Go on a holiday.

On May 7, 2004 I read "From the Orange Mailbox: Notes From a Few Country Acres" by A. Carman Clark. The writing was a bit awkward but overall the book was thought provoking. It is one of those nice reflective books. The combination of nature, gardening, cooking and family was comforting. It was nice taking a sort of small vacation in New england for a year. Divided into monthly chapters the book allowed the reader to see the changes in season.

I picked this book up in a thrift store in Mississippi while working on the I-69 project with Lisa and Doug Wells, Norm Davis and Alli Newton. (Do the books in thrift stores represent what the local population have read and enjoyed or have read and disliked?)

A few quotes I liked come from the author but also from those she has read.

"I can't change yesterday and I may not awaken tomorrow morning. But this day is mine." (pg. xi, author)

"the worst poverty anyone can have is a poverty of mental interests" (Hemingway)
-Does this come from not having faced any other forms of poverty?

"We have lived not in proportion to the number of years we have spent on the earth but in proportion as we have enjoyed them" (Thoreau)

"People-pleasing is corrosive"

"Life without laughter is mere existence"

I always find it good to ponder some of the lines I read in books. You have to be careful to remember that the context of the quotes must be regarded. Although they are often presented alone they are only part of a whole.