I’ve got a ton of sewing projects ahead of me. Above, I just finished Amy Butler’s Swing Bag as a birthday present for my baby sister, this time making the pockets larger and two instead of three. The pockets sag a bit, so I added some velcro to keep the outside looking clean. Like mine, this one’s reversible. One side’s a wonderful linen blue pattern, and inside a cotton orange/yellow paisley.

I also whipped up my first Hourglass pillow, one of Amy Butler’s free patterns. The contrasting fabrics—the red aloha fern pattern with a more traditional Asian floral pattern—might seem like a strange combination, but I’m hoping they’ll serve as diplomats among the warring pinks/reds and blues of my living room. In Hawaii, I decided that patterns make me feel at home. The homes of my grandmother and both my aunts use patterns in abundance. No more of this blank, modern palate. Patterns on patterns on patterns. Maybe it’s the buk-buk in me, but I love it.

One down, three more to go.

“The first sentence of every novel should be: ‘Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.’ Meander if you want to get to town.” — Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion

My summer reading, which I had looked forward to all spring, is over. Today I opened Three Cups of Tea, which I’ll be teaching in the fall and which promises to be wonderful, but summer reading has the allure of being completely my own. So begins lesson planning and required reading.

I had wanted to read page-turning, feel good stories such as Water for Elephants, with a few classics thrown in to make me feel less like I’ve been schlepping through my reading life. But between writing, working, and Anna Karenina, I only made it through Joyce’s Dubliners, Fugard’s Skinner’s Drift, Moore’s Sleeping Beauties, Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion, Choi’s Foreign Student, and the massive Anna.

People with English degrees continue to tell me that I must read the classics so that I can understand what’s come before me. And I can say, from this limited sample, that I preferred the contemporary stories to the classic ones. Granted, I chose them because they touched on things I’m interested in right now, mostly self-exile. I loved Fugard, Moore, Ondaatje and Choi, and I learned a great deal about technique from Joyce and Tolstoy. Making this distinction, reading for pleasure versus reading for form, makes me feel as if I’m growing as a reader.

This is not to say that I did not learn from the contemporary writers as well, it’s just they had the added bonus of being hard to put down. I inhaled, as always, Moore’s work; I seriously pondered Choi’s characters, I reveled at the brilliant POV shifts of Fugard, and felt lost in the beautiful poetry of Ondaatje’s novel.

Also (since the Tolstoy read deserves a mention), what’s wonderful about Anna Karenina is it’s breadth; it’s wonderful, intersecting story lines that have the pace of real life. Things take time. His characters are distinct, three-dimensional, with wonderful interior monologue. His humor and tragedy is spot on. I’m sure I’ll return to it again and again as its student.

In all, it was a wonderful summer of reading. Francine Prose, in her Reading Like a Writer, states that we read for courage. I believe that. There’s a world full of books that break the rules, that show us how it can be done and it’s sometimes more beneficial than a classroom full of people to tell you how it can’t.

To keep me company on the long commutes to North County, where I work, I’ve been on a podcast frenzy. I listen to a slew of NPR podcasts, from the phenomenal “This I Believe,” “StoryCorps” (of which I’ve used several in my class) to the hour-long “Hearing Voices.” NPR also had wonderful readings by Tobias Wolff and Jhumpa Lahiri from their new books on Book Tour. Then, I exhausted the entire New Yorker Fiction podcast archive, particularly relishing the stories of John Cheever, Donald Barthelme, and Mavis Gallant. And after I exhausted all my usual resources, I turned to Oprah’s Soul Series.

I had come across the podcasts after searching for audio by Eckhart Tolle (author of the much-revered The Power of Now). Several people had recommended the book to me this summer, and Oprah has several interviews of him on podcast.

But I’m backing into the story the wrong way. Those podcasts are phenomenal, and I’m getting through them, and looking forward to reading the book. What happened is, Tolle’s voice is far too gentle for my rumbling car on the I-5, and so at first I listened instead to Oprah’s interview with Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance.

The book’s been around for more than a decade, but it’s the first I heard of it. What struck me most in the interview was the need to be grateful in your life, and that gratitude is a path to grace. How many times in these last weeks have I complained instead of being grateful? Oh, I lost my voice. I can’t believe so-and-so did or didn’t or say or didn’t say this or that. Getting pulled into others’ drama. Reliving my mistakes. Wringing my hands over my future. Worrying about where I’ll be next summer. Feeling like there’s so little time for me in my own life. What I needed, if anything, was a reminder of all the good there was in my life.

So I went out and borrowed the book from the library. I immediately felt a kinship with it. The book details six creative and spiritual principles: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy. These are discussed in mini-essays, one for each day of the year. Last year, I sought guidance in The Artist’s Way, cementing my decision to follow a creative path. Perhaps Simple Abundance will help guide me this year. I feel I just need a little push.

The Jan. 1 essay begins with a quote from Zora Neale Hurston, “There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.” I’m not sure which the last has been, but it has been challenging: career change, major move, death, life. I know I wouldn’t change my life for anything, but the stress consumes me. How could gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy NOT help me, or anyone, for that matter?

On this journey, you keep a Gratitude Journal, in which you write down five things you are grateful for that day just before you sleep. You should try it, too. I’ll begin.

Today, I’m grateful for…
1. Half time off from work so my body can heal and rest.
2. The comfort of my home, particularly my kitchen that feeds me and my bed that cradles me.
3. The “new” kitchen shelving that fits perfectly between the oven and the counter. I’ve been looking for such a thing for a year and found it today on the side of the road. I’m such a dumpster diver!
4. The sweet text message from B, still out of town on work.
5. My sewing machine that has produced a cute—albeit imperfect—blouse for me.

With happy thoughts, good night.

So I’ve been crazy with the new job, and have a feeling I’ll be out of sorts until I end next month. But I have been wishing that I had more time to sew, since I finally took the old machine out of the closet.

My first, and really, only project this summer has been Amy Butler’s swing bag. This may be the first truly usable thing I’ve made from scratch, and I added nifty little pockets to suit myself. The pockets don’t make it as pretty, but I no longer have to guess where everything is. Anybody who’s ever seen me try to open my door (“Keys, keys, come out wherever you are”), or find my ringing phone (“Damn you, I know you’re in here”) will rejoice.

I can’t wait to try more of her patterns, they’re all stunning! Stylish but laid back, just my thing.

So after a hiatus, I’m back. To be honest, I went from having too little time on my hands during the school year, to having too much. My goal was to use the time to begin the novel, read a bunch of literary magazines, send out stories, and read some Russians.

I don’t do well with lots of time, and I’m gladly returning to work next week. But I’ve made a decent dent in the novel, and sent out my first batch of submissions last night. I’ve read that it takes an average of 20 rejections before a magazine accepts a piece, so I’m reminding myself to persevere. Of course, in my rush to finish things before work begins, I forgot to stamp my self-addressed envelopes. Many of these magazines state that they’ll outright reject manuscripts without them. So I panicked, called the man at the post office depot at midnight. The store had just closed. It’s okay, he said. No problem. Come now.

So I’m running across the street, braless in Hillcrest. He opened the envelopes, I stamped the ones nestled inside with my mss., and he taped them up again. We were an assembly line. He said next time I come after midnight I have to bring him tequila. I love this man.

He reminds me of the proprietor of my favorite Middle Eastern deli in San Jose. Kindness and playfulness behind his gruff demeanor, single-handedly running a business. He works endlessly. I used to give him the vegetables in my garden, and he would share his recipes with me. I always felt humbled by his work ethic, warmed by his honesty. The last time I saw him, his father had died that morning. He was oceans and continents away, tied to his business, and couldn’t return for the funeral. He hugged me, anyway, told me to come back.

And here’s this man in San Diego, telling me, Sleep is for losers. Hearty laugh. I like to work, he says. But not for other people. Just for myself, I work.

So the stories were sent. Anna Karenina’s next on the book queue. Then Fathers and Sons.