Or, actually I should say, give Charlotte the credit.
During one of Charlotte Lyons' classes in Omaha where she was teaching us how to make little paper holiday houses, she happened to mention that her book club had read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, as shown below. Well, Charlotte being one of my critically selected gurus, I saw fit to purchase said book the first opportunity it presented itself which just happened to come directly in my line of vision on a soon-after trip to Targette.
And, like a good listener, I proceeded to start on it immediately and, also immediately, fell under its spell. Charlotte had said that it was a great, easy read, and she was right-on in my opinion. As I read I began to ponder the "book club" aspect of her sharing this with the class. I've always wanted to be in a book club but, just like wanting to be picked first for the basketball team (Julia, I think we were usually the last two standing...nonathletic or artistic savants?), I've never been asked. Well we all know the answer to that-durrrr-start one. So I did/am. The trigger that made me finally pull was that the BOOK CLUB READER'S GUIDE is in the back of the book. Again, durrr. Okay, so there's a little more point to this that I'll try to make in my not-so-usual short story/short story instead of short story/endless. Yesterday was a very deep day. The day started off with a dream that lasted from somewhere around 2 a.m. until I finally got up at 8:45 a.m. needing to open the shop at 10. I won't indulge/bore (except to say it had to do with seemingly unfinished business with an ex boyfriend from very long ago) you with the details but it was truly that long as I kept waking on and off checking the clock and every time I woke then went back to sleep the same dream continued (same thing happened again this morning but we'll save that for the institute for now). Next, as I sped to work at an irresponsible speed, I got a call from Aziz (perhaps more on him later; for now he's my good friend who was a super-star at U of MD and played pro football and I got to know him a few years ago and he'd kill me for mentioning his past accolades but I can't help it, I'm Texan) who is very spiritual and deep and cool and intelligent and great company and wonderful to converse with. We usually say hi, how are ya' then we are knee deep in religion, politics, race...some sort of deep life question subject and, usually, in no less than an hour a pop. No different yesterday-right to it except I had to ring off to help the first customer of the day who turned out to be the twit of the year and was so not worth leaving the middle of a great convo to talk to. Even in spite of my lateness, sped, and intensity of our exchange, I told him I could feel my heart rate and demeaner slow down and become calm just hearing his voice; he's enlightened. Later in the day, Jody was in and another (MUCH BETTER QUALITY) customer was in and we three got into some pretty heavy discussion regarding, let's simplify it by saying, life and death. Then things turned to the state of "generational curse", as in every generation gets worse. Jody shared how overwhelmed she felt that things were spinning out of control as far as mostly our principals and priorities were concerned. Herein lies my point-Yahooooooooooooo!, I can just hear y'all saying. I said the old adage, "think globally, act locally", then added, "join a book club" (to which she'd already been invited). As my wise friend, Julia, pointed out to me so clearly somewhere around the post "30 Years for a Bounced Check", you can't save the world by trying to save the world. You can only start with yourself then move outward to your family, neighborhood, friends, etc. And, I have to say, I was preaching to the choir because Jody and her sister, Marcy, who lead our shop group, are very good about community outreach and allowing the members of our shop to participate whenever possible in so many different areas of need. My point was to get back to simple, basic things and simple, basic communion with friends be it a book club or quilting club or dinner club or what
EVER. And, since I haven't mentioned it in a couple of posts, please consider checking out MaryJanesFarm website, blog, and/or magazines which addresses exactly these issues if these are also on your mind frequently. And just like Forest Gump, that's all I have to say about that except, thank you, Charlotte.
During one of Charlotte Lyons' classes in Omaha where she was teaching us how to make little paper holiday houses, she happened to mention that her book club had read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, as shown below. Well, Charlotte being one of my critically selected gurus, I saw fit to purchase said book the first opportunity it presented itself which just happened to come directly in my line of vision on a soon-after trip to Targette.
And, like a good listener, I proceeded to start on it immediately and, also immediately, fell under its spell. Charlotte had said that it was a great, easy read, and she was right-on in my opinion. As I read I began to ponder the "book club" aspect of her sharing this with the class. I've always wanted to be in a book club but, just like wanting to be picked first for the basketball team (Julia, I think we were usually the last two standing...nonathletic or artistic savants?), I've never been asked. Well we all know the answer to that-durrrr-start one. So I did/am. The trigger that made me finally pull was that the BOOK CLUB READER'S GUIDE is in the back of the book. Again, durrr. Okay, so there's a little more point to this that I'll try to make in my not-so-usual short story/short story instead of short story/endless. Yesterday was a very deep day. The day started off with a dream that lasted from somewhere around 2 a.m. until I finally got up at 8:45 a.m. needing to open the shop at 10. I won't indulge/bore (except to say it had to do with seemingly unfinished business with an ex boyfriend from very long ago) you with the details but it was truly that long as I kept waking on and off checking the clock and every time I woke then went back to sleep the same dream continued (same thing happened again this morning but we'll save that for the institute for now). Next, as I sped to work at an irresponsible speed, I got a call from Aziz (perhaps more on him later; for now he's my good friend who was a super-star at U of MD and played pro football and I got to know him a few years ago and he'd kill me for mentioning his past accolades but I can't help it, I'm Texan) who is very spiritual and deep and cool and intelligent and great company and wonderful to converse with. We usually say hi, how are ya' then we are knee deep in religion, politics, race...some sort of deep life question subject and, usually, in no less than an hour a pop. No different yesterday-right to it except I had to ring off to help the first customer of the day who turned out to be the twit of the year and was so not worth leaving the middle of a great convo to talk to. Even in spite of my lateness, sped, and intensity of our exchange, I told him I could feel my heart rate and demeaner slow down and become calm just hearing his voice; he's enlightened. Later in the day, Jody was in and another (MUCH BETTER QUALITY) customer was in and we three got into some pretty heavy discussion regarding, let's simplify it by saying, life and death. Then things turned to the state of "generational curse", as in every generation gets worse. Jody shared how overwhelmed she felt that things were spinning out of control as far as mostly our principals and priorities were concerned. Herein lies my point-Yahooooooooooooo!, I can just hear y'all saying. I said the old adage, "think globally, act locally", then added, "join a book club" (to which she'd already been invited). As my wise friend, Julia, pointed out to me so clearly somewhere around the post "30 Years for a Bounced Check", you can't save the world by trying to save the world. You can only start with yourself then move outward to your family, neighborhood, friends, etc. And, I have to say, I was preaching to the choir because Jody and her sister, Marcy, who lead our shop group, are very good about community outreach and allowing the members of our shop to participate whenever possible in so many different areas of need. My point was to get back to simple, basic things and simple, basic communion with friends be it a book club or quilting club or dinner club or whatEVER. And, since I haven't mentioned it in a couple of posts, please consider checking out MaryJanesFarm website, blog, and/or magazines which addresses exactly these issues if these are also on your mind frequently. And just like Forest Gump, that's all I have to say about that except, thank you, Charlotte.
3 comments:
P.S. The book has inspired me to start writing a screenplay...DON'T TELL ANYONE!
I heard her in class as well and bought a copy in Denver during my layover...it was excellent. Good luck with your screenplay.
Don't feel bad. I was ALWAYS picked last for kickball. And I've written 17 novels, so it just goes to show ya...good luck on the screenplay. love your blog!
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