It is absolutely pouring! The kind of rain that looks as though it will never end. I’m so glad that I was able to cut some roses yesterday when I was in the garden. They would be battered and an array of petals all over the ground now. I’m not sure how soon I will be able to broadcast the seeds for the wildflower garden. Heavy rains are predicted for days and they would all be washed away.
Yesterday I did get out and hoe and rake all of the thickly sprouted birdseed from the deck. I spread salt all over it which now will be washed away, but it looks world’s better than it did. I also cleaned up all of the branches of the climbing rose that covered the fenceline of the green gated garden. It is ready to be planted as soon as the rain subsides.
Rachel was here yesterday and we had a lovely time and watched a hilarious movie that we laughed all the way through, “Game Night.” I am always so happy when she is here and kind of sad and wistful when she leaves. I have to recover myself and find my way back into my solitude again once someone leaves. The stillness here is not often unbroken by the joyful sounds of company and the warmth and love reverberates through the hours after their departure.
The thing that is helping so much right now is the audiobook I am listening to, a novel I read in the 80’s when it first came out and loved so much it has always stayed with me, not the story so much which I had mostly forgotten, but the feeling of having loved a book so much you knew you would one day read it again. The novel is The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. It is a big fat novel and the audio version is 20 hours long. I had put my Audible membership on hold a few months ago. You still have access to your library and mine is absolutely huge because I’ve been an Audible member since 2008. Before Audible I would have told you I didn’t care for audiobooks, just wanted to read “real” books, but the whole notion of real books has changed so much over the years what with Kindles (Which I said I would never have but now do, even though I mostly read these “Kindle Books” on the app on my desktop computer or on my phone.), audibooks, eBooks, etc. But when I signed into my account I was given a very cheap option to activate my membership for 3 months and did so because I had put The Shell Seekers on my wish list some time ago and wanted to hear it. I downloaded it Saturday night and started listening to it while I did dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. I have simply been swept away.
One of Pilcher’s novels (Coming Home) is over 40 hours long in audiobook form. I would have previously found that impossibly daunting, I may just read/listen to it one day.
I listened to it Saturday night while I did dishes, as I said. I usually only listen to audiobooks while doing chores, or driving, (never before bed or I will fall asleep and miss the whole story!) but I have been so completely swept away I am listening for long periods of time doing things that I can do while listening simply because I don’t want to turn it off. (Painting and drawing, even playing solitaire…) For so many years I have been reading only non-fiction, the likes of Natalie Goldberg, Anne Lamott, books on spirituality, writing, art, letters and memoirs, etc, that I had forgotten what it was like to get lost in a novel, especially a huge, expansive novel like this. Do they even write novels like this anymore? It seems the novels that I see now are slender and spare, or filled with hard, brutal, sad stories. (I know that this is neither fair nor accurate, but I am 64 and loved the huge sweeping novels with lushly painted stories of women’s lives, gardens, kitchens and families, not romance novels but romantic stories. For me this is the kind of thing that lifts you up out of your own life and gives you a different place to inhabit for a time. And 20 hours of listening is a remarkable adventure.) So here I am on a dark, rainy day that looks like it might not ever end with a book that is taking me through the hours. I have been writing stories with my friend Katya and I seem to want to be lost in stories again. The Shell Seekers is working it’s magic on me. I am deeply grateful.
Who will I read or listen to after this? More Pilcher, and an author I have always wanted to read but never gotten around to, the Irish writer Maeve Binchy. (Though I did see a movie made from one of her books long ago, Circle of Friends. Katya said she has read all of Binchy’s books.) I would love to hear from those of you who like this genre and have read these authors, kind of a “If you loved her you would also love…” kind of recommendation. I think the long, hot summer ahead will find me both writing stories and reading/listening to them. I am turning back toward fiction, and it feels good.
And so here is my book, and a bouquet of roses on a rainy day, and Vincent the Beta fish swimming around in his habitat, and sweet, small pugs snoring at my feet. What are you doing today dear one? Share a bit of your day with me would you? And what are you reading? Who sweeps you away and transports you to another place and time? I’d really love to know. For now I am back to The Shell Seekers. I don’t want it to end.
Julia Child roses cut yesterday before the hard rains came…
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
Hello Maitri on this rainy day here in North Carolina. I think we’ve had rain now for weeks. Downtown was flooded and we are under a flood warning until Wednesday. Not us but parts of the county. I worry about the farmers who have planted their fields. Will there be any local produce this summer?
I read The Shell Seekers years ago. I might take another peek but right now I am reading Debbie Macomber. I just finished one of hers and am about to start another – all in large print.
Today I have a 5 card angel email reading order to do and I am studying for me EFT I and II certification. So all this keeps me busy but it is all fun.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day and maybe someday soon we will get some more sun. I wonder if the sun saw it’s shadow and retreated! LOL
Love, Jean
Jean, we will definitely have flooding here, we always do, but it doesn’t flood here where I live. We are a water city with the ocean on one side and the Cape Fear River on the other. When we get so much rain there are always areas of town that are in for it and I worry about them.
I am enjoying The Shell Seekers so much. And I have heard a lot of good things about Debbie Macomber. I’ll put her on my list!
Sounds like you had a really good day planned, I hope it went well. I think this rain really affected me, I got really down as the day went on and when I finally wrote my story to send to Katya tonight it was shockingly DARK! Not like what I write at all. I hope we see some sun soon. Phew, we could really use it!
Hugs,
Maitri
Long Lush Novels and Roses
so very Collette — remember Collette?? I think one of her books was called In My Mother’s Garden but she also wrote sensuous romantic tales …
So far I’ve written a bunch of poetry about rain today (with two different writing friends!) one raised the question “How can air contain so much water?” (writing about clouds) A zen koan
So far my little sunflower sprouts have survived the deluge. i’ll keep my fingers crossed and talk to the Great Goddess upstairs.
and yes, fiction is just a fascinating place! xka
Ah Katya, Colette has been one of my greatest Muses my whole writing life. I have a dog-earred copy of her collected writings, “Earthly Paradise” that I’ve had for nearly 40 years. It miraculously survived the fire. I almost cried when I saw it. I love her writings so much.
I have just read your story and sent you an email about it and am a nervous wreck because the story I sent to you was SO DARK. I have no idea where that came from but the rain has had me so down all afternoon. I need some SUN!
And I’m so glad your sunflowers weren’t washed away. I’m waiting for 2 or 3 days until we get past these days of heavy rains that are forecast because I don’t want my wildflower garden to be washed out but I’ve got to get those seeds in and rain is predicted here all week long. I hope it lets up soon, at least these heavy rains.
Okay I’m waiting to hear from you about my story. I’m afraid I’ve shocked and horrified you! Eeeks! I don’t want to write another story like that!
M. xoxox
My day is just coming to an end and soon I’ll be in the land of nod. My day was spent in the garden. After such a long and grey winter it’s a joy to be out pottering on a rare gloriously sunny day. Then afterwards I was in my little art studio which I christened The Dahl in honour of Roald Dahl who also liked to be creative in a garden shed.
I love long novels that span the centuries. My all time favourite is James A. Michener’s book Hawaii. I read it over and over again so many times that the book finally fell apart.
Sweet dreams dear Maitri.
Oh Moira it sounds like you had a lovely day! And I love that your art studio is named Dahl! I love Roald Dahl.
And yes, I read Hawaii a lifetime ago and remember that I loved it. It was an incredible novel. Isn’t it wonderful to have a novel that just sweeps you away? I am so loving The Shell Seekers. The rain has not let up all day here and I have listened to it for hours. Good company for a rainy day.
I hope you hare having sweet dreams Moira, thank you honey…
I shared a bit of my day on Instagram, where Jonathan and I went out to Crown Point in San Diego to picnic and schmooze with a few hundred of his friends. 😉 I appreciate the times when I/we can get out of the house, taking a breather from caring for the Queen Mother.
Books…I have read mostly science fiction, although non-fiction has taken up more of my interest as of late. If you’re looking to jump in, though, CJ Cherryh is one of my favorites. Great with characters, good plots, suspenseful without being super scary. If there are aNY of her books on audio, let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction. 🙂
Victoria, I saw some of your pictures at Instagram, it looks like you had a lovely time, and I’m so glad you got a break.
And books, yes. Science fiction has never been an interest to me other than perhaps some of the books we read aloud to our children? (Was L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time considered science fiction? We loved all of those books. We homeschooled our children and went for years without a tv, we would read for hours in the evening and we adored those books…) I have been one who loved literary fiction, women’s literature, Colette, Virginia Woolf, and so on, but I am finding that while not science fiction for me I want to be entertained, absorbed in a story, I don’t want to have to THINK so danged hard! And I do love mysteries and suspense!
I hope you had a lovely holiday weekend. Sending you lots of love… 🙂
Yes, “A Wrinkle in Time” is science fiction. In fact, that story was my introduction to SF when my fourth grade teacher read it to us in class over a few weeks. 🙂
Every time I think of A Wrinkle In Time I think of the phrase “Tesser Sir!” and smile ear to ear. What a brilliant series of books. Glad you liked them too! (Although NOW I feel ancient! YOU discovered them in 4th grade. I was a mother with children. Ha!) No matter how one finds those books they are magical. Those books and C.S, Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia books should be read by EVERYONE! Oh, I miss those years of reading aloud to our children. Some of my loveliest memories ever… 🙂