The Saturday Diaries, vol. 5 (on a Sunday, again)

In this fifth instalment of the diaries, I come to you from my couch, typing against all odds today because I am behind. BEHIND, behind. A non-exhaustive list of things I am behind in: laundry, chores, dating, exercise, reading, clearing out my fridge shelf, determining school plans for next year, writing up the books I've read recently (9 down, 12 to go, ugh), French practice, planning, costume prep for school production, child-birthing and rearing, budgeting and reading the news. My mind is a whirlpool of concerns big and small, but I'm taking a moment to fight against the tide of these concerns and swim to shore for just a moment to write out these words because, well, I wanted to. 

On Tuesday, I finished a bad book. It wasn't terrible - the premise was strong and I'll keep it on my shelf for travel recommendations in the future - but although the author's grammar and vocabulary were excellent, they didn't combine in a way that made me want to turn the page. My overwhelming thought while reading it was, she's not a writer. And yet, I also thought, she had written a book. 

Change has crept into my life and rearranged this past month. Structures, routines, modes of moving and being that I could once locate in my sleep are not on the same shelves; I have encountered both chaos and her less-frightening-but-still-disorienting sibling, unfamiliarity, on a regular basis. It has taken time to begin to reorient myself to what change has done, it will take further time still to be on speaking terms again with ease. (I'd like to pause this meditation on change to interject that change hasn't come without beauty. I've seen beauty in brand-new lights and from previously-undiscovered angles this month, for which I am effusively grateful.) What I don't want to allow change to take from me is both my desire and ability to write. I was hungering to loop words into sentences this afternoon, and I need to sate that hunger, allow my to-do-list to be momentarily forgotten. I want to write, I want to write, I want to write. And I will. 

Reading: Inheritance by Dani Shapiro. In this gorgeous memoir, Shapiro writes about the implosion of her interior life after discovering, at age 54, that her father wasn't her father. I'm crawling upstairs to read this now with my flatmates and can't wait to finish. 

Watching: Nothing! I haven't watched TV in more than three weeks and last watched a film almost two weeks ago. Visual media simply isn't playing a central role in my life at the moment, and I am okay with that. (Although I have to put in a plug for the last film I saw at the movies, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? Will be entering my film pantheon for sure.) 

Eating: So, so well. We are taking turns cooking for the flat at the moment and a house full of good cooks = one contented stomach.