What's So Special About Tuesdays

When you don’t know how to start, start anywhere. That’s my theme for today. And since today is a Tuesday, I tossed that word into the title.

What’s special about this particular Tuesday is that I get to thank all you subscribers for subscribing. My email inbox has dinged and dinged. I’m humbled and grateful.

And a very special thank you to my friend Robyn Ryle at “You Think Too Much” for recommending “Northern Dispatches” to her readers. If I knew how to create a hyperlink for her newsletter without going down an Internet rabbit hole, I’d do it right now.

Also special about this Tuesday is that it’s the birthday of my friend Becky from high school. I meant to send her a card. I didn’t get it done. But I remembered, and thinking of her makes this drizzly, gray morning more festive for me. The first six words that jump into my head to describe Becky for you are these: tough, smart, capable, unique, loving, pretty. Happy Birthday, Becky. Our friendship was one of the greatest treasures of my high school years and remains a treasure still.

A note in re. this newsletter: I need a word I can’t recall. I’ve been trying for a couple of days now. Maybe you all can help me. It’s a word that has a legalistic tone. It’s a word that says, “By the way, now that you’re involved in this, here’s what not to expect.” Or, “Here’s my guilty secret.” Or, more accurately, since it’s no secret, “Here’s how I’ll fail to quite live up to the mark, or anyway, my own expectations of the mark.”

Anyone know what that word is? I know I’m going to smack my own forehead when I hear it. Whatever it is, under that category comes this:

I am not good at responding to comments.

So, right here and right now, I preemptively respond to your comments:

Hello! Thank you for them! I read them; I appreciate them; I smile when I picture you out there, and in my head, I do respond.

So many of you are already known and dear to me. So maybe you will recall that I often describe myself as ‘not very digital.’ Doing this newsletter is a stretch. I like writing and communicating, but I don’t like being connected constantly to a screen or an app. A big chunk of me wishes I had a basement printing press and all the time in the world to lay out an actual print newsletter, complete with columns and departments, blurry photos (or better yet, line drawings), paper pages with folds and texture you can feel with your fingertips. Your actual real, live fingertips! (Stop a moment here. Indulge me. Close your eyes and feel your fingers.) There would be smudgy letter blocks, a printer’s rack, and I don’t even know what else. The smell of ink. The clatter of rollers running off pages. (If you want or need to actually experience this, and I think it is an antidote for much of what ails us, go to Gwen Frostic’s studio near Beulah, Michigan, as soon as you can. More on that, or at least I intend to one day write more on that, some other time. For now, I will just say, “Perfect. A gem.”)

I wish that every month or every week I’d crank off this imaginary pulp paper publication, tuck it into envelopes, and jam my mailbox out beside the road full of outgoing missives. But alas, I do not have a press or a basement, and that is not the way of the world anymore for the most part. (Plus, I suspect if I had a printing press, too often it would gather dust as I rambled around doing other stuff. Or napping. One of the many reasons I love winter: in winter, you can doze and sleep long hours and feel less slothful for it.)

What I will do, or hope I will do, is write more or less regularly. And when you comment, please know that even if I don’t respond, I’m thinking of you.

What else?

In my imaginary print newsletter, one of the departments is “Visitors.” Our visitors this week included a flock of evening grosbeaks.

Another department is “Quotes.” Or maybe, “Found Quotes.” This one came from my doctor’s office yesterday:

Have a good Tuesday, everyone.