Stolen From Reading Lolita in Tehran

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Fallen AngelI am in the process of reading Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and in the beginning of the book Azar asks her students, a group of women, these questions – not only as ice breakers to get everyone comfortable with one another, but to allow each woman to search the depth of her own powerful identity. I imagined myself in Azar’s class and wanted to answer the same three questions. Here’s what I would have said.

  

  • What do you think of your mother?
    I used to think I didn’t know my mother. I used to think I hated my mother. But, then again at that stage of things she wasn’t a person – just someone to be obeyed, someone who didn’t understand the likes of me. I couldn’t see beyond the title of Mom. Now, I see her as someone I’d like to be if I grew up. Someone I admire most in my life. She is beautiful and courageous, smart and nothing short of amazing.

  • Name six personalities you admire most in life and six you dislike most.
    At first I wanted to cheat and name names. Natalie Merchant, Dave Matthews…those kinds of BIG personalities. I think I know better than that. Here are the traits of a personality, in no particular order:
    ♥ Kindness
    ♥ Honesty
    ♥ Bravery
    ♥ Happiness
    ♥ Love
    ♥ Respect
    ≠ Anger
    ≠ Bragging
    ≠ Lying
    ≠ Defeat
    ≠ Indifference
    ≠ Bullying

  • What two words would you use to discribe yourself?
    Passionate and Surviving

Disgrace

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I’ll call this book my “spur of the moment, read in one day, can’t put it down” book. I’ll also call it Weather Front. It started out sunny and seemingly harmless and carefree. Then the clouds roll in, the rain comes in sheets. The poison seeps in. When the winds pick up to the point of hurricane force it is nothing short of violent and tragic, destructive and disgraceful. After the storm people pick up the pieces, healing yet hurting and more storm clouds can be seen, rumbling in the distance.
In the beginning everything seems fine. Professor Lurie is happy teaching literature in South Africa. But, almost immediately Professor Lurie makes a mistake in seducing a young student. His fall from grace is swift and absolute. Having lost all his social and professional connections he reconnects with the one person who can’t turn her back on him – his flesh and blood daughter. The rest of the story is how Lurie and his daughter deal with their already strained relationship. How Lurie tries to redeems himself is baffling. I found myself asking if he was really worth redemption at all. Maybe it was the name Lurie – too close to the word lurid.

My favorite line, “Affection may not be love, but at least its cousin” (p 2).

BooklustTwist: From Book Lust and the chapter called ” Families in Trouble” (p 82).

Warning: If you are an animal lover you may not want to read this book. What happens to humans is tragic enough, but what happens to the dogs is even worse. I know it’s a fact of life but the end of this book was hard to take. Nobel prize or not.

Corner Turned

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I don’t know how it happened but I turned the attitude corner today. It started with seeing my name on a parking spot. For the first time ever I have a place to put my car. As stupid as that sounds I am so thrilled! I was actually a little disappointed I didn’t have a camera today. My own spot. Imagine that! I’m taking a picture tomorrow! Yes, it’s the little things that make me happy these days.
Then came the news that not only was my new office going to be painted but I get to pick the colors and, and, and it’ll happen this week…as in within the next day or two! For colors I picked Walden Woods and Frozen Sea. Figure that one out.  Talk about too cool! I didn’t think this would happen for at least a month and I was so prepared to live in limbo between this place and that one. As I told a coworker this is what I worked my azz off for. This is what it’s all about. I know I’ve been bitching about this very thing, but sooner or later it comes down to one question, “do you love your job?” My answer is yes. Now, I do.
To make the day even sweeter someone from admissions came over to discuss tours. For years these guides have been bugging me with their false info. They would blah blah blah right by my reference desk and  for years I couldn’t help but cringe. They had no idea what they were talking about. For years I’ve been trying to get them to change their speech without luck. After all, I was a nobody in their eyes. Suddenly, after three years of torture I’m finally being asked what should be said. My script?
The cherry on top of my day: A new contract for me to sign. Something in writing to prove I’ve finally arrived. Now I can say I’m a professional.
So, A – I look forward to going to Mexico with you. RT~ see you in Picadilly. To the both of you, I know exactly what I want!

Ashes Ashes All Fall Down

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September moves along my days like a stray cat, starved for attention, hungry for forgiveness. Pitiful cries, plaintive pleas. Hear me. Help me. Save me. I cringe and cry but not for all the same reasons.
A friend called me out on my mood – You ok? Yes, I lie. But, only because I can’t even begin to tell you. If I were to be honest I would honestly break down. Break you down. You wouldn’t be able to handle the fragility of my front. This morning the news showed me a kayaker stuck under a bridge, his rescue heroic. It’s not him. Doesn’t matter. Panic still crosses my face. Fear crosses my mind. Every kayaker is him by default. Don’t scare me that way. I send a text. Nebraska responds.
I think about a baby not mine. I think about a room not mine. I think about a life not mine. I think of Ireland not mine and want to say thank you for taking the autumn fall. I dream of mutiny, of rats jumping ship. I dream of drums and heartbeats of silence. I hear dogs bark and children recite melodies. I don’t know what it means to think in black and white but scream in color. “It’s all grey here. It’s all grey to me.” ~ Natalie Merchant.

The Odd Sea (with spoiler)

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odd seaReiken, Frederick. The Odd Sea. New York: Delta, 1998.

From the very first page I thought the location of this book sounded really familiar. Westfield River, the Hilltowns, Dalton, Cummington…like seeing a familiar face while on vacation far, far from home. You can’t place it, yet you know it. Why? Work? School? The neighborhood? Until finally, one last detail seals the deal and suddenly you remember – the cashier from your favorite grocery store. It was “Mohawk Trail” that finally brought Western Massachusetts into sharp focus for me. Without a doubt, I was reading about my stomping grounds (and lately, stomp I do).

So, back to The Odd Sea. This is Frederick Reiken’s first novel and I have to say, I have a soft spot for firsts. This is the haunting story of the Shumway family and their lives after the dissapearance of 16 year old Ethan Shumway. It’s told from the point of view of younger brother Philip. My copy of The Odd Sea has notes in the margins that I found distracting. They made suggestions and speculations I wouldn’t have considered otherwise as well as ones overly obvious. One of the repeating, clear-as-day themes of the notes was Philip’s inability to accept his brother’s vanishing as never-coming-back final. I considered that obvious because otherwise, there wouldn’t be a story to tell. Philip can’t move on like the rest of his family. He needs to dig for answers, search for clues, and come up empty, bewildered, and denying every single time. I wasn’t surprised when, by the end of the book, Ethan is never found.
After reading Ordinary People I was ready to start my own BookLust chapter on “Mothers Who Lose It.” Probably one of my favorite descriptions in the book is of Philip’s mother’s insomnia. Having been afflicted with sleeplessness I could picture her nocturnal habits perfectly. “Some nights she did not bake or read. Instead she’d stand out with the stars. She said on clear nights the sky could draw the sadness from her heart” (p 10). I also enjoyed the scene when Victoria teaches Philip’s sister, Dana, to eat rose petals. Having eaten a few island roses in my day, I could taste the silkiness on my own tongue.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter called “Small Town Life” (p 203).

Ordinary People

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ordinary peopleGuest, Judith. Ordinary People. New York: Penguin, 1976.

This book has floated in and out of my life for decades. My roommate had in front of her face when I tried to talk to her about always-there boyfriend. My mother had it on her side of the bed, dog-earred and stained. It was on the summer reading list for my high school. I think my sister has a copy…Despite all these different encounters I never bothered to read it. I don’t know why. Maybe I likened it to Danielle Steel’s genre of pen? Maybe because someone made a movie out of it? I don’t know. No matter. I never wanted to read it. I’m glad it was on “the list.” I’m glad I didn’t miss out.

Ordinary People is exactly that. A story about ordinary people. Reading this book was like stumbling across Mr. & Mrs. Jarret’s home movies. I began watching their lives a year after they had lost their oldest son to a drowning accident and soon after their surviving son comes home after trying to commit suicide. I bounce back and forth between watching Cal, the father’s, videos and peeking in on Con, the son. Beth, wife and mother is detached & disconnected. I haven’t seen the movie so I have had fun trying to picture the actors playing the parts. When Con starts seeing a therapist, I envision Robin Williams (because of Good Will Hunting?)…There is so much psychology in this short (262 pages) book.

My favorite lines:
“Drifting into sleep, he lost his balance, tipping backward again into memory”  (p 144).
“And another turth. That there are no secret passages to strength, no magic words. It is something you know about yourself (p 210).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust, Pearl actually mentions Ordinary People twice. First in the chapter “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade” (p 175) and “Shrinks and Shrinkees” (p 221).

Goodbye

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Back in the day there was this amazing website dedicated to all things Natalie Merchant. Pictures, lyrics, tour dates, show reviews, sound and video clips, discographies, newspaper articles, fun facts. It was a cool site. For years it was the place to go for Natalie information. Then one day it ended. All that was left was a simple note saying “It’s time to move on.” Say goodbye.
Such is the way about certain people, pet projects and places in my life. What is that saying? All good things must come to an end? Well, now is the time for such a saying. Say goodbye.
To my friend. I have noticed a change in you. A distance that cannot be explained. You haven’t offered and I haven’t asked. But, yet, it is there and cannot be ignored. Your leaving doesn’t hurt me; it only saddens me because it can’t be stopped. The painful part is I don’t want to stop it, either. Some things are meant to be.
I was asked outright about my once favorite band. Funny how I haven’t been approached before. Like the way Lucy let go of Natalie, I have let go of sirsy. It doesn’t mean I don’t crank ‘Ruby’ when I run. It doesn’t mean Mel’s voice and lyrics don’t rattle my heart. It just means that I have different priorities these days.
I said goodbye to my director and stepped into his shoes this week. Those shoes are going to fit, after all. I’m saying goodbye to my office this month. It will be painful because I spent all things womanly on that space. It will be hard to sit back and let the boys do all the work in my new office. But, but, but! One thing is for sure. I am saying goodbye to sitting in the backseat. Time to move on.

Spectator Bird

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Stegner, Wallace. Spectator Bird. New York: Penguin, 1976.Spectator Bird

I think this book embodies one of my worst fears – being a spectator bird. The main character, Joe, is a literary agent who is slowing slipping out of the limelight of the living. He goes through life as though he’s on the sidelines, barely even watching the game. Instead of living in busy, exciting, beautiful San Francisco he lives out in the country, away from the daily rub with people. Everything about his current life is gray until he receives a postcard from a friend. Suddenly, he is thrust back into his past. He is forced to remember a time when life was more than a spectator sport. It has some interesting twists, things I didn’t see coming. Joe’s voice is witty and humorous. Here are a few of my favorite lines:
“It is hard to be relaxed around a man who at any moment might examine your prostate” (p 12).
“During the day he will go out seven or eight times. In the U.S. this would be called drinking on the job” (p 76).
“Her wicked brother will not be home – a shame, I’d like to see what real wickedness looks like” (p 98).
“She was so old she would have had to be dated by carbon 14” (p 128).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust and the chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 65). Pearl suggests reading Spectator Bird with The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, and A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee.

Charming Billy

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Charming BillyMcDermott, Alice. Charming Billy. New York: Delta Trade, 1998.

I wonder how many people clicked on this blog and thought it would be something a little different? There is more than enough I could say about charming anyone named Billy! Dare I laugh out loud?

Charming Billy is a National Book Award winner. A New York Times bestseller. A movie (again, one I’ve never seen). So it’s no wonder I could say I tore through this book, devoured it in three day’s time. Standing in line, waiting for a sandwich, I read. Stuck in traffice and stalled at super long red lights, I read. Riding shotgun while Kisa was the commuter King, I read. On hold during a tedius teleconference, I read. You get the point. Every chance I got, this book was raised in front of my face. I even walked on the treadmill, barefoot and still in a skirt, book held high in front of my bobbing eyes. That’s not to say it’s a quick read. It’s not a simple book. In all actuality the language is so beautiful it should be read slowly, a few times over. Take the opening chapter, for example. It’s an entire gossipy conversation about a dead man after his funeral. The mourners who have gathered for a restaurant luncheon begin to discuss the drink that killed our Charming Billy. The vitality and truth of that conversation put me at the table. I was there in the restaurant, listening in, passing the bread, leaning back to let the waiter fill my water glass.
It is at this luncheon that the narrator hears a debate about Billy’s heartbreak and the reason for the drink. Losing the love of his life causes Billy to “tilt that bottle in the air, tossing back more than [his] share.” Okay, I couldn’t resist quoting Natalie! The narrator is Billy’s cousin’s daughter. A clever choice for narrator because she is able to weave in her memories and recollections of stories passed around.

“If you loved him, then you told him at some point that he was killing himself and felt the way his indifference ripped through your affection” (p 4).
“…an alcoholic can always find a reason but never needs one” (p 35).
“I suppose there’ not much sense in trying to measure breadth and depth of your own parents’ romance, the course and tenacity of their love” (p 44). These are my favorite lines.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust, the very first page. In the chapter, “A…My Name is Alice” Pearl lists all the “Alice” authors she adores. Alice McDermott is on the list.

Behind Diary Door

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dscn0085.jpgHow does quicksand turn into a luxurious mudbath? When do the fires of hell turn into a day at the beach? When you let yourself go. Friday night I had dinner with a friend and I was able to share things normally kept under lock and key. I worried about revulsion & recoil, but it never came. I don’t know what made me do it. At the last possible minute I felt I needed to come clean, bare my soul and announce this soul’s dark horse. It was at that instance that I felt the weight of something else leave my shoulders…the burden of taking it all so personally. My job, my family, my marriage. It all seemed so, so, pressing. So heavy, like a fat lady sitting on my lungs, not letting me breathe.
At that instance I knew I wouldn’t feel betrayed by the changing of the guard. Instead I would welcome the chance to stand watch. It’s my turn. Instead of feeling powerless and unprotected I would build my own coat of armor and suit up for whatever came my way. I’ll send the Old King out in high style and I won’t begrudge him for leaving.

And so it is time to turn to my family and friends, to dedicate time long overdue. I need dinner with my dearest friend. I need a laugh that is loud and long. There is someone I miss tremendously but I have a feeling he is otherwise preoccupied. Maybe I’ll text him on a lonely night. Maybe he’ll answer. In the meantime, my thoughts are on Bethel and blueberries.  

Abyssinian Chronicles

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Abyssinian ChroniclesIsegawa, Moses. Abyssinian Chronicles. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2000.

This took me absolutely forever to read. In the beginning Athenian Murders seemed more interesting. No, I take that back. It seemed a faster read. Honesty is the best policy. Then, I started Autumn Across America. Juggling two “landscapes” as sweeping as Abyssinian and Autumn wasn’t easy. Both are elaborate, even panoramic, if you will. Very descriptive. But, enough excuses – back to Abyssinian Chronicles.
This is story of Mugezi. It is more than a coming-of-age chronicle. It is Mugezi’s life story from childhood to harsh adulthood in the span of twenty years and the necessary means it took to survive each and every day. In addition, it weaves in the landscape of Uganda, the politics of the 1970s, society, religion, violence,  and the family traditions of African clan. It is panoramic and profound. Isegawa’s language is harsh, his subjects, brutal. For example, the children Mugezi looks after are caller “shitters.” A line that made me laugh outloud was Muzegi’s aunt’s warning to a woman who was letting herself go, “If she did not take care, Nakibuka thought, soon birds would be nesting in her hair, baby hippos snorting in her belly and hyenas rubbing their rumps in her armpits” (p 162). If you are anything like me, you read that sentence and said “whaaaat?” I read it twice, said “whaa?” and then laughed out loud. I have no idea what it means (especially the hyena part) but it was funny. Female cattiness. I can relate to that. But, probably the section I can relate to the most is a tie between politics and family. First, politics: “Local politics were also at work: you never bit the hand that fed you… Consequently, there was much turning of the other cheek and much patience in the hope that everything would turn out right in the end” (p 218). Words I should take to heart in my present situation. Now, family: “Grandpa’s old lawyerly dreams boiled inside me. I felt I had stepped onto holy ground” (p 341). I felt that way when I was training for the Leukemia Society…something about fighting the ghosts of cancer, cradled in my grandmother’s name…

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter “Africa: A Reader’s Itinerary” (p 3). While I called Isegawa’s novel panoramic and sweeping Pearl describes it as sprawling and ambitious. Either way it’s 462 pages long. I think you get the point.

ich liebe Dich

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I paced the confines of love this weekend. The brutal kind, the tender kind and everything in between. I was witness to the hurt of fragile, barely-there love and the powerful, we-will-battle-mountains kind. I don’t know which moved me more. One kind had the lovers circling like angry animals, captured and caged, tormented and furious. Hell bent on hurt. The other was like a gentle whisper, a barely-there sigh, the scent of roses on the wind. Arms around each other, protective and private. So different!
I witnessed a healing love this Saturday. I am grateful I was invited to share in their day. It taught me a lesson I had truly forgotten. Love conquers all pain. Love challenges the spirit to continue when all seems lost. Love dares happiness in the face of despair. When he announced “I be wed” instead of I thee wed we all smiled, but deep in my heart I knew what he meant. He is anxious to join two lives into one perfect union. To get over the brutal past. Soon they will leave the U.S. and settle in Austria. They will open the perfect B&B and raise a perfect boy. They will move past the tragedies of there and then because what is more important is here and now.

Here and now. Live your life as though you will not wake to see tomorrow. Live in the way that makes you truly happy. Don’t sell yourself to the tragedies of yesterday, nor to the fear of regretting tomorrow. See the good thing you have in front of it and love it like no other. Make sacrifices only for the good of your heart for life is too short for anything else.

And don’t settle for fettucini if there is no alfredo.

Autumn Across America

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Teale, Edwin Way. Autumn Across America. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1965.

I’m sure hundreds of books about traveling across the country have been written (I’m thinking specifically of Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley among others), but this is one of my favorites. It is a great combination of science and ecology, history and socialism with personal antidotes sprinkled throughout: a story of a deaf, mute man who lost his dog; the antics of sea otters playing in the surf; pages from John Muir’s diary and lines from Emerson’s poetry, to name a few. You can tell that Teale loves the land and everything above, around, on and in it. He has stories about birds and butterflies, deer and dogs, trees and turtles, flowers and faces. He introduces you to wonderful people, interesting facts. My favorite part, which I read outloud to kisa, involved scaring a pond load of birds only to have them all react in precisely the same way. Not one bird reacted more than another. They all did the exact same thing at the exact same time. I found that so fascinating.

My favorite line, by far, “We had, for the space of a whole glorious autumn, been time-rich” (p 356). Wouldn’t that be nice? Where would you go if you had a whole season to travel in?

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter appropriately called “Nature Writing” (p 173). Pearl writes, “…these books beckon us to emulate Teale’s own travels…” (p 174).

Today’s Lesson in Hats

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hatsI have been schooled on secret security tactics. I have the pictures to prove it. I have been confounded by  no-clue keys leaving me clueless. I have been bombarded with banded business cards. He has shaken his head and laughed at me, not wishing my predicament on anyone. Funny, because he put me here. What could been next? Where is the next lesson coming from? To say that I waited with anticipation would make me a liar pants on fire. I dreaded whatever would happen.
Today’s lesson: hats. He came to me with paintings of hats. No. Let me clarify – each crude, ugly, painting had a hat in it somewhere. An Indian wearing a turban, a Mexican wearing a sombero, a military man wearing a helmet…you get the point. Hats. Elephant wranglers and Turkish dancers…all wearing hats. He came to me with hats; said he wanted them hung up. Was he kidding? Afraid not. He leaves me not with wise words or great guidance, but with hats.