What We Do Instead

And how we feel about that...

Before we begin…

Hi Friends,

Ever find yourself heading for one place and winding up somewhere completely different? Planning one kind of life and ending up with another? How do we know if what we are doing “instead” is actually what we are meant to do or a substitute we must find a way to embrace? These are the questions burning for me this week because every time I started out to do one thing, I ended up doing another.

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A Week of “Insteads”

According to the little calendar I finally made for myself, the one that outlines topics for future issues of Spark for your reading pleasure, this was the week for musing about stories made of words and pictures. 

Well it was also the week I turned 66 and things went a little differently than we had planned. 

This is me, at 66 taking a selfie instead of a trip up the coast .

First we planned to make a little drive up the coast to visit our loved ones, eat a little birthday cake, and visit the Santa Monica History Museum where one of those loved ones works with an enthusiasm and reverence for history that is infectious. When unexpected events shifted that plan, my husband presented me with an offer of escaping the house anyway for one night and a day by driving up the coast to spend the night in a town that was not the one in which we’ve been spending almost every night for the past three years.  

Alas, this plan also derailed, thanks to our dog Lily who kept us up all Monday night with a little case of garbage gut which left me completely hollowed out and unable to do more than stare vacantly at my packed suitcase as though it belonged to someone else. 

So, instead of our modestly ambitious plans, we simply walked out the door on Wednesday the 13th, drove to Balboa Park, and spent the next four hours drinking in the sunshine, the sky, the breeze, the art at the Mingei International Museum, and dining outdoors surrounded by art, music, and the best weather in America right now. We stopped for gelato on the way home. When we collapsed on our bed for a little nap, our two dogs joined us, and my husband, out of the blue, began to read out loud to me. Throughout all of this came texts, messages, cards, phone calls, and hugs I could feel even though the senders were hundreds, even thousands of miles away. 

Sometimes, what I do instead turns out to be the thing I needed to do all along. At the very least, it turns out pretty well or at least well enough. Sometimes, though, a substitute for what I really expected or wanted leaves a nasty aftertaste like one of those “natural” artificial sweeteners like monk fruit or carob instead of chocolate. It just makes me want the real thing even more. 

I wonder sometimes if my reaction to whatever happens “instead” of what I wanted or planned hinges on my attitude towards it, the thing itself, the prevailing attitudes of those around me, or how much choice I really have in the matter. The stakes are low enough when we are talking sugar, chocolate, or even a nice little birthday excursion, but what if I were to lose my home, my family, my friends, or my health? Would any kind of substitute cut it? Would I be able to find meaning in whatever alternative exists for me?

What about you? How have you handled “what happened instead” and how did it turn out for you?

While you’re thinking, here’s some reading and watching material I consumed this week instead of what I’d planned. 

Instead of reading James Joyce…

Instead of starting James Joyce’s Ulysses yet again (I keep promising myself each summer that this will be the time I actually start and finish this novel), I read Amor Towles’ first novel Rules of Civility. It covers a single year, 1938, in the life of a twenty-something Katey Kontent, the daughter of Russian immigrants in Manhattan, whose chance encounter with a wealthy banker and, subsequently, his constellation of friends, takes her from the secretarial pool in a law firm to the heights of Manhattan society and a career she’d never planned to have. 

It’s a wonderful read even if I didn’t love it the way I loved his second, A Gentleman in Moscow, but it led to this passage on the last page that I keep reading and re-reading. It touches a bit on the idea of choices, substitutes, and what we do instead. 

“Life doesn’t have to provide you any options at all. It can easily define your course from the outset and keep you in check through all manner of rough and subtle mechanics. To have even one year when you’re presented with choices that can alter your circumstances, your character, your course — that’s by the grace of God alone. And it shouldn’t come without a price. 

I love Val. I love my job and my New York. I have no doubt that they were the right choices for me. And at the same time, I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.” - Amor Towles, Rules of Civility. 

Instead of watching the PBS Newshour (or CNN, or any news at all)…

I watched Four For Dinner, an Italian romantic comedy that asks the question: is there such a thing as a soul mate and if there is, does that person arrive by fate in one’s life or does one become the person one is meant to be with? 

I’m a sucker for romantic comedies in the summer. I tell myself that by watching one in Italian, I’m improving my language skills but really, I’m just escaping. This one, though, was more than fluff. The characters were intelligent, the writing was good, and the handling of parallel stories was skillful. It begins when a married couple invites four single friends to lunch who, in spite of themselves, partner up. We don’t know, though, who picks whom until the very end. As the alternative stories play out, we find ourselves rooting for a certain outcome only to be struck by how interesting it is when those who seem poorly matched seem to find a way. You can stream it on Netflix.

And instead of cleaning out my email inbox…

I ended up reading this poem, “Instructions on Not Giving Up,” by Ada Limón which arrived as an unexpected attachment from a friend. It seems meant to be read in spring but the theme feels so so important right now. Nothing is more strange at times than the ongoing-ness of life in the face of all we have done to hurt the world and ourselves. There is a kind of hope in that. You will find this poem in her collection, The Carrying.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all. 
- Ada Limón

And instead of buying books, most of you prefer to borrow…

Last week’s very unscientific poll shows libraries are far and away the leading source of books for members of the Spark community (54%) but over a third of you buy books with those split evenly between independent bookstores and Amazon. Interestingly, a much more comprehensive survey by Pew Research shows that about 20% of readers prefer to borrow from libraries and a far higher percentage prefers to buy books. 

Photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash

Two things to keep in mind:

1) If you rely mostly on the library you can support an author and their books by requesting that your library order several copies and by reviewing it online afterwards.

2) We will continue to make the books we mention or recommend here available at the Spark Community Recommendations page at bookshop.org where sales support local bookstores. Because each sale also generates a small commission we have the fun project of deciding what to do with it. I have some ideas which, as promised last week, we will explore together soon. 

Our community is growing!

As of this writing, we are at 496 subscribers, just shy of the milestone of 500 subscribers. Welcome to each and every new person who has joined us. It’s thrilling to to find so many new folks on board each day. If you would like to check out past issues, here’s a quick link to the archives. Be sure to check out our Resources for Readers and Writers too. And help us spread the word by sharing Spark with your friends.

That’s it for this week. Let me know you are and what you’re reading. If there’s an idea, book, or question you’d like to see in an upcoming issue of Spark, let us know! Use the comment button below or just hit reply to this email and send your message directly. 

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Ciao for now.

Gratefully,

Betsy

P.S. Your Moment of Zen…Love makes your head explode…very slowly

From the Niki de Saint-Phalle exhibit at the Mingei International Museum

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!