Thursday Thoughts & Things - July 21 edition
Thoughts about works in progress and things to read, listen to and remember
A few weeks ago, I started a project to transform a small bedroom into an office.
It’s a bittersweet project. I’ve wanted to create a space for research and writing, but I always thought it would involve cleaning out a corner of the basement and putting up dividers or curtains to create a space of my own. Never did I dream that the project would involve the transformation of a bedroom upstairs because my Dad unexpectedly passed away and this room was no longer used.
I hate this in-between stage where the room isn’t what it was nor is it what I expect it to be. I want to see progress. I want to see painted walls and books on the shelves. I want to see upgraded flooring and newly-hung artwork.
There is so much to do before I get there. There are still carpet tacks to get pulled up. Walls to get washed down. Painters tape to be put up. Outlet covers to be removed. Old curtain hardware to be taken down. When that is finished, I can actually begin the process of painting or putting down the flooring or moving in the worktable and desk.
Even then, I don’t know that the room will be complete. I’ll move books in and take books out. I’ll probably move furniture around. Add a few trinkets and take a few trinkets out.
The room has become a reflection of me in this trying year of 2022. Our family has seen car crashes and death. Some days I want to be done, to skip ahead to 2023 if only to have empty calendar pages full of potential for something better. I even declared a mulligan, citing July 1 as the real start of the year since I at least had my car back. I can’t do anything about Dad except cherish the memories.
There are other days, though, when I feel stuck in the mess where things aren’t quite right but they’re not necessarily wrong either. It’s a different space, slightly off from the old but working its way into becoming new.
My room and I? I guess we’re a work in progress, like the half dozen writing projects I have sitting about the house or this nascent foray into email newsletters. We’re always doing, always on the way, but never really done. We’re always tweaking this or cutting out that.
And that, I suspect, goes on far beyond the calendar year of 2022. To stop growing, to stop becoming, to stop facing whatever challenges come along is to stop entirely. I’ve never been the type to be stagnant. I’ve always had a “what’s next?” mindset. I’ve never been content with knowing what I know.
So, hello, reader. My name is Tammie and I am a work in progress.
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. - Philippians 1:6
A thing to read … Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life
I stumbled upon a recommendation for this book in a list of time-travel books. It’s not your typical time-travel story in which the main character goes back in time, does some things that may or may not interfere with the space-time continuum and then comes back to the present. The first chapter is extraordinarily short, chronicling our main character Ursula’s birth and death in 1910 - all in the span of a few hours. But, she is reborn. Again in 1910. This time, she lives, but dies later for a different reason. The pattern repeats itself throughout the first half of the 20th century. Vague, cloudy memories of the past variations of her life echo through to the current life to the extent that she can make changes. Sometimes those changes come at a cost. I enjoyed the different take on the time travel concept. Each time Ursula faded into the darkness at the end of another life, I found myself asking what she could do to change the outcomes and sometimes horrified at what ended up happening when she did.
A thing to listen to … Park Predators
I found this podcast a year or so ago. It’s a true crime podcast, but the setting for each of the horrific crimes is one of our National Parks. This episode recounted the 1990 murders of Molly LaRue and Geoffrey Hood at a shelter on the Appalachian Trail in nearby Duncannon and the search for their killer. A few years after the murders, I joined the staff of the Perry County Times, a small weekly newspaper in the county in which Duncannon is located, and followed the work of my colleague, Liz, who reported on the case as it went through the appeals process for years after the conviction of Paul David Crews. If you’re more the reading type, Outside magazine had a comprehensive, well-written piece on the murders several years ago.
A thing to remember …
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Mary Oliver, from her poem “Sometimes”