A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit

Since I'm only halfway through this book, I'm not entirely ready to recommend it, heartily or otherwise.  But, wow, can this woman make good sentences and paragraphs:

"It is the job of artists to open doors and invite in prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar...."

"Children seldom roam, even in the safest places.  Because of their parents' fear of the monstrous things that might happen (and do happen, but rarely), the wonderful things that happen as a matter of course are stripped away from them.  For me, childhood roaming was what developed self-reliance, a sense of direction and adventure, imagination, a will to explore, to be able to get a little lost and then figure out the way back.  I wonder what will come of placing this generation under house arrest."

These sentiments remind me of the open doors created by artists, and the roaming in the woods Betty and I used to do, the shelter of pine trees, the picking of blackberries.  And the walks downtown with a dollar to spend, stopping in all the stores just to look around and talk to the storekeepers who all knew us and our parents.

(I'm reading A Field Guide to Getting Lost with a mix of pleasure and duty before I get into Gloria Steinem's book, My Life on the Road, which I'm looking forward to reading.)

***

Today Mike and I spent the morning at the ER Clinic for his respiratory infection--I insisted that he start on meds before flying--and now that stubborn man is out spreading mulch in the cold wet air.

"Do you smoke?" No way!  "Do you drink?" No, maybe a bottle of wine a year.  Both true.

"Do you have any other medical issues?"  No.  (He chose not to mention high blood pressure.)

But when they measured it and found it "through the roof," he had to admit that "sometimes" he had a touch of high blood pressure, "nothing to worry about."  They gave him a pill and waited half an hour to see if it would go down--which it did.

What he wanted for dinner his last night here was Frito Pie--so we went to Wendy's, got two bowls of chili, and cooked it with Fritos, Pico de Gallo, and cheese, then topped it with guacamole.