A Year with EB White
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."-----from Charlotte's Web
I am a soul always drawn and fascinated by the idea of " A Year of...". A Year of Rumi. A Year of Calvin and Hobbes. A year cooking with Julia Child. A project that provides guidance for the year and a ruler we can measure inward growth in the course of our circle around the sun. One year, after an early marriage and an unsurprising--except to me--early divorce, I came across a book by Sue Hubbell titled A Country Year. I didn't plan for it to take a year to read, but it did. I only read it at night before I went to sleep to help distract from all the feelings. The sadness, the loneliness, the relief, the guilt, the hamster wheel of how-can-I-fix-this, the hope, the fear of an unknown future.
And so, every end of December gets me thinking about unmarked calendars, crisp clean journals and choosing a wise and verbose companion, starting at Page 1 with them and walking alongside for 365 days. Since it's not my first rodeo I realise that's not going to happen. A Country Year was a life raft the universe gave me and nothing I knowingly chose for myself. And, I'm not certain I want to go an entire year contemplating my world only looking through the window of one person no matter how smart and thoughtful they might be.
I won't be posting a poem every day by Mary Oliver or Rumi, and I won't be quoting E. B. White everyday though it's probably not a bad idea and certainly possible. I may check out Calvin and Hobbes in the mornings. On my bedside table is a book, Essays of E. B. White; thirty-one essays on moving and geese, New York and Florida and "Some Remarks on Humor."
31 essays in 52 weeks sounds exactly right.
I am a soul always drawn and fascinated by the idea of " A Year of...". A Year of Rumi. A Year of Calvin and Hobbes. A year cooking with Julia Child. A project that provides guidance for the year and a ruler we can measure inward growth in the course of our circle around the sun. One year, after an early marriage and an unsurprising--except to me--early divorce, I came across a book by Sue Hubbell titled A Country Year. I didn't plan for it to take a year to read, but it did. I only read it at night before I went to sleep to help distract from all the feelings. The sadness, the loneliness, the relief, the guilt, the hamster wheel of how-can-I-fix-this, the hope, the fear of an unknown future.
And so, every end of December gets me thinking about unmarked calendars, crisp clean journals and choosing a wise and verbose companion, starting at Page 1 with them and walking alongside for 365 days. Since it's not my first rodeo I realise that's not going to happen. A Country Year was a life raft the universe gave me and nothing I knowingly chose for myself. And, I'm not certain I want to go an entire year contemplating my world only looking through the window of one person no matter how smart and thoughtful they might be.
I won't be posting a poem every day by Mary Oliver or Rumi, and I won't be quoting E. B. White everyday though it's probably not a bad idea and certainly possible. I may check out Calvin and Hobbes in the mornings. On my bedside table is a book, Essays of E. B. White; thirty-one essays on moving and geese, New York and Florida and "Some Remarks on Humor."
31 essays in 52 weeks sounds exactly right.
I often think I’ll embrace some daily practice - journaling, reading a devotional... but I’m just not that organized. And some days all I want to do is play a game on my iPad. But I do have a book that I’ve been trying to read for over a year. Maybe I’ll read a chapter each night and just get ‘er done. We shall see!
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