Nature's Best

It's Sunday and Edith is home again!

I was gone for the weekend to visit a dear friend (and good writer) at the shore.

From her porch I could see the great Atlantic rolling on, and the horizon looked so curved I didn't know how anyone could have ever said the world was flat.

My friend always writes at night, and I never knew why.

Now, of course, I understand. A computer is far too small a thing to look at when an ocean is practically underneath your nose.

(Maybe that's why sea-captains only keep logs? After all, Melville wrote Moby Dick when he was dry-docked, and working as a file clerk. I wonder how many great sagas were written at sea? I'd say none. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

And that classic bucolic scene with a poet lying on some grassy sward, and writing?

I don't believe it.

Of course, everyone has a favorite reading place and writing space.

I can read or write in a plane, train, or automobile. Or while children are playing right next to me. That's just noise and doesn't distract me, because words transport me.

But I can't concentrate when Nature is showing off. Not near blue lakes or bubbling streams or vast oceans, of course. Nor in a clover filled meadow.

My favorite places to read? On a couch in the living room, or at the kitchen table, while sitting on a hard chair.

NEVER in bed, because that makes any book a sleeping pill, at least for me.

Sorry I couldn't come up with a more sensational topic, or question.

But I just got back for staring at a wide blue sea, and obviously, my mind is still there...

So. How about you? Do you have a favorite place to read or write? And where can't you do either one or the other?

Comments

[Cathy]

My favorite place to read is by our pool. I have large potted hibiscus all around, petunias in planter boxes and the pool nearby, of course. My husband wired the space for sound so good music, lively or soothing, is also on. We lunch and dine by the pool, too. We like to eat large salads with hunks of provolone cheese, marinated artichoke hearts, roasted tomatoes with good olive oil and the really good Balsamic vineagar. The wine is usually light and mild. How did I get off the topic of reading? Well, to me they are perfect together. My husband is also an avid reader and so we can spend hours on the pool deck reading, drinking and eating.

[Cathy]

My favorite place to read is by our pool. I have large potted hibiscus all around, petunias in planter boxes and the pool nearby, of course. My husband wired the space for sound so good music, lively or soothing, is also on. We lunch and dine by the pool, too. We like to eat large salads with hunks of provolone cheese, marinated artichoke hearts, roasted tomatoes with good olive oil and the really good Balsamic vineagar. The wine is usually light and mild. How did I get off the topic of reading? Well, to me they are perfect together. My husband is also an avid reader and so we can spend hours on the pool deck reading, drinking and eating.

[Nina P]

Cathy... the salad sounds scrumptious! Now I’m hungry.

I read sprawled out across my bed, or any bed, (traveling) pen in hand. I'm always writing little notes.

MS work happens wherever me and my laptop happen to be. At a water fall complete with splashing drakes, under the cover of white pine, high in my tree house or sitting in middle of my back yard surrounded by moon slit stillness. I do my best work under the full moon.

But noise... I can't abide by noise. You'd think I could, growing up the first of nine. But I can’t. Not any more. Headphones are my word count goal's best friend.

Well, it be back to work with me.

--the littlest wenchling, glad to have Wench Edith back in the house.

[Lesley]

Confession time: I read at stop lights. If I could figure out a way to read as the car is moving, I'd do that too. I read and watch t.v. at the same time. If I have a hand free to pick up a book, I read. It's an illness, doctors can't help.

[Patricia Rice]

I can read anywhere, including upside down and with a candle, if necessary. Writing is a little tricker and depends on what I'm doing and the mood I'm in and the weather outside. But being surrounded by the loveliness of nature inspires more than distracts. Mosquitoes are not lovely, so lately nature hasn't been much of an inspiration. "G" I miss my NC treehouse. Now that was a great place for reading and writing, with the trees whispering just on the other side of the deck!

[Patricia Rice]

Typepad is being ugly today. It took forever for it to post my comment to Loretta and just lost my comment here. Guess I'll wait before continuing, but here's one last try--

I love to read and write with the inspiration of nature around me. But mosquitoes aren't inspiring, so I've been working inside lately. "G" I miss my NC treehouse!

[DeniseM]

I read anywhere and everywhere, though I will admit that Nature is a bigger distraction than the T.V. And, yes, I read at stoplights, too. When I'm into a particularly good or much anticipated book, I take it with me everywhere and read in whatever snatches I can get. I've even read a few sentences while driving when there weren't any cars around me, before I konked myself on the head for being stupid and asking for a wreck. Me Bad, I know.

[Jane]

I like to read while knitting, in my comfy chair in the living room, or during the summer, outside in a lawn chair. Sometimes the cat joins me and curls up on my lap or at my feet, purring away.

[Sherrie Holmes]

Edith, my favorite place to read is in bed. I prop myself up with a million pillows and get really comfortable, and then lose myself in a story. I have fallen asleep many a time with a book on my face. (Laytons are especially notorious for keeping me up way past my bedtime)

Reading in bed is good for writers. After you turn out the lights, all those words settle into the nooks and crannies of your brain where they divide and multiply and conjugate. By morning, there's a fresh batch of new words ready for the muse to pick up on her way to work.

And since it is now time for bed, I'm headed there now, with a book tucked under my arm ...

[Melissa]

Edith, I agree I can not read in bed but in honesty if I lay still in bed for more than 5 minutes I'm
sound a sleep but I always read in the living with my two boys running around and cartoons blasting from the T.V . My husband says he can't see how I can block it all out. Lol! I just read and allow myself to flow in to their world.