The inner life

I've been living a quiet life for the last few days. (Oh, you say, as opposed to the vivid, adventurous life you usually write about?)

I've knitted some - the shawl is now a foot long. I've read some - nearly finished Passage to India, and did finish another Summer Reading Challenge book, Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin by Marion Meade. (Click to read my review on Tea Reads.)

I chose the book because I love Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, and Zelda Fitzgerald. The whole post-WW1 era was stuffed with brilliant writers and brave politics. I hope I would have been on the picket line with Dorothy Parker, protesting the impending deaths of Sacco and Vanzetti. I would have haunted the magazines for new poems and writings by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Zelda's story touches my heart and spirit like almost no one else's.

Would I have thrived in those times? Probably not, not like these women. I don't drink gin (or bergin, for you Albee-lovers out there), and my hair (although I am 54) is nearly to my waist. Not only do I not crave the spotlight, I actively flee from any hint of it. The lives of Vincent, Dottie, and Zelda did not end well -- but they had LIVES then, and they made the most of their closeups.

Back to my knitting, and the next Summer Reading Challenge book.