PLEASE JOIN US ON
APRIL 9th
3:00 – 5:00 pm
Booksigning Event with Margaret Roach
Hammertown’s New Design Room at the Barn
(food, drink, conversation & inspiration)

-  Featuring -

• Chaseholm Farm Local Cheese
• Prosecco
• Q & A with Margaret Roach
• Buy the book at Hammertown and get - 15% off
  
• PLUS 10% off storewide with the purchase of her book

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Joan’s Review

I’ve had my Red Pen out for the last few days and it’s not to mark down prices on sofas!  I’ve been underlining every phrase of Margaret Roach’s new book that inspires me.   And I have to tell you…there’s a new answer to the old riddle of “What’s black and white and red/read all over”?  The answer is no longer “a newspaper”….it’s “And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road”.  I’ve practically underlined the whole thing in red.

First, you need to know, though Margaret uses her love and knowledge of gardening and nature as a metaphor for her life lessons, this book is not a gardening book, it’s a memoir, and an incredibly inspirational one!

I loved this book….loved it, loved it, loved it. We can all find ways to relate to what she has to say, and reading this brings one so much knowledge and wisdom. We can share her path and find out ways to reflect on ourselves by following her exploratory road.

For Margaret, gardening was her passion and her catalyst to leave her successful professional life. Her knowledge of the subject is amazing, and to follow her road to self discovery, we learn so much about personal growth, but also about flowers, gardens, birds, snakes, frogs and the world of nature.  However, I had no idea how wonderful the journey of reading this book would be, or in fact, just how brilliant Margaret is.  She is a woman of genuine knowledge.  I have a new admiration for her connection with and knowledge of nature…of birds…of the garden…and, most importantly, of herself.

Here’s a list of some of Margaret thoughts in her book and how I responded to them.  I hope it will serve as a catalyst for you to buy her book, make a list of your own and come and meet Margaret at her reading at Hammertown on April 9th.

* How sweet…to dedicate her book to the next generation…her niece Grace…

* ….Being part of the fantasy life of longing to just get the hell out of here…Inspired by people like Helen and Scott Nearing who lived the good life and went back to the land (1954)

* ….the year…2007/2008. “I’ve decided to live in the woods”

* …Old life…never depressed, but lonely, isolated even though surrounded by many colleagues and living in a busy city.

* ….First we need to go backward to look forward though…to where my hunger and my restlessness began. (Love this thought!…like the crayon drawing she drew of herself at 6…our visions of our life and our loves come early)

* Gardening was my first moving meditation practice, long before I knew that meditation could take place while moving. (her yoga)

* when I was weeding, I was really weeding those early years at the little house; I was in it as if it were the motions of a vinyasa…deepening my connection to the place, to this impossible piece of lopsided land. (Made me think: What is my yoga…my creativity, my knitting, my work…need to find where I find my peace.)

* …the garden is where there’s no pretending that living things don’t die. Whatever you don’t kill makes you stronger….curiosity becomes interest, interest becomes hobby, hobby becomes passion, passion becomes life’s work, and even spiritual pursuit, the stuff of the heart.

* ….She’s a list person…I like that…Her list of Tolerances…how much can you tolerate of what and for how long…where is my creativity and who or what am I waiting for?

* We can learn from the birds…Eastern bluebirds are partial migrants, and each of their options has its pros can cons: They don’t have to go far or anywhere, really, to survive…the farther south they head, however, the later they will be back to lay claim to prime nesting spots come spring, so it’s a toss-up…an easier winter versus prime real estate for raising a family. All lives involve hard decisions, and compromise (ah yes, what we can learn and reflect on from the Bluebirds…just one example of Margaret’s brilliant nature connections).

* Learn something new every day (from her old boss, Martha Stewart) It was a kind of company and personal mission statement of hers, that Margaret took with her for her new life. That there is no possibility of achieving a perfect score (I loved these thoughts…just DO IT)...you do have to be brave, but you don’t have to be fearless...(great mantra Margaret!)

* Margaret’s Passion Test V1.0…When my life is ideal I am… Take a note book out and do this. Reflect on it periodically…how are you doing? Good idea! I’m getting a moleskin and doing it!

* For peace comes dropping slow, William Butler Yeats wrote after the line of the lake Isle of Innisfree…Finding peace, and even making it, yes, and also metamorphosis can be time consuming undertakings…so much to learn about this process from nature…from the frogs and the snakes, the birds and the bugs

These are just a few of Margaret’s brilliant thoughts.  Buy her book (now available at Hammertown) and read it. It will get you thinking and will take you on a journey through nature and life, and you’ll have fun in the process.

We’re rooting for you Margaret.  Way to go girl!