Do you remember, not long ago, when I went to the antique store and that old book jumped off the shelf at me? I had the feeling, then, that I was meant to find that book. Now I know for sure.
It’s really the strangest thing. The old book, the one called Bread and Roses, was written by Kathleen Norris, a highly prolific writer of “women’s novels”, more or less the Danielle Steele of her day, and I had never heard of her. But that’s not the strange thing. (Despite my degree in English, or perhaps because of it, I’m coming to find there are legions of women writers I’d never heard of.)
What’s strange is this: while googling Kathleen Norris I came across another author of the very same name, a younger Kathleen Norris, who apparently has some fame, although I had never heard of her either. When I saw that she had penned a small book entitled The Quotidian Mysteries. Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”, I thought, as fast as you can say “alibris.com”, that I should look into it.
As 2004 draws to a close, I can’t help but feel that this has been a notable year in my thinking, if not my cooking, and that perhaps this book was the one I was meant to find, in a roundabout way (although the other has proven useful to me as well.) It is shedding a nice, thoughtful glow over the month of December, and I’ve a feeling I’ll carry this over to the rest of my life. I feel fortunate to have been led to stumble across Norris’ words at a relatively young, but critical, age.
I’ll be blogging more about this book, tomorrow and the next day, and the next. But I’m not going to hit you over the head with a monograph today—not on a Monday! Besides, your 90 seconds are up and your own everday calls to you, as does mine.
Click back tomorrow.
9:23:46 AM 
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