Friday thoughts

The details of the story I'm about to tell you elude me, such as the store I was in or what I was looking for, but about a year ago I was in a store looking for something, and the woman (very young) who was helping me suggested I look online. I must have stared at her blankly for just a second, because she said, "That means the In-ter-net," as if I were 110 years old.

I remembered this last night when I was thinking about the Internet and how I'm still sometimes amazed at being able to look up anything I can possibly think of at the exact moment I think of it. (Coming across something I'd never think of in a million years or know anything about also is good.)

Last night I was thinking about Mary Oliver and began to read through some of her poems. I have several favorites, and there they all were, just by typing her name. Here's one I particularly love because of the last line. Amazing thing, that In-ter-net. I hope you have a happy (almost summer) weekend.

The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

(Photograph: Baby grasshopper by Jack Hochfield. National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest 2012)

Record-keeper

I read a short profile the other day of Jaume Tapies, the chairman of Relais & Chateaux, a luxury hotel group. He travels the world checking on hundreds of properties and searching for new ones. What stood out to me about him is the fact that every single night he writes in a journal, recording what he did that day and who he met. "One day I'll look back and be able to trace this incredible history," he said, "but it also helps me remember where I've been."

Right after reading about Mr. Tapies, I read an article in Martha Stewart Living by David Neibart. Neibart is a dad who one day realized his children had nothing tangible to look at, the way he had a box of photos when he was little. His family's thousands of photographs were stored on the computer and rarely looked at. So he bought some journals and began to fill them with pictures and stories about what his kids did or funny things they said. His children look at the books all the time now, and if there ever was a fire, he said, these journals would be the first things he would grab.

I've always wished I was better about writing things down when they happen. I didn't finish a baby book for any of my children, and I never even started one for my youngest. Fortunately, my sister has made books for them, and I'm so grateful, but she lives across the country and (sadly!) misses the day-to-day stuff. Neibert said keeping his journals made him realize how much he otherwise would forget. I don't want to forget. So though I can't guarantee I'll stick with it, my resolution for spring is to be a better record-keeper, to remember where we've been.

What would you do differently?

I was a little under the weather last week and, because of that, I'm behind on almost everything, with one exception. Being in bed gave me a chance to go through the very tall stack of magazines on my bedside table.

Last night I got to Real Simple, where I read the winning essay of the magazine's 2013 Life Lessons contest. Each time I read one of these essays, I cry. This time the writer was asked, "If you could change one decision in the past, what would it be?" Adrienne Starr tells of her decision to stop singing after years of going on auditions and finding a measure of success as a professional opera singer.

I loved her writing and her message, but I also was touched by one small detail. Starr talks about quitting so completely that she no longer even sings in the shower. But there's an exception, and that's her infant niece, Daphne. Daphne is the only one she'll sing to, and when Starr becomes ill and loses her voice during treatment, it's Daphne she practices with.

"Daphne had always been the perfect audience," she writes. "She would look me directly in the eye as I sang song after song. If I stopped, she would wave at me with her tiny hand, urging me to go on." I have a giant soft spot for aunts and nieces, and I loved that this baby girl played a role in helping Starr do just that - to go on.

You can read the essay here, if you'd like.

Photo by Thuss + Farrell