Exceedingly Mundane

I finished a most enjoyable book last night, “The Year of Pleasures” by Elizabeth Berg. I’m not quite sure what it is that first attracted me to this book; I know the cover grabbed me right away. The title also piqued my interest, and both of those, along with the blurb on the back made me buy it, even though I have a fairly hard and fast rule about buying books by authors I have never read. I rarely branch out and buy (aka pay my own money!) a book that I have not heard of or have previously read other books by that author. I usually prefer to take my chances and get a book from the library for my first time reading a new author. But, I had heard good things about Elizabeth Berg’s work and this book really sucked me in at the bookstore 🙂

I think one thing that I so enjoyed about this book was that I could totally relate to the character. Betta Nolan is a 55 year old woman, who has been married to the love of her life for most of her adult life. After he dies of cancer, she fulfills a dream they shared, and he insisted that she pursue, of moving from Boston to the Midwest. She buys the first home she sees and likes, and moves to town. She makes old friends and rekindles her friendship with her three college roommates. She meets a younger handyman and an older gentleman named Tom. She debates on opening up her own store for women, another dream she has had and one that her husband John always encouraged her to do. And, she grieves and tries to learn to live her life without her soulmate.

The book wanes a little in spots, but it’s the writing and the plot that appealed to me. First, I see myself in the character of Betta, a woman who was unable to conceive and spends her life devoted to one man and her marriage, forsaking most everyone and everything else in her life. Second, the book is really about learning to enjoy the simple things in life, small pleasures, and about how all of those strung together can make for a peaceful, happy existence. This is my philosophy on life, to be sure. I live a simple, abundant life full of small things that make me happy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am so glad I read it! I hated to see it end and would have liked for it to have gone on a bit further and seen more of what would happen to Betta in the coming months and years.

For the record, that makes #3 on the year, with a total of 816 pages read. Up next is a book that my dear friend Susie sent me, that she read and really enjoyed – “All That Matters” by Jan Goldstein. I can’t wait to get started on it, thanks Susie!!!

P.S. I decided to follow Dianne’s advice and post a “bit from something you’re reading”. Thanks Dianne! 🙂 Click on the extended entry if you’d like to read a few of the passages that I really enjoyed or that moved me in some way. Or I just really liked how they were written!

From “The Year of Pleasures” by Elizabeth Berg… random bits from the book:

1.
“For the most part, the houses were old and large and well cared for. Alleys ran behind them – the wide, old-fashioned ones I’d always loved for the way they offered views of the backs of people’s houses. In alleys, things were more casual and more intimate – and therefore more revealing. In summer, you saw things like colorful plastic glasses left on little outdoor tables, rugs draped over back-porch railings, toys strewn across lawns or homemade sandboxes, laundry on the line with the sleeves of upside-down shirts seeming to wave. There might be holly-hocks and snapdragons and gigantic sunflowers, tomatoes hanging heavy on the vine, green peppers hiding in the shade of their own leaves and waiting to be found like Easter eggs. There might be sugar snap peas climbing chain-link fences with curly abandon, children’s gardens with leggy printing on Popsicle sticks identifying dependable and forgiving crops: zucchini, carrots, marigolds. In winter, you could find families of snowmen, sleds resting against walls like tethered horses, imprints of snow angels, lopsided circles with wedge-like lines stamped out for a game of snow pie. And no matter what the season, I always liked seeing what was left by the big garbage cans: boxes from new purchases, kitchen chairs with broken rungs, refrigerators with the doors removed, suggesting an odd kind of nakedness.”

2.
“John and I had often talked about how focused our culture was on distraction, about how ill suited we were to staying with things, following them through in a respectful and thorough way. There was a great discomfort with quiet, with stillness, at the same time that there was acknowledgement of how valuable these things could be. I once read an essay about a woman who spent an entire day simply looking at what she had, really seeing all the things she’d put in her house. I was as guilty as anyone else of buying books I never read, of rushing through days without ever looking up, of taking for granted things for which I should give thanks every day. Who appreciated their good health until they lost it? Who said grace? Who read to their children before bed without one eye on the clock, despairing of all they had to do before they themselves could sleep? Who engaged cashiers in grocery stores in conversations? Everyone seemed in a blind hurry, and there was no relief in sight. Technology rushed us ever forward, and simple civility – a certain kindness and care – got sacrificed. I was was lucky not to have to take the first job that came along, lucky to be able to enter into a kind of purposeful inaction in order to refocus. I looked forward to it, in a sad kind of way. The price didn’t seem worth the purchase.”

3.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible. Maybe I would simply grow used to it. There were other things I could still do to add spice to my life. Travel, for one – John and I had never gotten to Greece. Or to China. Or Africa. Or Alaska. I took a pen and paper from the drawer – perhaps it would be good to make a list of ideas for things to do, and cross them off as I did them. It would keep me focused and looking forward to the future; it would lessen my anxiety. In times of despair, it would be good to have a whole list of possibilities I might refer to.

I leaned against the pillows and rested the pad of paper on my knees. I tapped the pen against my teeth, thinking. And thinking. Finally, I put the pen and paper away. The things that brought me the most comfort now were too small to list. Raspberries in cream. Sparrows with cocked heads. Shadows of bare limbs making for sidewalk filigrees. Roses past their prime with their petals loose about them. The shouts of children at play in the neighborhood, Ginger Rogers on the black-and-white screen. But trips? No. Without John, no. For now, only raspberries, only cream. Only books waiting at the bedside. Only the worn flannel of my favorite pajamas. Everything else was just too big.”