Camp in March

Mid-March, and it feels more like late April. Remy and I walk in to camp and find only a few patches of snow left on the road. The ice on the pond has receded from the edges enough to let him wade in for a drink.

The outside thermometer says it’s in the mid-50s (the sun won’t hit the front of our west-facing camp for several more hours), and the one inside, 38 degrees. I’m hot from trudging a mile on the muddy road, and for once the coolness of the stale, unmoving air inside the camp is welcome.

I flop down on my mom’s old couch, the same one that she bought for our living room in Connecticut when I was about five. (It’s a Castro Convertible—the original convertible sleeper-sofa—which may explain why it’s still in such good shape, well into its fifth decade, while I’ve already been through several couches in my adult life. It weighs about two tons. They really don’t make ‘em like they used to, I guess.)

The battery-operated clock on the wall says 11:35. I wonder what time it really is; I take out my phone, and am surprised to see that it says…11:35. It seems impossible that time hasn’t come to a standstill here since we moved home from camp, almost six months ago.

I remember arriving in June, usually the day after school was out, when I was little, and waiting impatiently for my mother to unlock the door, pushing past her to be the first to inhale the odd, unmistakable scent—part pine boards, part mothballs, part decaying mouse—that meant we were home for the summer. In those days, the camp had usually been closed up tight for nearly ten months, the electric clock on the wall recording the exact moment when my mother had opened the fuse box, halting the current, the last thing she did before walking out the door and back into our other life.

I look around at the cobwebbed windows—the ones that don’t open because they’re really just old wooden storm windows (meant, according to my mother, to have been temporary, until she and my father got around to replacing them with double-hung windows with screens)—and dreadful 1960s wood-grain paneling. I think about all of the improvements we will consider, plan, but almost certainly not execute this summer. This is partly because of a lack of funds, of course, but mostly it’s because once we move to camp for the summer, we will be too busy just enjoying it—and by “busy,” I mean “picking blueberries, reading on the deck, kayaking, and napping in the hammock”—to want to take on many projects.

The walls are covered with bits of memorabilia—pennants from the colleges my four siblings attended (I never spent long enough at any one school in my 31-year pursuit of a degree to add one of my own); old motorboat registrations; newspaper clippings; a random assortment of photos from the past 50 years, slipped under the edges of the door casings.

I briefly consider taking down some of the clutter, tossing it or packing it away, before I invite the members of my writing group, who have never been to camp before, to a day-long writing retreat there in June…but I know I won’t. Like the 1970s-era tubes of Prell shampoo in the bathroom or the 2004 Travelers Insurance calendar in the bedroom (the last of several dozen of these annual gifts my mother received from her friends Betty and Elmer before she died), everything here has a purpose. In its own way, every scrap of paper, every curled photo, every ancient comic strip contributes to making camp what it is: a repository for nearly 60 years of the very best memories. It’s a musty, dusty, ramshackle place, where babies get mosquito bites, toddlers eat dirt, teenagers chase each other in motorboats, and grown-ups who have forgotten how to relax suddenly find they remember after all.

My latest excuse

In Stephen King’s book On Writing, he describes his typical day, which is pretty simple. I can’t remember the specifics, but, at least at the time he was writing about, nearly every single day included a big chunk of time spent reading, a big chunk spent writing, and a big chunk spent walking. These three activities formed the backbone of his day, and regular meals provided the rest of the structure.

Reading, writing, walking, and eating—that’s exactly what I want to do every day—no more, no less. And I am convinced—utterly, completely convinced—that if only I didn’t have to have a “real” job (damn you, health insurance!) that’s exactly how I would spend my days. (I am also convinced that this would lead to my becoming healthy, fit, well-read, and a successful writer. Not to mention well-balanced and self-actualized.)

[A word about self-actualization: in a recent letter from a dear friend and college roommate, she referred to her husband as “the most self-actualized person I know.” I had heard the term, but since it wasn’t one I went around using myself, I looked it up to be sure I knew what she meant. It turns out that self-actualization is nothing more or less than what I’ve recently been calling “living my authentic life,” or what my mother liked to call “living up to your potential” (usually preceded by “If you don’t start…” and pronounced as she was looking at my high school report card or hearing about my plan to drop out of college and work in a hardware store).]

One of the worst things about having to go to a real job is that I always seem to get my best ideas when I’m rushing to get ready for work in the morning. Instead of having the leisure to go immediately to the computer and get down to the business of writing, I have to keep getting ready for work, and since I rarely have time to make even the most rudimentary notes, I usually lose the thought completely before I ever get around to writing about it.

Yesterday morning I was rushing around to get ready for work, as usual, when it occurred to me that I could write about what it’s like to be always rushing around to get ready for work. But of course I didn’t have time to write anything down before I left the house.

So as soon as I was in the car, I reached for my miniature voice recorder. Then I remembered that I don’t have a miniature voice recorder. Well, actually, I do have one, but as soon as I got it, I discovered that talking into it made me feel pathetic or insane or ridiculous, or all three, like a crazy person with no friends or a comically self-important person (this is because I once knew a comically self-important person who carried around a miniature voice recorder to capture all of his brilliant ideas). So I let the batteries run down, and now I don’t even know where it is.

So instead I reached for a pad of paper and a pen and (even though I am death on texting and driving, and, actually, don’t even like to take my hands off the wheel to adjust the radio or the heat), scribbled down, while driving with my elbows (there was no traffic; I promise), a few key words that I thought would remind me of what I had been thinking about writing:

Fortunately, I did not get in an accident; the worst thing that happened was that I placed the pad on the steering wheel and ended up inadvertently honking the horn when I started to write, just as I was coming into the village of Bryant Pond, startling myself and, no doubt, a few sleepy residents.

Unfortunately, when I took out my notes today and tried to recreate the witty prose that was so insistently writing itself in my head as I was driving yesterday, I came up empty. In fact, I had to struggle to remember what I was even thinking when I made my notes. (Maybe it’s time to dig out that recorder again after all. There are probably worse things than appearing comically self-important.)

“Bathroom—PB toast—Ex-husband”? OK, I admit it, I did take my piece of peanut butter toast into the bathroom with me to finish it while brushing my hair and putting on moisturizer, and this is something that would have driven my ex-husband crazy (he had very definite never-the-twain-shall-meet ideas about bathrooms and food, which I can certainly understand, from a hygiene point of view, but sometimes you just have to compromise your ideals in favor of finishing breakfast). But somehow it doesn’t seem as amusing now. Rats.

“Tony—paper—Kate Braestrup”? Well, Tony was following me around with the newspaper (actually he was standing outside the bathroom door while I was inside eating peanut butter toast), trying to tell me that Kate Braestrup, a Maine writer I greatly admire, was having a book signing in Winthrop. Being followed around seemed particularly annoying to me at the time because a) I hate being talked to through the bathroom door (doesn’t everyone?), b) I had already made it clear that I was late for work and didn’t have a moment to spare, and c) Winthrop is 50 miles away and I’m not likely to be going there for a book signing. But it’s another thing that really doesn’t seem that amusing, or even particularly annoying, today, and I have to admit that he should probably get points for noticing and pointing out an article about a writer I like. (However, we do have to talk about that shouting-through-the-bathroom-door thing.)

“Cadbury Mini-eggs—Ice fishermen.” Oh, yes. I was feeling so frustrated about having to go to work instead of staying home to write all day (something that, in case you’re wondering, wouldn’t have happened anyway—it would have been more like staying home to do laundry and waste time on the computer and think of something unusual to cook, ending up saying to myself in the late afternoon, “Shit! I meant to write today!”) that I thought I would just take along six Cadbury Mini-eggs in a tiny lidded container, and then, after I worked all day, I could savor them in the car on the way home. Except that less than a mile from home I passed a pond where three ice fishermen were checking their traps, and I got so jealous that they got to do what they wanted all day instead of going to work that I ate my Cadbury Mini-eggs right then and there. (And yes, as a matter of fact, I have considered working on my inappropriate use of chocolate to soothe, reward, and brace myself. Maybe right after Cadbury Mini-egg season is over.)

“The Storm at the Door—Moxie—Baby food.” I’ve just started reading The Storm at the Door, by Stefan Merrill Block, and when I thought about what I really wanted to be doing (besides writing, of course), it was staying home and reading with my very old cat, Moxie, who is dying, purring on my lap. (I think he’s purring. It could just be that his lungs are filling with fluid, but he still seems happy, especially when he gets to be with me.) Thinking of Moxie reminded me that I wanted to go to the grocery store and get some baby food turkey to see if I could coax him to eat it, so I wrote that down, too, so I wouldn’t forget.

“GPS—8:10—School bus stops.” I have to be at work at 8:15. When I left the house, my GPS said I would get there at 8:10. I don’t actually need the GPS to find my way to work, but I do need it to tell me whether or not to exceed the speed limit on any given morning, and whether I have the extra two minutes it requires to take the slightly longer route with slightly fewer frost heaves.

My conclusion: rushing around to get to work on weekday mornings causes me to get stressed and annoyed at home, eat peanut butter toast in the bathroom, do dangerous things while driving, resent innocent ice fishermen, and eat too much chocolate. It does not provide much in the way of inspiration. On the other hand, having a real job, besides providing my family with health insurance, gives me a perfect excuse for not being a published writer.

And in case you’re wondering, I got stuck behind a school bus making frequent stops and arrived at work at 8:14, with myself and my bad attitude intact.

Our house was marked for hobos

Tomorrow, February 13^th, would have been my mom’s 92^nd birthday. Here’s a story I had never heard until a couple of years ago. It’s about my mom and her best friend, and it says a lot to me about their kindness and compassion.

My mom and Betty raised their kids together in Newington, Connecticut in the 1940s and ‘50s, and remained lifelong friends. Betty died a few years after my mom, in 2010. After her funeral, we all went back to the farmhouse in Cumberland, Maine, where she had grown up, to eat and tell stories. Three of my siblings and I were gathered with Betty's three sons when Ben, their youngest, asked if any of us had ever heard the story of “our houses being marked for hobos.”

None of us had.

Then Ben told us about waking up early one morning, before anyone else in the family was up, and going out the front door of their house, onto the tiny closed-in porch. There, he discovered a man, sound asleep. “A smelly man,” he remembered.

“I ran and told my mom, ‘There’s a smelly man sleeping on our porch,’” he said. “And she just said, ‘Yes, that’s because our house is marked for hobos.’” He looked at us. “She said your house was marked for hobos, too.”

Betty told Ben that hobos—homeless men who, ever since the Great Depression, had crisscrossed the country, riding the rails and camping on the outskirts of towns—had a system of marks, usually drawn with chalk, to let others know which houses were inhabited by friendly folks, and which to avoid. She told him that both their house and ours, across the street, bore a mark on the wooden front steps that conveyed “you can get a sandwich here, or a place to sleep protected from the weather.”

I don’t know if Betty’s husband, Elmer, and my dad were aware that their wives were considered a soft touch by the hobos who passed through Newington. Safety doesn’t seem to have been the concern back then that it would be today. I do know, however—because Ben told us this, too: whenever one of the dads put a new coat of paint on the front steps, the moms would take a piece of chalk and make the mark again.

After hearing Ben's story, I was curious about the "hobo marks." Poking around on the internet led me to an article by Erwin Van Swol that appeared in the August, 1960 issue of Coronet Magazine, entitled "The Hoboes' Secret Code." I found the magazine on Ebay (yes, I can be a little obsessive sometimes) and discovered that the mark on our house might have been one of these:

But, knowing my mom and Betty, I prefer to think this was the mark the hobos drew on their front steps:

PS: The more things change, the more they stay the same: This 1960 issue of Coronet also contains an article entitled "Can Catholics Ever Accept Birth Control?" An excerpt: "Catholics fear that the American Government may be pressured into policies that they regard as immoral."

But I like Comic Sans!

Back in 2005, when I was opening a bakery, I looked for a fun, casual typeface for all my signs and labels. I wanted a font that said, “Relax! There is nothing in life so serious and dire that a whoopie pie won’t help to lighten the mood!” I wanted my customers to walk in and say, “Well, here’s a fun little place with great cinnamon rolls in the bakery case, crazy colors on the furniture and walls, and a lovable, funny proprietor in the kitchen!”

I chose a font that seemed to say exactly what I wanted. How was I to know that Comic Sans, which was created in 1994 by then-Microsoft designer Vincent Connare to evoke hand-lettering of the sort most often seen in comic books, was—by the time I stumbled across it and thought, perfect!—the subject of worldwide ridicule?

OK, OK, so I understand that the fun, lighthearted Comic Sans is not an appropriate typeface for, say, the resumé you’re sending to Pompous & Stuffy, Inc. Or your Aunt Sally’s gravestone. Or Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s angry letter about LeBron James’ betrayal. Or this sign, warning people of the imminent danger of death at an electrical substation:

But does this casual, innocent little typeface really deserve the amount of vitriol that has been expended toward it over the past 15+ years? Does it deserve to be the subject of the “Ban Comic Sans” movement that has exploded in articles, blog posts, and even the Ban Comic Sans Official Website (which asserts that using Comic Sans in the wrong context is like wearing a clown costume to a black tie dinner)?

Just because people make mistakes about where and how Comic Sans can be appropriately used, do we really have to blame the font, and call for a total ban?

Google “Comic Sans,” and the first result is the Ban Comic Sans website. Among others near the top: “What’s so wrong with Comic Sans?”, “Comic Sans Criminal: There’s help available for people like you!”, and “Comic Sans: The font everyone loves to hate.”

Now, because of all of this negative press, when I look back at my “pie lady” logo and the “Amy’s Bakeshop” I so proudly painted on my sign, had embroidered on hats and aprons, and used on every label on every pie, cake, and loaf of bread that left my bakeshop, I’m a little mortified.

To tell you the truth, it’s not unlike the nagging feeling of doubt I get when I look back at photos of me from high school and realize that maybe (just maybe) farmer’s overalls, flannel shirts, and my father’s gold pocketwatch hanging on a chain around my neck did not combine to create the stylish look I thought they did. Aughh! What other significant aesthetic mistakes have I made in my lifetime? (Don’t answer that, please; I have a feeling they may be too numerous to list.)

Holly Combs, who runs the Ban Comic Sans website with her husband, Dave, says, “Comic Sans is in the hands of people that shouldn’t have it. Secretaries and librarians, they don’t use it well.”

Besides the fact that Ms. Combs’ statement is offensive to secretaries and librarians (implying that if they had access to a clown costume, they wouldn’t have the good sense not to wear it to a black-tie dinner), it’s probably not even true. After all, it wasn’t Dan Gilbert’s secretary who chose Comic Sans for his vitriolic missive—he owns that mistake all by himself. And librarians? Please! Do you really think a segment of the population most often caricatured by horn-rimmed glasses, sensible shoes, and the constant admonition to “Shhh!” is going to suddenly go rogue with a font that has been described as frivolous and irreverent?

People seem to take their hatred of Comic Sans quite seriously. Comments on the Combs’ website include “It is a disgusting font – immature, frivolous and visually jarring” and “conveys silliness, childish naivete, irreverence.” There is even—I am not making this up—a book, due out in April, titled Thou Shall Not Use Comic Sans.

It all makes me feel kind of sorry for poor Vincent Connare, who undoubtedly has many worthy accomplishments to his credit, but is probably doomed to be best remembered for creating the typeface that font geeks love to hate. He has surely spent a disproportionate amount of time and energy responding to Comic Sans detractors, which is why he has included a page titled “Why Comic Sans?” on his own website, in which he explains that “Comic Sans was NOT designed as a typeface but as a solution to a problem with the often overlooked part of a computer program's interface, the typeface used to communicate the message. There was no intention to include the font in other applications other than those designed for children when I designed Comic Sans. The inspiration came at the shock of seeing Times New Roman used in an inappropriate way.”

That’s right, Connare was “shocked” when he saw Times New Roman used inappropriately. And I think you’ll agree that Microsoft Bob’s friendly, helpful pup Rover would never speak in Times New Roman.

Because that would be like showing up to make balloon animals at a kids’ party…in black tie.

Resolved:

Happy New Year! Despite the fact that it comes in the middle of the darkest (and usually the coldest) part of winter, and on the heels of the frenetic pace of the Christmas season, I really like January 1st. I love the concept of making a fresh start for a new year.

Although, come to think of it, I would like New Year's Day even better if it came in the spring, which really seems like the most appropriate time to make a fresh start. But maybe it's better this way--if we get dragged down by the long, dark winter and stumble in our resolutions, we can always start over again when the sun gets higher and the days get longer and everyone feels that springtime sense of renewal. My birthday is March 2nd, and I always see that date as a sort of second chance to make all those changes for the better that I promised myself I'd make on New Year's Day.

But I have to make those initial promises, or resolutions, or whatever you want to call them, first, just on the chance that they'll actually take the first time.

I woke up this morning feeling quite resolute, and thinking about the ways in which I'd like to change my life in 2012. I've decided not to make any resolutions about exercise, weight loss, or healthy eating this year, even though all of those are areas in which, like just about everyone I know, I'd like to make changes. However, if I'm successful in achieving The Big Goal I'm setting for myself this year, I believe it will have a positive impact on every aspect of my life.

My Big Goal is simply this: to make measurable progress toward living my Authentic Life.

Here's how I envision my Authentic Life: I have very little stress. (There is some research that argues that a certain amount of stress is actually good for you, but I think that argument pertains more to competitive young professionals, or those in military training, than to 50+ women seeking simpler lives. I'm pretty sure I can get by without much stress at all, thank you very much.)

In my Authentic Life, I live in a house that is comfortable and homey, with enough well-loved possessions to make me feel comforted, but not so many possessions that I feel possessed by them. I don't ask for extreme tidiness, just enough clutter control that I can find things when I go looking for them, and I don't always feel like hiding when someone unexpectedly comes to the door. (Chances are there will be many times when I still feel like hiding from unexpected company, even if my house is clean, and that's OK. Another part of living my Authentic Life involves embracing my introversion.)

In my Authentic Life, my family and friends adore me, and marvel at my wonderful sense of humor and my calm, relaxed approach to everything. I do fulfilling work, and earn at least part of my income by writing.

That last one is important. It's been the missing piece of the puzzle for me for a long time, and I'm determined to figure it out. One of my writing goals for the new year is to pitch some story ideas to magazines, and, hopefully, to sell at least two stories in 2012. In other words, to get started on the freelance writing career I've been talking about for...oh, decades now.

I've made a list of steps I think will get me to my goal. Most of them are about self-discipline--"Write something every day, or almost every day" (I always give myself an out, in case there are days when I wake up paralyzed, or barfing, or just in a terribly foul mood) and "Blog regularly--weekly?" (The weekly part is my daughter's suggestion; I think it may be a little too ambitious, but we'll see.)

Many of the steps concern improving my relationship with time. For example, "Recognize how much time tasks actually take to complete." (I procrastinate on simple tasks because I can't seem to get it through my head that washing a sink full of dirty dishes takes 5-10 minutes, while "checking in on Facebook" may take 30-60 minutes--instead of the other way around.)

I will learn to prioritize. When I make a daily to-do list, I'll stop putting "Read?" and "Write?" at the very bottom, as a tentative afterthought to "Clean bathrooms" and "Go to dump," and, instead, schedule time for reading and writing during my most productive and clearheaded hours of the day.

I'm also challenging myself to continue getting up early--I'm targeting 5 a.m., seven days a week--and to use the early morning hours productively. I'm resolving to attend a writing class, workshop, or retreat, and to schedule mini writing retreats throughout the year.

Last, I resolve to minimize the time I spend on housekeeping chores by (gasp!) trying to stay on top of them, instead of letting things get to a state of emergency before I grudgingly tackle them. Admitting my particular weakness for horizontal surfaces, I vow to keep the big table in my writing room (a.k.a. the dining room) clear for working on projects (whether writing, paying bills, or folding laundry), and to keep the kitchen table clear for purposes of meal preparation (I don't have much counter space), eating, and just generally keeping the peace.

That's it--the steps to my Authentic Life. Time to get started.