Hello dear friends,
It’s been a while since I’ve sent a letter out into the world. Not that I haven’t tried. Over the past month or so, I’ve started writing a letter on three different occasions, but in the end they didn’t feel right. There wasn’t anything wrong with what I’d written, per se, but they didn’t really do what I wanted them to do.
I don’t think this is just me being a perfectionist. Writing those unsent letters was time well spent as they got me closer to being able to write this one. We’ll see if this one will make the cut. I feel good about it so far, like maybe I’m finally getting back to center after a summer that knocked me out of balance.
In the letters I didn’t send I wrote about all the summer things. Most everything about my summer was good – camping trips, family visits, farmer’s markets, music festivals, late night dinners with friends, gardening, making fireweed tea – but there were some tough moments, too. Times when I didn’t feel quite as happy as I was pretending to be, and those times are harder to write about. Leaving them out didn’t quite feel honest, though. So I had to rethink my approach to this kind of open letter.
What I’m realizing now is that these letters aren’t meant to be me telling you about how I’ve filled my days. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) They’re not meant to be newsletters. Rather, I’d like to think of them as connecting points. A moment for me to sit down and say, hey, I’m still out here. My life is busy and full the way yours probably is too, but there’s a whole side of life that isn’t about how busy we are. There’s a side that feels things and tries to make sense of all the nonsensical things we’re witnessing. There’s a side that tries to cope with difficult situations and hard realities.
Of course there are authentically beautiful moments, like this morning: It’s not yet noon as I’m sitting down to this letter and I’ve already spent a few hours reading and writing. Before that, just after rolling out of bed, I took our pup out for a walk in the dark. I forgot to charge the headlamp before we headed out, so I switched it off for several minutes during our walk in order to conserve the battery.
It was quiet out except for a couple of owls hooting back and forth to each other and our feet stepping on the wet gravel and dirt road. The air was cool and damp, no wind. Close to home I could see a few lights from neighboring houses, further away I could see boats on the harbor and the Homer Spit. And stars. In the dark I trusted my pup’s nose to warn me if he sensed anything that I couldn’t see or hear. It was a hit to my senses, considering I’d been snug in my bed just ten minutes earlier.
When I got back home there was a hot drink waiting for me, and Dean had lit a fire in the wood stove. After filling his belly and a walk, our energetic pup was ready to curl up and sleep for a couple of hours, which allowed for the uninterrupted reading and writing time. A rare gift, these days.
Now the sun’s out after two days of intense winds and rain and I’m sitting at my kitchen table looking out the back window at blue sky and the fall landscape, which is beautiful right now in mid-October.
This blissful morning feeling is heightened, no doubt, by the fact that I have nowhere I have to go for the next three days.
You see I feel my best when I have plenty of time at home to read and write, when I have time to get outside and get my blood pumping. I’m happiest when I have time to cook good food and make things from the wild things that grow around here, when I have time to play and listen to music, when I get to choose what I want to do by my mood, the weather, by what sounds most interesting. There’s always plenty to do here, but I when I get to go at my own pace on projects of my own choosing, it doesn’t always feel like work.
I can rise to the occasion when life pulls me in directions that take me away from my center – the way it does here in the summer – but I deeply appreciate when I can center more of my energy toward home. I guess I appreciate a simple life.
I’m not sure that adding a puppy to our lives at the height of summer was the best idea as far as simplicity goes, but that’s what we did. His name is Zuki and we adopted him on July 4th. Our routines have been adjusted to fit his every need and in return he makes us laugh on days that might otherwise remain very serious. He’s easier going than our previous two dogs and as much as we loved them we’re thankful Zuki likes everyone he meets and wants very much to be a Very Good Boy. He gets us out walking multiple times a day, too, which has its benefits. Watching Dean interact with him has confirmed to me that I am married to a man who should probably always have a dog.
Last month marked 21 years of me working at the Homer Public Library, and lately I’ve been thinking about how the one job has taken me through so many different versions of myself. When I first started my job I was the mom of two adolescents trying to juggle work and parenting and finishing up my bachelor’s degree. My passion at the time was learning to play fiddle. Over time, my kids grew up and went to college and Hawaii and Canada and have had various other adventures. I earned a Master’s degree in Creative Writing. Dean earned a couple of black belts and changed jobs a few times. Now we’ve got a small garden business.
All of this happened while my day job has pretty much stayed the same. It’s funny how life can look the same from year to year on the surface, but really there’s a lot going on underneath. I guess that’s true of the library, too. Most of the books that were on the shelves when I started there all those years ago have been replaced with new ones. The staff has changed. The things we offer and the way we go about doing things is different than it used to be.
There have been times when I’ve wanted to mix it up, when I’ve kept an eye out for a different gig, but this morning when I was reading I remembered the one unchanging thing I’ve loved about my job from the very beginning, which is the constant exposure I have to so many incredible books; books that I might never have seen if I hadn’t spent so much of my life at the library, books that people have dedicated years of their lives to researching and writing, books that have changed my perception and deepened my empathy, books that have taken me to places that my physical body will never visit, books that have put words to truths that I myself couldn’t quite articulate.
There is no end, really, when you start down the book path: it’s endless, expansive, multi-layered, always unfolding. And that’s just the books. Add things like the ocean, and mountains, and human innovation… Add something as big as the idea of God.
You can see why I need some quiet time at home and out in nature just to let all of it settle into my being, to help me discover who it is I’m supposed to be in the enormity of it all. You can also see why I’ve stayed at the library for twenty-one years.
Since books are on my mind, I might as well mention a few standouts that I’ve read since the last time I wrote.
*My favorite book of the year so far is Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape by Manchan Magan. There is so much I could say about this book, but ‘expansive’ is the one word that comes to mind that best encapsulates it. It’s a series of short essays about the Irish language—its history, its origins, its depth, its magic. I borrowed the library copy for my first reading, then I ordered a copy for myself and for a friend so that we can discuss it. If any of you have read it I’d love to hear your thoughts because I’m wondering if this book was uniquely impactful to me, or if it has hit others with a similar strength.
*A Horse at Night: On Writing by Amina Cain. This book, as the subtitle suggests, is for writers, and I’m not sure why it’s not more well-known. Cain is excellent at naming the things that writers do that often go unnamed, and she gives examples—one after another—of novels, plays, films, paintings, etc., that illustrate what she’s naming. If I were teaching a creative writing class, I’d use this as one of the required texts. (Note: This is one of the ones I read from this morning. I found it a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for books to weed from the library collection. It was purchased in 2023 and had never been checked out! How many other gems are out there, hidden in the library stacks?)
*Glimmerings: Letters on Faith between a Poet and a Theologian by Miroslav Volf & Christian Wiman – True confession: Sometimes I read theology books for fun. That’s because I am consumed with big questions about God, the Universe, Divinity, etc., and in fact I find it soothing and hopeful and challenging to contemplate such things. Reading the letters back and forth between the two authors was akin to listening in on a private, honest, and heartfelt conversation between two friends that are seeking deeper truths. There is so much good material in this book for the right person.
*And the last book I’ll mention is Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. As you can probably see from my book list, I tend to read more nonfiction than fiction, but when I do read a work of fiction as lovely as Small Things Like These, it grabs hold of my heart in a way that nonfiction rarely does. This book is short and I read it in a couple of afternoons when we were camping this summer. It’s beautifully written and it made me want to try my hand at writing fiction again, but more importantly, it’s about a man whose moral compass gave him no choice but to do the right thing. It seems like the kind of story the world needs right now. Some of you have probably already read this book, or seen the movie by the same title? I’m curious about the movie, but I don’t want to watch it if it’s not excellent.
Alright, this letter is already longer than I meant for it to be. (See what happens when I don’t write for a long time?) I’ll wrap it up now with a sincere hope that you are well. Thanks for being out there and for clicking on the link that brought you this letter. I’d love to know what’s been on your hearts and minds lately, what you’ve been reading, or anything else you might like to share.
And now after full day of writing, I’ve finally got a letter that feels like maybe it’s the right one to send.
I’ll post it now, before I change my mind.
With love,
Teresa
Here’s a song I heard randomly on Radio Paradise a few weeks ago. The lyrics are what got my attention. – Two Twins by Switchfoot
