Life and Blogs, Their Shapes and Longevity

Long, long ago in Plains, Georgia

There’s nothing like a birthday in the eighth decade of life to set off a reflective mood. Looking through old photographs helps, too, a pastttime I indulged in on the eve of my most recent birthday. “We’ve had an interesting life together,” the Artist had commented in the Emergency Room of the little hospital in Willcox, Arizona, one night in February, and I liked that. Not just “good,” which we both knew and felt it to be – romantic, adventurous, even miraculous -- but definitely “interesting,” as well. And a lot of our shared life found its way into this blog over the past 15 years, which you wouldn’t expect simply from a title like “Books in Northport,” would you? Because the obvious truth is that I haven’t stuck strictly to the subject of books, and I’ve often ranged pretty far from Northport. 

 

My good friend and bookseller colleague Helen Selzer came down to Cochise County, Arizona, this past week so we could celebrate our shared birthday together for the first time, and in the course of our roaming over Arizona roads and all manner of conversational topics, I told Helen yet again that I wished she would resume writing her blog, “Books Books Books.” It was so good! (See for yourself!) Her blog posts included film and theatre, as well as books, and occasionally personal and/or family news crept in, but when she got personal, the personal was always connected to a book or film or theatre topic. That was her focus – books, film, and theatre -- and she feels it wouldn’t make sense to resume the blog without that focus.  

 

Yet here sit I, two thousand miles from Northport, writing about grief and puppies on a blog titled “Books in Northport.” “What’s up with that?” as the younger generation likes to ask. (Do they still say that? Should I say “one of the younger generations”?) And what, if anything, do I make of the revelation that my posts on book topics (e.g., “Banning, Protecting, Supporting, and Curating Books”) are not read by nearly as many people as my posts about the Artist -- love of my life -- or even about our dogs? 

Our dogs have all been good travelers.

The first time we left Michigan for an extended winter vacation in Florida, I wondered if I should start and keep a separate blog for my months away from Northport, but my readers persuaded me no such change was necessary, and so, over the years, my blog has ranged as far away as Florida’s Gulf Coast, often to the Upper Peninsula, several times across Michigan to Lake Huron, once to the Yucatan, and in several recent years way down to the Southwest. I find bookstores and buy books along the way, of course, but not every post is a bookish adventure.

 

The filmmaker Errol Morris, once a graduate student in philosophy, failed to achieve his doctoral degree because, his committee members decided, he “lacked focus.” Whenever I feel this failing in myself – I should say, whenever it occurs to me that being interested in almost everything might be a failing – I think of Errol Morris and take heart. And did he fail to achieve the doctorate? Or did his life’s path branch and enlarge as he traveled it and as his curiosity led him farther and farther from the university library?

 

I am not the toddler I once was in South Dakota, and that little girl was far, far from being the mature woman I am today (or like to think I am). Life is full of the unexpected, and as I’ve said before, the contingent becomes (what feels like) the necessary over time. I did not grow up dreaming of becoming a bookseller. So I’m thinking now that the life of my blog is like the life of a person -- hardly surprising, since it is very much a public record of many aspects of my personal, as well as my business, life -- in that its beginning was one thing, its continuation has been another, and who knows what, if anything, will remain when it ends?

Found, discarded in the northwoods

Which is, I hasten to add, no criticism of my friend, who is also interested in so many things that her life cannot be contained by a blog limited to books, film, and theatre! She’s simply more disciplined about keeping within limits she set out at the beginning. Or, she says to me, I am more disciplined about continuing to write my blog, though it has no more definite shape than an amoeba. (She did not say the amoeba part. I added that myself.) 

 

Anyway, make of this crazy, hodge-podge what you will. To each her own path! I stumble along on mine, fall down once in a while, stagger up again and dust myself off and go on, thankful for my friends and that, different though our paths may be, we have days when we travel together. I am deeply grateful for those times! And grateful for the chance concatenation of events that led to a shared April Fools birthday with Helen. 

Love my new mug! Thank you, Helen!

Postscript: I did not intend my birthday morning breakfast muffins to be an April Fool joke. I intended them to taste as good as they looked. They do look good, don't they? Mixing the cinnamon for the topping with salt instead of sugar was inadvertent. Hint to other bakers: Do not have matching custard cups containing salt and sugar on the counter while you are mixing ingredients.

Appearances deceive here.

Post-Postscript: Because I know I'll never hear the end of it if Sunny does not appear!

Every morning is a Sunny morning!