7/7/16 RMB Lucky 7 and Steinbeck

7/7/16 RMB Lucky 7 and Steinbeck

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

Days are racing by, tumbling over each other, kids at play without a care. Yet there is much to care about. Several times I’ve started “Dear Rita Mae Brown,” and ended there. 

Sometimes a mixture of words spill out. They lack rhyme or reason. They are corralled and set aside and may yet see the light of day, when they are tamed and in proper order.

There is nothing to say and there is everything to say, too much. And beyond what there is to say, what matter is there in what I have to say about it?

Ah, see, this is why the letters have slowed. Oddly I wonder if it is because I am in one of my “you think too much” phases that my friends point out. Or if my thoughts are lacking, and thus, so too are the words.

One thing demands to be said. And I don’t have a clue what it is.

A cool breeze met me after I left my day of work upon stepping out of the office, into the newness of evening air. A man was walking his dog. An impatient driver honked his horn when I was slow to take my turn at the stop sign. He did it again at the next stop sign. Neither honk increased my speed.

Today is the seventh day of the seventh month, my birthday month and my mother’s lucky number. She is with us today as she always is, our own heavenly angel.

I am reading, or rather listening to on CD, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. His careful handling of words inspires me. It also makes me cautious of how I lay down my own. An older gentlemen came to my desk today to buy books and among them was another Steinbeck title. I told him how I enjoyed Travels with Charley and he lit up.

“That’s my favorite book!” And with those words I knew more about the man than if we had sat and spoke every day for a week.

With much care,

Loraine

6/10/16 RMB Cameron and Tolle

6/10/16 RMB Cameron and Tolle

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

While my next RMB book, Claws and Effect, waits patiently for me to return to it, I’ve been indulging in Julia Cameron’s Right to Write. I recommend it for any writers, aspiring or seasoned, and for anyone keen on creativity for that matter. She brings the imagination, and what blocks or derails it, down to earth. Each short chapter ends with tools to put one on the path to progress.

This isn’t a “consider this” type of read. It is a “do this and see where it takes you” type of book. Multiple means of discovering potential are offered with her sage advice.   

Last night at dusk the air was cool for a southern California June evening. Before returning Julia’s book to the library, I walked around the block of city government buildings, passing the fire station, the police station, the bus stop, the Post Office, and City Hall, reading Eckhart Tolle’s Guardians of Being: Spiritual Teachings from our Dogs and Cats.  

Patrick McDonnell’s illustrations illuminated Eckhart Tolle’s words. There is something about seeing a dog at play that touches the heart in a place beyond where words can reach. This collaboration is superb. I am a richer person for having read this book.

Happily reading along,

Loraine

6/8/16 RMB Entire Orchards

6/8/16 RMB Entire Orchards

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

These days there is a vast gap between what I wish to accomplish and what gets done. The distance twixt the two grows fractionally slimmer day by day, a good trend though, moving closer inch by inch.

Like a soup, the recipe of our lives is adjusted to taste. All too often it is easier to take what’s tried and tested, than to branch out into new flavors and textures. So we start with a little more, or less, salt, or pepper. Maybe take just one cup and add something red, a pepper or tomato, careful not to mar the whole pot.

This is all we hold, but not all we have. Yet what we hold, we take great care to protect, even when it is not the best for us, even when there is better out there.

We have an entire Universe and more, the past, the future, and now, everyone and everything. Still we concentrate on only what is in our grasp, the house, the job, the people, always careful not to rock the applecart, unconscious of the entire orchards beckoning to be explored.

It’s a good day to try a new apple, maybe a honeycrisp or gala.

Cheers,

Loraine