Another Sunday, another graduation. And this one was a real milestone, as Youngest graduated from high school today.
I have been noting complaining for a while now that I feel as if I have been in school since 1981. Yes, there was a break from 1989 until 2013, but it seemed to go by in a flash while I was dealing with other issues. Anyway, it’s finally over — almost. In one of the emails preparing us for the Big Day, someone from the high school mentioned that they keep a supply of caps and gowns to loan to students who can’t afford to buy them. Youngest let me know that they wanted to donate their once-used cap and gown, and then Eldest — who happened to graduate from the same high school — offered to do the same.
My heart’s been warmed several times this weekend. My kiddos are still figuring out their paths in life, but I know that they are ethical and compassionate human beings. I wish that were enough for success in this world, but it’s certainly a wonderful place to start. Youngest will start by working for a while as they decide what might come next, but college does seem to be on some sort of horizon.
I wonder if I’ll actually have to go inside the high school to donate the caps and gowns.
I got a bit of Impossible Reading done early in the past week, but by the end of the week I ran out of time again. Since I need to focus on getting the Secret Knitting Project done by its hard deadline, I won’t beat myself up about my lack of reading time. When my hands are too sore for knitting, and maybe when they’re not, I will be able to carve out time to watch the next movie in my Movie Reviewing Project. My goodness, I do seem to have a lot of projects.
I did add another typewriter — shhh! — to my collection on Memorial Day. I was able to turn the pickup into a lovely half-day-trip with a friend. The weather was unusually cooperative and the scenery in southwestern Wisconsin was beautiful. The typewriter itself, a Royal Custom II from around 1970, looked as if it hadn’t been touched since 1971. I have a lot to learn about Royal’s Magic Margin system, but I am getting closer to understanding it.
Meet Marty.
I have also had some good thoughts related to my fictional Primary Project, and I’m looking forward to exploring where those thoughts may lead. I’m slowly realizing that a tree might be one of my story’s main characters.
In the past few weeks I’ve been giving my reading journal the side-eye and trying to calculate how many of the books that I started could be books that I finished by the year’s end. Well, here is the year’s end.
Leaving out three books for which I don’t have an accurate count of the number of pages I have read (two are in my office and I returned one to the university library), this year I finished, began, sampled, or completely read 58 books. The page count is at 10,902, or nearly 22 reams of paper. That’s two cartons plus two reams, when I order paper for the department. The uncounted pages are surely less than 500 all together, so let’s call it 23 reams just to be safe.
That’s more reading than I was giving myself credit for, even though it was much less than I had planned. But if I wanted to craft a New Year’s resolution for reading, it would be for me to stop beating myself up for not finishing books. I can see from the notes and figures in my reading journal that I do finish books. Some of them just take more time than others. In fact, I led off the journal with six books that I started in 2022 and didn’t finish until 2023. But I did finish them. Maybe some of the books I started this year will be books that I finish in 2024. Even the ones I abandoned will probably be books that I pick up again when the time is right.
In my personal library is a stack of Zen and meditation books and a special notebook for recording my favorite passages from them. A few years ago I started reading After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path by Jack Kornfield. I knew this was a classic work in the field, and a friend of mine absolutely recommended both the author and the book. But after five chapters of it, I had to stop reading and put it down. I didn’t like it, it bored me, it frustrated me, and it was driving me crazy. So I put it down and didn’t pick it up again until last week, just after I started the Morning Altars practice and wanted to write quotes from that book in my special notebook.
I suppose that I could have just torn some pages out of my notebook, given the Kornfield book to Goodwill, and entered my notes on the new book. But that didn’t seem right. So I picked up Ecstasy and Laundry again, and would you believe it? The writing now seemed clear, sensible, and inspirational. Right away I marked several passages that I wanted to record in the notebook.
Clearly, the book didn’t change: I did. My heard and heart were now in the right space to listen to what the book had to say. I have nine chapters left, and I’m looking forward to moving through them gently and thoughtfully. And I’ve added two library books to the TBR stack that sits under the special notebook. It’s a short stack of five, and they can be read in their own time.
Now that I have summed up my reading for 2023, I have a few hours to prepare for the start of The Impossible Read. I have decided to log my reading times, quotes, and notes in artists’ sketchbooks so that I have plenty of space to write, sketch, and add other items if I feel the urge. And if I can stay awake long enough, I would like to ring in the new year by starting on the first book on my list: The Once and Future King, by T. H. White.
Ace Fantasy, 1996.
Feel free to read (or re-read) along with me. I’ll check in with reports and notes from time to time as I make my way through this massive TBR. I promised myself that I would not add up the page count until after I finished the books, but maybe it will work to keep a running total as I finish each book. (Spoiler alert: this edition runs 677 pages.) Maybe I’ll just weigh them.
Helping me with this mathematical task will be a little piece of hardware I treated myself to this holiday season: a “Numkey” to go with my Qwerkywriter Bluetooth keyboard. It sits there as if it has always been there, looks beautiful, and works perfectly. It’s plugged in to the iMac right now, but now that it’s charged up I can just flip a switch and operate it via Bluetooth.
Finally, I would like to introduce you to my latest acquisition on the other end of the technological spectrum, a 1953 Smith-Corona Skyriter. This was a rescue from the estate of a local woman who recently passed away at the age of 86.
The Skyriter is in the category of “ultraportable,” a stripped-down and lightweight model of typewriter made for travel. As pictured above, without the top of its metal snap-on case, it weighs about eight pounds. And even with the case attached, it’s only about ten and a half pounds. This series of Skywriter was produced from late 1949 through about 1955.
This one, which I will name “Carole” after its owner, is a good little typer and still has a good ribbon. It just needs some cleaning up, and I will be happy to learn how to do that properly. I’m grateful that I can give this lovely typewriter a new home. By next week I should be able to display it and use it on another desk that I’m setting up for typewriter use.
Knitwise, there’s not a lot going on. I’ve been more focused on finishing books than on finishing scarves. Under those conditions it didn’t seem like a good idea to start a new project, either.
Keep reading and keep knitting, and I’ll see you on the other side.
Chocolate Sheep 