Another Day in the Country
Keeping office hours
© Another Day in the Country
There seems always to be a stack of something in my office — a stack of bills, a stack of magazines, a stack of old lists, a stack of art ideas, a stack of miscellaneous objects that have no home.
There’s a stack of reminders, letters to write, birthdays to remember, gifts to give, wires to plug in, objects to charge, crumbs to brush away, glue lids to close, pens to organize, and a wastebasket to empty.
This is the home of too much wisdom, wasted time, yesterday’s memories, tomorrow’s things, books to read, Spanish flash cards to throw away, and boxes to open.
It’s no wonder that my bonus grandkids love playing here. There’s a piano to play, drums to bang, CDs to listen to, albums to open, games to wonder about, and a dozen sizes of envelopes.
There are big books and tiny volumes, long stories and short pencils, old tomes and nonsense, titles like “Raising Chickens,” “Leaving Home,” “The Borrowers”, “Do It Yourself,” “My Dog Chips,” and the “Zen of Seeing.”
Who could resist exploring in a place like this? There’s everything from a 1920s L.C. Smith typewriter to a 2024 Apple computer, from an old Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary printed first in 1955 to a New Scientist magazine with last week’s date on the cover.
A Wi-Fi transmitter and a toy duck sit on the desk, in front of an old wooden organizer that came from the first Ramona bank, which is no more.
There’s a collection of coins on the shelf and a collection of stamps in the drawer. Another drawer holds a horde of funny greeting cards and postcards to send to friends. The computer holds a list of addresses needed to complete the job.
My office has art on the walls — an old photo of my dad, posed at a little desk with a book. He was 4 years old. The frame is gold, oval, with a raised glass dome over the picture. It’s old.
The piano in the corner belonged to my mother. It has a bench loaded with sheet music. It used to house my nom’s hymnals. Perched on its side on the piano top is my dad’s cello. On the wall above is a photo of my collegiate grandson when he was 6 months old, banging on a piano. He became an accomplished pianist.
A collage of nails and bolts, bits, and barbs found on the dirt road in front of the tire repair shop in Tampa hangs on the wall.
We picked the objects up while I waited for my tire to be fixed. Then Dagfinnr and I came home and made the debris into art and laughed about the irony of finding all these things on the road in front of a tire repair shop.
The cabinet in this room is designed to hold books: 298 to be exact. I counted them. Ten of those books I wrote! They include a children’s book, a book of poetry, a family history (not mine), three biographies, a university bulletin, a study guide on Proverbs (I just did the art), and a compilation of stories about living in the country.
Five of the books on the top shelf contain lists of books I’ve read through the years along with a short quote if the book was good.
I finally stopped writing down what I read because I thought enough was enough and I couldn’t any longer find Laurel Burch blank books that I loved to write in.
The inscriptions in those blank books are sometimes fun to read.
Anne LaMont, “Blue Shoes” — “This gal is a delightful storyteller about mundane things like a lack of money.” Duh!
Or Pearl Buck, “The Eternal Wonder,” published by her kids years after her death when the manuscript was found — “The foreword was the most interesting part of the book.”
Here’s a book that was starred: “Ten Things I Learned About Love,” by Sarah Butler. — “A delightful read.”
And here’s a quote: “If you stand still in a place long enough, it will show itself to you. It takes time, but you find the patterns and once you find them, you can start to feel at home.”
Obviously, that quote resonated with me. I wrote it down, along with a bunch of others — two pages worth — in my little blank book of memorable reads.
One more: “Mercy Snow” by Tiffany Baker — No comment but two quotes. Here’s one: “Where did one person’s influence on another ever begin and end? Was there a way to make manifest the secret ties that bound unlikely souls together?”
Just reading that skiff of words makes me want to hunt up that book again in the library and reread it.
Alas, the shelves of books in my office are seldom ruffled. I’ve read them, cherished some, liked others, kept them all — some since childhood.
And now, they just sit there. I search them out on occasion, remembering some thought or sentence and wanting to quote it correctly.
Dusted infrequently, they stand resolute like the bones of my soul, reminding me of the path we’ve trod from childhood on through marriage and childrearing, triumph and tragedy — if not to me, then to the person in the book.
I look around the room that I call my office and see paintings I’ve made, Indian blankets I’ve kept, the ladder I bought at an antique store to hold them.
There’s a cabinet of CDs I cannot even play anymore except in my old car and more pens and paper accumulated here than I’ll use in a year, along with a printer I both despise and need and a drawer full of bills I’ve gratefully paid in 2025.
There’s another drawer — a big drawer — in the built-in desk that was organized and filled with important papers 20 years ago when I moved into my mother’s home.
I keep thinking I need to go through that stuff and get it current, but I procrastinate. Maybe on another day in the country.