Three Things from All Over the Map

Paperback! Decisions! Islay!

Hermia in the sink

What I’m writing…

We arrived home from a long day of traveling to find these beauties waiting!

(I’m always slightly gobsmacked on travel days like yesterday, when I take a shower in Edinburgh, have a Guinness at the airport in Dublin, spend seven hours at 35000 feet watching Irish movies and television, and find myself that same night eating pizza in my jammies at home!)

If you haven’t read The Stolen Child yet, I hope you catch it in paperback!

Out of the blue, I got an email from one of my old TWA roommates, who I adored back in the day. She’d just somehow stumbled upon a NY Post review of Fly Girl and not only sent me the loveliest note but also included these great pictures!

This was especially meaningful because not only have I spent a fair amount of time in the sky this past month, but I had tried to find her when I was writing Fly Girl. Have you had that surprising gift of a friend dropping back into your life?

In 1979, when someone moved away, it was hard to stay in touch. Long distance calls were expensive and addresses changed frequently. But all these years later, when I posted the picture of the two of us on social media, more old friends appeared! Magical.

Very soon I will have some book news that I’m eager to share. Stay tuned…

What I’m knitting…

As faithful readers here know, I’ve been working on a wrap for some time now.

And it has been fraught with mistakes. There was that dropped stitch…

…and there was the moment I realized I’d made a big error right at the start. I’d placed a stitch marker to keep track of how many stitches I’d cast on and then when I actually started to knit, I stupidly thought it was marking where to turn or slide. A real mess.

But I frogged all the way back to my cast on row and began again. Long ago I learned that knitting is not about the result, it’s about the process, the actual act of moving a stitch from one needle to the other. Meditative. Soothing. Even necessary sometimes for knitters like me.

But then there are moments—just like in everyday life—when I realize something about what I’m knitting. And that’s what happened yesterday on the aforementioned flight from Dublin as I knit this wrap (correctly this time) while watching aforementioned Irish television:

I suddenly thought: I am not enjoying this.

By “this” I mean the knitting, not the very good The Boy That Never Was.

And so I made a decision. I’m done with this project. It’s too fussy. The colors are too muddy, the needles too small. I am not having fun nor am I feeling comforted.

I stuck it back in its Ziplock and plunked it deep into my carryon bag. Suddenly: Joy!

This was not, of course, a life changing decision. But as I sat back in relief in my tiny seat (Smart class on Aer Lingus doesn’t give much extra, FYI), I did think about other, bigger aha moments. Like: I need to leave this marriage. And: I’m happier in NYC.

And:

Oh! Those moments of absolute clarity! Now I just need a new knitting project.

What I’m thinking about…

Sign in bathroom at Glasgow airport

Since January we have been all over the map: Newport, St. Petersburg FL, San Miguel d’Allende, London, Tucson, and last week to Islay.

More than enough travel and I’m ready to hunker down and be home in our 411- square-foot nest.

But, oh, Islay! Rainy, windy, salty Islay!

I’m not here to urge you to visit nine distilleries in two days, or walk in a hail storm past peat moss, or eat seafood caught four hours before you dig into it—though, yes, please do those things.

Instead, I’m thinking about visiting places off season when it’s just the two of you and lochs and bays and rivers and seas. Get rained on. Taste too much whisky. Have bad hair from all the wet weather. Sit by a fire in your slippers, full and damp and happy.

PS…

Are you by chance in the Hudson Valley this Sunday? If so, get up early and come to Woodstock and the Woodstock Bookfest to join Michael and me talking all things Gilmore Girls.

There will be trivia! There will be prizes! There will be copies of Life’s Short, Talk Fast: Fifteen Writers on Why We Can’t Stop Watching Gilmore Girls! And, there will, of course, be coffee!

PPS…

Speaking of travel, I have a busy summer of travel to teach. I’m so excited to include Maine Media Workshop to my schedule. If a week in July in Rockland, Maine talking about finding the story beating in your heart with me sounds heavenly to you, please come!

And finally…

Those decisions large and small. The ones that rock us to the core and the ones that can be put away in a Ziplock bag. Sometimes they reverberate for a long while, leave us shaken. A wise friend told me after my divorce, when I left the home where I’d raised my kids, shaken for sure, to a loft on Pearl Street: “Pearls only come after years of irritants.”

I thought of this on Islay, when in one hour, between rain and more rain, the sun showed up and left us with not one but TWO rainbows.

Michael was smart enough to film the second one, and I’m happy to share it with you all now, especially if you’re in need of some magic.