October 1: bright
this evening, probably
Here in Portland this morning, we have almost a San Diego sky—a clear expanse of blue. I can appreciate it now, in the early chill, because I know that by this afternoon, the faint wisps of cloud I spy over the blue mountains across the river will have fluffed out into the illuminated tapestry I love.
I love a fresh start, as I’ve said here so often over the years, and the page-turn to October is one I always especially enjoy. Anne Shirley indoctrinated me early to be “glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
This post isn’t meant to do more than mark the moment: a ‘quick take,’ as we used to call them, back when our blogs—now young adults—were in their infancy.
What I’m reading: War and Peace, still, faithfully, with Simon Haisell’s Footnotes and Tangents year-long read-along. (Next year he’s doing Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety. I’m in for sure—but I plan to reread W&P a chapter a day, same as this year. It’s part of my morning routine now and I don’t think I could do without it. Partway through this year, I started penciling in the date I read each chapter, and recently I’ve been adding a small sticky-note on the previous day’s chapter, on which I jot down a few of that day’s happenings—in my real life, I mean. It’s an odd sort of diary but I like the idea of discovering these notes next year, or in whatever year I revisit each chapter. War and Peace is the kind of novel you can tuck your whole world into.
Ack, I always think I’ll write a quick take and then it becomes anything but quick. Anyway, what else I’m reading is Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, also with Footnotes & Tangents. I’m a couple of weeks behind on those readings. Because—huzzah—this weekend a new Frizzlit Book Club begins, and it’s Flannery! O! Connor! I’m all in. Am reading her letters, rereading Mystery & Manners, and of course reading the stories we’ll discuss in class.
I’m also reading, far too slowly because I care about it the most, ***a secret novel written by a beloved and incredibly gifted writer.***
I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes, I blithely told Scott a lot more than a few minutes ago. Huck is taking a Brave Writer essay class and Rilla has begun her first college!!!!! course—Women in Art—which means that I have some juicy discussions awaiting me downstairs. But first a few (very few) minutes of cello practice. It’s terribly slow going, y’all. Comically slow. But there’s no deadline. Thank goodness.