The Umbrella Rabbit Hole

The last couple of years have been pretty light on traveling outside of my home base, but this year sure has made up for it. As we slide into fall (my absolute favorite time of the year), I'm on another unexpected trip. If my 2018 were to be a book title, it would be something along the lines of The Rapidly Aging Introvert and the Year of Last Minute Travel. Hopefully an editor of some variety could spice that up.

So I'm sitting in a perfectly nice hotel that caters predominantly to business travelers, sipping a cinnamon-y latte with my laptop open and various notebooks and pens at the ready. Just waiting for housekeeping to knock on my door and causing me to jump six feet out of my skin. Expected or unexpected, I've got a hell of a startle reflex. 

What I don't have, in addition to patience, inner peace and a pleasant outlook on the state of affairs in the world, is an umbrella. And in true, admittedly boring, storytelling fashion, it's the reason I have the spicy latte to sip instead of whatever is neatly sealed in the foil packets nearby. 

Err...not quite.

I am within walking distance of the whole reason I'm staying in the hotel, in the middle of a large business/technology district outside a major metropolitan area. Exact specs aren't as important as knowing pretty much anything I could need is mere steps away. But I'm a hermit-y, creative type, so I prefer to burrow in and be left to the vivid imaginings in my own head. Coffee, gyros, crepes, hardware store, tacos of epic proportions, alcohol of even more epic proportions, curry... Anyway, I'm set. But my husband insists on walking to his destination (as noted earlier, it is a comfortable walk away) so I have the car to venture out. 

My husband, bless him, likes to venture out. And yes, I have my moments. But most days at home, I end up at a pharmacy. Or two. A grocery store. Or three. Library. Doctor's office. Hardware store. Lab. The list is endless. And as I mentioned, I've got my laptop and notebooks and beloved fountain pens. All with me. Ready to be used without interruption. Once housekeeping is on their merry way. No dogs to take outside. No meals to fix. No medicine to make sure gets taken. No older parental unit bitching about every.little.thing.from.bugs.to.song.lyrics. *deep, steadying breath* So I'm hoping to burrow in. I'd like to not have to surface until I'm not sure what day it is and the writing is so convoluted 115% isn't usable. Writing so bad, I've go to undo previously usable material. Why would I need the car?

But we hates the natural light and the peoples. So many peoples! We wants to be left alone. Wants! Needs! Wants to be left alone, in our hole, to write. *hisses*

There, I've peeled back the outer layer of a writer. It is what it is, folks.  

It's delightfully dreary weather today, supposedly raining from late morning through the evening. Perfect for writing. But my husband, well-meaning to be sure, doesn't want to take the car (and leave me in peace). I offered to drive him if it was raining if he kept insisting about the car. 

"Or, you could grab the umbrella if you're intent on getting your walking in." There was pause. The kind of pause you can practically touch. You know this pause if you've been married long enough. In my marriage, it's usually broken when the one who pauses chuckles or giggles somewhere between timid and aww, shucks. 

"There's no umbrella in the car."

No umbrella? There's always an umbrella. We used it a month ago to keep half of each of us dry. Again, as most long-married couples know only too well. The idea of sharing an umbrella in the rain never quite matches reality, at least when it's tropical deluge. 

But as soon as I asked where the umbrella was, I had a pretty good idea why there was no umbrella in the car. When last used to fair to poor rain defense (seriously, it was raining sideways) my husband noted two pieces of frame had broken. It still opened and closed just fine, but its days were numbered. Somewhere in the month since we'd used it, he'd decided to bring it in the house to swap it for another. Except the back half of the swap still has yet to take place. 

You always forget something when you travel, and I told him, better the umbrella than medicine or underwear. My husband has an incredible memory, so forgetting things bothers him. Meanwhile, I barely remember my own name, so it wouldn't even register on my radar. He agreed with me and relaxed. Then insisted I needed the car. 

So after breakfast, where he toasted my English Muffin and I spread cream cheese on his bagel, I drove him literally around the corner on a lovely gray fall day. He suggested I grab my writing gear and head out to the coffee shop while I stifled the urge to tell hims to shut his filthy, treacherous mouths!! *cough* I politely declined. But after I dropped him off I added an extra 30 seconds to the return trip by coasting through the drive thru coffee shop, my hotel the view immediately before me as a bored barista-in-training handed me my cup. 

I've made it through 7 handwritten pages trying to leak the fluff out of my head so far this morning. And clearly, if you've made your way through this blog post, you've discovered 7 pages has left plenty of fluff that still needed draining from my brain. And now that my brain has been somewhat vented, I hear the approach of housekeeping just as I'm ready to settle in on my work in progress...

Library Evolution

The only blog prompts that captured my attention (Do you really want me to list my 3 favorite squash recipes? Do I even have that many squash recipes?) had to do with libraries. But I didn't really see a point in detailing my last library visit or describe my local library. What did come to mind was how my library visits have changed over the years.

I have solid memories of visiting my local library when I was learning/had learned to read. It was a building situated on the Intracoastal Waterway, barrier islands and the Atlantic Ocean just beyond. I have a vague sense of the building smelling of worn carpet, metal shelves, old paper and damp - in the best way possible.

Before I could read books on my own, I'd carefully examine the shelves closest to whatever my dad was looking and found a treasure early on: a book on the art of Walt Disney's animation. I'd flip through the book, practically as long as I was tall, and beg whatever family member walking by to read the pages to me. Reading technical drawing info and the minutia of movie making to a preschooler who was really wanting a story did NOT make this book a treasure to anyone but myself, no matter how many times I'd check out the book. At some point, my parents wouldn't let me take it home anymore so I'd visit with it at the library until one day its hold on me was forgotten.

Instead, I'd pour through the offerings of the children's section. I have a visceral memory of a Dr. Seuss compilation, from the texture of the pockmarked cover to the shade of green ink used in the illustrations. I could, if the building and section were recreated in exact 1980's detail, take you to the exact spot on the shelf where the book resided. Even once I outgrew Seuss, I'd occasionally check to see if it was in or not. When not visiting with old friends, I'd start from one end or the other of the children's fiction section and carefully search for my next favorite read. By the time I aged out of the children's section (a heartbreak I'm not sure I'll ever be entirely over) I had gone through every ghost story I could get my hands on and found the adult's sci-fi/fantasy paperback section a poor substitute.

The library of my early teenage years, several hundred inland miles away from my wonder-filled childhood library, was all about exploring. We'd go as a family still, but now I could walk to the library after school. Alone, I'd go through every section to test out subjects and authors completely unknown to me. Books on slang and word origin, foreign language, twisted family tales (Did the librarians have a clue what happened in the V.C. Andrews books they put on prominent display?!), sinister horror, and yes that most taboo of all and seemingly scary subject matter for the average American white male, romance novels. In the second story of that library, a simple building from any small town USA Main St, I read about things that practically curled my hair. It's really no wonder I've read so few "classics" - how do you get through a book about a man obsessed with a whale when you could be reading about anything lurid, horrific, or like, just obsess over dream dictionaries. Totally.

Gawd, I think I'd rather chew off my own ankle than be a teenager again.

My adult library-going is the composite of them all. I can still safely try out new-to-me topics and authors free of charge (Funding the local public library? Take.my.freaking.tax.dollars!) and if I see a book on the shelves I've read, I still kind of have a "hello, old friend" moment. But more often than not, I've searched for and requested the books I want to read, only coming in to pick them up in one shot and return what I've (hopefully) read. I don't linger over the shelves, instead browsing on-line. I get seemingly endless suggestions from outside sources and come in with a list. I do cast a longing glance at the children's section and reminisce about the glide of the card catalog when I pass by the computers.

Sadly, I learned earlier this year that my first library (building and all) is gone. I had such a strong reaction to this, you'd have thought someone died.