Journal of a Sabbatical

November 29, 1999

nothing to say: while snow gently falls

Today's Reading: Woman Alone: A Farmhouse Journal by Carol Burdick, Autumn: From the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake

It gets dark much too early now. I don't have anything to say. I don't have anything to say. I still don't have anything to say. Huge wet snow flakes have started to fall from the dark afternoon sky. They glint in the streetlight and tumble heavily to the ground. Globs would be a better word than flakes for these thick agglomerations of snow. Where has the day gone?

Andrea wants the third volume in the Golden Compass trilogy for Christmas. A little research determines it won't be published until May. Now what do I do? More research indicates that Philip Pullman has written other trilogies. The Sally Lockhart trilogy looks like it might be appropriate. It is so hard to buy books for Andrea. She loves to read and she reads well - way above her grade level - practically at an adult level - but she's only 8! How to find something that's challenging enough to hold her interest but comprehensible to her maturity level?

I haven't been outside all day and now it's dark. And snowing. So it's off to the Andover Bookstore in search of some Philip Pullman books and possibly the Garry Wills St. Augustine biography (umm, that would be for La Madre, not for Andrea). The bookstore staff know me as "the woman who had her spotting scope stolen -- with her car wrapped around it". They ask if I've replaced my scope yet. I haven't. They confirm what my research showed about the third volume of the Golden Compass trilogy. I spend a long time browsing the entire Philip Pullman shelf. The Sally Lockhart books look pretty good although they're more mystery than magic. I decide to go for it. I also decide to read The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife. I've been pushing myself too hard reading difficult books that take weeks or in some cases months to finish. I need a nice fantasy for young adults. Bet I won't have to look up any words in the dictionary. On the way back to the cash register I notice The Best Spiritual Writing of 1999. I gave La Madre 1998 one last year. Maybe I can start a tradition. This one has the Louise Rafkin Tricycle article about the cleaning cult - my all time favorite article ever published in Tricycle. So that goes on the stack. I forget all about Saint Augustine until I'm eating supper at Bertucci's with my nose buried in Woman Alone: A Farmhouse Journal. The waitresses at Bertucci's admire my book light.