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| A menu hanging on my front door |
Popping popcorn, eating a mess of candy and soda, watching Stand by Me (oh, the beauty of that young River Phoenix!) followed by Seinfeld reruns wasn't enough to dispel the gloom around these parts. I've been folding laundry for the masses and mulling over the recent disappointments -- the baseball, the Switzerland trip -- thinking about dreams and resetting and life's purposes and otherwise making mountains out of molehills, allowing boulders to occlude what's beyond. It's like living in the present when the present is as interminable as the future. We're all in the thin of having head colds and grumpy. Sophie is sleeping much of the day, and I'm hard put to understand whether that's a good thing or a bad. I'm still reading The Goldfinch or, rather, slogging through The Goldfinch. I wonder if it's just me, projecting the current soul-less state of the union over here or whether it's just The Goldfinch, but I might need permission to call it a loss (I bought the book instead of downloading) and a day.
Anyone? Anyone?
Ah, love. Sundays. We should sleep through them with their promise of Sabbath holiness, their reality of deep sorrow. What IS it about Sundays?
ReplyDeleteI am doing the best I can with this day. What else can we do? You too.
We have to be as brave as we can. We have to get through them. I am grateful that mine will end soon. I have been doing laundry all day too. And I have no idea what you should do with that book but if it does not call to you or keep your heart then put it down.
Katie had bowling today with Special Olympics. When Katie first started, one of her teammates introduced herself as a volunteer and an athlete. The athletes are the most awesome people. They are themselves without disguise of any kind. I love them. That helped my day along.
ReplyDeleteI'm taking a course right now, oncology nursing, so my spare time is taken up with studying, which I enjoy. Went to the bank to pay down my mortgage, made delicious supper and now I'm trying to keep busy while there is a football game on the TV. So really, really exciting. The laundry got done yesterday.
Francine Prose slammed The Goldfinch effectively enough to keep me from going near it!
ReplyDeleteAte three dark chocolate caramel turtles and had breakfast twice today. Just finishing rereading Virginia Wolfs' "A Room of One's Own" while taking the sheets out of the dryer that has no timer (three hours..they are very dry) and wondering what I could possibly tell myself in order to actually accomplish something next week. You can tell a Sunday a mile away. I think if you plunked me down in the middle of nowhere I'd know when it was Sunday.
ReplyDeleteHope your colds are short lived.
Isn't reading for pleasure supposed to be reading what pleases you? If that book is not feeding your soul, I say, go ahead and ditch it. It's not for a class, and there are no judges here. As Scarlett O'Hara would say, "Tomorrow is another day" - another opportunity to start afresh - thanks be to God!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't home today. I forgot it was Sunday. I climbed down into a valley hundreds of miles from my home. That was pretty nice. All of my Sunday chickens will come home to roost next Sunday, for sure.
ReplyDeleteI loved "The Goldfinch" -- absolutely loved it. But if it's not your thing, don't force it! There's nothing worse than MAKING yourself read a long book that you don't enjoy. ("Catch-22," in my case. Ugh. And not even that long, though it certainly SEEMED like it.) Didn't you have to quit "War and Peace," too? I think you and I have different reading tastes, which is interesting. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for the other disappointments, well, stuff happens. Good things and not-so-good. What else can be said? I don't know whether it's good that Sophie is sleeping more or not, but maybe existing in a place of not-knowing is OK, too.
Oh, and LOVE the menu. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, Sunday. We are trying to turn some disappointments and mountains into molehills here as well. Oh, your words...
ReplyDeletethe present is as interminable as the future...
I don't know anymore how to feel about the path life is taking us all on, especially my children's. It is overwhelming, boulder like lately.
I downloaded the Goldfinch and it's on my to read soon list, and I'm disappointed to know it's disappointed you. I'd be heartened by Steve except Catch 22 is among my very favorite books and now I'm sure, at least in the state I'm in, the Goldfish won't be the book I'm hoping it would be.
I need a good book, and more importantly, the time and worry free brain to pay attention to it.
Hope Sophie's sleeping means she's resting and comfortable, maybe even dreaming wonderful dreams.
You are the second person I've encountered this week wanting to leave the soulless Goldfinch behind, and I say: leave it. It is empty and the core, and there are better, kinder, truer books out there waiting for you.
ReplyDeleteSo glad it's not just me. I got the Goldfinch on my Kindle and am sending it up to the Cloud just as soon as I jump to the end to see how it ends.
ReplyDeleteI liked The Goldfinch for a little bit... and finished it, but I agree with you in the soul-lessness. I felt the same way about The Secret History.
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