The Story of Christmas

I've dusted off this post from four years ago as a reminder of the importance of tradition. This year, due to various work and school obligations, it feels like we've hardly sat down to dinner together as a family. That means we've lost and picked up the thread of the Nativity story we usually read with grace. And rather than the kids vying to light and blow out the candles, they do so with a sense of "meh."So here's to reclaiming traditions....or perhaps starting new ones. 

 My daughter had to give a presentation at school about her family’s holiday traditions. She chose to talk about Advent. When she had finished speaking, a boy in her class raised his hand and asked, “Do you still celebrate Christmas?”

 Actually, this year we may be just celebrating Christmas since, in the move, I’ve managed to misplace our Advent wreath, children’s nativity set, and Advent calendar, a book called The Story of Christmas. 

 Those objects are replaceable of course, but one of the nice things about traditions is unpacking the ones you have used year after year. The corners may be dog eared, the wreath may be splattered with pink and purple wax, and the donkey may be missing a tail, but that is part of what makes them yours.

 Whether you are starting a new tradition or supplementing an old, perhaps one of these books will add to your Advent season:

 The Light of theWorld: Daily Meditations for Advent and Christmas by Phyllis Zagano

 Advent of the Heart: SeasonalSermons and Prison Writings - 1941-1944 by Alfred Delp

 A Gift for the Christ Child: A Christmas Folktale by Anne Wilson and Linda Schlafer

 Manger edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins

 Light Upon Light: ALiterary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany compiled by Sarah Arthur

Who Built the Stable?: A Nativity Poem by Ashley Bryan

Pretty Paper by Willie Nelson and David Ritz

Maddi's Fridge

Best friends Sofia and Maddi play at the park and commiserate over their little brothers. One day Maddi invites Sofia over. When they go to the fridge for a snack, Sofia is shocked to see that it's empty apart from a bottle of milk. After promising not to tell, Sofia attempts to share the contents of her fridge with her friend. However, she soon discovers that however healthy fish and eggs may be, they aren’t very portable in her backpack. 

How can she help her friend without revealing her secret? As it turns out, some secrets aren’t meant to be kept.  

Great for any age, Maddi’s Fridge (written by Lois Brandt and illustrated by Vin Vogel) reminds us that hunger can be present where we least expect it. But it also emphasizes the importance of true friendship. When friends are hurting, we shouldn't stay silent.   

Giving Thanks for Vegetarian Cookbooks

Since we've lived in Washington, Thanksgiving has been a meal for four. I'm still vegetarian, but I'm outnumbered three to one. This year I'm looking forward to perusing the recipes of Half Baked Harvest - a cookbook I eventually hope add to my collection - for a dish that will appeal to the pickiest among us.

This week's post harkens back to something I originally posted in November of 2008.

As Thanksgiving approaches my husband and I are faced once again with the vegetarian’s dilemma of what dish to bring to the family feast. We strive to make something that contains protein, serves more than four people, and is not too odd as to freak out the carnivores (we’re probably not going to show up with Curried Tofu Scramble). Since we’ll be traveling this year, the dish or ingredients should also be portable or simple enough to make in someone else’s kitchen. I’ve perused three vegetarian cookbooks worthy of meeting the challenge.

Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates by The Moosewood Collective

I have to add this book to my collection. It has both vegetarian and vegan menu ideas for Thanksgiving. It also contains the most recipes that appeal to traditional palates. Contenders include: Lentil Salad, Harvest Stuffed Squash, Mushroom Filo Pastries, Crisp Autumn Salad, Roasted Squash with Corn and Beans, and Gingered Carrots with Hijiki (this one probably won’t make the cut since hijiki - Japanese seaweed - has high freak-out potential).

Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson

I also borrowed this one from the library, but it’s on my wish list for the pomegranate reds, grainy golden yellows, and spinach greens that pop out from the photographs accompanying the recipes. Even more impressive is these photos were taken by the cookbook’s author. Although these dishes probably wouldn’t meet any of our criteria, I’ve bookmarked the Risotto Style Barley, Otsu (a soba and tofu dish), and Hijiki and Edamame Salad. Ok, so I like hijiki.

Three Bowl Cookbook by David Scott and Tom Pappas

My Buddhist priest friend sent me this book after I returned from Japan. I received it just in time for that year’s Thanksgiving, so I made the Rutabaga, Leek, and Sweet Potato Puree. Once I procured the ingredients (I had to have the Whole Foods produce guy show me where to find both the rutabagas and leeks), I had little trouble making this tasty alternative to traditional milk and butter mashed potatoes. Other recipes I’m considering: Carrot and Parsnip Puree with Fresh Tarragon and Green Beans with Ginger, Corn, and Miso.

“I don’t dislike him, I just don’t like him. Which is quite different.”

Maybe, like me, you still haven’t seen The Movie. At this point, I’ve resigned myself to wait for it to stream. 

In the meantime, I’m revisiting some of the Downton-esque reads I created for this list compiled in October of 2015.

Atonement by Ian McEwan after multiple readings never disappoints.  Briony, age 13, misinterprets a brief scene she witnesses in the library and changes lives in ways even the impending war cannot.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton shifts between 1924 and 1999. When a modern filmmaker decides to make a movie about the Hartford sisters, she finds a primary source in former housemaid Grace Bradley. As Grace thinks back to her years in service, she remembers not the glamour of the times, but the craftily concealed deceit. 

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton opens in 1913 with a four-year-old wandering aboard a ship bound for Australia. The little girl grows up with her adopted family and decade after decade discovers another part of her mysterious past. When she dies, she bestows a house to her grieving granddaughter. Tracing her grandmother’s steps, she fits the pieces together for the reader.   

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters looks at a once stately household now fallen into disrepair. The Ayres family is befriended by a lonely country doctor. He soon discovers that their ailments are hauntingly difficult to diagnose.

Music Memoirs

Maybe it’s my selective listening of podcasts lately, but I’ve come across several music memoirs that sound intriguing.

Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley by Sybil Rosen

The Beautiful Ones by Prince

Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren

High School by Tegan and Sara Quin

What’s your favorite musician memoir or biography?

I could talk about...

We tried this exercise in my class the other night as an opening “check-in.”  The idea is to finish the phrase “I could talk about…,” but then not talk about it. So here goes.

I could talk about…

the book I’m reading for work (For Better, for Worse, for God: Exploring the Holy Mystery of Marriage)

the book I’m reading for school (Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age)

the book I want to read for work (Mercy in the City)

the book I want to read for my internship (History of the Catholic Church)

the book I read for my internship (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation)

the book I hope to read on the red-eye tonight (When Katie Met Cassidy)

But I won’t. And that’s ok.

"Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle"

In honor of the movie that was recently released, I dusted off a review I originally posted in 2012.

A case of the blue meanies has interrupted these posts of late. Perhaps you've turned to other blogs in the meantime, but I hope you'll check back because a book called Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple has inspired me to start posting again.

Bee Branch, a Seattle eighth grader convinces her parents to take her on a cruise to Antarctica to celebrate her straight As. She is flummoxed, however, when her mother goes missing the day before the trip. When her mother doesn't return, her father, a Microsoft workaholic, decides to send Bee to boarding school a semester early. While at school, Bee receives an envelope filled with emails, magazine articles, and other documents leading up to her mother's disappearance. She immediately sits down at her PC (mocked by her Apple loving classmates) and begins writing her book. The book we've been reading.

I second Jonathan Franzen when he says on the front cover, "I tore through this book with heedless pleasure." A feeling I sort of vaguely remembered but welcomed anyway.

What is the price of copper?

It’s the summer of 1913. Death is commonplace in this small mining town in Michigan.

Annie Clements’ husband works in the mines. Despite his reluctance to join the union, Annie recognizes its potential after yet another neighbor dies a preventable death. Soon she organizes the other wives, mothers, and sisters to translate union materials into the 33 languages spoken in their community. Through their galvanizing efforts to enlist the men, enough votes are called for a strike. 

Soon the Women's Auxiliary is not only planning marches, but organizing food and clothing banks. Annie not only takes the lead behind the scenes, but can be seen at the head of every parade carrying the American flag.  “Although men are the backbone of the union,” Maria Doria Russell writes in The Women of Copper Country, “women are its heart and soul.”

James MacNaughton, general manager of Calumet & Hecla, prides himself on the neat appearance of the homes and businesses of his domain, but neglects to remember the names of his household staff. He stubbornly refuses to negotiate. The strike continues.  

As summer turns to fall and then winter, the strikers are galvanized by visitors such as Mother Jones and threatened by a team of professional strikebreakers. In addition to her cast of unforgettable characters, many drawn from real life, Russell gives us a glimpse of not only early 20^th century working conditions, but its penal system, photojournalism, politics, and attitude toward immigrants.

Just as the novel begins with a death, so it ends with a tragedy that leaves no family unaffected. Broken-spirited, those that haven't left town return to the mines. In a turn of poetic injustice, upon his return, each man is required to pay five cents to buy a gold watch of “gratitude” for MacNaughton.

“You, my fulgurite”

Some books offer the perfect escape route. You can ignore the pile of laundry that sits in the basket waiting to be folded, avoid looking at the stack of lesson plans waiting to be executed, and turn a deaf ear to kids fighting over a ukulele. Instead, you can slip into someone else’s inner thoughts, fears, worries, even joys.

Wait, Blink: A Perfect Picture of Inner Life by Gunnhild Øyehaug (translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson) 

“Sigrid has her head on her arms on her desk and is thinking. She has to change. She has to toughen up. She has to stop analyzing everything and stop being so caught up in things that she forgets all else around her, and she has to stop thinking that people are all interested in the same things as her. Because they’re not! They’re not, Paul de Man, she says, and presses his nose with her finger. Naturally, Paul de Man doesn’t answer: after all, he’s Belgian, and a photograph.”

Some books have the opposite effect. Rather than offering a reprieve, they leave you discombobulated and grumpy. You don’t delight in the character’s observations, but scoff, shaking your head and asking, desolately, “Why?!”

The New Me by Halle Butler

“I get socked in the chest, thinking about how things never change. How they’re on a slow-rolling slope downward, and you can think up a long list of things you’d rather do, but because of some kind of inertia, or hard facts about who you are and what life is, you always end up back where you started, sitting drunk on a hard, sticky chair with someone you hate.” 

But even books like these work their magic, propelling you off the sofa to tackle that to-do list, compelling you to look inward to face the work that needs to be done.

Beloved

I can’t remember which came first: being assigned Beloved in my high school English class or finding the three volume collection of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, and Sula in a used bookstore. 

Regardless, I do remember reading Beloved over a long weekend in the dorm room I was assigned during a prospective students’ visit to the University of Dallas. Rather than socializing, I immersed myself in the world of Sethe, Denver, Paul D and Beloved.  I remember being challenged by “124” and trying to wrap my head around the horrors of slavery and its effect on subsequent generations. But also, entranced, as millions of others have been, by Morrison’s style and storytelling.

For more on Morrison’s life, I recommend this article and interview of its author, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah.

Summer of radio plays

In honor of our new summer tradition of podcasts (and more podcasts) and puzzles, today’s post is a review of Flora by Gail Godwin, reposted from 2013.

It's the summer of 1945 and Helen is ten. Her father is spending the summer overseeing construction for the war effort in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Helen is less than thrilled to find out her mother's cousin Flora will be spending the summer with her. To make matters worse, Helen's best friend contracts polio, and Helen and Flora must spend the remainder of the summer quarantined. They quickly befriend the young man who delivers their groceries, plying him with lemonade and cheese straws. Finn in turn starts showing up daily to give Flora driving lessons.  

 The peaceful routine of the summer is shattered in August when the household discovers an atomic bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima and Helen's father's work at Oak Ridge is somehow involved. That same night Helen's discovery of Finn's true feelings for her "simple-minded" cousin triggers a series of events that will have devastating consequences for everyone in the family.

Godwin's story, narrated by Helen, looks back with nostalgia and retrospection to that lonely summer of radio plays, daydreams, and a temptingly unread packet of her grandmother's letters. Helen discovers that what at first appears to be simple-minded in Flora's teaching is actually simple-hearted. And it is a distinction that the reader will also take to heart. 

Irasshaimase!

It’s only recently that I’ve noticed convenience stores in the U.S. upping up their prepared food game. Growing up, the thought of buying anything from 7-11 apart from maybe a Slurpee would have been inconceivable. However, when I lived in Japan, I looked forward to commuting by train just so I could stock up on konbini rice balls, bottled tea, and candy for the trip.

With the same eager anticipation of entering those sliding doors, I opened Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Since it was translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori, it nicely meets the challenge of reading a translated book written by and/or translated by a woman.

Even when she’s not wearing her Smile Mart uniform, Keiko Furukura has internalized the rhythms of the store where she’s been employed for 18 years. Stocking, cleaning, promoting new products, and serving customers provides a much need structure to her days. She even chooses her evening meal and goes to bed early to ensure her body is ready for the next day’s work. As other employees come and go, she adopts their mannerisms, speech patterns, and wardrobe choices to make sure her life resembles “normal.”  

When a former coworker gets kicked out of his latest apartment, Keiko offers him a spare futon and meals in exchange for the privilege of telling her friends and family she’s living with someone. Rather than serving as a red flag, his blatant existence as a freeloader only serves to legitimize the relationship as “typical.”  

It’s only after the guy convinces Keiko to quit that she realizes just how much she depends on the store for survival – both financially and psychologically.

Murata provides not only a glimpse into the unique universe of the konbini, but tells a more universal tale of the struggle to fit in when one doesn’t.

"put your brain in your lunch box"

Although I went through a Stephen King phase in high school, bringing home Cujo and Christine home from the library where I volunteered shelving books, I have never had the stomach for the horror genre.

So it was with some trepidation that I reached into my TBR stack for a book that my mom had lent me some months ago, maybe even at Christmas?

If a novel could cause PTSD, My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent would be a top contender.  But with each new terror, you simply turn the page with squinted eyes waiting (hoping) for someone to die or seek vengeance or perhaps both. With that caveat, let me proceed.

Turtle lives with her widower father in rural Northern California. After downing a morning breakfast of raw eggs and a slurp of her father’s beer, she takes the bus to school. She doesn’t have any friends and resists the overtures of the new kid that doesn’t know any better than to try being friendly. Her interior monologue is a stream of berating comments that put down others – and herself.  She’d much rather be at home shooting, cleaning her vast arsenal of firearms, or perfecting her survival skills. The end of the world, in the guise of climate change, is at hand.

When she can’t stand her father’s “affection” for a moment longer, one night she does leave. She meets two teenagers lost in the woods and guides them to safety. (The rapid-fire dialogue between Brett and Jacob is incentive enough to keep reading). When she returns home, she realizes she’s entered a whole other world of hurt. Her friendship with Jacob proves harrowing, but exposes her to a new normal. She begins contemplating a more permanent escape.

Close to midnight, I was nearing the end of the book. Some neighbors thought that would be a good time to shoot off the last of their fireworks. Once I had climbed back into my skin, I could only manage to skim through the rest of scene where Turtle finally confronts her father.

In addition to trigger warnings, this book should also come with a “one-sitting” warning. If you can bear to pick it up, you won’t dare put it back down.

“We are bound by a common anguish”

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

This hefty tome doesn’t look like a page turner. Sadly, it’s been sitting on my nightstand for almost four months. But contrary to appearances, when I finally opened its pages, I discovered that it’s got everything: true crime, mystery, history and literary goddesses.

Cep opens the book with a brief description of a murder trial in an Alabama courtroom.  A man is on trial for the murder of Reverend Willie Maxwell. Defending him is Maxwell’s own lawyer, Tom Radney. Covering the trial for a book she plans to write is one Harper Lee.

Before enlightening us more on these curious circumstances, Cep dives into the backstory of each character sitting in the courtroom, beginning with the murder victim. Rounding out these character sketches (if several chapters on each can be called a “sketch”) are fascinating interludes explaining  everything from hydroelectric power to voodoo, from the life insurance industry to Alabama politics.

Although Lee herself doesn’t appear until Chapter 15 of this book, fans won’t be disappointed. Cep’s description of the drama – both inside and outside the courtroom – will more than appease fans of To Kill a Mockingbird. And when she does bring Nelle into the story, the reader has a better understanding of the time and place that shaped her sensibilities. From her childhood with Truman Capote to her later years struggling with writer’s block (and perhaps alcoholism), Lee’s story is more gripping than the ones she, sadly, wasn’t able to write herself.

“mirth, melancholy, and redemption”

In Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos, the residents of a small Midwestern college town are experiencing one of the hottest summers on record.

Don Lowry, a real estate agent with two kids, despite memorizing three new jokes every Sunday night, doesn’t find life funny anymore.

As one of the characters tells Don, “You’re at the hardest time of life, Don. Midlife is when you have to accept what you’ve created, knowing that the life you have is the only one you will live.”

His wife Claire, a novelist experiencing writer’s block, is also struggling with that realization. She’s also become disenchanted with married life. Not helping matters is her discovery that Don has neglected to tell her their house has entered foreclosure.

Over the course of the summer, Don and Claire both latch on to a different twenty-something, who find themselves, in turn, gravitating towards each other.

Grieving the loss of her first love, ABC has come back to her college town and found a job caring for a widow named Ruth. In her downtime, ABC finds comfort in getting high with the man whose face she sees on FOR SALE signs all over town, “Don Lowry!”

Abandoning his acting career, Charlie has returned home to clear out his father’s study in the hopes of finding the novel he supposedly spent years writing. After a chance meeting in a convenience store parking lot, Charlie offers Claire the use of his swimming pool. In other words, an escape. 

Although there isn’t much action (apart from a certain kind),  Bakopoulos' writing is engaging, and the dialogue sometimes uncomfortably real. And the character of Ruth, who’s a little older and wiser, provides some much needed perspective with her almost magical prescience.   

Reminiscent of a John Updike story, Summerlong features adults in the grips of middle age malaise behaving badly. In this story, too, the pool is also abandoned, for a last-ditch vacation to Lake Superior. Sometimes a change of scenery is necessary to either revive a relationship or perhaps finally put it to rest.   

Good to Go

When my 10-year-old son started kid pitch this year, one of his coaches told the kids to make sure to ice their shoulders after practice.  A few weeks later I attended a meeting for my daughter’s high school cross country team where the coach told us the best recovery was “sleep” and reminded the kids not to drink anything but water.

Around the same time I heard this interview on NPR about a new book about the science of recovery.

In Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery, Christie Aschwanden takes a look at the products, techniques, drinks, and promises of the recovery industry. Her first chapter, where she herself sets out to discover whether drinking beer after a long run helps or hurts, sets the stage for why these methods are so difficult to study and (definitively) prove they work.

In addition to trying out popular new trends such as cryotherapy, infrared saunas, and float rooms, she also looks into more basic (and accessible) methods such as sleep. She also includes chapters that outline the dangers of supplements (which have caused illness and failed drug tests) and overtraining.

By describing her personal experience and anecdotes from famous athletes, she makes reading about these science studies engaging and, dare I say, fun. One of my favorite examples comes from her chapter on “The Perfect Fuel.” Apparently Usain Bolt’s recovery meal of choice at the 2008 Olympics was found at…McDonald’s. However, as Aschwanden notes, “Bolt didn’t win three gold medals in Beijing because he gobbled chicken nuggets. He won the medals because he’s the fastest man alive.” She also explains how one WNBA coach was able to improve her team’s performance, not by adding in more practices, but by adjusting the practice and travel schedule to allow her athletes to sleep.

Overall, Aschwanden comes to the conclusion that each athlete can make the best recovery decisions by paying attention to his or her body: drinking to thirst, eating enough calories and nutrients, and resting when tired.

My son never did end up needing to ice his shoulder. Although he did use his sore shoulder as an excuse once or twice to get out of violin practice. My daughter has just requested a watch, so she can better track her speed and distance. She hasn’t asked for any infrared pajamas or $1,500 leg warmers. Yet.  

Meet Cute

It all started with a shot of tequila. And a conversation about Japanese authors.

A few weeks later, a phone call. I excitedly told my roommate,“He’s Catholic and a vegetarian!”

After the second date, a trip to Half Price Books to find a copy of the Margaret Atwood book he mentioned.

In November, a 16 hour date that began with the Texas Book Festival and ended with the first kiss.

A conversation while walking through the Zilker Park Christmas lights display:

Me: “What are you doing for New Year’s?”

Him: “What are you doing for 4^th of July?”

After getting engaged, we decided we would each compile a list of books for the other to read. So between dress fittings and cake tastings, we made our way through the stacks. Thomas Merton and Neil Gaiman. Barbara Kingsolver. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. JD Salinger. Voluntary Simplicity. A notebook of short stories from a creative writing class at Baylor. Sandra Cisneros. 

Sixteen years later, although the shots of tequila are rare, books have remained a constant. Whether it was written by Malcolm Gladwell, Haruki Murakami, Maria Doria Russell, George R. R. Martin, or David Mitchell, we still manage to find books to share. And love.

Mother's Day Gift Ideas

I always struggle with what to get my mom for Mother's Day. How do you truly show appreciation for the woman who gave you, well, everything? For the past several years, my default gift has been books. Give what you'd like to get, right? 

So here's a list I compiled of recent reads (and TBRs) that might make your mom's day. 

For the mother who…

didn’t already receive a copy at Christmas

Becoming by Michelle Obama

binge-watches #GOT

Circe by Madeline Miller

doesn’t really have time to read, but was intrigued by this interview on Fresh Air

Educated by Tara Westover

appreciates quirky novels

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

would love to cook more, but in the meantime watches those cooking videos on Insta that make it look so easy

Half Baked Harvest Cookbook: Recipes from My Barn in the Mountains by Tieghan Gerard

is new to all this

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley

wishes Samin Nosrat lived next door

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat

binge-listens to  The Longest Shortest Time

Weird Parenting Wins: Bathtub Dining, Family Screams, and Other Hacks from the Parenting Trenches by Hillary Frank

mostly just recycles all those issues of  The New Yorker, but read this profile

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

“we are not Kleenex people"

Apparently, I don't post much in April. I had to go back to 2009 to find this flashback. Enjoy! 

She had me from “we are not Kleenex people.”

What’s not to like about a woman who soaks up her divorce tears with a roll of Charmin? After the last tear has been absorbed, Amy Dickinson and her daughter move out of her sister’s house in Freeville, New York to Washington, D.C. No matter where her physical address is, however, home is always Freeville.

One’s true home is an integral theme to Dickinson’s memoir The Mighty Queens of Freeville.

 Although she is a single mother, raised by a single mother, both she and her daughter are always surrounded by an extended family of close sisters - who still meet once a week for a diner breakfast even though they see each other every day anyway.

Her life experiences in and around Freeville read like letters to an advice column:

Dear Amy,

My ex-husband is allergic to cats…

Dear Amy,

My father has just married his fourth wife…

Dear Amy,

My Sunday school student ate Peanut Jesus…

Perhaps this illustrates why Dickinson was chosen to take up Ann Landers’ pen in her advice column "Ask Amy."

If this wasn’t a library book, I would have been tempted to add marginalia like “so true” and “!” throughout chapters entitled “Falling Up” and “Dork Like Me.” However, I wouldn't have wasted any ink on a rather long chapter about her cat Pumpkin.

While I consider subscribing to a newspaper that carries Dickinson’s column for more of her wit and wisdom, I’ll just have to settle for listening to her on NPR. And of course I’ll be on the lookout for the cookbook her mother has always been meaning to write: After the Cat has Licked It.

No Complaints

Two weeks without assigned reading has left me scrambling to read as many page-turners as possible. In no particular order, these did not disappoint:

The High Season by Judy Blundell

“Maybe all relationships, friendship, partner, parent and child, were held together by the things you did not say as much as the things you did. The unsaid was the keystone in the arch. Once you kicked it free, you had nothing that held you up.” 

I Liked My Life by Abby Fabiaschi 

“Never complaining, I recently learned, is different from having no complaints.”

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

“That was how she’d once viewed her perfect life: as a series of bad smells and unfulfilled duties, petty worries and late bills.” 

The Singles Game by Lauren Weisberger

“If the US Open was a two-week trip to Ibiza, Wimbledon was a meditative hike through a scenic national park.” 

And I was even able to check off a reading challenge - an epistolary novel. 

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

“But there are other faculty here on campus who are not disposed to see notable scholarship ignored; and let it be known that, in the darkened, blood-strewn caverns of our offices, we are hewing our textbooks and keyboards into spears.” 

What if

 Do you ever think about how you ended up where you are? How many decisions, large and small, culminated in the now? What if I had gone to that college in another state, left that party 20 minutes earlier, waited another year to have a child? Caught that train instead of the next one?

This week’s challenge opened up a whole new genre for me, and I’m hooked. Alternate history.

It also reintroduced me to Jo Walton -whose novel The Just City I read for the challenge in 2016.

My Real Children is a tale of two Patricias. In one life, she says yes to her first proposal. In her other life, she says no. As elderly woman struggling with dementia, she remembers both just as vividly. In her life in a loveless marriage, she found her passion in advocating for peace. In her life spent with her true love, she must deal with a world plagued by violence.

Walton includes just enough detail from our own historical reality for discrepancies to be shocking. For example, when I read that Jackie Kennedy died along with her husband, I thought at first it was a rumor spread by the British newspapers.

The message of the novel seems to be that we’ll find love and adversity no matter which life we’ve chosen. So if we can’t change the past, it’s fun to imagine the possibilities in store for our future.     

Lucky Broken Girl

Although it’s almost March, I’ve succeeded in reading exactly one book from this year’s reading challenge. I went for what I thought would be an easy task: read a middle grade book that has won a diversity award.  Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar is a quick read, but psychologically, it's a challenge.

Ruthie Mizrahi and her family are living in New York City after leaving Castro’s Cuba. Ruthie studies hard at school so she can go to the “smart class” and earns the respect of the neighborhood girls with her hopscotch prowess.

However, just as she is starting to fit into her new home, the family gets into a car accident. Ruthie wakes up to find she’s in a body cast from the waist down. Her world instantly shrinks to the confines of her bed. Although the cast is doing its job, ultimately it’s reading books, writing stories, and painting pictures that does the true healing.

When the cast is finally removed, Ruthie must learn to walk again. And the bedroom that once seemed like a prison cell now feels like a sanctuary she doesn’t want to ever leave. A strong-willed nurse insists that she try.

“The only way to deal with fear is to treat it like an unwelcome guest,” Amara tells Ruthie.  “If you keep entertaining it, you'll never be rid of it.”

Adam and Eve

Over the holidays I slowly made my way through Ahab’s Wife. I say slowly because there’s much to savor in Sena Jeter Naslund’s writing. However, when my professor referenced #3 on this list in his lecture last night, I wondered if cannibalism counts.  

In preparation for last week’s snow storm, yes, we did get bottle water. But more importantly we stopped at the library to stock up. So while the temperatures dropped, I found myself in a Middle Eastern oasis while rereading Naslund’s Adam and Eve.

Here’s what I said about this book in 2011:

Your mother is always right. Well, at least mine is. She's been recommending Ahab's Wife forever. And I keep relegating it to the bottom of the to-read list. But then I came across Sena Jeter Naslund's new book, Adam and Eve.

Lucy is a recent widow. Her late husband was a physicist studying extraterrestrial life. His work threatens those who believe proof of alien life forms would debunk their own creation myths. Just before his death, he leaves Lucy his flash drive containing his latest proof. Shortly thereafter, one of her husband's friends recruits Lucy to fly an ancient codex out of Egypt. Her enemies now have two reasons to find her.

Adam is an American soldier living in Eden. Having survived a brutal beating, he has made a primitive home for himself in a lost corner of the Middle East. His prayers for a companion are answered when Lucy's plane crashes into his midst.

Naslund's description of Adam's awakening breathes new life into the story as old as Genesis. Other authors have tackled the subject, but placing the characters in a future world reminds us we probably always strive for the forbidden fruits. And after we've taken the first bite, a mother will be there to say "I know." Then you will listen.

International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking

In honor of St. Josephine Bakhita's feast day today, I'm re-posting about two books which address human trafficking.

Sold as a Slave by Olaudah Equiano, an excerpt from a longer work published in 1789 called The Interesting Narrative, recalls Equiano’s capture in Africa, separation from his sister, and service –as a slave – in the royal navy, and treatment under various owners. He writes, “Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.”

The mature tone of the narrative makes the reader forget that at the time these events take place the writer is not yet 12 years old. Remarkable is the number of times he mentions a kindness of his masters. After converting to Christianity in his later years, he seems truly puzzled that any man could think that holding himself above another was what God intended.

Tragically, this practice persists today. Kevin Bales in his TED talk "How to Combat Modern Slavery" tells us this:

“The average price of a human being today, around the world, is about 90 dollars. They are more expensive in places like North America. Slaves cost between 3,000 to 8,000 dollars in North America, but I could take you places in India or Nepal where human beings can be acquired for five or 10 dollars. They key here is that people have ceased to be that capital purchase item and become like Styrofoam cups. You buy them cheaply, you use them, you crumple them up, and then when you're done with them you just throw them away.”

Read more in Bales’ book Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World.

Dear America

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

After living in Japan for a year, I flew home to Texas. While I was waiting in the “U.S. citizens” line to get through customs, I “saw” for the first time what a motley crew we were. It served in stark contrast to the faces I saw waiting in the citizens line at the Japanese airport.

What does it mean to be American?

That’s the question Jose Antonio Vargas poses in his book Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. Born in the Philippines, Vargas was sent to live with his grandparents in California when he was 12. It wasn’t until he tried to get a driver’s license that he realized his papers permitting him to live in the country were fake.

With the help of friends and family, he manages to go to college and work as a journalist despite not having proof of citizenship. In 2001, he published his story in the New York Times.  

This memoir chronicles what his life has been since he “came out” and especially the uncertainty he’s faced after the most recent presidential election. Part of his mission, promulgated through the organization he founded called Define America, is to use “the power of story to transcend politics and shift the conversation about immigrants, identity, and citizenship in a changing America.”

That conversation starts with a few simple questions:

Why do people come to this country?

What does it mean to be undocumented?

What does it mean to be a good citizen?

What does it mean to be American?