{"id":355,"date":"2011-01-08T11:28:42","date_gmt":"2011-01-08T16:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=355"},"modified":"2011-01-08T11:28:42","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T16:28:42","slug":"a-conversation-with-my-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/a-conversation-with-my-books\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with My Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I confess: I haven\u2019t gotten my 2011 calendar set up yet.\u00a0 I\u2019m still straddling my old green desk planner and the spiffy new system that promises to turn me into a better- organized, more productive human being, if I would only take the time to create the to-do lists and break my projects down into next actions and manageable steps.\u00a0 (Maybe tomorrow. . .)<\/p>\n

But I do have my books organized.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, I took every single volume off the shelves in my office and began a sorting process — the first step, for me, into new work for the new year.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t really explain why having a good, long chat with my books on New Year\u2019s Day felt more urgent to me than transcribing birthdays and doctors appointments into the empty days of 2011, but I think I get it now.<\/p>\n

The process ended up taking a few days, much longer than I anticipated.\u00a0 But it turned out that I needed that time, time to see which books would speak up and demand to be returned to the shelves, which ones had gone mute.<\/p>\n

The reference books — my old dictionaries, Roget\u2019s thesaurus, the Chicago Manual, Bartlett\u2019s — were surprisingly easy to relegate to a pile and then, a few days later, to carry out the door. I have dictionary.com bookmarked in my toolbar, haven\u2019t hauled out my 5-pound Websters for years, and know there\u2019s no turning back now.\u00a0 Long gone are the days when I would sit on my bed typing (picture a brown Smith-Corona electric), surrounded by dictionary, thesaurus, bottles of White-Out, first and second drafts marked up by hand.<\/p>\n

The rest of the books, however, demanded a bit more in the way of conversation.\u00a0 I found myself clearing a big, new space for poetry, creating a shelf devoted to women\u2019s memoirs, another to writings about nature.\u00a0 I gathered up my yoga books into one accessible spot and relegated stacks of cookbooks to the basement.<\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve somehow managed to acquire a veritable library of parenting books, from \u201cYou Are Your Child\u2019s First Teacher\u201d to \u201cYes, Your Teenager is Crazy.\u201d\u00a0 At different times, these books have offered much in the way of insight and inspiration as I found my own way through the joys and challenges of motherhood.\u00a0 Moving the whole batch of them onto a high, accessible-by-stepladder-only shelf, felt like a rite of passage.\u00a0 I\u2019m not done being a mother, of course, but there\u2019s no doubt that my identity is less and less intertwined with my children, my role no longer defined by their needs.\u00a0 As they become independent young adults, I, too, am carving out a new kind of independence for myself.\u00a0 The responsibility for their lives is in their hands now, not in mine.\u00a0 Which leaves me, suddenly, with a greater responsibility to myself and to the larger world beyond my own front door.<\/p>\n

Placing my books back into new places on the shelves has turned out to be one way of beginning to answer the questions that have been on my mind for months now:\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s next?\u201d\u00a0 And, \u201cIf I am not the 24\/7, here-when-you-need-me mom of Henry and Jack anymore, then who am I?\u201d<\/p>\n

It occurs to me that, for the first time in my entire adult life, there is no one who actually \u201cneeds\u201d me at all at the moment.\u00a0 My sons are busy, fully engaged.\u00a0 Both of my parents, at seventy-five, are happy and healthy, doing fine.\u00a0 My husband\u2019s work is steady, our life together satisfying, even, dare I say, routine.\u00a0 I have no friend in crisis, no loved one calling out for support.\u00a0 And yet, the stresses and losses of these last few years have taught me how quickly life can turn.\u00a0 Grief resides in me right alongside each day\u2019s happiness. To live in the moment, it seems, means to embody all moments.<\/p>\n

There was a day in the early fall when I sat sipping tea with my friend Diane.\u00a0 \u201cRemember our hike in the White Mountains?\u201d she said.\u00a0 I did, of course.\u00a0 \u201cI wonder,\u201d she mused, \u201cif I really appreciated that enough, if I lived it enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou did,\u201d I assured her.\u00a0 \u201cWe did.\u00a0 Absolutely.\u201d\u00a0 The truth is, we knew even then, summer before last, as we made our slow way up the trail toward Greenleaf Hut, near the peak of Mount Lafayette, that there would be no more mountains for her, that this trip that meant so much\u00a0 was just one more \u201clast\u201d in a long series of lasts.\u00a0 There were five us hiking that weekend, laughing and joking and urging one another on through the steep parts.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t talking about endings, though, not at all. We were hiking with joy. Celebrating life.\u00a0 Treasuring friendship.\u00a0 Discovering what is possible when you choose to climb to the top of a mountain rather than sit at home waiting to see what\u2019s going to happen next.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I live it enough?\u201d<\/em> That is the other question I carry in my heart into this new year.\u00a0 I want to make sure that, when I pause to look back, and ask myself, \u201cDid I live it enough?\u201d\u00a0 I, too, am able to answer, \u201cYes. Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

My books are back on the shelves now, in all new places.\u00a0 And they are<\/em> speaking to me, suggesting new paths, new places to go, new possibilities.\u00a0 On the first day of January, I began reading a book called \u201cA Year with Rumi.\u201d\u00a0 A week later, and these daily poems feel like nothing less than emphatic calls, aligning every level of my being.\u00a0 Tomorrow, yes, I\u2019ll be ready at last to begin writing in the calendar for 2011.\u00a0 Oddly enough, I have a much better sense now of where I\u2019m going.\u00a0 Rumi, that wild, thirteenth-century Sufi mystic, is showing me the way.<\/p>\n

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror up<\/p>\n

to where you’re bravely working.<\/p>\n

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead<\/p>\n

here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.<\/p>\n

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.<\/p>\n

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,<\/p>\n

you’d be paralyzed.<\/p>\n

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting<\/p>\n

and expanding,<\/p>\n

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.<\/p>\n

Rumi<\/strong>, from A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings<\/strong><\/em>, translated by Coleman Barks<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More housekeeping: \u00a0If you have previously subscribed, and still haven’t received my posts in your email box, please resubscribe. \u00a0It IS working now, though it’s taken a few tries to get the systems running. \u00a0(Let me know if you’re still having a problem!) Also, if you subscribe by RSS, make note of the new link: <\/strong>feed:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/KatrinaKenison<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I confess: I haven\u2019t gotten my 2011 calendar set up yet.\u00a0 I\u2019m still straddling my old green desk planner and the spiffy new system that promises to turn me into a better- organized, more productive human being, if I would only take the time to create the to-do lists and break my projects down into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,31,32,33,39,14],"tags":[201,209,363],"class_list":{"0":"post-355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-change","9":"category-grief","10":"category-healing","11":"category-impermanence-soul-work","12":"category-midlife","13":"category-soul-work","14":"tag-grief-2","15":"tag-healing-2","16":"tag-rumi","17":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}