Tag: dreams

feelings

bag lady

abby mumford

i unloaded my groceries one by one onto the conveyer belt, sorting them into piles of like kinded products. i threw my cloth bags on top and raced over to the “oral care” aisle to grab the toothpaste i had, until that moment, forgotten i needed.

i hustled back and the man who had been in front of me was still paying.

*phew*

i hadn’t kept anyone waiting.

before the cashier started to ring up my purchases, she grabbed my bags off the top of the pile.

her: hey, i know this bag.

me: *grins*

and just like that, i’m a regular. it only took 8 years and visiting this cashier’s aisle two times. (we had an in depth conversation about one of my reusable grocery bags during that first visit.)

all i have to say is someone should give that girl a promotion because she sure knows how to make her customers feel important. (what? it’s always been a dream of mine to be a regular somewhere. my presence never seems to stick at bars, so i’ll take what i can get. thank you, my wegman’s bag, for making me a recognized customer at one of your competition’s stores!)

p.s. for those keen eyed readers, you’ll notice this post is reminiscent of my “conversations with strangers” series, and yet, that’s not the title of this. why? BECAUSE I’M NOT A STRANGER ANYMORE. woohoo! (hmm, maybe i should have asked for the cashier’s name, so she’s not a stranger anymore either. oops, my bad.)

wordpress com stats plugin
feelings

hitting the GO button

abby mumford

as soon as i hit pause on my writing life, everything else seemed to hit GO FAST NOW BUSY IMMEDIATELY CRAZY, but i survived and not so surprisingly learned something along the way:

seeing is believing.

i know, i know, the whole santa clause and easter bunny and tooth fairy things, but it’s a tough thing, these early stages of a writing career, when the stuff you’re producing isn’t fit for public consumption and so the only appropriate thing to put out there is this blog and the main people who are your audience are related to you and they assume you know they care. and i do know, but it never hurts to have things like that reiterated.

like the time i was at the dinner table in my parents’ house and my dad asked my mom if she’d somehow unsubscribed to my blog because he hadn’t gotten any emails regarding new posts lately. (thanks for reading, dad!) and then my mom and sister E laughed and said, well did you read the last one? (thanks for reading mom and sister E!)

or the time when i opened my mailbox to find a handwritten letter from sister E that was so full of encouragement, i almost got punched in the face by the pom poms. (thanks for the syrupy love, sister E!)

or when sister J basically chased baby mac down the hall because she was chanting “abby abby abby” and i hadn’t yet heard my name from her lips. if that’s not some great cheerleading, i don’t know what is. (thanks for the extra effort, J! and for making me one of your words, baby mac!)

or that afternoon when my friend L attempted to teach me how to play cribbage and i quickly realized that when one can barely add to 15 (especially under pressure), one better work harder at her writing because simple math is not what’s going to bring the paycheck home. (thanks for your patience, L! i’m gunning for you  now, dad and grandpa. you may have kept all the mathematical genes for yourselves, but with practice, i too can add to 15 and 31. “that’s all there is and there is no more.”)

or when brother G sent me an email with “guess who put on his shoes” as the subject line and this as the body of the text:

which reminded me that no matter what age or what subject, we are all making mistakes, BUT it’s all in the name of learning. (thanks for the lesson, G (and newphew L), but more importantly, thanks for the laugh.)

or the occasion when my friend N, who never comments online, made a comment to me offline about how he still checked my blog throughout august just in case i posted something… (thanks for being such a consistent, if mute, reader. :)

or the time when all my loyal commenters wrote me words of encouragement, left me bits of advice, warned me not to keep my distance and basically left me a most needed trail of breadcrumbs. it made it much easier to find my way back to the interwebs. (thanks adriana, jeannie, karla, kelly, kristen, and linda for understanding!)

or the moment when my grandfather emailed me this poem and wished me a prosperous time in the land of pause. (thanks for reading and commenting and dispensing wisdom and thinking of me, grandpa!)

‘I learned her name was Proverb’ by Denise Levertov

And the secret names
of all we meet who lead us deeper
into our labyrinth
of valleys and mountains, twisting valleys
and steeper mountains-
their hidden names are always,
like Proverb, promises:
Rune, Omen, Fable, Parable,
those we meet for only
one crucial moment, gaze to gaze,
or for years know and don’t recognize

but of whom later a word
sings back to us
as if from high among leaves
still near but beyond sight

drawing us from tree to tree
towards the time and the unknown place
where we shall know
what it is to arrive.

i can’t say i’m 100% sure i’ve arrived or that i know what it entails, but i do know that in terms of blogging, I’M BACK AND I MISSED YOU ALL.

feelings

goodbye, potter

abby mumford

last night, i saw the final film of the HARRY POTTER series. it marks the end of an era, not just for Rowling and the actors and everyone else involved in the making of the movies, but for the audience — the viewers and readers. as Jo Rowling herself said at the british premiere of HP 7.2, “no story lives unless someone wants to listen, so thank you to you all.”

the beauty and magic of a book or a poem or a movie or a song is that once the artist has created it and releases it into the world, it becomes ours as we read/listen/watch it with glasses colored by our own life experiences.

these books by Rowling have definitely become my own. (you too?) i discovered these books the summer i was 19 and sister E was 8. (she was quite the advanced reader.) i have this vivid memory of sneaking into her room to pull them off her shelves while she wasn’t looking. i read and read and read, but i never remembered turning the pages or seeing the sunshine move across the sky or doing anything but gallivanting across hogwarts with harry, ron, and hermione. my mom would call me for dinner and i’d look up from the pages and blink, confused, because i was in my room in NJ and not somewhere in england. after i finished the first three books, i was devastated because i wanted more magic and i wanted it now, but unfortunately, i had to wait.

and while i waited for the next books to be published a funny thing happened. the books broke down barriers — of the imagination, but more importantly, of genres. they made it acceptable for adults to read YA. this was a BIG moment for me because i’ve always enjoyed reading YA books more than the age appropriate books i “should” be reading. with their freshness and humor and awkwardness and pain and plot and voice and figuring out how they fit into the world surrounding them and figuring out their own powers…i understand YA books. growing up is hard, but it’s something i remember acutely because, heck, i’m still experiencing and doing and feeling it even now despite the fact i should be done with all that. Jo gave us the go ahead to read YA and with that, i was finally able to embrace it wholeheartedly. i admited to myself (and thus the world) that this was my genre. Jo made it cool, and for that, i thank her. (not that i wouldn’t have embraced YA without her help, but maybe not as publicly…)

but back to my original point. with the release of the final movie, it seems like we’ve finally reached the end, but WAIT, not so because the stories live on in us, her audience, whether we are re-reading the books, re-watching the movies, or sharing the books with kids who are now old enough to read them (hello, niece M!). these stories (and all stories for that matter) continue to live and breathe and cast their spells on us muggles.

is there anyone who’s had that type of influence on YOU? a teacher? actor? director? author? mentor? coach? who gave you the courage to embrace your truest self?

p.s. since we’re talking all things Rowling, have you heard or read the transcript of her commencement speech at harvard’s 2008 graduation? i was there (as a guest, not as a graduate. i wish!) and as usual, Jo’s words have a way of leaving the rest of us speechless.

feelings

come away with me OR life as a hollywood extra

abby mumford

my first job in boston was working for a catering company and despite the long, grueling hours, it was a great way to get to know a city you’ve just moved to. my next job after that, my first official publishing job, is where i met nancy. nancy is a doer, a planner, a let’s go explore type of gal. i like to think i’m those things — and i can be if needed — but i’d much more comfortable being the tag along kind of girl. the one who just has to say yes. and when nancy is the one doing the asking, it’s very easy to get caught up in her infectious love of the city.

this past saturday, i did something i’ve always wanted to do. i got to be an extra in a movie. a hollywood movie. ever since massachusetts passed a law giving out tax breaks to movies that shoot locally, you can barely turn a corner without running into some set. but i’ve always been the outsider. not saturday night.

the movie is TED starting mark wahlberg and mila kulnis and is directed by seth macfarlane (creator, writer, actor of FAMILY GUY). they needed 2500 extras to film a concert scene with a “grammy winning artist” and they needed the extras to be there from 7pm to 3am. despite the crazy hours, nance was game and so was i.

and, well, since it’s hollywood, i’ll just roll the camera. (uh, it was my cell phone camera, so pardon the shoddiness of the shots. i’m no movie director.)

we arrived at 6:30 (call time was 7pm), signed in, got our raffle ticket/set pass, and settled in behind the caution tape. everyone was casually spread out on blankets and chairs. the low humidity and temperatures of mid 70s put everyone in a grand, hollywood type of mood.

as night fell, the lights went up and i realized exactly why actors look so good all the time. they have lights like this following them around. *note to self, buy one of these and hire someone to carry it around.*

the grammy winning artist? miss norah jones. she’s the teeny one in the green dress with her arm out.

the movie cameras were all on these massive contraptions. (the crane starts at the bottom left of the picture and rises upwards.) roll sound, roll camera, ACTION.

and here are the stand-ins. norah jones’ stand in is right as the blue meets the brown background and dominic, mark wahlberg’s stand-in is one next (ish) to her. and the third guy is the director of photography. ever seen LOVE ACTUALLY? yup, those kind of stand-ins. wait, no, not THOSE kind of stand-ins, but yes, they have people who are of similar look, size, and shape stand on stage while the set crews adjust the lighting and camera angles and whatnot. they are up there for hours, and then the actors arrive and are there for mere minutes. i can see why stand-ins are needed. they help keep the budget semi under control.

and now, mark wahlberg has entered the building. he was HILARIOUS. in this scene, norah says her line “i’m going to rest my chops for a minute, so i’m going to invite up a friend of mine who’s here to sing a song for a special lady in the audience. (or something like that.) and then she has to introduce mark wahlberg’s character, john bennett. except, the first time she said his name, she said, “here’s mark.” and after a brief moment of embarrassed silence, we all burst out laughing. after going through the line again and saying the correct name, mark comes up and says, “thanks, alicia keys.”

after the novelty of the evening began to wear as thin as the hour on the clock, i realized something. maybe it was the surge of sugar from the mountain dew i chugged at midnight or maybe it was the bright lights setting the scene, but there i was right in the middle of the action. so much in the middle of it that i will not be visible at any part during the movie, but that’s not the point. the point is I WAS THERE. i wasn’t on the sidelines anymore.  i was living a (mini) dream because of nancy. that’s the kind of friend she is.

i can’t wait to see what our next adventure entails.

i’ve got my “yes” all prepared.