor for young struggling readers. I would have likely checked it out otherwise, since the topic is interesting to me. I don’t have kids myself, but as many of you know, I still love children’s picture books and check them out periodically—more so now as I love knowing that I will be sharing and learning about new picture books from this opportunity.

What I found most interesting in Reading Magic is that when parents started reading to their children when they were just months old how much this impacted their reading skills as they grew older, as well as instilling a love of reading.

I recently attended the training for those of us who will be tutoring. After going over the details of what we could expect, what the goals are when we sit with our students—one-on-one—as well as some techniques to help engage the children, I felt ready. But, I will remember to go into this without expectations. We were instructed to bring a few books to our first tutoring session just to be prepared, since the students may or may not bring their own books. 

After first learning some nuts and bolts in training, we were then paired up with a partner and took turns reading to each other from Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion with pictures by Margaret Bloy Graham. I was paired with an older gentleman in his late sixties. When we were done reading, I asked him a question and it led to him telling me that he had kept all of his son’s children’s books that he had read to him when he was a child. He said that his son didn’t understand why he kept them and told him he should get rid of them. To his son, he replied, one day you’ll thank me. I told him that was fantastic and that I wished that someone had saved all my children’s books.

I’ve continued to re-explore my astrology chart and have re-visited several astrology books and added a couple to my collection. I’ve looked at my houses and re-looked at my ascendant and rising sign in more detail. I definitely re-discovered insights that made sense and shed some light on things I’ve long “felt” and have known on an intuitive level. Each time I put my chart away and come back to it, it’s like coming back to it for the first time—in a way. It has been very satisfying thumbing through the different books and absorbing the information. It can be overwhelming because there are so many different pieces to look at and some authors focus more on one piece than the other. One small thing that I forget is that there is a lot of fire in my chart. I feel that fire in myself often—even without the chart. It’s all interesting to me and satisfies my quest for continuous learning in the astrology department. But, it’s almost time for me to put it away again, until next time.

I finally made my first risotto—mushroom risotto—only it was from a healthy dinners magazine and was sans the butter. That must be why it had sausage in the recipe, which I didn’t care for. Next time I make it, it will only have mushrooms, onion, and garlic, and the other ingredients that make a risotto a risotto. When my significant other sees it on the plate, he only sees rice, so I’ve started calling it fancy rice with him. I’m just happy that I finally made a risotto. I enjoy ordering it when we go to restaurants that have it on the menu. Each risotto I have had has been different, as though the personality of the chef comes through on each plate.

Another book that I recently purchased, and I wasn’t looking, but my eyes caught Dante’s Inferno on the store bookshelf in the same section is a small book of haiku poems called haiku mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness & Open Your Heart By Patricia Donegan. I’m savoring this one morsel by morsel. What I like is that each haiku selected by the author also has a short, thoughtful reflection on each haiku and a small bit about the author. I’ve felt inspired and further quieted by this small gift of a book.

slice of moon
brushes up high
cradles me inside

**

Sweet dreams…or sweet morning…wherever you are.

A Few Bits

10-11-12

Today is a good numbers day. It’s a day of order: 10, 11, 12, and each of the two digit pairs becomes 1, 2, 3. These little things tickle me.

October has brought cooler weather, which I welcome. As I was preparing dinner yesterday, out of the corner of my eye I could see the sky changing to deep ruby. I walked over to the bedroom window and admired the view. The clouds looked full and gray. Later that evening, I smelled the first rain. It wasn’t much, but it was something. At last!

Something led me to dust off my astrology chart and take a look at it. I do tend to do this every few years, sometimes each year. I think I’ll be spending more time re-exploring astrology, going deeper. I have several books that I’ve used, cookbook style books, and some that deal with certain areas of astrology. I’ve also unloaded plenty and kept those that I thought would be most useful at the time.

The other night I dreamt of a space. It was dirt and kids were flattening out the dirt, as someone would do when they are getting the land ready for building. I was at the outskirts watching and behind me, as if it was the most natural thing were boxes built into the dirt of stones and crystals of all shapes and sizes. Mostly earth toned stones—deep reds, oranges, browns, and plum purple—and there was a section of boxes with white crystals—flat, diamond shaped, round—I picked one up and held it to the sun so that I could see rainbows.

On top of my many visits to the library, the last few days I’ve felt guilty because I’ve purchased a handful of books, real books and Kindle books. Today, I took myself to the metaphysical store and purchased two more astrology books and a tiger’s eye stone. I’ve long been a student of astrology—slowly and in spurts—and I’ve recently felt that I want to go back to the basics, to get reacquainted with all of the signs, as well as the planets, and to become more familiar with the twelve houses. I still struggle with aspects, but with a little more persistence, I’m sure it will fall into place.

Thinking about it…I think it was three days ago when I took my chart out and while I was reading from two books that I chose allowing myself to land where my intuition guided me, I was amazed how much I can still learn about myself each time I re-examine my chart. It leads me to see things that may make sense and that I couldn’t quite put a face to. I also had a report from many years ago that was prepared for me. I skimmed some of what it said. Even though I’ve spent time with my chart, have had it read by an astrologer on a few occasions, there is always something that opens my eyes and that’s just looking at my natal chart without looking at current transits and happenings. We are such cyclical creatures and astrology feeds into that. It’s wonderful that there are many different tools out there for our use toward self-reflection and self-discovery.

I was slightly disappointed with how workshop week has gone in the online short story writing class. We were placed into groups for workshop, which is fine. It turns out I’m in the group where only one other person has provided feedback on our stories. Apparently all the other groups have gone back and forth on feedback and have had a productive week.

There are four other group members in my group besides myself. The deadline has passed, so now we’re on to a new week. We have one more week of workshop where we’ll post our revised stories or a new story for critique. I prefer when we do the whole class postings. It seems classmates tend to respond to what interests them. I think what I miss is that with the whole class critiques, we have the opportunity of peeking in and seeing the scenes and feedback that others leave. This time, it’s like I’m in a void. There is nothing much happening for this week. Onto next week and looking forward to getting back to the whole class format.

Well, I’m off to read my new astrology books and hopefully I’ll also have time for the other books I’ve been dipping in and out of!

Evening Pages

Today was a good day. Work was productive. It felt as though people that I passed on the streets were in a good mood, and the office was in good cheer.

When I looked out the window this morning while I was getting ready to start the day, the clouds were a nice tone of deep gray. The cool air was a refreshing welcome to the past few hot days. Fifteen minutes later, the gray was breaking and white clouds were mingling with blue skies. Outside, walking to my car, I felt a lift in my step.

I have until tomorrow to put the finishing touches on my short story. I was glad that its rough beginnings were well received. A part of me though feels that I may have trapped my characters in their world. I feel on one hand glad that a few classmates were intrigued by the story; on the other hand, I don’t want to disappoint, but I may have to completely reshape the story because as it stands there are too many loose ends that don’t work together. It might turn out to be a very different story, possibly less interesting than my first free write.

Interestingly, the tarot card that I drew this morning turned out to provide inspiration for my story. I felt it this morning and was able to think it out in my mind on my way to work. I’ll have to see if I’m able to bring the insights to the story’s page.

Mostly, I’m happy it was a good day. 

 

A Good Restless Night ~ After Affect: Letting it Flow Out

Last night was a restless night. Not in a bad way. I waited too long to brush my teeth and it bothers me when I skip a night of flossing and brushing. My significant other got up to use the restroom at close to 3:30 a.m. and I took the opportunity to drag myself from a laziness; not quite sleep, rather some sort of heaviness where my mind and body were both awake, but neither was budging. I know it drives him crazy when I wait so long. It disrupts his sleep. I’ll try to do better.

After that, I was wide awake and that thing that happens, happened. You know, where you find yourself phantom writing, where thoughts pour out of your mind, full ideas and thoughts that you’ve held inside and turned around and around—they finally begin pouring out coherently and you can see the words, the sentences, the feelings streaming by, but you just watch. You don’t want to move. You don’t want to disrupt the flow.

And so, there I was. I didn’t want to get up again because I could sense that my significant other was not sound asleep yet. It wouldn’t take long. I continued to let my thoughts spill out and I imagined that I was an hour glass and these thoughts were sand steadily pouring out and I wasn’t doing anything about it. And then I felt the night breeze caress my cheek. It soothed me so. There is nothing I enjoy more than the feel of the breeze on my skin at night through the open window. I have a pack of index cards on the window sill. I grabbed one carefully not to make too much movement, then I reached for my mechanical pencil. I tried to write two words and it seemed that the scratch of the pencil in the quiet room echoed loud. It wasn’t going to work. I put both back up and sat there, going back and forth in my mind: Am I going to get up or lose all the thoughts that are shooting out like stars in the sky? What will I do? Do I want to begin my day?

By now it was a little after 4:00 a.m.—ah makes me think of a book I checked out from the library. I’ve poked around in it, haven’t done the exercises. But still felt inspired in some way. I’ll have to come back to this book, since it makes more sense now that 4:00 a.m. is on my mind. The book is called The 4 a.m.. Breakthrough: Unconventional Writing Exercises that Transform your Fiction by Brian Kiteley. He’s also written The 3 a.m. Breakthrough. I haven’t set my eyes on that one yet. As I was saying: I didn’t want to get up that early and start my day because I knew I would be exhausted later and that I needed to sleep.

Finally, I heard the breath from my significant other that signifies that if I get up, he won’t notice, so I slide out of bed, or rather I maneuver out of bed. I’m boxed in on the window side and I have to navigate just enough space to put my foot down at the end of the bed, so as not to lose my balance. I go to the living room, get the battery operated lantern from the bottom shelf, turn it on, get my notebook and pencil, crouch over, and begin writing.

By then, the thoughts are not exactly flowing out the way they were at the brink of awakening. No, of course not. I did manage to jot a few thoughts down so that I can come back to them later. Instead what I wrote was mostly a few words to spark my memory next time, words put in their own corners in the notebook for each separate idea or thought. I’m still glad I got out of bed. I’m glad I was awake at that hour. The clouds seem to wait until the wee hours of the morning to look there most stunning and romantic. I could slip out of my window and fly with them easily. And that was my restless night.

About the photo: I’m not exactly sure why I chose this one to share. I took it a month back on a visit to the library. I liked how one piece of art framed the other artwork. It was taken with my iPod Touch, so the quality isn’t that great. There’s something about it I like and I love that the mountain is in the background.

It’s nighttime again…have a good night.

Happy writing!

Evening Pages ~ Little Snippets & Two Books

Today was a good day. Work was satisfying and I was so busy that I ran out of time, which was a nice change.

Two weekends ago we went to the wine country. We started in Calistoga and ended in Napa. The landscape was my favorite part. Seeing the Hawk was the highlight of my day.

I can tell I’m still trying to get back into my groove. Tomorrow is the last day of my accounting class and I am glad that it’s over—almost over. I don’t think I’ll be taking any more accounting classes ever.

I finished reading Love’s Executioner & Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irving Yalom, M.D. I’ve read several of his books, both fiction and nonfiction. This one was in my bookshelves for years, and I had started and stopped it on many occasions. Just a couple of weeks ago, I pulled it out from the bottom shelf, started reading, and finished a few days ago. I’ve always appreciated Yalom’s writing style, his ability to write a good story and draw the reader in. I feel like he allows us to see into the world of a psychotherapist, to really see what goes on behind the scenes. He’s honest and revealing of the process. At times I felt bad for the clients he was speaking of because of how he viewed some of them, but he kept it true and they read each of their stories before he published the book and they gave him their blessings.

A long time ago because I was so impressed with Yalom from what I read of his work, I wanted him to be my psychotherapist. I emailed him and to my surprise he actually took the time to reply that he did not have time in his schedule for new clients and he referred me to two other psychotherapists. I didn’t follow through, but I’ve always remembered that. He could have ignored my email. I wouldn’t have known. He didn’t though. He took the time to acknowledge me and that only made me respect him that much more. Life is funny like that.

I started reading Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short Stories, edited by James Thomas & Robert Shapard. I had also checked out another very short collection of stories that were longer than in this compilation. I found these much shorter ones in Flash Fiction Forward to be much tighter and more interesting. I felt bad because part of it was the others, though still short, were too long for what I was expecting.

Here’s the first story from Flash Fiction Forward:
http://don-shea.com/jumper-down.html

I thought it was a unique take on the situation, and in this small amount of space, I felt like I was there. I look forward to reading more of these flash fiction stories by other authors.

Evening Pages - Miscellaneous Stuff

I finally purchased and downloaded the Pages App for the iPad. It makes it much easier to edit documents, especially now that I also have a budget case with Bluetooth keyboard that makes typing on the iPad a better overall experience.

Tonight I prepared Beef Patties Chasseur with hand mashed potatoes for dinner. The recipe is from My Great Recipes cards. I enjoy cooking with wine and could eat a bowl full of sautéed mushrooms, green onions, and garlic, together with beef stock, and white wine. It sounds like the makings of a mushroom soup. The flavors were pretty good, but the patties were a tad too rare. I kept them in the pan longer and ended up cutting them in half, letting lots of the juices run out. At least there is sauce to make up for it.

I heard somewhere that if in doubt about food being undercooked, drink white wine to kill the bacteria. I don't know for certain if this works, but I did have a small glass of white wine after eating an almost raw part of the center. It was so good. I didn't want to push it, so I did toss out the rest of the center and ate around it. All the patties should be medium now with the extra cooking.

We just watched a movie that was recommended by a woman running a wine tasting room where we were tasting a couple of weeks ago. It's called Bottle Shock and is based on a true story. It tells the story of how the Napa Valley wines got on the map through a blind tasting in Paris. There were times when the movie felt corny, but we're glad we watched it because we had no idea about this small part of Napa's wine history.

I've had a good reading streak and have finished reading and listening to a few more books. I hope to write about my reactions soon.