Musings from the back of the motorcycle and front seat of the car
Author: nancyb422
I am a collector of family history - pictures, stories, facts - whatever I can get my hands on. I share that at It's All About Family. I started Thoughts From the Passenger Seat because I have a lot on my mind! It started riding on the back of my husband's motorcycle and on business appointments but I don't do much of either anymore but the thoughts are still there.
I enjoy writing and I hope you find something that you connect with on either of my blogs.
Thoughtsfromthepassengerseat.blog - Thoughts From the Passenger Seat
NancyB422.com - It’s All About Family
I have so many books to read in my bookcase but that doesn’t stop me from buying more, or going to the library. Or, rereading one!
Since I just finished one I’ve read before, I’ll tell you about it and why I do.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society takes place mostly on the island of Guernsey, part of the British Channel Islands during 1946.
It is an epistolary novel which means it’s in the form of letters. Some short, some long between an author, her publisher, his sister, her suitor, and the people living in Guernsey after World War II that move the story along.
Guernsey was occupied by the Germans during the war before the Allies landed in Normandy. The letters weave the present days of 1946 with the stories of the townspeople during the occupation.
It’s heart warming and educational and now I would like to visit Guernsey. Since that won’t happen any time this year or next, I’m going to find books about the island and the occupation.
This book is a “palate cleanser” when you’ve just finished something fairly intense and just can’t jump into something else right away. That’s why it’s the perfect re-read!
My husband and I took a Viking cruise with my sister and her husband in October of 2022. We started in Paris, cruised the Seine to Normandy and returned. It was really magical! We both agreed our favorite day was the round trip by bicycle to Monet’s garden.
Ready for Day 3 aboard the Viking Skaga
We started the day in La Roche-Guyon and visited the town for 2 hours before taking off to Vernon and Monet’s Garden. It was delightful and I’ll share that excursion at another time!
We met our guide on the pier and everyone taking the bike ride was fitted for their appropriate bike and helmet. I applauded all the people that rode but some would have been better suited for the bus trip there. Not being mean, just truthful. We had a bike crash before we even got over the river. On the green in front of the pier there were monuments in recognition of the Allied troops liberating Vernon.
Monuments on Vernon Green at Pier
The ride was about 3-1/2 miles both ways! Luckily there are bike paths that we rode on. We did have to cross some streets and that was a little hairy! We stayed up close to the guide so we could ride freely and not fear crashing into the back of someone.
Once there, we stopped at the Elise Saints-Radegonde de Giverny (church) and we visited the burial site of Claude Monet and his family.
Giverny churchSweet cherub hanging from the beamMonument for Claude Monet
Then it was on to the grounds of Monet’s home. What a breathtaking sight! I had no idea what to expect and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The sun was shining and the flowers were all in bloom. The colors were so vivid, I don’t think it was possible to take a bad picture. I selected some of my favorites to share.
A sample of the flowers and boats in the waterI was just lost in the scenery. I wasn’t worried about losing my people, we were all doing the same thing!
We made our way to the house and the garden around it.
A view from the houseI took this from inside the house. When I looked at it, I thought I took a picture of a painting!
We had a half hour left before we needed to meet our group, so my husband and I sat and had a latte and a tart as a snack before our bike ride back! We took a different route back and we thankfully didn’t have to cross any streets.
On our rideThe view from our rideA little park we all gathered at before heading to the boatSomething out of a fairy tale!
We gathered at a park and our guide and her helper had cider and the absolutely most delicious macrons I’d ever tasted in my life. It was so difficult not to eat them all right there! After our treat, we rode back to the boat and said our goodbyes.
From there it was dinner and a walk around the top deck to take in the full moon and think about the bucket list day we enjoyed.
Have you ever read a book and wondered how the author grabbed that thought or feeling out of your brain? Wondered how they can tap into that emotion you thought was long buried? It can bring tears or smiles or a renewed feeling of confidence.
This book reads like a group of short stories. But, what’s interesting, is a character from one chapter might just pop up in another one! The first chapter is about the young woman who writes the book and her family life growing up. She goes away to college and has signed up for a Creative Writing class, telling her parents, who wouldn’t have approved, that it was a core requirement. In her first week, her professor tells the class to “Write me a story”. He tells her she’s a gifted writer but her story reads like she’s just observing, he wants more emotion.
The book she writes is named “Theo”. It makes the rounds of publishing houses and is rejected all around. It finally gets read by a book editor tasked with reading piles of manuscripts that arrive daily at a small publishing firm. Once finished reading she emails her boss with two words, “This One”.
It’s read for an audible book by an actor who is losing his Hollywood looks. By a widower, but someone struggling with family dynamics. And so on, through about nine people in total. All suffering in some way, who either happen upon the book, have it recommended, or bought, or left behind for them.
All the characters who read the book were struggling with something in their life. All found something to renew themselves, either to carry on or gave them a new pathway forward in their life.
I bought this book at Barnes and Noble from the New Fiction shelf but I’d never heard of it, just something that caught my eye! I guess it was meant to be.
Shower thoughts. We’ve all got them right? Here’s mine from today….
I want to send a thank you card to a remodel company owner and staff who hosted an open house when I was in Ann Arbor Michigan last week. Actually, it was in my reminders for Monday, but life and that “jump into routine” mode got in the way. Hence, me thinking about it in the shower!
His name is Jef. Short and sweet. But where’s the customary second F? Was he born Jef? Jefrey? Jeffrey shortened and dropped the second F? So many thoughts none of which turned into actual questions!
That lead me down the rabbit hole to vowels, consonants and what happens when you put them together.
We learn in elementary school that a vowel followed by 2 consonants will give the vowel a short sound. But a vowel followed by one consonant gives it a long sound. Right?
I started going down the list of names in my family. Nancy – the A has the NC before the Y. Cool. But Janice only has the C between the I and E which signals a long I. JanIce. Hmm what’s up with that?
Steven – gives a long E but Stephen? Well, that’s pronounced the same but shouldn’t because of the PH!
Mark – no surprise, Cody – the same, but what’s up with E-m-I-l-y! No wonder words are hard for a beginner!
My first item of business today will be my thank you card to Jef!
I finally got around to reading one of my Real Simple magazines that have been piling up. It was the September 2022 issue. I got halfway through and then it ended up under my instructions for a scarf I’m knitting. I decided to finish it because nothing gets thrown out until I’ve at least glanced through it. And that’s when I found this article…. How to Be Less Busy by Catherine Hong stopped me dead in my tracks.
She started out talking about The Phantom Tollbooth’s Terrible Trivium, who was a “demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit”. “if you only do the easy and useless jobs, you’ll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult”.
Wow, that is me! When I’m at the office, I always gravitate to the routine, the easy, the things I can do with my eyes closed. “Must get these done FIRST before I can move on to what I REALLY want to do”, I say to myself. “All of this is much more important than those out-of-the-ordinary projects on my list!”
When I’m at home, I’m always tidying up, always organizing (not cleaning!). On weekends I think I have to get everything done before I relax but when I do relax I pop up like a jack in the box because it feels wrong to sit and relax.
Well, what’s the answer? She has eight suggestions. The first is: “examine the root of your devotion to productivity”.
From the article: “Was your relationship with your parents transactional with their love, attention, or rewards doled out based on your performance rather than your inherent worth? Deep down do you think breaks are for wimps and whiners who aren’t as tough as you? Do you think you haven’t earned the right to take a break? Life experience, culture, and families can instill the desire to overachieve. If we understand where the “toxic productivity” comes from, and create a new story for ourselves where we deserve love and rest, it can help us carve out time for ourselves, unapologetically.”
That is A LOT to unpack! I feel some truth to the transactional relationship, not because they were cold or unfeeling parents, but because I was one of three girls all aged within 18 months of each other. There was the older sister, middle sister, and younger sister. Perhaps our best performances did receive the rewards. I was told by my mother when she came through in a medium reading that “You were always like that”. “That” would be my need to keep everyone and everything under control.
The second suggestion is: “Accept that your to-do list will never be done”. THIS IS ME! My to-do list comes and goes but that In Box? I will get a burst of energy at 4:15pm on Friday afternoon and I am just absolutely determined to clear my inbox before I can walk out that door! I get this ridiculous pit in my stomach while I’m trying to get the work done and out. Block out some time for to-dos and some time for leisure. For my office problem, I think it would be to block out time for to-dos and time for those “special projects” I want to get to but am “too busy” to do!
I’m going to work on those two suggestions but will come back and share some of the remaining suggestions.
May is Short Stories month and I enjoy reading them. This book caught my eye at the library last week so I checked it out.
The title doesn’t really seem to match the stories which all contain some type of illicit affair. A high school senior with her teacher, a couple of long distance relationships that get by between visits with phone or computer sex, and few, there are 11 stories in all, with the same characters at different stages over the course of a few years.
They were humorous for the most part and I actually enjoyed them (I spent most of the afternoon reading!), but in some of them I was fearful they would get caught, or annoyed that they could be so rotten to their spouse.
I cast no judgment but know it’s not something I’d ever do to my husband of 35 years! But in my 20s at the end of a couple of shitty relationships……
I can look out my family room window and almost remember this sight with the blanket on the lawn for us, the chicken coop foundation in the background, and the mother of all maple trees.
There was a kiddie pool in front of us where we had car tire-sized inner tubes (remember those black ones with the stem that would scratch you if you weren’t careful?!)
Clothes hanging on the line to the left, extending from the house to a dead tree. I’m not sure how the tree withstood the loads of laundry for so many years!
The driveway was gravel and every summer we toughened our feet up walking down it “ouch” -ing and “ooo” -ing all the way.
There was an apple tree with a swing where I received my first bee sting as I was swinging and swatting at the bothersome bee. THAT hurt!
The old chicken coop foundation was ground level and the sides gradually got higher as the ground dropped away. We would run around until we got to the back and walked very carefully around.
Against the back wall was Rhubarb that grew wild (as did asparagus in another part of the yard!). When it was ripe, we’d get a baggie of sugar, tear off a stalk, and scoop up the sugar. I guess that’s where I got hooked on sugar!
All of it’s gone now – the foundation replaced by a 2 story garage, the mother of a maple tree removed because of disease, the clothesline, and the pool.
The gravel became asphalt but is once again gravel as my husband has turned the space out the back door into his garden sanctuary and we’re spending more time in the space I spent growing up.
Garage that replaced the chicken coop; maple tree that has now become the mother of maple trees
A blog I follow has a calendar for the month of May with one small task to complete each day.
May 1st is “Write Your Why”. SUCH A LOADED QUESTION!
I attempted to write it this morning but I didn’t get far. I took it as “Why do you live your life the way you do” and with that, I focused on myself. I described my why about being good to myself, to feel happy mentally and physically. It’s been an effort over the years to quiet my internal critic. I continued to think about it, feeling like maybe I’d lost the Why, because I have spent 35+ years focusing on my husband and son, and the clients in our business.
I googled it this afternoon and ran across a TED Talk by Johnson McDowell. He is a teacher in his 40s with a wife and young son and he was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. It was caught early enough, a small tumor, and he was able to have Whipple surgery and is now on chemotherapy. He gave a talk, “Know Your Why”.
I was close – because the why is not a thing, the Why are the Who. The Who(s) you get up for every morning, live for, love. They are your spouse, children, parents if you have them still, siblings, and friends you haven’t seen in years. The second Who are the people in your life – in his case students, in my case everyone who makes our business work so well like employees, clients, vendors, and trade partners. That Who can also be myself as I originally wrote!
Now that I know my WHY are all the WHOs in my life, I will work to show them love and kindness. I will reach out to friends and family I have lost touch with. I will be of service to people who need me. Not only will I treat others with love and kindness, I will treat myself with love and kindness because I am definitely part of my why.
I fell in love with every story in this book, Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I read Interpreter of Maladies but no other of hers since then. Shame on me because she is an incredible writer!
Most intriguing were the final three stories – they were a trilogy! First in one voice and then in another and then….read it and you’ll see.
I seem to find takeaways from books lately and in one story I found it. A character says, “…grieving freshly for my mother as neither my father nor I had done. Being with her through her illness day after day had denied us that privilege.”
That is something I’m unpacking in my Seasons of Betty series on my blog centered around family and, for me anyway, it spoke such truth to my memories of that time that I reached for my phone to take a picture so I wouldn’t forget it.
If you enjoy short stories and stories about families, I recommend this and I’m going to catch up on all her other books that I’ve missed since reading Interpreter of Maladies!
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 