Hunter Farm

Barbara (Bobbie Shutt) Beckwith, at age 71

When I tried to write down An Ordinary Good Day, I realized that for me, a good ordinary day would be all of these:

A whole day of writing

I’d meet my writing buddy Susan at a coffee shop and for at least an hour we’d “freewrite” (spur-of-the-moment writing by hand – the way we launch new articles or essays). Then we’d swap manuscripts (current essays: “My French Persona,” “What’s on the other side of zero?” “Recovering My Blues” – about cataracts – and “Can I Feel Your Dreadlocks?”) or ideas for where to submit our pieces. I’d spend part of my “all-day-writing” walking (alone), which always gives me new ideas or helps me work out “sticking points.” Another part of the day I’d spend on submitting my work to newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and web journals. And then of course, an ordinary good day would be when I receive an acceptance of submitted work, or a check for published work.

A whole day of reading

Jon and I read the NY Times and the Boston Globe (the PRINT version) every day and I’ve just subscribed to the Christian Science Monitor for its international coverage (do I think I can single-handedly save the newspaper business?). When I go on vacation, I ask my neighbor to collect my newspapers so that I can read the news I missed. I must read magazines like Publishers Weekly, Women’s Review of Books, and Colorlines (articles about/by people of color). Ideally, I’d spend all day reading books, as well: novels (Towelhead) that grab me and won’t let me put them down; non-fiction to help me understand the world (Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America); memoirs (The Suicide Index) to live, in my imagination, other lives. Right now, after dinner, Jon and are reading aloud (swapping paragraphs, vying for the best accent and the fewest “what does that word mean?”) French books: first we eat, then we read Camus’ description of the Plague, or Simenon on the French Resistance, and after that Marcel Pagnol’s plays.

A whole day of exercise

Playing squash is the part of each weekday that I find both exhilarating and peaceful. I drive 20 miles to the club in Concord to play with one or more of about 6 women who regularly 8:30-10:00. I may beat one handily and be beaten handily by another: I am happy in the middle of the pack. I can’t speed around the court like most of my partners, who are younger than my sons, but I try to make up for it with clever shots. In the changing room, we swap advice on our sports-related injuries. Most days, I do 200 sit-ups after squash (when my body is warmed up). Ideally I’d also take a walk, swim some lapse, build my body in strengthening class (with weights) and center my body and mind with yoga. But that’s my fantasy ordinary day dedicated to exercise. Ideally, by the way, the weather would be in the 70s (not much higher or lower as it usually is), and inspire Jon and me to walk around Fresh Pond daily rather than once a week.

A whole day of socializing

In person, ideally — but more realistically by phone & mail – with my sisters, my sons, grandsons, my “inlaws” (such a formal name for the nearest of my dearest), my friends, my neighbors, my writing colleagues. Ideally, I’d go dancing every day, see an art exhibit, plays or a movie, or get together with friends spontaneously at an outdoor bar, our version of the french cafe lifestyle. Instead, I spend much of my day online. My social life is channeled largely through this one medium. I swap emails with my “body buddy” Gail and with my sister Joanne. I socialize alone: read for an hour or two in a noisy coffee shop, distracted only by people I overhear speaking french (can’t help listening). I sometimes think that I spend more time reading and writing about life than engaging in it!

A whole day organizing the National Writers Union.

Like my sisters Linda and Joanne, I like to, in Dad’s words, “make things happen through the effort of others.” I remind myself that Rosa Parks served as local NAACP secretary for years before she launched the bus boycott with her (2nd) refusal to move from the bus. Ideally, I’d spend all day every day inspiring writers to back each other up, share resources, “level the playing field.” I mentor newer writers by co-teaching a course on “getting your essays out into the world” and by giving talks on “the art of communicating with editors.” In fact, an ordinary good day usually includes a meeting: I like them when they’re productive and fun. And I’d like to spend all day long expanding the scope and reach of “White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action” adult ed class I co-teach and on taking action with others to undo racial exclusion.

A whole day cooking and eating

Dinner is one of the most creative parts of our day. When Jon comes home from the lab, usually by bike (in rain or snow, cold or heat) and we open our fridge and see what’s there (never much) and concoct a dinner that’s often new and fresh. We may make a meal that mixes hot & cold, or one that’s all green or one that uses herbs in new ways: serendipity does the rest.

My ordinary good day ends with a bath followed by some dumb TV show like Law & Order (Jon does crossword puzzles during the ads) that serve as a transition to sleep (the next day we ask each other: “Were you awake when they found out who did it?”). I sleep nude next to a wide-open window, warmed by lots of covers, plus Jon, and refreshed by air that makes me think I’m camping in the West, or that I’m back in my Henryville bedroom with its six windows, its crossdraft and the pine-scented breezes flowing over me.

As you can see, my ordinary day does not include shopping or cleaning up. We try to keep home and life simple enough to minimize both. And I’ve lived long enough to know well that an ordinary good day can’t fit in everything I’d love to do. I also know that if I get a bit of each, I’m happy.