Melissa Burnett

teller of strange tales

Tag: Melissa Burnett

  • Could It Be Magic?

    Dear Reader,

    I’m about halfway through a book I was really looking forward to reading. It’s…fine.

    Listen, I read about ten books a month. They’re obviously not all going to be winners. I have no trouble deciding not to finish a book if I’m not getting anything out of it, but I read and finish a lot of books that are enjoyable but nothing special. I’m used to that. It’s awfully disappointing, though, when it happens with a book I expected to be one of the special ones.

    There’s no reliable way to predict it. I am much better than I used to be about knowing which books I’ll actually like versus those I feel I should like. My taste is what it is, separate from what friends or social media or the literati tell me it ought to be. I’ve learned to accept that. I’m pretty good these days at reading a plot description and knowing whether or not a book will work for me, at least at the basic level.

    It’s that something extra I’m not able to predict, the spark that lifts a book from fine to amazing. This book I’m reading now has a plot that hits many of my buttons–modern horror, a female protagonist, religious trauma. I dove in eagerly, expecting to race through. Instead: eh. It’s not bad, it’s just not great.

    I suppose, in the long run, it’s better not to be able to predict that magic. If I could, it would cease to be magic. A formula would eliminate those astounding moments when a book I had no special hope for turns out to be incredible. Those moments are the reason I will always be a voracious reader. The more I read, the more often the magic happens.

    Besides, if I knew which books were special, I’d stop reading any others. It would be like a picture book I had as a kid, when a girl got her wish to have Christmas every day. After a couple of weeks, Christmas became boring. It would be tragic to have the same thing happen with reading. I live for the spark I feel when a book sweeps me away. I wouldn’t want to lose that for anything.

    That doesn’t change the disappointment I feel when a book that seemed perfect fails to live up to expectations. I guess that disappointment is part of the reading life as well. No flowers without rain, yada, yada, yada. It’s the price of admission.

    So maybe I will finish this book in a hurry. After all, the next one I pick up might be magic.

    Love, Melissa

  • Cleanliness is Next to Joyfulness

    Dear Reader,

    I know I’m not the only person to lose count of the number of times I’ve thought, “Ugh, I need to shower, but I really don’t want to.” Let me tell you something: If I lose the ability to shower, I will really, really want to.

    It started as a small leak. Tiny. Easily ignored. Then it grew, and then it grew some more. Next thing we knew, the cats were playing Gene Kelly in the bathroom, tap dancing through splashy puddles on the floor. We had to shut off the water. My husband examined the trouble and saw exactly which part had cracked and needed to be replaced.

    “It’s an easy fix,” he said.

    It would have been, except for one small hiccup. We live in a 1926 house, which is very cool until something goes wrong. Lowe’s and Home Depot don’t carry parts for a hundred-year old clawfoot tub. Even Ace Hardware, our go-to for weird parts, didn’t have what we needed. We had to order the parts. It would take a week to get them.

    Did I mention we only have one bathroom? Until the parts came in, there would be no showering.

    I started the week optimistically. We still had a sink, after all. I could wash well enough with a washcloth and a basin of water. I had dry shampoo, and I’d put my hair in a bun once it got too greasy. I’d be fine.

    (Reader, I was not fine…)

    I don’t think I stunk, the sink baths took care of that, but my God did I feel terrible. I never realized how much I depended on a long, hot shower to wash away the stress of life. On top of that, no amount of dry shampoo could stop my scalp from feeling itchy. Before this, I thought I understood the connection between depression and showering, that depressed people don’t want to shower. I never realized the converse was also true. Not showering made me feel depressed.

    During that week without showers, I accomplished  next to nothing. I couldn’t find the motivation. One day, I never even changed out of my pajamas. What was the point? I was a cave-dwelling thing, speaking in grunts and spending my time scrolling through endless streams on social media. Look at those real people! I was no longer one of them.

    The day the parts arrived, my husband installed them immediately, and I jumped in the shower the moment he gave me the all clear. My God, the bliss! The absolute, unfettered joy! My dirt-induced depression swirled down the drain. Inspiration for three creative projects leaped to the forefront of my mind. I was a real person again! I would live!

    I returned to my word processor before my hair was even dry, finally able to write again. But that was yesterday. Excuse me now–I think I need to take another shower.

    Love, Melissa

  • The Internet is Quicksand

    Dear Reader,

    I had a great time on my girls’ trip (see last week’s post) but the best part was this–we had no internet access at the cabin. It was nice to have no one need anything from me all week, but let’s be honest. If I’d been able to go online, I wouldn’t have done anywhere near the amount of reading and writing I did. The internet, you see, is quicksand.

    It’s a common joke these days. “Based on my childhood media exposure, I expected quicksand to be a much more present danger in my life.” We all laugh, but none of us seem to realize how much of our lives we do spend mired in the stuff. Not literally, of course. I’m talking about the metaphorical quagmire that traps us each time we go online.

    Don’t get me wrong–I love the internet nearly as much as I despise it. For a curious person, carrying around a device with instant answers to my every question is a miracle.

    But…

    I’m sure King Midas’s ability to turn anything to gold felt like a miracle, too, right up until it destroyed everything he loved. Our quicksand doesn’t work as quickly as the golden touch, but it’s just as insidious. It turns our most precious resource–time–into a weight that pulls us down and drowns us.

    How often have you tried to check one quick thing online, then realized an hour disappeared without notice? It’s been carefully planned that way, because the more time you and I spend online, the more ads we see and the more money goes into various pockets.

    (Not ours, of course. Never ours.)

    The world these days is a place where it’s nearly impossible to complete any task without a visit to the World Wide Web. Once we dip just a toe in…. Boom. Quicksand.

    I remember those jungle movies shown on ’80s television. Once the hero blundered into a pit of quicksand, he was done for, unless someone else was around to pull him out. He might still be able to talk and try to get out, but we viewers knew death was inevitable. Its slowness made it all the more gruesome.

    So here we all are, slowly drowning in this quagmire of our own making. This time, those bystanders who might grab ahold to pull us out are sinking just as surely as we are. I’d love to offer a solution, but unfortunately, I have none. The best I can suggest is to spend a few days in a place with no wifi. It may not save us in the long run, but it does make for a lovely reprieve.

    And hey, it’s easy to find and book a trip like that. All you have to do is search online. Good luck!

    Love, Melissa