Back in mid-April, at Beach Haven, when sweaters were de rigueur and wet hair dried in chilly crisps, when I rose early to meet the dolphins, when I tried to get away but work kept finding me anyway—back then, there was this woman by the sea. A retired school teacher, she told me. Never married. The kind of person who only ever reserved rooms in hotels where dogs are welcome and where you can bring a little pan of some pre-concocted stew and heat it. She was an off-season Beach Haven regular. She liked to sit in an old beach chair, its plastic weave gone slightly awry, with a fishing rod poked into the sand.
She liked, she said, to sit all day.
And from what I could tell, she did.
I liked how comfortable she was alone. How unafraid of time just passing. How dutiful she was in her self-commissioned role of watching the sky and sea change. I wondered if I could sit like that, if only for a day, and if, at the end of the day, I would better understand time, know more than most about what it is to measure out the hours.
I think of her now, when all I really want is to sit and read and (every now and then) look up and study a bird or listen to the chorus of the angry hot cicadas.
So, The Spiderwick Chronicles released yesterday. Did anyone see it yet? I haven't, but I'm excited to go.
TSC got me thinking about other children's books that could be coming to the big screen in 2009 and beyond. I did some digging and here are a few of the possibilities:
Life of Pi (book by Yann Martel)
Girl of the Moment (book by Lizabeth Zindel)
Beastly (book by Alex Flinn)
Ramona (We're probably all familiar with Ramona Quimby!)
Almost Home (book by Jessica Blank)
The Alchemyst (book by Michael Scott)
The Lightning Thief (book by Rick Riordan)
Pretty exciting, huh? I adored Beastly and it would make a fantastic movie for sure.
Know of any others that I didn't mention? When I was searching, I noticed that a lot of upcoming kids movies had one glaring theme--girl power. Yep, girls are taking bigger, stronger roles and being adventurers, princesses and cowgirls. Yay for girls doing it all!
Also, I wanted to thank everyone who e-mailed me or found me through my contact page since The Writer article came out. Thanks so much for your kind words and I'm glad to have made so many new contacts over the past week because of it. :)
TGIF! What are your weekend plans? I've got to edit and update my poor, ignored contact roster. I've got a thousand sticky notes with people's names and info that haven't made it into the book. Sigh.
Today's worthy of a double post because... I just got my March copy of The Writer and it has my Breakthrough column on page fourteen!!! Yay!! :) I've been trying to break into The Writer for five years and I'm beyond thrilled to see an article of mine in that mag.
I hope you guys check it out. :)
I always long for time like that, but even when I have it, it is so difficult to sit still and just allow myself to BE. Something always nags at me...do this or that.
But the day of reading or just staring at the water sounds so blissful.
And now I have fallen in love with this woman (who I can see perfectly.) I am looking for someone to adopt me and pay my bills for one month (I'd settle for one week) so I can do exactly this. Sit and be. It seems...impossible. One day might be more feasible.
Wow, what a great way to live...
What I yearn for, when I read this, is the quietness and the contemplation. I sit all day, but it is not quiet sitting...
I got to sit on the beach a few weeks ago for the first time in years and it was heaven. I was practically giddy driving up to the shore with my sister at the wheel. (this CA girl misses the ocean).
But what a gorgeous piece of writing, as usual, Beth. Every blog your write stuns me and just makes me stare at the screen and sigh with love. I could be *jealous*, you're just that good, but instead I just swoon. :-)
(Hope my geeky fan-girl words don't embarrass you!)