Calendar Thoughts

I just turned the page on my Molly Hashimoto bird calendar. Goodbye to March and your regal long-billed dowitcher and hello April with your multi-colored cedar waxwing.

Another month, 31 days gone forever. At the end of the year we take stock, but what about at a month’s end? Or a week’s?

I’ll start with the past week, less taxing on my shaky memory. I have my handy paper (non-digital) datebook as my memory-aide. The brightest spark in my week was the launch of my book, “Notes from the Bottom of the World”, for English-speaking family and friends here in Chile. Many commented afterwards how relaxed and natural I appeared. That was probably due to my experience last November in California presenting my book to a variety of audiences. The highlight of the evening was seeing my 14-year-old twin granddaughters in the audience. I hadn’t thought they’d come due to their busy schedules and multiple interests. But their mom made a special trip to pick them up at school and drive them across town in heavy traffic to hear their author-granny. The only downside of the evening was a whopper of a cold that hit me that morning. Perfect timing.

This week I witnessed the arrival of our hummingbirds, another sign of summer’s end. For some reason, they take off to other landscapes for the summer. I prepared the syrup and hung out the feeder which they found immediately.

Speedy Gonzalez, out pet tortoise, was giving signs of wanting to hibernate; eating and wandering less, so I put him in his cardboard box in the shed to sleep through the next 6 months. He inner senses signaled it was time. And he was right. Yesterday, we had our first rain, a wimpy rain, but rain all the same.

 In March we finally had the outside of the house painted (after way too many years) and I love how it looks! Clean, bright, fresh. We had a setback when, Nelson, the painter we hired, quit after a week! He didn’t like that my husband pointed out a couple of things to be corrected. Actually, I think he quit because he realized the job was too difficult for him at his age. In no time, a friend gave me the name of a younger painter, Guillermo, who did a great job and was pleasant besides.

There was dinner with friends visiting from the States; a drive out to the country for lunch at favorite restaurant under its grape arbor with two friends; book club where we discussed Tara Westover’s “Educated.”  Weekly meetings with Santiago Writers. Pilates classes and gym workouts filled my days. During free moments, I sat in our garden to enjoy our mellow fall days and read.

I’m in a Scottish frame of mind. I’m researching my Scottish ancestors and late twentieth century Scotland in preparation for writing a historical novel based on my great-aunt’s unusual life. Reading “A Scot’s Quair” by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and dealing with the dialect has been a thorny challenge but I’ve now got the hang of it. Soon I’ll be speaking like a Scot.

Remembering kindles appreciation. March was a good month.

Now I look forward to what April may bring.

Countdown

I’m excited and nervous! In 10 days my second book, “Notes from the Bottom of the World: A Life in Chile,” will be launched out into the world. The book is a collection of personal essays, exploring topics that inspired me – from Patagonian travels, to aging, to the writing craft.  I’ll be traveling to the San Francisco Bay Area with my husband to present my book at several venues: Book Passage, the Belmont and Oakland libraries.

    Sometimes in the middle of the night I ask myself: why do I want to do this – stand in front of a group or a crowd or a handful of people and bare my essays, my soul to them? What was I thinking? I calm myself by reminding myself that my deepest hope is that some can relate to what I say or have written. The hours of writing, editing, rewriting will be worth it if my words ring true for just one person.

    If I were to go back 15 years, I never imagined I’d be doing this. Yes, after I retired, I joined an English-speaking writing group and began work on my first memoir, published ten years later. Now I wonder what I’d be doing with my retirement days if I didn’t have writing. Of course, there’s reading, gardening, exercising and traveling, but writing is my creative outlet and greatest satisfaction.