It’s Marathon Monday! I don’t know that I’d like this day so much if I hadn’t first experienced it at Wellesley. So, in honor of patriotism and the Bostonians who get up at dawn to reenact the battle of Lexington and the thousands and thousand of folks running today, I’m cheating and posting a piece of what I wrote years ago, after my very first Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts:

So there are a couple of big-name-all-kinds-of-crazy-fast-people-run-them-and-win-big-money marathons. I experienced my first yesterday–the INSANITY of the Boston marathon. This thing is so huge the entire state uses it as an excuse for a lamely-named holiday (“patriot’s day” …what, Paul Revere? the football team?) when every knows it’s really just Marathon Monday.

I had no idea it was as big as it is. People stake out spots at the finish line hours and hours in advance, but luckily, I only had to walk out my front door. The race goes along Rt. 135–really the only road I really need here. Home, the Wellesley campus, and Peet’s are all on this lovely stretch of asphalt so I had the choice of three familiar places from which to watch the race.

Natick? Our neighbors had BLEACHERS on their front lawns, and the grills fired up by 10am. Serious spectatorship. However. Becca and I are not middle aged, do not have children, and like beer that isn’t Budweiser. Natick isn’t exactly the best fit in the world.

Peet’s? Are you kidding? I spend so much time there I’ve got coffee coming out of my ears. Besides, all my coworkers would have given me dirty looks for being genius enough to request the day off.

Campus? Bingo. So Wellesley marks the halfway point in the race and the college itself provides a famous “scream tunnel.” It’s pretty much just that. The whole campus–all, or mostly, female, remember–lines the road and pretty much just screams for the runners. There are “Kiss me!” signs, which a surprising number of runners obey, an official wellesley scream tunnel t-shirt…this day is a BIG DEAL and the students take their responsibility and the tradition very, very seriously.

SO seriously, in fact, that at 10 in the morning there was a barbecue, beer garden and jumpy castle on one of the dorm lawns. It was one of those moments I think “wow, why didn’t I go here?!” (These moments are usually followed by a crazed discussion about world politics and the PATRIARCHY that make me say “thank all that is good and stress-free in the world, these people are crazy and I miss the hippies who argued abut the same stuff but in a much less intense way.”)

Anyway. For most of the race I wasn’t even IN the scream tunnel. Even a ways down the street you could feel vibrations in the air from all the lung power, police were holding back the crowd (and drunk girls) and the runners just kept coming.

There were the wheelchairs first, incredibly awesome, lots of cheers for them. The blind woman with a guide who made everyone cry. The father/son team, father pushing the son in his wheelchair, who have run the race together for years. The elite athletes: women with abs you could sharpen knives on, and men running at my sprint pace. The leaders crossed the halfway mark with one hour down. THAT’S 13 MILES IN ONE HOUR. Pete, remember that conversation about how you weren’t a “runner” anymore but a “jogger”? So what the hell are these people?! Fuckin’ fast is what.

The the hoards started coming, as did the real screaming. There were elvises, angel wings, and a lot of weird old sweaty men kissing random girls. A lot of old sweaty women kissing the police officers (doesn’t it break your stride a little?).

But mostly a lot of normal people just running. Lots of specially-made shirts–I’m running for my dad, Let’s Beat AIDS, This Is My 97th Marathon, even a We Love the Wellesley Screams! Lots of names written on arms or sharpied on jerseys. And I’ll be damned if it wasn’t awesome to yell “yeah Bill! You’ve got it!” to a random stranger, only to have him smile a little and keep going. Runners were holding their cell phones up the capture the noise, taking pictures, huge grins.

See, I watched my sister run the Portland marathon one year. It’s a great course all over the city and a couple of bridges and a lot of people come out to watch. I remember one guy in particular who was just cheering for any and every one–no shame, just yelling his heart out. But he was the only one. There was lots of clapping, but very little actually cheering going on unless you knew a runner. Transplant that single guy to Boston yesterday and multiply him by a city. For three solid hours a city cheered itself hoarse, for the crowd, for individual runners, for strangers I’ll never see, for the coach and trainer I did know. Later on, I stood with some of the rowers in the scream tunnel itself, cheering for the end of the race, for the people barely still running with half the race left to go. We high-fived them all, shouted their names, and the best part were the people who thanked us for being there. The “you’re awesome wellesley, thanks scream tunnel!” people. There was one guy in particular who just said “hey, thanks for stickin’ around!” Dude, you’re running a marathon. I’m just standing here. Anytime.

Abject failure to keep up with this small corner of the internetz. I had visions of tracking my first year of grad school, sharing the delights and stresses therein and, well, I’ve managed to regurgitate only one post forgotten from july. Perhaps a different tack is in order.

this week:

*Mary Karr’s Lit. My first Karr exposure (with the accompanying Paris Review interview from 2007) has me in her fan camp. Sharp, funny, keen writing. I will say the interview was just right; by the end of Lit I was feeling over-saturated (and lines from the interview echoed verbatim which was a strange déjà vu). Perhaps it’s just a function of a long memoir especially—reading so relentlessly from one p.o.v. leaves me wondering about the others.

*Shelley’s The Cenci. Whoa. A seriously unsettling play. The language is gorgeous and I spent a lot of time penciling in careful underlines, hoping to remember some delicious combinations of words. Mentally, though, I was a bit split as a reader. The 21^st century me was irritated—thinking how superior Bastard out of Carolina or some equally gritty, honest look at molestation/incest is—with poetic treatment of particularly horrible act (and Shelley, because you admit to heightening the poetic elements doesn’t make me feel better). The romanticist/historicist take, well, I’m still working on that. A strange piece of work.

*FWS syllabus: you slay me. Still. I’ve settled on organizing my class around food, and am working on the actual assignments before I settle on readings. Some mixture of a personal narrative, a research-based presentation…bleh. I’m not sure. Scintillating stuff, no?

The benefit of this week is that a Jesuit school imparts Easter with deadly (heh) significance and we get Thursday through Monday off. The benefit of this week in Boston is Patriot’s Day/Marathon Monday and a state holiday. So, it’s a week in which I will attend no class while attempting to make some FWS decisions, read as much as possible about gender and needlework between 1780-1830 and hope there’s something there to argue and a text to argue it with.

(David Foster Wallace has assured me that the preposition rule is pointless, and though I generally disagree I like the way that last sentence sounds so I will leave it be. This self-conscious parenthetical references him as well and I feel as though I should have more to say (perhaps a footnote?) but I don’t so I will end here and later wish I’d just deleted this entire last bit.)

The Booksmith will be the death of me, or at least of my groaning bookshelves. Most recent reads: Penelope Lively’s Family Album and Jane Gardam’s God on the Rocks. Both excellent, both deal very differently with coming of age in a specific kind of family.

In Lively’s book, it’s the English-countryside-Edwardian-manor-house family. Six kids, vast grounds, hot summer days, sibling dynamics. Most importantly, strange adults: Charles, a largely absent, academic father who spends his days writing in his study aware of children underfoot but totally disengaged;  Alison, the  smothering, well-meaning mother for whom the “real old-fashioned family” is the penultimate goal; Ingrid, the au pair is always lurking around the edges, indispensable to Alison and kind of creepy to this reader. The house itself is a repository for all the secrets, clutter, games, parties, meals of a family functioning in mostly silent unwillingness to acknowledge resentments, frustrations, and other emotions that have no place in the ideal old-fashioned family life. Album is so sharp and tightly drawn, almost relentlessly detached in its view of the Harpers. We don’t get close, we simply watch as each child’s experience and memories create the bigger picture of this family.

God on the Rocks was Jane Gardam’s first novel, originally published in 1978, and is being reprinted in November. She, like Lively, is in her 80s with a long and impressive career behind her, but is just now earning serious recognition (at least in the U.S.) after 2006′s Old Filth (Completely awesome. A must-read). Rocks is about 12 year-old Margaret,  her devout Primal Saint father, her moody, compliant mother, the aristocratic Fraylings of her mother’s childhood, their maid Lydia and the ways a classist society and two world wars collide. Margaret is a delightful little shit. She’s memorized scads of scriptures at her father’s behest, tolerates her mother but barely, is sharply, vocally observant about the people around her and her own best judge. I loved her, was irritated by her, felt her frustration with her parents’ views on God, child-rearing, and the unspoken rules of a dying society.

I hope that at 80 I am as astute an observer of human nature as Lively and Gardam, and as able to take the subtlties, the frustrations, and the absurdity of life and family and make something as effective as these two books. Read ‘em.

There are things I won’t miss: being on my feet all day, inhaling grounds while grinding bar coffee, my wardrobe of weirdly-stained t-shirts, working major holidays. Thankfully, these are outnumbered by any one of a hundred things I love about what I’ve been doing for the last six years. I’ve been fortunate to live in two worlds, straddling the gap between retail and training. I’ve worked the morning rush, made weekly schedules, tracked sales, placed orders, but I’ve also tasted, tasted, taught, examined cappuccinos, stirred espresso,  nerded out to the nth degree over some of the finest plants in the world. I’ve been really lucky.

I have no idea what it will be to NOT arrive at this job, to watch a line and calculate how and where to deploy, to keep track of the last condiment check, whether that’s a look of impatience on that woman’s face and should I help out at the bar? or any other the other hundreds of pieces of information that flit across my brain during a day of the office. When I no longer look at a screen and break down the next eight drinks into their component parts for easy assemblage, when I no longer bust out my trusty allen wrenches to lovingly dismantle a grinder, or listen for the calibrated singing of whizzing burrs. When I no longer add to my tasting notes on a daily basis.

There are some things I will continue to make a part of my life. I take with me a belief in the importance of a daily ritual that involves a certain caliber of product, knowledge, and service. It doesn’t have to be in a store, it doesn’t have to be centered around coffee and tea, but I do believe that these daily rituals link us to the wider world. For me, the best moments of the last six years have included the opportunity to show those links, to tell a story, to instigate a pause and a moment of appreciation for something delicious in a cup.

And so, I tell one more story and pause for one more moment of appreciation for those with whom I have enjoyed one of many cups.

Lake Oswego: Jon, Xan, Cayly, Saren, Megan, Sooz. You remain the group against which I have measured all others, a dynamic, wildly diverse and fabulous group of women I am so glad to have been a part of. Thanks for making my first year of adult living truly great, and for convincing me to take the next step in an adventure and move across the country.

Wellesley: Dave, Deidra, Christine, Jamison, Paul, Ali, Hope, Liz, Nat.  Thanks for tolerating my stubborn refusal to take the Oregon plates off my car and start to assimilate into East Coast life, for not rolling your eyes too high when I started getting all excited about tea, and for being my first family in a strange new place.

Harvard Square: Ali again, Laura, Boo Boo, Dustin, Vera, Chris, Mike. You were a staff that was just too cool. I like to think I emerged from HSQ a little tougher, but I really just drank a lot more coffee and survived. Thanks for making my earn my stripes and for managing to foster great passion and pride in the midst of occasional chaos.

Brookline: There are so many of you. Hope, Kate R., Patrick, Kris, Jon, Dani, Nicole, Margot, MikeGeaconeBassPlayer, Alex, Charlie, Paul, Joe, Tim, Kenny, Julia, Kate G., Matt, Ben.  You are forever my favourites. It’s been a pleasure and privilege to have spent so much time with all of you over the last years, even when you (often) drove me nuts. Because of you all I am proud to be a Brookline Peetnik, and I will miss you guys more than I can say.

Mark and Jon, DMs extaordanaire. I know you two have managed many; please know that this one thinks you both are the bee’s knees. Jon, thanks for setting the best example of how to balance your care for the business with your care for the people involved. Mark, thanks for show tunes, sequins, and continually astounding me with the best good humor and positivity I’ve ever been around. Plus, no one else calls me Roo.

To Scott and Mo, especially: you both gave me hope. Hope that one day I, too, could be as cool, as knowledgeable, and as passionate as you both. Thank you for giving me an appreciation for the story, the palate, and the details this work inspires. The hours I spent with both of you were hours I carried with me into every class, every training, every specialist meeting and every tasting that came after, and are among my most valuable, loved hours at Peet’s.

The people I’ve met through this work have been some of the weirdest, best, kindest folks and to be a small part of their daily lives is what makes this job as fun and rewarding as it is. So, a big thank you to those who take the time to get to know the folks behind the counter, and to those who have wished me sincerely, genuinely well on my next steps.

Bikers Pete and Jon, soy latte Kathy, rower Jack, Joy who took awhile to actually be Joyful and then became awesome, knitter Megan, Albert and Amy, get-your-tooth-fixed Terry, #1-bean-counter-customer-of-all-time Jack, come-in-later-in-the-day-for-once-Jeff and Ellen, Stephen and Erica, Sencha Mark (bless you, Mark), no-cotton-wearing-part-caff-epsresso Al, Margaret and her husband who love hedgehogs, Mr. Benjamin of the pumpkin bread persuasion, Jon and Lissa, Jo, Suki, iced-latte-Alan, Alina, Randy, John, Lisa Mark and Paul Booksmither, cut-my-hair Dennis, Kona Peter, carpenter Peter, window-fixture-Jeff.

To those I have forgotten, I apologize. It’s a strange kind of blessing to have built so many relationships at this place that I could never concisely list them all here. I hope to have other work in my life where that is the case.

Thanks especially to those who have taken a moment to ask a question–about the day’s espresso, for a bean or leaf recommendation–allowing me to share a little of what I know and love and inspiring me to learn more.

I have loved being a part of your lives.

…if you are a customer in a coffee shop. It is a perk, and in my best interest to provide since there is clearly demand, but you are not owed the internet as part of your coffee drinking experience. Free, unlimited internet access? THAT’S WHAT THE LIBRARY’S FOR.

Other pieces of valuable information that will help YOU become the next Customer of the Day/Week/Month/Forever:

1. Take off your sunglasses indoors. I understand that they may be prescription-strength and you need them to see the menu, but otherwise? I’m trying to provide good service and it’s super awkward to guess where your eyeballs are, especially when your lenses are the size of a scuba mask.

2. If you and a friend are arguing over who’s going to pay, please, one of you, graciously allow the other one to win. Don’t both hand your debit cards out and force the PBTC (person(s) behind the counter) to choose.

3. Speaking of paying, smooth out your bills before you hand ‘em over, k? Just takes half a second. It’s also nice if you actually put said bills directly into my hand, instead of just slapping ‘em on the counter. And split the distance while you’re at it since forcing the PBTC to sort of lunge for your (barely) outstretched method of payment is kind of mean.

4. Don’t set your child’s bum on the counter. I know your arms are probably tired after hefting lil’ Susie around around all day, but food and drinks go on that counter, some of them rather hot, and other customers might not appreciate eau de tushie around their croissant.

5. On the kid note: if I were younger, I would not be all that excited by a coffee shop. I would probably find the closest expensive piece of machinery, glass jar, or other enticing, noise-making object and begin to play with it. My loud playing would be extremely disruptive to other customers and disrespectful to the PBTC (who must then come out from BTC and clean up the tea leaves/broken mugs/unwrapped straws/poured out sugar packets/demolished pastries/strewn-about espresso machine parts I leave behind).

6. On a second kid note: thanks well-behaved kids! and parents who realize that a coffee shop can be super boring! and parents who let their kids drink decaf, thereby acquiring a taste for legal addictive stimulants at a young age and ensuring the future of this industry! Really, thanks, some kids are indeed awesome, and not just because they like decaf.

7. If the bathroom’s out of soap or paper towels, please, for pity’s sake, tell us. Really. I will not be offended, or judge you for using the facilities.

8. See the person squinting at a screen, moving fast, and calling out orders? That’s the barista. Don’t ask them anything–for a wifi code, can you get more milk, more ice, what time is it–because they are quite obviously busy doing something else. If you want your drink in a reasonable amount of time, leave ‘em alone and let them work. Find another PBTC to direct you to the napkins.

9. Unless you have a question about coffee! Or why your drink tastes so good! Then that barista will probably be delighted to explain more subtle nuances in the art of pulling shots than you knew existed. Do you KNOW that heating milk increases the lactose’s solubility, thereby making the milk taste sweeter? No? Your barista probably does would be more than happy to dork out with you.

10. If it’s 7:55am, I’ll assume you’re on your way to work and in a hurry. I’ll try not to ask the annoying questions I’m supposed to ask, and will get you out the door. If there’s a hold up somewhere, it’s not because the PBTC are taking their sweet time and don’t care about your schedule.

11. On a related note: if there’s a bit of line might I suggest using the time you’re waiting in it to decide what you’d like to order? All the folks behind you who just want a small black are slowly seething as you arrive at the register and start hemming and hawing. And I, the PBTC, must stand awkwardly twitching, non-verbally apologizing to the irritated mass behind you.

12. However, if you truly have NO IDEA what you want, or if anything on the menu is confusing in the slightest, ASK. It is my JOB to guide you to your personal beverage nirvana. I have had everything on the menu at least a zillion times, and, more importantly, can recommend things that aren’t listed. I can suggest cappuccino modifications that will ensure you a lifetime of your own perfect legal addictive stimulant. Just ASK.

13. I’ll try really hard not to weird you out with the fact that I remember your name and what you drink every day. But seriously, you come in every day. That’s “regular” status, embrace it. Maybe remember my name in return.

14. Want “regular” status, that most coveted level of patronage? Want the PBTC to say hi when you walk in, ask if you want “the uszhe”, and generally treat you like you’re awesome? Then be awesome. No one gets regular status by being a jerk. Pay attention to how the lines work, learn our names, maybe ask a few questions that indicate you see the PBTC as POTS (people outside the store) too. Not that tough, no?

15. It’s not EXpresso. We do judge you for that one.

16. If there’s something wrong with your order, your drink, the service, I do want to know. Really. I even want to make it right, as immediately as I can. No one does this job because they want to spread doom and gloom, and I don’t want anyone walking out an unhappy camper.

17. It’s just coffee, yes. But it can be much more, and chances are pretty good that the PBTC truly enjoy chatting with you, sharing what they know and love about the things they make and sell, and like being a part of your daily routine. The best customers don’t sweat the stuff that doesn’t matter (whoops, sorry, let me wipe that table) and appreciate the people (growers, pickers, roasters, baristas, PBTC) who do.

And we appreciate you, good customers. Thanks.

Alberto Manguel is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers thanks especially to The Library at Night and his most recent book, A Reader on Reading.

Writing about reading is not unusual. Many scholars write about the importance of canonical literature, as if to convince modern readers that there IS value in their old high school reading list. These books are usually only convincing if you already believe in the value of Chaucer and are a pat on the back for being clever enough to appreciate rhyme and meter. A Reader on Reading, though, is shot through with actual joy and personal conviction that the act of reading is the thing that helps us define and create ourselves and the worlds in which we live. That characters in books become real friends and companions. That reading is an utterly essential component of being human. Mostly, though, I’m appreciating the 30-odd short essays that make up this book because they are reinforcing my decision to become a grad-school-bound scholar of literature. I officially accepted an offer of admission last week, and come September will be a penniless student frantically trying to remind my brain how to write an analytic paper while my person no longer smells of coffee. I can’t wait.

There are many reasons it’s taken me so long to get my ass in gear and go back to school. Among the less significant: telling myself that studying something I love will suck all the joy and life from it; the safety of a steady paycheck; the familiarity of a job I am comfortable doing; the (terribly unhelpful and resulting in paralyzing inaction) thought that making a decision in ANY direction is limiting and as long as I stay here, where I’m comfortable if not necessarily ecstatic with life, I COULD do anything; laziness; lots of seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Masterpiece Theaters to watch; Saturn not yet returning. Other things, bigger things, smaller things. I’ve  also had a dose of the “real world” and exposure to the practical value of my liberal arts degree. As an undergraduate I never second-guessed my decision to major in English, but I also had a basic assumption that some sort of job or career in a literary field would automatically fall in line. Not so. I don’t mean to say that I’ve found my degree to be worthless, rather, I’ve been exposed to the reality that a kind of future doing what I love will take some serious WORK on my part. If I write a book, get the PhD, review books for NPR or any of the other dream jobs someone has to do, well, there will be some elbow grease involved. And so I had to think a lot about the extent to which I want my elbows to hurt.

I looked at a lot of options, feeling as though I should seek a course of study that would launch me into a great job, better life, actual Career.  I checked out a publishing program, library science, some writers’ workshops, a bookbinding school–all hinting at elements of literature without a full immersion. I interviewed for a tea buying position, thought about sommelier certification, and the Specialty Tea Institute. I looked (briefly) for coaching jobs, thought about managing my own store. I kept circling around studying literature in a structured, “official” way because I wasn’t convinced it was wise to accrue more debt and sink more years of my life into books without guarantee of some better payoff down the road. Going to graduate school for literature seemed utterly self-serving (nothing to do but read! yay! right?) and not especially wise.

Gradual shifting occurred. My undergraduate advisor quoted Mark Twain at me, saying it is never a mistake to pursue something you’re passionate about. Other professors seemed to remember me, enthusiastically even, and agreed to write me recommendations. I studied (sort of) for the general GRE, read a lot (really! seriously! four volumes of Norton!) for the subject GRE. I spent a lot of time researching schools, programs, scholars, looking for my niche. Finally I threw some darts at a map and just applied.

It is a tough time to apply to graduate school at the moment–the idea of taking refuge from a terrible economy in academia clearly appealed not only to me. Many of the programs to which I applied took only four or five out of three hundred applicants. I got more rejection letters than I’ve ever gotten for anything, ever. But I also got a few acceptances, and one of them in particular came from a place at the top of my list.

I’m still not sure about what I want to DO with my degree. Getting a decent job I enjoy would be nice, but I have that. What’s the reason I’m taking this new path on right now? I have visions of being the next Mr. Keating illuminating young, impressionable minds, of a desk overlooking an ocean where I write…something, of full bookshelves, of carving a life that requires an amount of mental and artistic challenge. That this can take many forms is both exciting and intimidating. But the pieces are there and I’m beginning to put them together and embrace more fully a faith that has always been the most real faith in my life. I am pursuing what feels like a luxury but is really a necessity: the ability to “give the world coherence” through learning to be a better reader. I am nervous about being a student again, worried about debt, unsure of where I will go when the degree is in my hand. But I will have the best companions along the way:

In the midst of uncertainty and many kinds of fear, threatened by loss, change, and the welling of pain within and without for which one can offer no comfort, readers know that there are, here and there, a few safe places, as real as paper and as bracing as ink, to grant us roof and board in our passage through the dark and nameless wood.

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it–don’t cheat with it.

Thanks, Hemingway.

I’ve made a few trips to New York over the last two months, seeing the city for the first time through fantastic meals, lots of walking, incredible food, successfully navigation of a tiny portion of the subway system, hitting of a few of the Times-designated best coffee spots, eating some more, and a single museum (me! in nyc! and just one museum visit under my belt! clearly I need to get my act together). All in all, my New York experience to date can probably be summed up by this morning: coffee from the place around the corner, and the sunny Brooklyn rooftop where I’m sitting right now. In other words, not bad.

Back to the museum for a moment though. Nate had a day of work to get done so I decided to knock a couple of touristy things off my list. I walked through Central Park. I saw the Strawberry Fields memorial off W72nd. I walked in front of the Dakota to pay my respects (a very gracious doorman allowed no fewer than three groups of people to take his photo during the four minutes I was there. Clearly an oft-visited spot). I hoped Yoko would magically decided to go grocery shopping or something and I’d see her walk out of the building, but alas. I ate a super-cheap-and-delicious hot dog from a street vendor. I walked down a little bit of 5th avenue and felt scruffy. I walked back through the park, read a book on a parch bench, and watched some amazingly inept rowers row backwards around the lake (yes, rowers generally FACE backwards. But rowing so the boat is moving stern-first? ouch).

The best part, though, about my solo ramble through an eensy portion of the city came when I went to the Met for the first time. I only had a few hours so seeing everything was impossible; I picked out a few spots for which to aim and started wandering. The Monets, the Van Goghs…all expectedly beautiful, all with plenty of admirers. The Modern Art wing was a different sort of crowded, more art students and squinty-eyed reflection. I took a guy’s picture in front of what was clearly a much-loved canvas of splotches.  I heard polite murmurs around the displays of pottery, and louder shouts around a super-weirdly-awesome Victorian collage exhibit that read more like the original Etsy.

You hit reminders at nearly every turn that you’re in a Really Famous Place. It is also Really Crowded. In every room there are at least three different languages being spoken, children’s groups on scavenger hunts (THERE’S THE PURPLE FEATHER!), sketching students, arguments over what to see next, proclamations about the importance of THIS painting. Museum fatigue sets in after about two hours. You know there’s a lot more to see, but your feet hurt and you still have a lot of walking to do to get back to Brooklyn. You look at the map one last time and decide to do a quick lap through the American wing to see if there’s anything spectacular.

There wasn’t. At least not on the first floor. Some recreations of rooms, a mural of Versailles, lots of silver. I was walking pretty fast at this point, and felt a little like apologizing that the art wasn’t awesome enough to break my stride. And then, randomly, I turned a corner into a room labelled “Visible Storage.”

It was the emptiest room I’d been in all day with just three other people walking the rows on rows on rows of plexiglassed-in art. Visible Storage is the extra stuff, the lesser known painters, the endless variations of Shaker chairs, more glassware than goodwill. The tiny labels were hard to read, so I just meandered, stopping to look closer at a few things, glorying in the solitude. Row after row…when my feet started complaining again I made one last turn, and did a double take.

Hanging on my right was a full-length portrait. No frame, just a stretched canvas. A profile of a woman in a black gown who clearly could not have cared less about who was looking at her: John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X, two inches from my face. I peered closer, she kept looking over her shoulder, unimpressed that I knew who she was. My nose touched the glass–the closest I’ve ever been to a painting that enormous, that gorgeous–and I could trace the faint dark stripe on her upper arm where Sargent had originally painted the fallen strap of her dress. I looked around, wished someone was there to share my total disbelief that Sargent’s favorite painting was mine alone for a few minutes. She sighed a little with an “I KNOW.”

…and the privilege of access to a talented photographer and good lamplight (click to embiggen).

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…a sacred reference point, no matter how abstract.

The above was quoted to me as a definition of home: summing the idea up better than any of my more recent mental gymnastics have.* See, I went back to Denver last week, to the place that was home to me for the first 18 years of my life. My idea of home has shifted drastically since; recently I’ve begun thinking about what I would defend like my sanity.

I began this blog to be a record of things I read, and, optimistically, hoped it would follow that I’d reactivate analytic and writing skills that were a bit rusty. While my entries have in no way kept pace with my library card, this forum has reminded me that one of the things I’d defend is the ability to read, widely and well. Otherwise, I might never have come across one of my favorite mystery writers, Tana French. Her first book, In The Woods, is excellent. Her second, The Likeness, is haunting.

The Likeness is the story of detective Cassie Maddox who goes undercover to impersonate a murdered girl, Lexie Madison. As Lexie, Cassie infiltrates an old estate shared with three roommates. Together the four of them have created an isolated world where eccentricities flourish. All have left behind families, relationships, ties to other homes in favor of a new sort of lifestyle. It is a mystery, yes, and Cassie’s assignment is to figure out which roommate(s) might be responsible for Lexie’s death. But it’s also a lyrical look at the way children break away from families, history, home and build other relationships on different foundations. About growing up.

The paragraph that gets me every time is one I’ve sent to some of you before, I’m sure.

Or possibly–forgive me–you haven’t decided what you want from life yet; you haven’t found anything that you truly want to hold on to. That changes everything, you know. Students and very young people can rent with no damage to their intellectual freedom, because it puts them under no threat; they have nothing, yet, to lose. Have you noticed how easily the very young die? They make the best martyrs for any cause, the best soldiers, the best suicides. It’s because they’re held here so lightly: they haven’t yet accumulated loves and responsibilities and commitments and all the things that tie us securely to this world. They can let go of it as easily and simply as lifting a finger. But as you get older, you begin to find things that are worth holding onto, forever. All of a sudden you’re playing for keeps, as children say, and it changes the very fabric of you.

The point, now: finding what’s worth holding on to, forever…no matter how abstract.

*regular reader, want to comment on your source? I’ve been wondering :)