Beginnings and Redecorating the Room

“I suppose our lives are nothing more than a collection of moments. Some moments tell us who we are. Others, what we’ve run away from. I was eight years old the year our story began.” Those are the opening sentences in Dan Snyder’s book, Fallen Angel. I love first lines in novels. Does anyone else wish they could spend a rainy afternoon in the library just reading the beginnings of books? I’d consider it time well spent. Hey, that should go on my Doable Bucket List.

Here’s a first sentence I love. It’s from The Princess Bride by William Goldman: “This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” I have many books I’ve never read but I refuse to part with them so I honestly “get” that line. Sometimes just holding a book makes me feel good. It’s like holding a promise in your hands---read me from cover to cover and I’ll touch your life. Sorry, buddy-book, its back on the shelf you go until I have more time. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens but I rarely get past the first chapter yet its long, rambling first line lives in my head. I did read the CliffNotes. Ya, I know that would have been cheating if the book had been on a required reading list, but it wasn’t. If I ever go blind, though, I have plans to listen to it on tape. It might work better than Ambien to put me to sleep. I can say the same about War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It’s on my If-I-Go-Blind Bucket List, too.

If Dickens’s first line was long-winded and lyrical (I only quoted a third of it above) you can’t say the same about the first line of The Marian by space nerd and author, Andy Weir. “I’m pretty much fucked,” he wrote. It’s a sentiment most of us no doubt would have said if we’d been accidentally stranded on Mars like Andy’s astronaut. And even if you’re not a fan of Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series you can probably identify with her opening line in Seven Up: “For the better part of my childhood, my professional aspirations were simple–I wanted to be an intergalactic princess." Some first lines draw us in because we could have written them ourselves and others draw us in because there's no way on God’s green earth we could have so elegantly put those words down on paper.

I guess it’s time for me to find a way to work in the fact that I’m excited about getting an email notification about the sleeper chair I ordered for my new guest room/art studio. It’s sitting at the local freight terminal, waiting for them to call me to set up a delivery time. I didn’t know it ahead of time (so I worried unnecessarily) but Wayfair---where I ordered the chair and area rug---gives you a choice of deliveries: at the door, inside the door or to the room of your choice. I picked the latter because I couldn’t have wrestled that 100+ pounds box where it needs to go without calling the Canadian Mounties or the Texas Rangers and I’m sure they’d both charge more than the $69 the special treatment is going to cost me. The only hurtle left is whether or not I can put the chair together on my own. From reading the reviews I learned that attaching the back of the chair to the rest is all I’ll have to do. I’m hoping I can con my cleaning woman into helping me if the chair comes before she does on 8^th. My niece offered to drive up from the boondocks if it came before the 3^rd but it's the 3^rd and the chair isn’t here. I did find a nationwide chain called 'Mr. Handyman' that advertises, among other things, that they put Ikea stuff together. It might be time to give them a try.

“If you want to be a grown up, you have to be your own hero.” That’s a line that someone just said in a Hallmark Channel marathon of Signed, Sealed and Delivered that’s playing in the background. It’s almost cosmic how that fits the way I’m feeling right now about being elderly and living alone. There are challenges that you didn’t have before when you had a life partner, when two hands and puny muscles aren't enough, when you have to debate both sides of why you should or shouldn't do this or that. Transitions in life, no matter what the reason, requires us all to write the first lines to our new stories if they're going to unfold in a way that makes us move forward. Maybe I’ll start mine out like this: “She’d been hiding from herself since her husband died but as she unpacked the box from her past her heart skipped a beat. Could she do this, could she reconnect with her first love again?” ©

NOTE:  The photo up above is the desk corner of my new guest room/art studio---I don't know what to call the room. When I get the room done, I'll do a whole post on the redecorating project and I'll tell you about everything in the photo.