Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
I’ve been thinking about a role change at work (from copy to content strategy) since the beginning of the year and have started to take steps to make it happen. Yesterday I presented my first content audit and it went great. Then I was exhausted later and thought of this book:
I quoted it back in 2013 right after a breakup, but I think The Little Duck is here to tell us that life changes are hard, and take work, and make you tired–and that naps are ok.
“This is no thaw,” said the Dwarf [to the White Witch], suddenly stopping. “This is spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan’s doing.”
I know it’s still early, but I’ve felt a little like Colin in The Secret Garden lately and missing out on spring because I’ve been spending too much time “in rooms.” But at least I’m not ill. (Or, to use the language of early 1900s children’s lit, an “invalid.”)
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like? You don’t see it in rooms if you are ill.”
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth,” said Mary.
1. I remembered a passage from a children’s book (The Princess and the Goblin) about getting old:
Time to make handmade Christmas gifts, that is. Everyone’s getting a Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas this year:
In the morning they all woke up almost at the same moment. They looked at their stockings, and something was in there. Santa Claus had been there. Alice and Ella and Laura in their red flannel nightgowns and Peter in his red flannel nightshirt, all ran shouting to see what he had brought. In each stocking there was a pair of bright red mittens, and there was a long, flat stick of red-and-white striped peppermint candy, all beautifully notched along one side.
They were all so happy they could hardly speak at first.
In other words, everyone’s getting the modern equivalent of mittens and peppermint.
(Read the whole chapter from Little House In The Big Woods here.)
Then [the Rat]held up his forepaw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. “Lean on that!” he said. “Now then, step lively!” and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat.
“This has been a wonderful day!” said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. “Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat before in all my life.”
“What?” cried the Rat, open-mouthed: “Never been in a–you never–well I–what have you been doing, then?”
“Is it so nice as all that?” asked the Mole shyly.
[…] “Nice? It’s the ONLY thing,’ said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
(Chapter 1, The Wind in the Willows)
As you can maybe guess, I went out on a boat this weekend. Friends of ours had access to two sweet inflatable kayaks, so we went up to Cutler Reservoir and paddled around in search of birds. Much like Mole, I’d never been in a kayak and I, too, was pretty enraptured.
You can have lunch on a boat!
You can see the waterside flowers on a boat! 
And you can take “so outdoorsy I can’t even stand it!” selfies on a boat:
I bought a bag of Maui onion kettle chips on my last grocery trip and am making alarming progress on it. Last night I was chowing down before dinner, unwilling or unable to stop, and thought of Edmund and the Turkish Delight in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe:
“…this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.
[…] Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many sweets…But he still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight more than he wanted anything else.”
I think the moral here is don’t buy the bag in the first place.
My nephew Skyler currently pronounces his name “Niner.” Since my name also has a tricky “k” sound, mine comes out closer to “Enen.” Obviously this makes him even more adorable. If I ever write a children’s book, “The Adventures of Niner and N.N.” will be the title–and this* will be the cover shot:
Photoshop in an airship and some tiny goggles for “Niner” and done–steampunk children’s adventure story.
*This was from the adventure of “N.N. is here to pick peaches; I’d better show her how I can fearlessly climb the ladder!” a couple weeks ago. N.N.’s right hand is in a death grip on the ladder, just in case.
I’m sure you’re wondering how I’m liking the Lemony Snicket books, right? I can only say they’re like Sesame Street–obviously for younger kids, but smart and educational and with humor for the adults in the audience thrown in. For example:
There is a snake in this room so deadly that your heart would stop before you even knew he’d bitten you. There is a snake who can open her mouth so wide she could swallow all of us, together, in one gulp. There is a pair of snakes who have learned to drive a car so recklessly that they would run you over in the street and never stop to apologize.
And then there’s this:
He taught them…to never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian Wolfsnake near a typewriter.
Both of these are from book 2 of the series, The Reptile Room, so I’ve made it that far. I’m not sure I’ll keep reading, though–they do go fast but there are other things to read.
I came across a quote from Lemony Snicket and now I guess I’ll just have to read all 13 books in the Series of Unfortunate Events so I can also read The Beatrice Letters, where this is from. (His prose rhythm is contagious!)
“I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. […]
I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world.”
(Believe it or not, there’s even more. It’s all delightful.)
