Book Reviews: Bausch, Roy, Russo, Woods

Books are reviewed on a 1-5 star scale; reviews are my own and are written for [City] Book Review. Reviews may be published online for Manhattan Book Review, Seattle Book Review, and/or San Francisco Book Review.

Living in the Weather of the World: Stories, Richard Bausch ★★★

It could always be worse

Prolific writer Richard Bausch’s latest collection of short stories, Living in the Weather of the World, offers an array of deeply flawed characters trying to move through life on some of their worst days. In the opening story, “Walking Distance,” a police officer’s marriage breaks down over breakfast and his day gets worse from there, while the sixth story in the collection, “The Knoll,” stars an unmoored young man seeking to make a name for himself in a disturbing way. These two characters are good indicators of the kinds of protagonists the collection offers: largely male, dissatisfied with their lives, and unrelenting in their lack of joy.

The longest story in the collection, “The Lineaments of Gratified Desire,” is the most compelling, perhaps because the narrative does not seem as compressed as the other works. Its protagonist, an artist named David, has no sense of who he is or what he wants which leads him to a string of bad decisions. But, the story’s ending, like several in the collection, feels rushed and incomplete, and the women are largely variations on narcissistic, neurotic harpies or clueless victims of broken men.

However, for those interested in reading about people whose lives are unraveling, or those who want some perspective that perhaps their own lives aren’t as bad as they seem, this collection has much to offer.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy ★★★★★

Pain and Peril, Promise and Paradise

While the world in which The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is set may be foreign to some readers, the characters Arundhati Roy has created are achingly familiar. First Anjum, born Aftab, who longs to be something other, something brighter and more beautiful than the world initially allows. Then Tilo, a woman whose inner strength is born of suffering and who fears her greatest happiness will always come at a price. And then, there are the dead. As relevant as their living counterparts, the dead in Roy’s novel exist to remind us we are alive and that this one life, fraught with peril, war, and pain, is as equally full of joy and promise and, yes, even paradise, if we allow ourselves to see it.

Set in India, in all its various incarnations, over a span of years, the novel weaves together the stories of many characters over time in a way that is not entirely clear until the latter chapters. This weaving, subtle as the flapping wings of the birds that riddle the novel, is both brilliant and maddening. But, staying with the story when ends are loose and the pattern yet to emerge is rewarding because the heart of the novel is simple: we need each other. Human beings need each other to traverse a world at war so we may find the place we truly belong. This need is true for readers of all faiths, all castes, all genders, and that truth is the genius of Arundhati Roy’s long awaited, and near perfect, second novel.

Trajectory: Stories, Richard Russo ★★★★★

Grounds for hope

In just four stories, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Richard Russo’s latest collection, Trajectory, attends to several fundamental questions of human existence. Among them, who we are when no one else is looking, when we know it is time to let go, and what we are willing to fight for.

The protagonists learn— in some way—who they are at the core: someone who forgives, someone who betrays, perhaps both. This common thread of learning connects the pieces even to human experience because all of us have at some time, been students. In the opening story, “Horseman,” an academic setting develops this theme of revelation as a college professor confronts a cheating student and realizes her own authenticity may be in question.

The other three stories all feature older male protagonists questioning themselves and the worlds in which they live with humility, fear, vitality, and humor. People who believe life stops after a certain age need only read Russo’s latest collection to see richness and depth are companions to a long life.

A trajectory is a path an object, or in this case, a person takes through space and time; Russo’s Trajectory suggests our paths are never as straight or as simple as we may wish. But, just as one character muses “this brutal world simply will not spare you,” another affirms there “just might be grounds for hope.” These two ideas anchor Russo’s most recent collection, and their familiar, and at times heartbreaking, paradox is exactly why the book is worth reading.

Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country, Chavisa Woods ★★★

The impossible is not far from possible

Ranging from the mundane to the bizarre, the eight stories in Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country offer glimpses into the lives of people living within and without, a part of and separate from the things they hold dear. Several protagonists return to the places they call home, small towns and churches and cemeteries that signify some secret wish or fear, while a few are trying to leave or escape. A few stories take an absurdist turn bordering on Sci-fi, but in all cases the characters themselves question their reality, realizing “if everything is barely possible, then the impossible is not far from possible.”

References to pop culture, prominent philosophers, and critics pepper the stories though, at times, the name-dropping is a bit forced, and some of the situations feel cliché. However, the stories driven by younger protagonists, “Zombie,” “What’s Happening on the News?” and the title story pack the most punch, perhaps because the things that inspire and scare us as children so often define us as adults. Ultimately, the twenty-first century, from the conflict in the Middle East to drug addiction in the heartland, are at the heart of these stories. This is a collection that intentionally tries to reflect the world in which we live now and does so with an emphasis on our shared humanity.

It ain't about the money, money, money (but it kind of is)

The older I get the more aware I am of my insecurities.  Physical, emotional, and--bugger of all buggers--financial.  In an effort to stop feeling like money woes are some dirty little secret I shouldn't speak about in public, I'm going to try to put into words the way money makes me feel.

When I have it--and I don't mean piles in which I roll naked while listening to Jay-Z sing 100 Bills--but when I have enough financial security to get through the month without nickel and diming til the next paycheck, I feel fantastic.  Like I am the smartest, most cash savvy lady on the planet.  When I don't have it, though--when I am looking up paycheck dates to see when I'll get a little relief--I feel like a clueless little girl who can't get her shit together enough to have more than $20 in her savings account.

Geneen Roth, in her book Lost & Found: One Woman's Story of Losing Her Money and Finding Her Life, writes about the reluctance we have as people--and as women especially--to talk about money.  Like somehow having it, or not having it, comes with so many subtle and scary consequences that we put our heads down and just pretend it's all okay when maybe, in reality, it isn't.  And for me, it isn't.  I know someday everything will work itself out. I know if I work hard, have faith, believe in a better tomorrow, and put as much love in to the world as I can, my life will be meaningful and joyous.  But it won't be easy.  And today, I am wishing it could be a little easier.

My problems stem, mostly, from being naive when I got divorced.  I wound up with credit card debt from trying to hang on to the house we owned until I could put it on the market, so now I'm sitting under a stack of bills.  Every trick recommended by budget books, websites, savings articles, and Pinterest tips has been implemented, and it's still a pretty rocky road.

Do I have enough to get by?  Yes.  I can pay all of my bills and have about $100 a week for food, gas, and entertainment left over.  But that's $400 to cover all the incidentals you don't think about, too, like the dog collar I had to buy today because Zelda's three year old one finally gave out, or the air filters I had to replace because my landlord, for some reason, doesn't do that.

What does all this mean? It means that I live in a pretty heightened state of money related anxiety most of the time.  I fear for any emergency that might come up, be it medical or automotive, personal or familial.  How would I be able to handle it?  The truth is, I don't know.  And, the even more shocking truth is that it would only take $10,000 to change my life.  That's it.  My credit cards and medical bills would be paid off, I'd have money to put in to savings each month, and I wouldn't have to worry about each and every dime.  But there's no ten thousand dollar lotto ticket in my future, so I am pushing on as best I can for now.

Why is this topic worthy of a blogpost? In his book How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom posits that we read to feel less alone.  That has always been true for me; the plights of others writ large across the pages of books have brought me immeasurable comfort in my 37 years.  Today, though, I thought I'd give the other side of it a shot.  I know I am not the only person who struggles with financial fear, and by saying it out loud I hope to make someone feel a little less alone.

All By Myself (Don't Wanna Be)

Bridget Jones's Diary opens with credits rolling over Bridget lounging around her apartment smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, listening  to the song referenced in the the title of this post. Jones is established, from the opening shots, as a woman who is tired of being alone and we spend the rest of the film (and it's sequel) watching her work out how to alleviate this awful state of loneliness, alone-ness, solitude, what have you.

Jones has a circle of close friends in whom she confides all of her fears and hopes, but it is the man--make that the MAN as capital letters traditionally dictates importance--who will complete her in every way. And she spends the film searching for him among the over-abundant number of emotional fuckwittage cases in London.  She believes finding the right man will make everything okay.  But, just like losing weight or winning the lottery, getting what you want (the MAN) doesn't mean YOU are any different.  You're the same person you've always been in a new set of circumstances.

Blogger Hannah posted about her husband not being her soulmate last week. Her ideas are rooted in the misconception that God plans everything for our lives, including the mate who will enrich, fulfill, and rock us with desire for all our lives.  It's a pretty great take on what the mid 90s to early 2000s Evangelical movement sold Christian kids in America.  As I read it this morning, followed by the new Psychology Today cover story ("What Happy People Do Differently"), it hit me that I have been living with some of the same future-fixes they both reference.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt lonely. I can feel it in a crowd full of people just as intensely--sometimes more--than when I am alone.  I have a sense of being other, separate, removed that I can't shake no matter how many parties I go to, close friends I have, or classrooms full of kids I teach.  It's just a natural state of being for me.  

Like Bridget, and like Hannah's younger self, I have often imagined that finding the MAN would make all of this isolation fade away, that somehow he would fill the corners in the giant room of my heart and suddenly there wouldn't be space to hide in anymore.  I am pretty sure I have found that man, to my utter shock and thankfulness each day, but it turns out he can be in the giant room, laughing and talking and twirling me around in it until I am dizzy with joy and love, and there's still emptiness.

He and I have a wonderful relationship that is stronger and deeper with each passing day.  Through being with him I have realized that what I really want--in all my closest connections--is intimacy.  Not all night kisses, hot breathing and tangled sheets intimacy, though all of that is simply lovely, but the kind of intimacy between two people that exists when you share everything without judgment, where you turn to each other first  to share your greatest accomplishments and deepest heartbreaks.  The kind of intimacy that means no matter how hard something is, knowing you have one another to turn to halves the difficulty. 

I could chronicle all the reasons why trusting people is hard. And I'd bet all my reasons are the same as yours. Betrayals, petty nothingness, our own judgment turning out to be terrible when we least expected it.  It's all universal and it's all so terribly personal. 

When Hannah married, she realized the beauty of choosing each day to love the man who became her husband, the joy of working towards a life with him, and the reality that small choices each day kept them together, connected to God and each other.  When Bridget finally gets out of her own way and kisses Mark Darcy in the snow outside the bookshop, she finds herself blissfully happy and connected.  And so, I suppose, that's what I am ultimately trying to find.  A way to feel connected to the world at large so that I don't feel invisible when the loneliness birds fly into my heart.  

So, today, I am going to try to live in what feels connected now.  Not what may happen in the future to make things better, not how the MAN can fix everything for me (because that's too much pressure on him and, honestly, not what I want).  Today, I am going to try to trust myself a little more and to shine a brighter light in that room so that, even if the dark corners don't quite disappear, I can begin to be less afraid of them.

How I was in the beginning

I remember growing up in two ways, so separate you'd think they were memories of two different children.  On the one hand, I remember playing on my elementary school playground.  Monkey bars, swing set, kickball. I wasn't an athletic or even a coordinated child, but recess came and, like all good first through sixth graders, I played.  I had alliances and enemies, people I wanted to play with and those I didn't.  Those memories are normal, tinted a little green from age and wear, but no different from anyone else's memories of grade school.

The second set is boy-girl specific as in girls vs. boys.  Specifically this girl vs. the boys.  Pictures of me from age 0-11 are adorable.  I am blonde, wide-eyed, average height and weight.  I have straight white teeth (no braces ever and still--to this day--I have never had a cavity).  Somewhere around age twelve I got my period, developed breasts, and was so different from other girls that I became my own entity against the boys. This lasted a long time. 

There were girls who weighed more than I did, but no one was as insecure about it as I was.  The women in my family, who I love dearly, dieted constantly, so I knew any extra weight was bad, but here I was, developing dimpled ass cheeks and curved hips and a chest that would be 36C by the time I was 15.  I was curvy and insecure--insecurvy--and had no idea what to do with a body like mine.  But, apparently, the boys knew what to do with it.

In ninth grade, at a new school (we moved in the middle of my eighth grade year), a friend took me to a junior high basketball game to flirt with a boy she liked.  At that game, an eighth grade boy told me I looked like I could perform a certain sex act very well because of the shape of my mouth.  I was fourteen.  

At that point, I'd been kissed by three boys.  One while playing spin the bottle--my first kiss ever--and two 'boyfriends' if you call hanging out at someone's house and kissing for a few weeks dating.  I had no frame of reference for such blatant sex talk, but it didn't end there.  Throughout high school, more boys said things to me like that.  I was the girl they said shitty, slutty things to, even though I was one of the last girls in my graduating class to do any of those things.  There were 42 people in my graduating class, around 200 in my high school, and everyone knew everyone else's business.  My prudishness had as much to do with self-preservation as it did with anything else.

I knew I could have had sex in high school.  Every girl I knew could have.  But I wanted to hold out for love.  And I had discovered the magic of making out.  In her memoir, Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, Susan Perkins-Gilman writes: "Making out, I'd quickly discovered, was the greatest activity ever invented in the history of the planet. As soon as I started making out with boys on a regular basis, I couldn't believe that vast segments of the human population ever did anything else. How, I wondered could people possibly pick up their dry cleaning, perform open-heart surgery, or teach high school mathematics when they could be making out instead? What was wrong with this world? Where were people's priorities?" 

I loved kissing, so when a boy at a party approached me, I let him kiss me because. I. Liked. It.  Good girls didn't go all the way, I knew that, but you could make out and maybe it would lead to a real relationship.  He'd see me Monday at school, remember our sweet hot kisses, and make me his girlfriend, give me his letter jacket to wear, his class ring, the whole nine. (I went to a 3A high school in Central Kansas from 1990-94 that was, admittedly, a little too 50s for it's own good.)

But, of course, that never happened.  I learned, as far as boys were concerned, I was fun backstage--in the dark where no one could see--but I was never the star of the show.

I look at the girls I teach, beautiful in each of their sizes, shapes, weights, and heights, and I pray none of them are being spoken to like I was--like I still am, sometimes.  I pray we've moved past the point where men feel like crass commentary is acceptable in terms of flirting.  I pray boys have gotten better with girls, and girls have learned how to say NO when they dislike something.  

But, of course, I know better.

I spent years trying to find love, trying to reconcile the playground images of boys and girls getting along, laughing, having fun and being partners with the other images of derision, sexualization and lusty groping that came later.  And it took me far too many trips around the block to realize you have to love who you are right now, no matter what anyone else says or who you hope to be in the future, you have to love who you are right now so you can defend her, nurture her, give her the room to say yes when it feels good and no when it feels bad.  And you have to keep doing it, over and over and over again, until it's as natural as breathing.

I let other people decide for me for so long that now I find myself loved by a good man who accepts me exactly as I am and it scares the shit out of me.  He loves me enough to hear every critical, irrational, and insecurvy thing I have to say without repercussions, without throwing it back at me, without making me feel bad for having emotions.  He loves me. And I have to let him.  I have to stop seeing myself as the girl boys used and let myself be the woman he loves.  

I have to get back to the swing set, the monkey bars, the effortless freedom of how I was in the beginning.

from 'Parthenogenesis'-Pablo Neruda

Well, I'll try to change for the better:

greet them all circumspectly,

watch out for appearances,

be dedicated, enthusiastic--

til I'm just what they ordered,

being an un-being at will

til I'm totally otherwise.

Then if they let me alone, 

I'll change my whle person,

disagree with my skin,

get a new mouth,

change my shoes and my eyes--

then when I'm different

and nobody can recognize me

--since anything else is unthinkable--

I'll go on as I was in the beginning.

The Weight of the World

It's official. I am fat. According to every online chart, every BMI counter and weight calculator, every scale I step on, and every pair of jeans in the juniors section (which admittedly I've NEVER been able to wear), I am fat.

This is not new information.  For the past seven years, with a few stretches of lower weight due to increased gym time in an attempt to avoid the truth and sadness of my dissolving marriage, I have been fat. I have, in fact, at 5'5" weighed nearly the same thing as my 6' construction worker father.  Papa, bald and fit--who looks at least 15 years younger than his 63--carries his weight in his midsection which means he looks barrel chested most days.  Me...ehhh...not so much.

I'm blessed with an hourglass figure from my mother (who incidentally has been dissatisfied with her beautiful face and body every day of my life and, probably, nearly every day of hers).  This figure is most noticeable in pencil skirts that hug my hips and thighs and behind, a tight sweater that denotes my waist and breasts, and high heels that make my muscular calves look positively deadly.  But, seriously, who can dress like a 50s pin up every day?  Dresses are a good option, some skirts, but my body is better suited to fits and fashions of years gone by, so clothes shopping is a nightmare. Pants and jeans either pull across my middle resulting in the ever insulting camel-toe or pool in the lap area to accommodate a pooch I don't have.  If they fit in my thighs, they're too big in my waist; it's a grail-esque search to find things in stores I can afford which means, usually, I scour thrift shops for anything that works on what the world tells me is an overweight, plus sized, inappropriate body.

Despite all of that, most of the time I don't FEEL fat, and by that I mean I don't feel ashamed or worthless or embarrassed.  I am intelligent, well educated, strong in my profession, loved by a good man, surrounded by supportive friends and family, and I know I am beautiful. Not pretty, not cute, but beautiful.  I have near flawless skin, big expressive eyes, thick healthy hair, and my heart is wide and deep enough to love everyone I encounter unconditionally.  But, you can't deny the number on the scale, and that number--though only a teeny tiny rest stop in the brilliant and mammoth map of who I am--can break my heart all night long if I think about it too much .

I've recently been reading Scoot Over Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology, and it has gotten me to thinking about my weight. I've gained 70 pounds since high school.  70. And I'm starting to figure out where it all came from in a bigger than well-you-ate-too-much-pizza/burgers/pasta-and-drank-too-much-booze sort of way.  My high school boyfriend cheated on me. So did the next guy. And the third, the first real long term relationship I had, kept in close contact with his ex-girlfriends (emails and phone calls) and I didn't know it the whole first year we were together.  I gained 10 pounds for each of those.

Then, later, mom was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. 15 pounds of fear, loneliness, and terror.

The last 25 came between the end of college and the end of graduate school: a three year period during which I was so lost and terrified that I might not be substantive enough for anyone to want me, that I weighted myself down with food as a means of proving I was real.

But now, exactly 24 weeks to the day until my 37th birthday, I am ready to put this weight of the world away.  Not because I feel so terribly awful about my appearance or because I give two shits what anyone has to say about my body--seriously, fuck anyone who can't see past my size to the heart of who I really am.  It's finally clear to me that I don't need this weight to protect me from anything anymore.  I'm not trying to ward off guys who might treat me like garbage. I'm not trying to fight back the fear of losing someone I love.  And I'm not aimlessly trying to determine who the hell I am.

So, today's the day.  I agreed to participate in a half marathon in April knowing I'll mot liekly walk or jog the whole time, and I've started keeping a journal of how my body feels when I eat and when I work out.

It's time to get back to the healthy, unafraid girl I was at 18 and introduce her to the strong woman I am today.

In the words of the poet Paul Celan,

It is time the stone made an effort to flower,
time unrest had a beating heart.
It is time it were time.

It is time.

New Year's Day

I had a solid plan to write a long reflective post today about 2012 and it's struggles, what I learned, how I am hopeful about 2013 and how there is simply no way the inverse is going to deal me mother shitty year.

But, I am sick.  Nose buzzing and running and sinus drainage and deep chest rattle cough sick. I had a productive morning, took off my closet doors, hung curtains, fixed my bedroom closet so it's actually usable for the first time in the six months I've lived here.  And then I succumbed to the disgusting truth of how I feel.

Whatever 2013 has in store, I suppose it can go up from here.  At least "Drive Me Crazy" is on HBO. Melissa Joan Hart and Adrien Grenier are a match made in teen movie heaven.

Christmas

My family has a rich tradition during th holidays.  Christmas Eve is almost always at my Nanny's (maternal grandmother) and because her four daughters all live in Salina, we have a houseful.  Good food, gifts for the children, great conversation, and the pure peace that comes from being surrounded by people you love.

Since my divorce, I have often felt separate from the joy of family functions.  Not because of anyone or nothing in my family--I am truly blessed to be a part of this wild and wonderful group--but I have felt alone even in the midst of all this joy simply because it is hard to accept that the partnership I was once half of no longer exists, and the older I get the more I need that alliance.  That feeling of it being us against the world.  I see that in my parents's marriage and in the beautiful family my brother and sister in law are building with my nieces Eva Olive and her 15 days old sister Ivy Elane.  

This Christmas, I did not go home.  Instead, I spent the holiday with the man in my life.  I've never had my own Christmas before, one for which I prepared the food, the guests came to my home, etc. And, with the exceptions of a deep cut to my left index finger trying to cut open a pomegranate for the cheesecake I made and a bizarre nosebleed that came on last night, it went off without a hitch.  

What I've realized this year is that being with the person I love makes me feel connected to the world and to the joy of the moment in ways I simply can't feel when we are apart.  I may not have had the houseful of relatives I've come to know over the years, but I am surrounded by love and that is, without hesitation, doubt, or exception, all I could ever ask for.

Love love love one another.  It is the only thing that matters.

Books; Baby; Boy

BOOKS
been reading like crazy over the last few months, in large part because I need to be taken out of my own life a little.  I have good friends, a job I love, people who support me, a wonderful family, but I find myself emotionally tapped out as the semester draws to a close and, to that end, I seek solace and solitude in books.

I've been reading for as long as I can remember, finding new worlds and new lives to prowl through, inhabit, wear.  When I learned to drive I didnt' know how to get anywhere in the town I grew up in because for years my nose had been too deeply buried in books to notice things like landmarks, directions,a nd street signs.

The run down of recent reads (the last 2-3 months) and my grading of them is as follows:

The Paris Wife, Paula McClain: A. Hemingway's 1st marriage ot Hadley Richardson.  Gorgeously written, captures rhythm and style and sadness of one of America's greatest writers while managing to have its own voice.

The Archivist, Martha Cooley: B+. The only reason this novel about an archivist specializing in the letters between Lucy Hale and T.S. E.iot isn't an A is the unnecessary middle third about the archivist's dead wife.  Boo.  His voice was so perfect, there was no need to introduce her story in that way.

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern: B-. There were elements of this that I absolutely loved, particulary the second person sections related to engaging with and encountering the circus, but the multiple plot lines and twisting chronology wasn't always compelling, and the love story was given away from the very beginning. 

Silver Linings Playbook, Matthew Quick: D.I hated this whiny man-boy protagonist from beginning to end.  I felt no empathy for him, no interest in his sad little parade towards mental health, and no desire to find out if he wound up okay or not.  Having been through a divorce and therapy myself, I found Quick's treatment of these issues to be superficial and monotone.

Reunion, Alan Lightman: B-.  This book was an A until the last 30 pages and then if fell apart.  Charles goes to his 30th high school reunion at a small men's liberal arts college, waxes philosophical about a girl he loved briefly as an undergrad, and has flashbacks to those days that are brilliant.  When the twist in that old relatopnship are revealed, however, they are neither beautifully written nor believable.  This had such possiblity, but the end of the novel made me want to burn the book.

The Group, Mary McCarthy: C.  I know why this book about 8 female friends from a prestigious women's college was controversial upon publication--frank sexual talk, backbiting, the truth aboutomen's competition with even their closes friends.  But, the scope was too grand the characters too interchangable for me to care.  I actually didn't finish this one.

An Invisible Sign of My Own, Aimee Bender: B. I love Bender's magical realism, and this story of a 19 year old woman thrown into a classroom as an emergency second grade math teacher is compelling, if not her best work.  The short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is better for my money.  But, this novel did make me want to know what happens next, and her relationships with her young students were dear and honest.

BABY
My sister-in-law is having my second niece today :)  Teryn and Brandon already have the ever fabulous Eva Olive who brought so much light and joy into my laugh it is staggering to imagine, and today baby number two arrives.  Eva has decided her new little sister shall be christened Twilight Sparkle or Sparkle Lipstick.  I am certain none of these names will appear on the birth certificate, but in the interim of knowing the official name: welcome to the world, Twilight Sparkle Lipstick :)

BOY
Well, man, really.  I have a good one. A great one, actually.  I have a lot of baggage from my marriage.  My ex is a good man who didn't know how to talk to me, how to give me the attention and affection I needed, how to love me as I need to be loved.  That doesn't make him a bad guy by any stretch, it just means we couldn't manage forever together.

But, the man I am with now, gives me every reason to believe that love can be the sustaining foundation beneath a person's feet that allows her to feel stronger, need less, and know more.  I am grateful every day, even for the roughest patches between us, because who we are once the storm passes is always so damn beautiful.

Once more unto the breach...

The past nearly five months have been full of down time, sadness, quiet introspection, silence, loneliness, and books.  There have, of course, been joyous moments, but tonight the quiet is creeping in, and I feel the need to settle in to it. The more I run from it, the more it comes back to haunt me anyway, so I'm going to give the beast a few words and hope it sloughs away for a while.

Friends I love have cancer. Women I love don't know they are worth more than the relationships they stay in. The man I love is beyond my reach in many ways. People I love have moved away. Students I believe in have dropped out. Decisions I've made regarding my financial future have blown up in my face. And let's not mention the lack of fitness this frame of mine exhibits.

In the immortal words of a positivity guide I saw on Etsy: shit's fucked.

I cannot think of a worse stretch of years.  I understand that being a human is hard, that life isn't meant to be sunshine and roses, that you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life. I get it. I just can't help but wonder when the good will come back around.

My job is as fulfilling as it is heartbreaking most days, but the crush of work has been nearly unbearable lately, and most of my students have no interest in learning anything. The majority of them want to show up, do the bare minimum, and be handed an A on a silver platter. When I suggest they work, read, learn, they scoff and tell me none of their other teachers cares this much, so what is my problem.  Indeed. What IS my problem?

I guess my problem is that I want the world to be good. I want the people I care for to be happy. I want the minds I encounter to be open and ready for new information. I want to see goodness in the world and to feel a deep sense of gratitude for my part in a universe that allows me to love this much. My problem is that I care more than nearly every one I know about almost everything.

And so at night, surrounded by books that serve as my most frequent companions these days, I am discovering a troubling truth about myself. I don't mind solace in the least, but I am not made for so much isolation. I need to share my life, my heart, my need to care. I need that, and yet I cannot seem to find a way to do it that doesn't potentially break my heart. And there it is, the fact we all want to avoid: vulnerability is the only real road to intimacy and connection, but being vulnerable can terrify us away from the very relationships that yield said intimacy and connection.

Tonight I say a prayer for all of us waiting on the sun, trying to believe in a tomorrow brighter than today, offering our open hands towards the sky that they may be filled with so much hope and promise.

Alas

While I am still reading and trying to be healthy, I have had to abandon my summer project.

My house being on the market for so long and not selling prompted my realtor to suggest I find a new place and go ahead and move so that investors (i.e. people who want to turn my home of the last three years into another shithole rental just like all the other once nice townhomes on this street) are more likely to buy an empty house.

So, the last few weeks have been incredibly busy looking for and finding a great new apartment, packing up the house, and preparing to move.  I get keys tomorrow and will slowly move over the week until I have a moving truck and assistance with big items on Thursday.

I imagine I'll hit 30 books by the end of the summer, but the 25 lbs lost will have to be a goal for a future date.

Hope summer has been treating you well.

25-50-75: Day 32

25 Hit the gym this morning. Hard. I feel good, tired and a little sore, but good. Healthy lunch at 715 today, looking forward to organic free range deliciousness. 50 Finished The Lonely Polygamist. It was too involved, much like the title character. I am finding it hard to concentrate on anything the last few weeks. Probably anxiety about my damn house not selling. I'm officially in the phase of now not ebing ale to pay my mortgage due to my increased student loan debt. Pray for me, universe. I am slowly working my way through shame researcher (yes, that is a real thing ) Brene Brown's book The Gift of Imperfection. I read a friend's copy last year, but now reading my own copy means annotating and internalizing a lot offer brilliant ideas. Like talking about your shame so it doesn't control. Acknowledging tht we all feel shame at some point, that guilt is the notion of having done something bad while shame is the idea that we are inherently bad. Pretty great stuff. I am a work in progress, y'all. Trying every day to accept and love myself so that I may more fully accept and love others. I the words of Jack Black, "being human is hard."

25-50-75: Day 27

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No more progress in terms of pounds, but I am feeling better about my food choices and the way I treat my body.  I've also not gone to the pool in a little while.  It isn't that I don't still love the sun and the easy lull of the water, but even with sunscreen I could see the freckles popping out across my face, and I don't love them.  So, I need a new sunhat (I seem to have lost the cute one I bought at the beginning of the summer).

50
Less progress here than I'd hoped.  I'm still stuck on the Udall.  It's good, but I'm not as interested in finishing it as I am in other things I've been reading.  Working my way through things for school--I can't imagine spending the summer not thinking about what I will teach during the year--has been really good.  I'm teaching a class I've never taught, and I have a good plan for it finally, now I just need to tweak the other courses.

The other book I'm reading is The Gift of Imperfection by Brene Brown.  Self-help?  Maybe, but I am not too proud to admit when I need a little help, and this one is all about the necessity of self-acceptance as the road to pure and unconditional love.  I believe that true and passionate love will be mine, but I want to be whole enough to accept and enjoy it, and for that to happen, I have to be healthy in all forms.

25-50-75: Day 22

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Lost 4 pounds so far.  Not the marathon weight loss I'd envisioned, but I am happy for progress.  The goal here has never been about becoming thin--I'm never going to be that, I never have been that, and I don't particularly want to be that, I like my curves--but I do want to be healthier.  So, I'm aiming for a healthy weight that makes me feel good.  It's never been about the number on the scale so much as it is about how my body feel and how my clothes fit.  I feel good when I'm a size 12, I'm not now, so that's my goal.  I have an idea of what weight goes with that size, but if I'm off by a little I don't care.  I'm not making health changes to become some fashion-forward bastion of beauty and consumer/capitalism driven style.  And I'm certainly not doing it for a man.  Anyone lucky enough to be with me will love me for who I am, not how I look.

50
Having just completed In the Woods by Tana French, I can say I have read 12 books so far and am into my 13th.  Again, the going is slower than I anticipated, but on the book front part of that is due to choosing 300+ pagers.  If I stuck with smaller books, as a friend told me, I could knock a lot more out.  I quickly thanked him for his foray into the world of the obvious and picked up the 599 page The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall.

First, the French.  As a rule I do not read supermarket fiction.  You know the ones I mean, endcaps at Dillons or Hy-Vee with the "hot" reads of the day, all splashily displayed with the same wanton lust as, say, detangler or white tea and jasmine scented hand lotions.  These are not items you buy the grocery store: they're too expensive and too main stream to be considered luxurious in anyway save for the price.  But, we've all been known to buy ourself a little happy in the form of an over-priced egg shaped lip balm (strawberry flavored) simply because it was too cute to not get us out of our self-indued-why-won't-someone-ever-really-love-me-funk, and so, thus entered French's novel into my life.

Told in first person by an Irish detective with a carefully cultivated British accent to hide his cultural heritage, it's the story of a man looking into the murder and disappearance of a 12 year old girl in the woods in a suburb just out of Dublin.  A wood where three other children disappeared years before, only one of whom returned.  And that boy was our detective.  A little cliche, sure, but the man's mania over not being able to remember the events of that tragic day plays so beautifully against the taut suspense of the current case that you don't get tripped up by the obvious over-reaching of the parallel, or at least I didn't.

This isn't a book that will win any awards for earth-shattering fiction writing, it's not Colum McCann for heaven's sake, but it was gripping and I did enjoy it.  If you need a good summer read, beach or pool or couchside, it's a good one. (Lovers of crime shows will dig it, people with young children may want to steer clear).

The Udall is good so far.  As the title implies, it revolves around a man practicing the principle of plural marriage.  He has 4 wives and 32 children and a failing construction business.  Already the ties to HBOs Big Love--a show I loved until they copped out with the series finale--and it rings with the truth of the memoir I read last week, Escape.  I may have noted before that I have a fascination with Mormons and ploygamy, but in this case I really wanted to read something else by Udall.  I read his Miracle Life of Edgar Mint when it first came out and loved it, so I was eager to see that this had to offer.

Nearly a third of the way in to this challenge, I can say I am proud of myself for sticking with it.  If I want a day off from the healthy eating, I take it.  If I want to watch movies instead of read (as I did today: The Rum Diary, B+ and Love & Other Disasters, C) I do.  The challenge isn't about completion in a lockstep way that keeps me from enjoying it, it's about the journey and trying to push myself.

As a very wise person said to me today, perfection doesn't exist so trying to achieve it is absolutely pointless.  Instead, we have to look for the things that feed our souls.  That's what this summer is about for me.  I hope you are doing the same.

25-50-75: Day 18

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Dinner: turkey meatballs, whole wheat pasta, homemade pasta sauce: olive oil, Roma tomatoes, green onions and garlic simmered and mashed until sauce-y.  Topped with shaved parmesan.  Yes.

4th day in a row at the pool.  Much quieter today, plenty of time to read.  Got more sun and the hair is FINALLY starting to lighten up after the home dye-job disaster of early 2012.

Lots of water: Pamplemouse.  And my favorite iced tea: Celestial Seasonings Cool Brew-Peach.

50
Hated the ending to Blue Angel.  Seriously.  The guy gets busted for his affair and as he leaves the mock trial on campus realizes he's been set up from the very beginning.  Just then the campus bells, which he has always found annoying until now, begin to chime and he feels liberated from his buttoned-down back East existence.  BOO.

Read two more today: Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons and Mister Posterior & the Genius Child by Emily Jenkins.

Ellen Foster was better when I read it the first time, but it was called Bastard Out of Carolina then and it was written by Dorothy Allison.  Gibbons has a decent voice, but I could never told how old the narrator was supposed to be in the telling and it distracted me from the story.  Also, it was unclear if her father was black or if he just associated with blacks.  This seems small, but the way her grandmother treats Ellen because of the grandmother's disdain for Ellen's father makes the distinction important.  Quick read, but not great.

Mister Posterior etc. was good, but it too has a better corollary.  The Summer of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau does a much better job of capturing early 70s sexual rebellion-post sexual revolution.  I didn't hate Jenkins' book, but I did find the eight going on nine year old narrator's comfort with the naked ass flashing that occurs over a period of months outside her bedroom window to be disingenuous.  I have a hard time any kid, when confronted with a "wiggly, hairy" male ass would be so mellow about it that they'd refer to it as "just a bottom".  Maybe I'm uptight, but I didn't buy it.

 

25-50-75: Day 17

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New salad obsession has ruled my life yet again.  Spring mix, cherry tomatoes, green onions, goat cheese, almonds, white wine vinegar and olive oil dressing.

Book room work is done.  Gym is on deck for Friday morning--tomorrow I'm typing up inventory--any suggestions for a good workout playlist?

Day three at the pool; oh, sun.  I do love you so.

50
While I was home for the River Festical, I read a book I forgot to write about: Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven.  It's Appalachia before WWII and Velva Jean's mother, just before she dies, tells her daughter to "live out there" as she gestures to the world beyond the windows of their small mountain home.  I was completely transported by this book.  The era fascinates me anyway--prohibition, moonshine--and the setting is brilliantly described.  Having just read the Bondurant novel and watched "Hatfields and McCoys", I was primed for a novel set in that are with a female protagonist, and Velva Jean does not disappoint.

As she grows into a beauty, she becomes fixed on a young revivalist preacher named Harley Bright, the same young man who she used to call the moonshiner's boy when they were young and he was trouble, before he found his way to salvation.  The novel covers her life before him and with him, and throughout its telling there are rich descriptions of land and love, of what it means to want someone so badly you lose yourself in the wanting.  It was beautiful and full of aching hope.

The novel of today is Blue Angel by Francine Prose.  It is a decidedly different beast.  Most everything else I've read would be pretty accessible to most audiences, but I have a hard time imagining everyone would love this.  Set on a small east coast college campus, the protagonist (Swenson) is the novelist in residence and is teaching a particularly diverse writer's work shop including a young Boston Brahmin girl he refers to as Back Bay Barbie. This--among many other things--cracked me up, but if you aren't familiar with the references this book would probably either be a snoozer for you or a plain old irritation.

Case in point: the campus is worrying about sexual harassment in the wake of an incident at a neighboring state school.  The dean throws a dinner party to feel out the English department about the climate on their own campus; one professor talks about his class referring to Poe as a child molester after learning of his marriage to his 13 year old cousin.   Another says a particularly evangelical young lady told him she felt 'unsafe' after a class discussion surrounding possible gay overtones in the relationship between Pip and Magwich in Great Expectations.   Finally, the female poet in residence shares a story about trying to open her students' minds to the notion of what a poem can mean.  To do this, she read them "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin.  Her students did not respond well, and one of her colleagues tears Larkin apart for being self-pitying and essentially a waste of time.

Now, if you read the above paragraph and laughed because those references all resonate with you, then this is your book.  If not, skip it.  Me, I'm having a ball.  Of course all of this surrounds the central story of the professor who falls for his weird looking but incredibly talented young female student and the havoc it wreaks on his wife.  Not very original, but Prose can write, so I'm eager to finish it.

Next up, either The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacob or I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron.  Any votes?

25-50-75: Day 15

A million pardons for the hiatus, lovely reader(s).  I had a hellacious week last week that included an overview session about Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts--check this out for more info. about what I saw and the guy I heard: Shanahan On Literacy.

For those of you who don't know, I am passionately committed to my job.  So much so that I don't even like to think of it as a job.  It's a calling.  That may sound strange, but there is simply no other word for it.  This is the work I am meant to do in the world.  To teach students to think critically, write coherently, and above all to believe that their individual voice matters, well, the fact that I get paid to do all of that is really just icing on a decadently rich and rewarding cake.

25

That being said, the time I am putting in in the bookroom is hampering the 25 portion of this challenge.  My upper body and legs are stronger without question--hauling books around and moving them from top to bottom shelves, packing and moving boxes weighing anywhere from 3-40 pounds, that's strength training if ever I've done it, but I miss sweating pushing myself to my limit at the gym, so I am trying to work out a schedule that will make that more possible.  The good news is the book room is almost done, and when it is complete, I promise to post pictures so you can revel in the magical wonderland that is the newly organized space.  I should have taken before pictures, but the afters will just have to do.

The good thing about this challenge, though, is that I am being more conscious of what I put in to and how I treat my body.  From my time in the sun at the pool to the way I eat, I'm trying to be more aware and in the moment.  At the pool, I lay and read for much of the time, but I try to take ten minutes out of every hour to watch the clouds, listen to the water lapping, breathe in the chlorinated air, giggle along with the littlest kids who find every new splash to be a revelation.  And when it comes to food, I am realizing more and more that when I eat fast food--and yes, I have fallen off that wagon--I not only feel badly about my choice to eat it, but I also feel physically bad.  So, tonights dinner of a spring mix salad with almonds, peas, cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, and an olive oil/white wine vinegar dressing is the kind of thing I am going to work to include in my diet.  I like to eat healthily, I jut always take the time. But, if I'm not going to care for my body, no one else will, and I want to love myself enough to be good to myself, so here's to me trying.

50

I gave up on the Arsonist's Guide to Homes in New England.  If I can't care about your main character in the first 100 pages, I'm not ever going to care about him, so your book can suck it.  (For other revelatory things that make main characters detestable, check out this great list from novelist Chuck Wendig: 25 Reasons I Hate Your Main Character)

Luckily, the book I picked up after the Arsonist's debacle kept me riveted: Carolyn Jessop's Escape is a 400+ page recounting of her escape, at the age of 34, from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community in which she was raised.  When she left she had eight children and had been married to a man 30 years her senior for seventeen years.  The book never felt long, never felt like it needed to be edited, it was harrowing and shocking and honestly disgusting in some places.  I just cannot believe that in people can confuse loving God with polygamy, child abuse--physical and sexual--and complete and total domination of women through a patriarchal power structure built around large families that seek to keep women pregnant and silent at all times.  One of the most sickening notions was that of perfect obedience in which a wife will earn favor with God if she completely submits to her husband's will in all ways, even when he is being abusive, neglectful, or psychotic.

The older I get, the more I understand the nature of submission.  Not in the sense that I want to turn my life over to a man, but I believe the Biblical teaching that a wife submits to her husband so long as he loves her to the point of being willing to lay down his life for her.  That's the section of the verse that gets left out when people start talking about male dominance and the Bible.  I am as feminist as they come, but this verse--to me--is about mutual sacrifice and true partnership.  I don't know too many couples that exhibit these behaviors because they are damn hard to comply with.  Isn't our first instinct one of self-preservation?  Why would we lay down our lives for someone else, even someone we love, if it meant losing ourselves?  And why would we give up our position and allow someone else's choices to speak for us if it means silencing our perspective?  But I don't think that's what God calls us to do.  I think we're supposed to try as hard as we can to love one another as fully as we can, to create a union made from perfect love that is forgiving, patient, helpful, and unconditional.  It is not easy.  It means bending when everything in us says to just go ahead and break under the pressure, but if two people really love one another--and I mean ANY TWO PEOPLE, gay, straight, lesbian, what have you--then I believe they should work towards that perfect love all the days of their lives.

Clearly, in the case of Carolyn Jessop--and in the case of my marriage and many others like me--there comes a point when bending is no longer possible.  There are obstacles that cannot be overcome no matter how desperately we may want to hang on.  In Jessop's case, leaving the FLDS meant abandoning the only life she had ever known, renouncing her faith that had instilled in her the belief that she was chosen among God's people to live the principle of plural marriage, and to begin again in a world she knew very little about.  Imagine trying to navigate social services when your only access to money was through the cash your husband gave you when he felt like it.  Yikes.

For the rest of us, often our marriages end because the two people involved weren't ever able to be honest with one another, because we grow apart, because what we need and what the other person can give us are so far apart that we may as well be living on separate planets.  But this book, Escape, made me think deeply about what it means to love someone, what it means to love God, and what it means to love myself.  I never renounced my faith, but I had some years when believing was hard for me.  My mother's cancer took that faith and ran it through every wringer you can imagine.  And I never like the treatment of women in the Bible.  But I found my way back to a faith that works for me, one that is accepting and honest and full of love.  And I've come out of my divorce with the belief that no matter how hard it may be to fall in love again, I'm committed to doing it because I deserve to be happy and to share my life with someone.

But first, I gotta love me. So here's to that.

25-50-75: Day 8

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Absolutely no progress.  Everything is as it was a week ago.  Better than gaining weight, for sure, but not so joyful on the losing front.

Book room boxing and hauling is giving me more upper body strength, I can feel the muscles working with less pain than they did a week ago, so that is goo, but I haven't made it back to the gym.  I love it there, but I can't get motivated at 5 a.m., and I don't want to go at night, which means I either sacrifice time in the book room or at the pool, and I don't want to do either of those things...I'll figure it out.

50

Started An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England today by Brock Clarke.  It's good so far, funny, a little irritating.  The protagonist/arsonist accidentally burned down Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst and killed two people in the process.  The novel follows him in the aftermath--the way aftermath--after he's served 10 years in prison for the crime and emerges a 28 year old virgin with an inability to tell people he loves the truth about his past.  

I'm definitely engaged, but if he doesn't do something redemptive soon, I'm going to have to decide if reading the whole thing is worth it.

I ran into a dear friend at the pool today who complimented me on my efforts on this little quest--thank you for that affirmation that this isn't just floating in the void.  I don't know who's reading, and I'm not really writing for anyone but me, but come on--we all like to hear feedback once in awhile, right?

***

On another note, my dear ex-husband stayed the night here last night.  The carbon monoxide detector in his apartment went off and it rattled him--me, too--so he crashed on the couch.  It's the first time we've spent the night under the same roof since the month he moved out, June 2010.  It was a little weird at first, his familiar pajama pants and college t-shirt, the tightening in my chest when he played with Zelda, but then that was it.  No pain, no remorse, no sadness.  I didn't once look at him and think we should still be together.  It was just one friend helping another out.  I'm so proud of us that we can be this way.  Our divorce was never about not loving one another.  It was about loving each other too much to stay in an unhappy marriage: we wanted each other to be happy, and it just wasn't going to happen in our marriage.

So, here's to happiness, wherever you can find it, even if--especially if--you have to make really tough decisions to get there.  Joy is worth it, people.  You are worth it.  Always.