Same, but Different

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Jessie: In New Hampshire where the weather is swinging about wildly enough to give one whiplash!

Here, where the winter weather puts me in mind of an endurance race I am constantly drawn to things that bring comfort to offset what is going on outside. There are the things that are universal fixes like cozy slippers for feet and hearty stews for dinner. But there are other things that seem to do the trick for me as well. While novelty is certainly something I enjoy in my life, in winter, when the nights are long and the forecasts are almost never correct I turn again and again to familiar things I know that I already enjoy.

The things I choose don’t have to be exactly what I already know, although I am not opposed to rereading a book or rewatching a television series. Familiarity takes the form of a tweak to a family favorite recipe, a slight variation on a knitting pattern I have already enjoyed making, or a book I somehow missed in a favorite series. I move the furniture around in the living room.

It also involves doing some of the same things in different places or with different tools. I moved my lap desk to the library recently and filled it with new stationery supplies. I still will write letters to loved ones, I just will be taking in a different view as I do so. I am using my favorite pens, but I have filled them with inks I haven’t tried before. I love to wear my old stand-by scarves but I enjoy tying them in new ways.

Even the podcasts I listen to or the playlists I choose on Tidal or Spotify seem to follow the pattern. I look for new historical or true crime podcasts from the same companies. I seek out playlists of music that feature artists I love along with others that are like them, but new to me.

I don’t think I am alone in this tendency. After all, readers are constantly in search of books that are in the same genre, but that tell a different story. Mysteries, especially those in a series, are particularly good at the same but different. I know I love that in the books I read as well as the series that I write. It is so comforting to visit characters and locations in favorite series when the wind whistles round the house and the snow piles up in the driveway.

Readers, do you love things that are the same but different? Which kinds?

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Published by Jessie Crockett

Jessie Crockett wears a lot of hats, both literally and literarily. As Jessie Crockett she is the Daphne Award winning author of Live Free or Die and the nationally bestselling Sugar Grove series. As Jessica Ellicott she has received starred reivews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal for her historical mystery Murder in an English Village. As Jessica Estevao she writes the Agatha Award nominated Change of Fortune Mysteries. She loves the beach, fountain pens, Mini Coopers and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England where she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar.

20 Thoughts

  1. I’m with you on tweaking recipes, Jessie, especially as we’re getting some of the rest of the nation’s deep freeze this week. Maybe I’ll try a curried version of roasted sweet potatoes or throw some coriander into that coffee cake.

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  2. Three things immediately come to mind. The first one is to find a new to me author in a genre I love or doing even the opposite – finding a book in a new genre by an author whose books I’ve always enjoyed in one of my standard go to genre. Second would be altering a recipe (maybe one I’ve seen on line or given to me by a friend) to suit our particular tastes. That might entail adding a spice or something like onions or taking out some ingredient we don’t really care for at all possibly putting in a replacement of equal flavor value that we do. Third, has to be my other stand by things to do – photography. There’s always a new way to photograph a favorite subject (different lighting, background or action shot) or trying to find and capture that elusive critter I haven’t been able to photography yet (either at all or hadn’t been able to get a decent photo of).

    To me there is no such thing as boring. Instead, it’s a matter of looking at things in a different way. Changing things up is some way be it location, surroundings, lighting, tastes, etc. Once you see things differently, it’s quite possible that other things change as well making life a whole new adventure.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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  3. JESSIE: Yes, I do change up the comfort food recipes I eat (soups, stews) during the winter. Isn’t today supposed to be BLUE MONDAY, the most depressing day of the year? I want to experience eating exciting flavours to tingle my tastebuds during the winter doldrums. I have already made meals from 3 new recipes this year. They are all keepers.

    As for reading, I do prefer series. It is reassuring and comforting for me to revisit beloved characters and setting when I am housebound during a cold winter’s day/night.

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  6. I love adding things to my daily salads that are different every day – like nuts or dried cranberries, etc. I also love stationary/office supplies for meetings. When a meeting is tense, it soothes me to look down at my favorite pencil, eraser, etc. aprilbluetx at yahoo dot com

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  7. I did a bit of organizing in my kitchen at the end of December and discovered how many cookbooks I have – 20. Most of those haven’t been opened in years. So I decided to try at least one new recipe every week and any cookbook that hasn’t been opened by July gets donated.
    So far, it’s going well. Week three of the year, and I’ve tried six new recipes. A couple required take out that night!
    For reading, I enjoy series and discovering new to me authors.

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  8. I love routine. Not so much daily routine as annual and seasonal rhythms, markers in the year. But I also like to change things up. Move to a new house, travel to a new region, spend a holiday in a different way. As long as I can cling to those seasonal markers.

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  9. I’d say sitcoms. I enjoy laughing with a tight nit group of characters, be they friends or family. Sadly, there aren’t too many goods one on TV these days.

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  10. I’m not an interested cook, but I’m good at it. So, I seldom use a recipe except for baking. Everything else is pretty much throw in whatever is handy. I love finding new authors of cozies. And I’m always on the lookout for 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles of the sort and complexity I’m comfortable with.

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