Aimee's Adventures Away from The Maine Page Turner, and What She Found There

Yup.  This post is late.  But better late than never, right?

As George Harrison once sang, "It's been a long, long, long, time..."

Yes, friends, I've taken a bit of a sabbatical from The Maine Page Turner.

I have a few excuses It happened for a few reasons.

1. At the time of my last posts, I was in the thick of reading for the Maine Readers' Choice Award.  So, I was reading a LOT, but I felt that if I wrote either positively OR negatively about what I was reading, I would either be boosting OR downplaying the books that were in the final running.  Within the scope of my role with the Committee, I didn't think that was ethical or appropriate.  My job was to read many books, and then recommend (more or less silently) a handful of them to be considered by the Readers of Maine.  My conflict about endorsing or otherwise commenting on the books made me silent and unsure of how to proceed.

2. I decided to learn German.  In March I made plans to visit a dear-friend-of-25-years, and his family, in Germany.  He speaks perfect English, and his wife's English is FAR AND AWAY better than my German, but I still devoted myself to spending a significant amount of time, each day of 2014 to exercises in German via Duolingo (which I cannot recommend highly enough). Is my German great? Not yet. But it was a terrific goal for me.  Now I'm continuing my learning via Portland Adult Education.

3. I had a physical injury.  This wouldn't seem like something that would in any way stop me from blogging, but I did fall into a bit of a mental funk after a freak accident that caused a significant tear of my left Achilles' tendon.  I was on crutches for a month and a half and in physical therapy for three months.

4. I simply needed a break.  I had been writing, almost without fail, one post per week for 18 months.  That may not seem like a lot, except that I was also nearly always reading a whole book upon which I built each post.  Now, I love to read, but that's a pretty big commitment, and I needed to cut myself some slack.  So I did.

Last month I went on an 11-day trip that was, in every way imaginable, completely rejuvenating for me.

Truly, there were storybook moments.

I didn't just see Germany; I experienced the culture, graciously hosted by my kind, generous, and adventurous friend. I experienced a different lifestyle that was a delight to me: staying in their lovely flat, eating "foodie" family meals cooked with love and care, riding public transpo EVERYWHERE.  I saw and did things I had previously only seen in books.  I felt at times like I had walked into a fairy tale, or at least into my own dream of what Europe would be like. At least twice I burst into tears simply at the beauty and wonder of it all.

Just a SHORTLIST: We saw the Altstadt of Nuremburg. The Brandenburg Gate, the Bust of Nefertiti and Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.  Lubeck, the breathtakingly charming medieval seat of the Hanseatic Empire (and a UNESCO World Heritage Site).  We went to the Frankfurt Book Fair  walked across the Eiserner Steg, and enjoyed the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Sachsenhausen.  We took the scenic Deutsche Bahn along the Rhine River Valley to Cologne Cathedral. In Amsterdam, we saw the canals and the Rijksmuseum, and ate one of the best damn dinners I've ever had. We went to the Gutenberg Museum. We even went to the Opera. I barely slept, but I slept enough.  As Thoreau might say, I "sucked the marrow out of life."

I had the opportunity to step away from my "normal" life and analyze my day-to-day routines and choices.  For the first time in more than 13 years, the only person I was REALLY responsible for was myself.  I allowed myself to be vacant from my family, and give myself an honest-to-goodness VACATION.

My friend is a lively conversationalist and one of the most intelligent people I've ever known.  To say our talks were inspiring is to underrate them.  To lay out so many of my intellectual struggles or disappointments, and to receive, in return, constructive criticism, possible solutions, and encouragement has been a tremendous gift.

And baby, I'm BACK.

I return to my family and my life here renewed and refreshed. I have made an excellent recovery from my leg injury. At my friend's kind urging, I have a list of worthy goals, and I am taking active steps along the paths of those goals.  The time to act is NOW.  

I hit the "F5" button for my life.

Something about me is fundamentally different.  In a very good way.

While in Berlin, we had lunch near a university where my friend had done some academic work years ago.  In the pavement were squares etched with all the keys of the computer keyboard.  

Suddenly I felt compelled to find the F5 button - the refresh button. 

Because this experience was a Life "F5".

Overdue books - who gets my fine?

Most prolific library users I know have overdue fines.  Hey.... it happens.

I've even observed, or gotten caught up in, bizarre games of one-ups-man-ship about fines.

Photo courtesy: Elena Roussakis
Flickr Creative Commons

"I have, like, six dollars in fines right now."

"Six?  That's nothing!  I've got $22 in fines, and four books I just can't find."

Yikes.

I started this calendar year with a resolution not to incur ANY fines.  I held out for a few months, but like most people, my resolutions usually don't last all that long.  

I've probably paid $15-20 in fines over the last calendar year.  I console myself: well, I'm making a small contribution to the library with my fine money.  That's not such a bad thing, right?

Wrong.

Where is the middle ground of "Green"?

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I try to live lightly on the earth, minimizing my carbon footprint, and by extension that of my family.

Yes, I know, I'm kind of a zealot.  

I hassle my parents about not composting ("You're gonna do WHAT with the corncobs? And kitchen scraps? That's awful!!"  Sure, that's the very best way to end a family dinner, no?).  I hassle my son when he puts something that is recyclable into the trash bin instead of the recycling bin.  I'm the weirdo at work who, at an afternoon birthday cake, runs away from the styrofoam coffee cups; I bring my own mug.  I even pause when I think about ski season because despite the fact that I LOVE IT, it means a lot more driving to and from the local mountains, and the ski lifts and snowmaking machines use a lot of power, whereas the rest of the year our family tends to aspire toward non-fossil-fuel-consuming leisure activities.

There's always more that I could do.  There's always a way that I could make less trash.  But I still need to find some middle ground here, because I know I'm a little bit irritating.  So, two recent books are helping me find that balance.

Nathanael Johnson: All Natural: A Skeptic's Quest to Discover if the Natural Approach to Diet Childbirth, Healing, and the Environment Really Keeps Us Healthier and Happier

and

Amy Korst, The Zero-Waste Lifestyle: Live Well by Throwing Away Less

Quitter

It's rare for me to quit a book.  My dear husband notes this with a certain amount of awe and puzzlement.  I will hate and gripe my way through a book for weeks (or put it down for a year, only to pick it up again) out of a compulsion to finish.  Maybe it's guilt. Maybe it's that I want to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

But recently, I've become less patient.  I've become.... a quitter.

You may already know I own too many books.  Too many?  How is that possible?  

Because they are threatening to crush us.

This doesn't even account for all the books in the house.
Yikes.

I need to read my way down.

So I am hereby announcing that I have renounced two books: S. Shoenbaum's Shakespeare: His Life, His Language, His Theater, and Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent.