Journal of a Sabbatical

October 30, 1998

purple skies

the book pile

Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan

At the moment the sky is the most incredible combination of purples and pinks and magentas. The purple sky keeps yanking my attention away from the computer screen. I can't really see the sunset from my office. The window faces south. But I am blown away by the reflected light show on the clouds tonight. The colors change every two or three minutes getting darker and bluer. As light finally goes out of the sky and the street lamp outside the window snaps on, I feel like the day is over already and I've wasted it again. Actually, I haven't totally wasted it. It just feels that way.

I've been sleeping 'til 11:00 or so these last two days and feel hugely guilty about it because there is so little daylight left by the time I get out and about. I must've needed the sleep though, 'cause I never heard the alarm. That huge bump on my head has shrunk and doesn't hurt unless I touch it, and my breathing sounds a little less like Darth Vader. So maybe whatever it is just required a little extra sleep. Who knows.

I stopped by Ned's house this afternoon planning to leave the two copies of my photo of Tom in his magistrate costume from the play, which he'd given me two bucks to get (one for him and one for Patrick) in his mailbox. I scribbled a note on the photo envelope and stuffed the change from his two bucks (the copies were $1.63) in the envelope and headed up his driveway figuring he wouldn't be home.

Ned spotted me from the window as I bent down to pet the cat. His mother's dog greets me at the door. And so I too get invited to see the books . I ended up spending more time looking at his sports memorabilia than at the books, but sipping coffee in Ned's basement surrounded by that many books of ghost stories and occult tales is quite the experience. Somehow, though, Ned has got onto the "there must be some way you can make a living writing" bandwagon and comes up with the idea that I should write nature specials for Animal Planet. How we got from the occult to my future remains shrouded in mystery. Oddly, Ned has radios with tubes in them. I forget to tell him I have one that I built a jillion years ago. Caroline comes home from school where she's given a history presentation dressed as Mark Twain. This is my cue to leave. Ned lends me a reading copy of The Worst Journey in the World, which I've been wanting to read and gives me a copy of a photo of his mother holding a falcon.

How I Met Ned: It's all very odd really, the chain of events by which I ended up drinking coffee in Ned's basement surrounded by old books, sports memorabilia, personal memorabilia, hats, and photos of ancestors. The chain of cause and effect goes way back. Odd how one thing leads to another and another and you can never tell at the start where it'll end up.

Joan-west and I were vacationing in Big Sur back sometime in 1993 (4?). We stopped at Nepenthe for coffee and toast on the deck overlooking the Pacific. In the gift shop, I bought a copy of Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch.. What on earth has this got to do with Ned you ask? I'm getting to that.

For the rest of the trip, during the cold nights by the fireplaces wherever we stayed we read each other passages from Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch.. Neither of us had read much if any Henry Miller before and had kind of shied away from his writing because of his alleged misogyny and other supposed undesirable characteristics. However, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. turned out to be brilliant, funny writing infused with eastern spirituality.

I got hooked. I read The Air Conditioned Nightmare, and of course re-read Tropic of Cancer. I would send Joan-west little snippets of Henry Miller quotes on postcards whenever I traveled. I read The Colossus of Maroussi on the plane on the way to Tokyo on a business trip and was disappointed to land not in Greece but in Tokyo - it was that powerful.

And it was that trip to Tokyo that began to tip the balance toward quitting my soulless corporate job and taking up the writing life. Among other things.

Fast forward to spring of 1995. I'm fresh from the Natalie Goldberg writing workshop in New Mexico, having quit my soulless job, and sitting in the Coffee Connection reading Henry Miller's The Books in My Life after a morning of writing practice. A guy comes over to my table to talk about Henry Miller. This turns out to be Tom. We chat about The Air Conditioned Nightmare and our opinion that Henry Miller is one of the most underrated American writers.

Over the next few weeks, we talk more. Tom is very good at drawing people out and getting good conversations going.

One day, Ned comes into the Coffee Connection. Tom introduces us. And that, dear readers, is how the spontaneous purchase of Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. at a gift shop in Big Sur led to sipping coffee among old books in Ned's basement.