I'm Still Going to School

When another amaryllis lover, Jemma of At Home with Jemma, wrote and asked me to write a guest post as part of her Living with Passion series, telling how I live my life with passion and how it affects my life, I started to run scared.

What grand results do I have from living my life with passion?

Where are the published books that are living proof of my passion for writing? When am I going to wipe the dust off the manuscript I put aside for the holidays, two months ago? The book I've been writing about three families, following them from 1840 to the early 1950s. I'm only at 1911 now. Or the completed manuscript that lies in a chair, in my line of vision right now, that had been undergoing its seventh revision?

What interferes with this grand passion? 

Life does, my friends, everyday life. Because it does go on, a miracle I don't often enough get down on my knees and give thanks for, and not just because it hurts my arthritis too much.

Everyday Life. What would I set aside? My family, my dogs, Judging Amy while I eat lunch?

Laundry, cooking, bill paying, housework?

Not blogging, certainly. I tried that once and lost something I looked forward to.

I just finished rereading, for about the 10th time in as many years, my very favorite novel, bar none, of all time, Rumer Godden's China Court. If you love books in which the main protagonist is a house, a wonderful, quirky, house with a heartbeat, then this is the book for you.

In the book, an exasperated aunt says of her niece Tracey who has inherited China Court instead of her and insists on living in the old ark of a house, not selling it as her aunts wanted to:

"'The child is obsessed with living, daily living,

that's all you can call it,' said Bella,

more than ever incensed."

Tracey herself admits:

"'I like living,' she said.

'Cooking and doing the flowers

and having animals.'"

Maybe for me, now in my seventh decade of life, I've become more like Tracey and her grandmother, Mrs. Quinn. Absolutely, writing is my passion, but so are my family, my dogs, my house.

Cooking, decorating, blogging.

          Nature, Nutella, and Inspector Armand Gamache.

                    James Beard, Vincent Price, Downton Abbey.

I want it all!

Each of them, at different times of my day is my grand passion.

I wrote Jemma that I was going to post about a local celebrity, a woman in her late 80s, about how she inspires me to live my life with passion. And I am going to do that in a post soon.

But not today.

Sure, I want to get those characters in my manuscript past 1911, but I also want to become an inspired cook, tweak my rooms until I no longer have the health to do it, be as excited about a new season of Downton Abbey as a child waiting for Santa, learn how to appreciate art half as much as Vincent Price did.

That's exactly why I loved the post Jemma wrote called "Aging with Style." Please read her post  at http://athomewithjemma.blogspot.com/2015/01/aging-with-style.html.

Jemma, I'm excited about learning what you and other guest writers have to say about Living with Passion and Purpose in this series. Because honey, I'm still going to school, still wanting to learn, more now than when I graduated from school all those years ago.

No words of wisdom here, Jemma, just another person wanting to be brave enough, wise enough, hardworking enough to live her life with passion.

And that octogenarian I started to post about, that I spent two days trying to make her fit this post? She says:

"To enjoy life, you have to have passion for it,

and then it isn't work."

Isn't she beautiful! Oh, yeah, I've got to tell you about her soon!

Meanwhile, I invite you to visit Jemma, again HERE, as I will be doing, to learn more about "The Passion, Purpose, Productivity Project."