I Love a Mystery

Just as the warm familiarity of comfort food envelops me like a blanket, I like to indulge in comfort reading, particularly the old-fashioned, cozy-type of mysteries.  And so as I ring in the new year, I've been reading old Agatha Christie favorites: Hercule Poirot's Christmas and Mrs. McGinty's Dead.  I've always loved a mystery, beginning as a girl when I read Nancy Drew's many adventures.  When I was about 12 years old, my mom introduced me to Dame Agatha.  Since then, I've spent many happy hours reading and re-reading her clever puzzles and plots featuring the likes of Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence, never tiring of the way she told a story. Miss Marple is admittedly my favorite.  I love how she could find extraordinary connections to the crimes at hand in her ordinary, small-village life.  While snuggled this weekend under my "Literary Dreams" quilt from my friend Kitty, I've also kept one eye to the television to take in reruns of Murder She Wrote and Matlock.  So, with one foot in the new year, I wax nostalgic and embrace the old by reading and watching favorite mysteries of the past.

Things In Common With Ariadne

I've decided that I'm the Ariadne Oliver of my day.  OK, perhaps not, but we do share some interests and beliefs.  Ariadne Oliver was a lesser known, but delightful, recurring character in Agatha Christie mysteries.  While we aren't soul mates, Ariadne and I do share a love for apples and a belief in intuition.  Ariadne was forever eating apples. I find myself doing the same thing this fall.  I can't seem to get enough of them.  Our refrigerator is rapidly filling up with bags of apples from Ski-Hi Fruit Farm.  My fear, it would seem, is that the orchard will close for the season and I won't be prepared with an ample apple supply to last me far into the winter.  As for the shared belief in intuition, I do indeed believe in and rely on that innate wisdom.  When we stop long enough to listen, really listen, I believe we have the capacity to hear that wise voice from within and to allow it to guide our decisions and choices.  Sometimes I don't want to hear that wise voice because it seems contrary to the louder voice in my head, but when I pay attention and allow myself to follow those nudges, right things happen.  Apple is my fruit right now, intuition is my guide and as I get older, I think I'm becoming more and more like Ariadne.