Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

reading

A Little of This, A Little of That

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I finished the 50 Women manuscript and emailed it to my editor on Wednesday. And yes, I counted twice – this time there are indeed 50 women. After nine months, 106,345 words, 231 pages and 575 end notes that baby is done. There will still be edits, of course. But for now, it’s off my plate. I almost don’t know what to do with myself. I have that restless, agitated, “I just finished a big project but I can’t relax” feeling.

Immediately after hitting “send,” I slid my feet into flip flops and stepped out the back door to the garden, where I knelt in the dirt and weeded the lettuce, radish and tomato boxes. I find weeding meditative. With the sun warm on my back and dirt under my fingernails, I go zen in 30 seconds flat. Nebraska has morphed into Costa Rica this spring, with daily thunderstorms and torrential rains, so there were enough weeds out there to keep me in the zen zone for a good hour or so.

What I’m Reading:
After nine months of Christian biographies, I’m ready for some lighter fare.  I’m loading up my Kindle with The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Messy Spiritualityand Carry On, Warrior.  I’ve got Bread and Wine on hold at the library and I am next in line, which makes me very happy.

What I’m Listening To:
I’d like to tell you what I’m listening to these days, but I never, ever listen to music. I’m not a music person. I pronounced Adele “A-Deal” for like two years before Brad finally corrected me. I listen to NPR. Or the birds.

Where I’m Going:
We hit the road tomorrow for our annual summer road trip. Last year we visited the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone … and it snowed. This year we are heading somewhere that won’t require mittens and hats. Any guesses?  Hint: we’re doing the national park thing again.

In light of that, I won’t be around here for a week or so. I used to write posts in advance or schedule guest posts to fill the space when I was away, but I don’t do that anymore. Now I just simply vacate. Emily Wierenga and I talked about this a bit at the Jumping Tandem Retreat. Her theory is that a blogging break not only gives the writer a true break, it gives other bloggers permission, in a way, to take a break themselves. I’m learning that it’s okay to take a hiatus. The blog will be here when I get back. And I trust that you will be, too.

So … I’ll see you on June 10 for the next #HearItUseIt link-up. In the meantime, have a delicious week, friends.

Tell me about your summer plans — are you hitting the road or relaxing at home?

Linking up for the first time with Hopeful Leigh’s What I’m Into community:

What I'm Into at HopefulLeigh

 

Reading, Even When Words Leak Out of My Ears

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“How can you read more after reading all day for your project?” he asks, standing in the doorway of the bedroom. I’m in bed, under the covers, a glass of red wine and a plastic bowl of Cheez-Its on the nightstand, a book propped open on my lap.

Brad’s right. I am reading constantly these days, three or four or more books every week, titles like The Eagle and the Dove, A Study in Contrasts: St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux and Birgitta of Sweden: Life and Selected Revelations – research for the 50 Women project.

I can’t ease up, even for a day. When I signed the book contract, the first thing I did was grab the calendar and plot out exactly how many profiles I needed to write each week to meet my June 1 deadline. It came out to 1.5 –  but realistically it’s two, 2,000-word profiles each week if I want to allow time for proper editing at the end, and if I want to take that family vacation in December and not haul my laptop and eight library books to the beach with me. 

Suffice to say, I am reading. A lot. Skimming, really. I don’t have the time to read three or four books cover-to-cover per woman. So I skim. The words feel like they’re piling up in my head and spilling out my ears.

One would think, in light of all this reading, that the last thing I’d want to do before bed is read some more. But reading has always been my favorite pastime, my escape, the way my brain relaxes. Some people watch TV or play computer games or bake cookies from scratch. I read.

As a kid I took The Secret Garden and The Island of the Blue Dolphins into the apple tree in my backyard. I settled in a gnarled crook between two lumpy limbs with a book in one hand and a half-dozen Keebler chocolate-covered grahams in the other, the sweet scent of apple blossoms hanging like a veil around me. I read constantly as a kid. I was never without a book.

And so now, even though I’m up to my eyebrows in research reading, I still read a few pages (or chapters) for pleasure before bed every night. That said, I am pretty choosy about what I’m reading for fun. It can’t be too intellectually taxing (The Brothers Karamazov, for example, is not an option…probably ever — this, by the way, is one of Brad’s favorite books, along with Moby Dick. Enough said.), yet the books also need to be well-written, because I am, and always will be, a book snob.

I’m gravitating toward memoir (shocking, I know) and personal essay. I just finished Wild by Cheryl Strayed, which I loved, and I re-read Katrina Kenison’s The Gift of an Ordinary Day, a beautiful, lyrical memoir about transition, motherhood and learning to live toward quiet.

Now I’m reading one of Katrina’s favorite writers, Dani Shapiro – I picked up her memoir Devotion from the library, and I’m hooked. I’m also reading Cold Tangerines, by Shauna Niequest, who is a beautiful writer with an authentic voice and a gift for description. And then there’s the book of poems by Wendell Berry in the stack, but I haven’t cracked it open yet. I don’t typically read poetry. I’m a little scared (yes, I do have two degrees in English, and I’m still scared of poetry). And I’ve been visiting this blog, because it relaxes me (you’ll see what I mean).

Reading quiet, deliberate, thoughtful prose gives me a place to rest in beauty and peace, even after – or maybe I should say especially after – a day soaked in words.

So tell me, what’s on your nightstand right now? Got any good recommendations?

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Graceful Summer: An Hour of Quiet Every Afternoon

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I announced it nearly every day at half-past two. “Quiet Time!” I’d trumpet. “Time for siesta!”  And lest you assume it was to benefit the boys, let me set you straight: Quiet Time was purely to keep my own summertime sanity intact.

Rowan’s reaction to Quiet Time was always the same. “What???? Nooooooo!” Shock and betrayal written across his face, as if this ludicrous, offensive notion of Quiet Time was a brand-new idea. Next he’d erupt into a level of bellowing that should only be reserved for emergency appendectomies and the like. Then finally he’d stomp to his room, flop on the bed and commence low-level moaning. Occasionally he’d flip through a Magic Treehouse paperback or construct a Lego battleship. But mostly he moaned.

I didn’t care. I grabbed my book and plunked into a patio chair out of earshot with a glass of iced tea, the air stultifying, mere hint of breeze rippling the river birch leaves. Sometimes Noah joined me with his own book, although it bugged him when I rested my bare feet on his chair. Sometimes he spent the hour in his room with Finny, his fish.

Out on the patio I read Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. I pretended I lived not in Nebraska, with 104-degree heat that baked everything in my backyard to the consistency of a Pringle, but in Tuscany, amid rolling vineyards and olive groves. In Tuscany, where it’s perfectly acceptable to sip wine at noon on a weekday.

Throughout the summer, In an hour a day I read through Circle of Quiet (Madeleine L’Engle), Escaping into the Open (a writing book, one of the best I’ve read yet, by Elizabeth Berg), Still (by Lauren Winner – I’m enrolled in a writers’ workshop with her this fall and am scared witless!), and, most recently, Wild (a memoir so good it made me almost quit writing altogether, by Cheryl Strayed).

I tell you, that hour every afternoon on the patio? It saved me. It may have saved the boys, too.

What saved you from certain insanity this summer?


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So next Friday is the last installment of Graceful Summer. We’re actually back in school here in Nebraska, but since August still feels like summer to me, I decided to continue the series until the end of the month. So come back one more time next Friday!

1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays. 2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

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