Finding My Place among the Slow Bloggers

Once again, a few things have happened since I last posted on this blog. An election, for instance. That was a happy, happy occasion in our house. We drank champagne with fellow Obama supporters in our neighborhood, and we brought along sparkling juice for the kids, who took turns sporting Anna’s “Yes we can!” banner.

On November 16 I did a reading at yet another wonderful independent bookstore: Politics and Prose in Washington, DC (http://www.politics-prose.com/intro.htm). I’d been looking ahead to this reading throughout the fall, wondering how it was going to feel to be in Washington twelve days after the election, feeling like I hardly dared to hope that it would feel good. But look at how it all turned out—pure joy to be walking those streets. (At our local Quaker meeting on the Sunday after the election, our friend Donna Hartman showed up in a “Proud to Be an American” t-shirt, and I found myself wishing for a shirt like that too. Imagine!) In the morning before the reading, Jim, Anna, and I peered through the gates at the White House. If only Anna could have gotten to know Sasha in the past . . . . We joined her in sighing with regret. All those missed White House sleepovers!

Carla Cohen makes Politics and Prose feel like a big, warm home for book lovers. Maybe it’s because I’m writing a guest blog on motherhood and In Hovering Flight, but I do keep thinking of Carla as this warm, wonderful, motherly presence. It was a good reading, and great to connect with old and new friends in Washington that weekend. More pleasure in the rich life of an independent bookstore—in this case, one that’s been operating or 25 years.

And more again on November 24, in New York, when I joined Unbridled author Erica Abeel (http://ericaabeel.com/) for a reading at McNally Jackson Books (http://mcnallyjackson.com/). Thanks to Jessica Stockton Bagnulo from McNally Jackson for arranging this event, and to Libby Jordan from Unbridled for being there to give Erica and me such a gracious introduction. This really was old home night for me: friends from so many parts of my past—all the way from my own days as a college student through my recent years of teaching at Moravian. I’m grateful to all of these dear friends who showed up to support me, but I have to put in a special word for my beautiful and brilliant friends Eva and Todd. Honestly, you too haven’t aged a bit in the (dare I say this) twenty-five years I’ve known you! And such scintillating conversationalists!

Okay, E. and T.: How was that? That’s more play on my blog than anyone’s gotten, I believe (with the possible exception of my daughter).

One last note: I was so pleased to discover that I’m not, as I’d been feeling, a negligent blogger. Rather, I am part of what the November 23 Style section of The New York Times calls the “slow blogging” movement (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/fashion/23slowblog.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=slow%20blogging%20style%20november%2023&st=cse).

Actually, I would like to write more about the whole blogging thing (including my constant, nagging sense that I’m failing at it) sometime. Maybe when the grading for this semester is all done. Also my nephew Andy’s wedding, and the Christmas shopping. And the guest blogging and chatting. And some non-digital writing that I’d really like to be doing.

I suspect I’ll always be among the slowest of the slow.