Waiting in the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel for Pete to get back from Anchorage with books from Title Wave. It’s 5:00 p.m. and light enough for me to drive home and not be overly concerned about it – a good thing – but Pete has the company car, and so I am here until hell freezes over, which it very well might do.

I spent the afternoon supervising volunteers who stamped and sorted chapbooks going to Kenya and going to Anchorage, to Headstart. I didn’t know what I was going to have them do, given that I am out of regular books. So far, I’ve been able to find things for everyone to do, and today was no exception.

Books in Belieze

I spent the morning attempting to contact freight shippers. I didn’t have any luck. I am grasping at thin air with this.

And yet, it was still an ideas day. Skye sent me my math homework, and I stopped contacting shippers and did it immediately. Exponents are easier for me than fractions. But as I was doing my homework, I had this idea, which was this – yesterday Skye was working on a math problem, for fun, and I watched for a while. I likened what I understood to grasping at climbing holds – I had done this in South Carolina. I thought that what I do not understand I may someday understand.

I then made an interesting mind/body connection which was this – when, not if we own the historic Eagle Hotel, we could build a climbing wall, for use by all but particularly for math students. We’d explain that climbing, a physical activity, is a lot like doing math, a mental activity in that there are holds to be figured out, or formulas to be ascertained.

I mentioned this to Lawrence who envisioned knocking walls out in order to make enough height for the climbing wall. This, giving an idea serious thought, was what I wanted to see, because then, at that moment, it brought us one step closer to making all important connections.

I have always been a dreamer. I will always be a dreamer. More so now than ever before. I never ever saw myself as being someone who could throw ideas out there and have people consider them. But this whole project is now everyone’s dream.

Now I am of course hoping that I can get these books to Kenya. I am not going to allow myself to think that this is impossible and that I should give up.

Last night I got a mail package slip and thought that it was more copies of The Boy who Harnessed the Wind – which we’re giving to a book group. It was not. Instead, it was three boxes of books, the origin of which was Fort Lauderdale, Florida. If you think about it, it’s pretty amazing, having somehow established contact with someone at the far end of the U.S.

I am not going to continue allow myself to feel overwhelmed or stressed out. Too much still to do.

Next: 29. 1/29/26: Driving in the Dark: A Partial Autobiography