In the stillness of now

I try not to let things get beyond me in this life, but the last few weeks were dense with work and pressure.  I paid no attention to clocks, working as much as I could to complete a corporate project that has meant a lot to me.  I wrote a few talks, prepared a workshop session, took care of some magazine work for clients.

In between was a certain book stock crisis,  Google's announcement that my account (translation: my blog) had been violated and was no longer accessible, a lost camera, and lost glasses.  Piles grew tidal around me (which is not a happy thing for a neat freak).  The refrigerator emptied (save for a bottle of milk and a quarter stick of butter, perhaps a square of cheese, jello made in a moment of hunger).  Bills sat unpaid. I wore clothes from another era because the right-era clothes were, shall we say, indisposed.  I answered emails many days late, with what, I am sure, was an humiliating array of mistakes.  There should be a book:  Beth's Email Mistakes.  The sequel:  Beth's Blog Mistakes. 

And books—at least a dozen books—came into the house and were placed in a growing teeter on the living room table.  Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending. Diana Abu-Jaber's Birds of Paradise.  A.S. King's Everybody Sees the Ants.  Peter Spiegelman's Thick as Thieves.  Philip Schultz's My Dyslexia.  Benjamin Markovits's Childish Loves.  Marc Schuster's The Grievers.  Ann Hite's Ghost on Black Mountain.  Anna Lefler's Chicktionary.  Roy Jacobsen's Child Wonder.  Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones.  Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document.  Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding.  More.

Can I just tell you how much I have missed reading books? Finding my way into the thick of a story?  Decoding the music others make?

Today, on this freakishly autumnal snowy day, I will join my family of dance friends in the city to celebrate the joint 70 year old birthdays of a still-swinging couple.  We'll stay overnight and brunch the next day with beloved friends in a white city, then head to a museum.  I'm going to take one of these books with me.  And then, come Sunday night, leaning into Monday morning, I am going to lie on a couch and do nothing but turn pages and return to the reader I am.

Thank you for putting up with all the recent launch news of You Are My Only.  I'm eager to once again spend my time here talking about the books of others.  That is why I created this space.  That is what makes me happy.