Thanks to yesterday’s project, I was able to continue with the Unabridged Adventure Series. (For those of you who’ve forgotten the premise, first go here.)
The book: Teach Yourself Dutch by Gerdi Quist and Dennis Strik, copyright 2003. The subtitle: All-Around Confidence.
The find: two tickets from Madison, Wisconsin to Detroit, Michigan. Date: Friday, July 6, 2012.
Here’s to finding a remote-controlled racecar on every public park bench this weekend.
It’s spring, so seek them out.
Find them in your backyard.
Sketch them. Photograph them. Touch them with your fingertips. Squat down and stare.
Think about what they’re doing: what their wind feels like, how their sun shines.
They’re not friends. They won’t advance plot.
They’re details. Micro-environments. Codes.
Beautiful, awkward, leafy, and out of focus. Seemingly unimportant. Let them stand somewhere in your story.
As some of you may remember from a previous post, I bought, not too long ago, a five-inch-thick dictionary from 1937, which is now proudly displayed on a re-purposed deck railing stand in my living room.
I began documenting the items I found inside the book. First, a newspaper article. Then some roses. A sketch by Mom. Finally, a fern. I was reminded of all these fine findings when I accidentally flipped to the first blank page of the dictionary this morning, only to see this lonely blossom that must have somehow migrated from page 231.
I’ve decided to expand The Unabridged Adventure Series to include my entire book collection. Many copies purchased used. Many purchased new and now used, likely to contain bits I’ve left behind.
Here, I’ll make up my own: Don’t find it, grind it. Um, maybe, bind it? All I’m saying is, go with what you’ve got.
As established by my last post, I love coffee. And this morning, I’m staying in. Above is what my coffee bag says. It was a gift, and I’ll take it.
Page 510, DOTE to DOUBLET. My unequivocal favorite find so far.
A couple of old roses where the letter C begins.
A few weeks ago, I purchased a 1937 five-inch-thick dictionary on Etsy. It smells like my grandmother’s attic, and I’ve been careful so far not to spill my coffee on its tissue-paper-thin pages. Over the course of a couple Scrabble nights and a few random endeavors (i.e. What’s the precise distinction between a steed, a stag, and a stallion?), I began finding things inside this heavily-used reference book. No, not words, actual things. The first: the article pictured above.
This, for me, is how stories are born. You find something unexpected. Or it finds you. You think about. (It, rarely, thinks about you.) And then thinking churns its way into moving: fingers on a keyboard and on and on and on.
christine PS stocke 