Deep In the Mines

I'm always behind in my reading. Always. I finally get around to reading the hot popular thing a couple of years late, when it's no longer hot and or quite so popular. Harry was staring into the Goblet of Fire when I finally read about the Sorcerer's Stone, for instance.

So of course it's long past the publication date by the time I crack the cover of Barbara Samuel's No Place Like Home. Last night before bed, actually. Just finished tonight, in a straight reading session that started when the boys went off to baseball practice after school this afternoon. And let me just say that Kirkland brand paper towels from Costco are not the best for a tear-ravaged face.

My God. I'm not really sure I can adequately respond to this book--not just as a book, but as the product of a truly amazing writer. Barbara Samuel gets it. The tiny details she picks up--the thread of silver in an old man's hair, the slice of wrist under a shirt cuff, the curled vine of a new plant--speak volumes. And so you wonder: Are these observances something that arises in the initial draft, diamonds on a sandy beach, or something that has been hewn from the rock and cut and polished to brilliance? Her work seethes with love for people, family, food, place. You can't read this woman's work and not know that she loves, truly loves, Colorado.

As a reader, I'm blessed. As a writer, I'm challenged. I have a pile of rocks. When I hew and cut and polish, will they be diamond? Or is all they'll ever be just rocks?