tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13977154477529791242024-02-28T18:41:51.735-05:00Sadie Belle ReadsAmy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.comBlogger162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-39718187904357798722021-12-19T14:41:00.000-05:002021-12-19T14:41:49.313-05:00A Kind of Healing<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_vjg15ulGdhDJc_bzAty6KT77Rg9ln-hNMDZbAwEuVejfBMgr1hiymPTXxd-xy1WO669v8eF4bzeo_KK88crr-E-wD2F-PMh7Yb2ST2fGCG9QMHr2jq1tl3LjRKUNMoPVj5xq1qNVCTDbXrNHOHGFwFhntPwxgZ85r4uj3l-whpHNq6L7I0ihdobr=s4032" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_vjg15ulGdhDJc_bzAty6KT77Rg9ln-hNMDZbAwEuVejfBMgr1hiymPTXxd-xy1WO669v8eF4bzeo_KK88crr-E-wD2F-PMh7Yb2ST2fGCG9QMHr2jq1tl3LjRKUNMoPVj5xq1qNVCTDbXrNHOHGFwFhntPwxgZ85r4uj3l-whpHNq6L7I0ihdobr=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"...to live the slow quiet rhythm of a day as a kind of healing"<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Several years ago, I discovered May Sarton’s journals. What a blessing it has been to have them keep me company through these last few years of transition as my children have moved away, and I have gone through my own deep,unguided changes, learning to grow into a not-always-welcome solitude. She and Rilke, among others, have become cherished company in my morning readings.</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is the fourth of Sarton's journals that have kept me company over the last four years. I read and loved Journal of a Solitude first, and since then I've been trying to read them in the order she wrote them. Sometimes, she annoys me, but for the most part, I find her voice a welcome and recognizable comfort in my own struggles.<br /><br />If you're looking for drama and engaging happenings, these journals are not for you. If you're looking to inhabit the slow, thoughtful world of an introvert who finds more comfort in plants than in people, I highly recommend them.<br /></span><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-76431026314201146252021-12-10T17:00:00.002-05:002021-12-10T18:43:46.450-05:00Sweet Irony<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBnAanvH3LXq_Ar6MlioIAnonNIKqJRRy2eBYhLTe5fU8giRKemAuj830eek-RUPHqVvPN8nPDvwBE9q3J6T_spd1BlcfLDhFtt2UUI0FXyZjluKM3A4qyc9d7GXWzoIQ1JXuLvl9AMkOHaNJU-w8zEJ79-BkcWaIANfudmqozuAfVu64yfn5_kG9Z=s2048" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBnAanvH3LXq_Ar6MlioIAnonNIKqJRRy2eBYhLTe5fU8giRKemAuj830eek-RUPHqVvPN8nPDvwBE9q3J6T_spd1BlcfLDhFtt2UUI0FXyZjluKM3A4qyc9d7GXWzoIQ1JXuLvl9AMkOHaNJU-w8zEJ79-BkcWaIANfudmqozuAfVu64yfn5_kG9Z=w320-h240" title="Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless." width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> "Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless."</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-025de121-7fff-3dbb-e35d-5b289d08ce71"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I first began reading </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Olga Tokarczuk, I admit, I was not in the best frame of mind. Between the end of Daylight Savings Time and Winter Solstice, I struggle to console myself even for my own existence, so naturally, I'd choose a book with that kind of title as a pick-me-up.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For much of the first part of the book, I read with one eye on the page. It just wasn't catching me. I couldn't decide if I even liked the narrator. I found her slippery and not easily pegged. Don't we all like easily pegged? We don't have to think. I get impatient with astrologists, and she is definitely into astrology, so at first, I was dismissing her often based on my own bias. </span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By page 200, I read raptly, with no breaks.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I've learned anything in my life, it is that keeping an open mind should always</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be my go-to. While I still don't believe in astrology, I do believe in many of the ideas this narrator espouses. </span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I love that she assigns descriptive nicknames to humans in lieu of given names for most people. I find it interesting that she (or I guess the author) capitalizes the word Animal and the Types of Animals, but not of plants. Do I know for sure this is consistent? No, but I did often notice it. So she herself is making the kinds of distinctions she asserts we have no right to make.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can't say much about the plot without spoilers. People die. Animals die. The point is that all killing is wrong. Is it?</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Our narrator is far from perfect. She's neither always right nor always wrong. In her choices and in her actions, she embodies the imperfect hypocrisy she so rightly disdains. </span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><p></p>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-11935194058945045402021-09-19T23:47:00.003-04:002021-09-19T23:51:55.785-04:00When Reality is Too True<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHyoPKK1-7ID2HPnrUAzTzbLt5dPy9QKe0qRHl4wYDQiVIAVlDTBu_3aMx2WYdIZ4IkSEKBefStb5fPTlADSeYJVxjUHl9cIieNtO8NyKq_Rv_W8X3OmyWs_F6bpnbluf9b5TLf_vhqM/s4032/IMG_1836.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHyoPKK1-7ID2HPnrUAzTzbLt5dPy9QKe0qRHl4wYDQiVIAVlDTBu_3aMx2WYdIZ4IkSEKBefStb5fPTlADSeYJVxjUHl9cIieNtO8NyKq_Rv_W8X3OmyWs_F6bpnbluf9b5TLf_vhqM/s320/IMG_1836.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Nightmare<br />9/15/2021</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">For almost two months now, I have been unable to read fiction. I've tried repeatedly. I just can't focus. This has never happened to me. Who am I if I can't read novels? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have no memory of the beginning of my obsession with fiction. My first specific memory of reading on my own was devouring the Nancy Drew mysteries when I was 9. Forty-five years later, I do not remember ever not being able to read fiction for weeks on end. The last novel I finished was really a novella, and that was at the end of July.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Until last week, I was just suffering in shame and silence. Then I had a conversation with two other novel eaters, and both of them told me they were experiencing the same debilitation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What is going on?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can't speak to anyone else's experience. For me, the state of the world today has made it almost impossible for me to devote any mental energy to anything that isn't true. The positive side of this is that I am learning a lot about other people's experiences and improving my capacity for empathy as I learn.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unfortunately for my novel reading life, I am also learning how much of a privilege it is for me to be able to enjoy fiction, and thus how much of a privilege it is to be able to rue the loss of that enjoyment. I have a home. I have food. I have some semblance of safety. What a privilege it is for me to worry about losing my ability to lose myself in fantasy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet, maybe fantasy is what keeps us going. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What keeps us hopeful? If we lose our ability to engage in "what ifs" and "what abouts," what have we lost? What is the value of distraction and delusion? My current nonfiction read is about that very question. Maybe I'll blog about that next week. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi6zCilSoy0ZTNZM0H__vHLnm04GeS7gPIfB-AzI24PRnBEy-Vz_0GPVnZt-yWkZQH1S9oOTnjMdzYDTd1Uhyphenhyphen6OkBJ0LDyMyQAVWjyolcJMofsqWdx1rzHRjn9JFERSotEo-VE72wDuvk/s3780/92B1B4B7-C0C6-485E-8CE0-DC1BBE346020.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3780" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi6zCilSoy0ZTNZM0H__vHLnm04GeS7gPIfB-AzI24PRnBEy-Vz_0GPVnZt-yWkZQH1S9oOTnjMdzYDTd1Uhyphenhyphen6OkBJ0LDyMyQAVWjyolcJMofsqWdx1rzHRjn9JFERSotEo-VE72wDuvk/s320/92B1B4B7-C0C6-485E-8CE0-DC1BBE346020.JPG" width="256" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-22439800131642827152021-07-21T18:59:00.004-04:002021-07-21T19:24:03.872-04:00An Evil Pallor / Grow Your Own Tomatoes<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rKEBarO5Slh3Ml5ljMZpRATzG086Ij5QT0vnbvivKFYGEzdu6oxmVagdoJ_RT2DgLdBoHQ4ey7tY2ykLcyhOBqxPavTX8ECVgz_EzfZB96YRudzy_J1Z4Yy-rEvi_wIQ0NFlC1dvqBo/s4032/IMG_1161.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rKEBarO5Slh3Ml5ljMZpRATzG086Ij5QT0vnbvivKFYGEzdu6oxmVagdoJ_RT2DgLdBoHQ4ey7tY2ykLcyhOBqxPavTX8ECVgz_EzfZB96YRudzy_J1Z4Yy-rEvi_wIQ0NFlC1dvqBo/s320/IMG_1161.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, as I was hanging my clothes out to dry, I noticed an evil pallor in the sky. Amidst sustained heat I had never felt before, I realized it was past time for me to speak up about what is happening to our planet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I grew up with grandparents who gardened and with a mother who canned and froze the fruits of those gardens. Until my mid 40s, I never had to buy commercially canned green beans, and I had never been without fresh corn or fresh tomatoes in the summer until the last of my grandparents died.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first time I learned to can tomatoes, I was in labor with my first child. At the time, I had no idea I was in labor. My mother had died a few months earlier, and I was in a trauma fog. I felt too tired to move, but in my family, a female feeling tired has never been a good excuse to lie down, so I canned tomatoes until I couldn't. Even then I felt guilty about leaving Nanny Byrd to finish alone. Ironically, the child I was laboring over has always hated tomatoes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that I have your attention, here is what I really want to say:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grass lawns are ecological dead zones, and that's not even taking into account the fossil fuels it takes to maintain them. Find a way to cut the area of grass you mow in half. Planting native trees and shrubs is the best solution. I am still working on this. It's not easy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plastics are death. Work hard to stop using them. This requires constant vigilance. If you're using a Keurig, just stop. A coffee maker with a reusable filter is not that much more difficult. I do understand the difficulty of getting away from some plastics. I've tried to endure the hell of a bamboo toothbrush on my jowls. I just can't. But at least try to be aware of plastics when you are buying things, and ask yourself, does this come in a non-plastic version? I recently changed my vinegar purchase after asking myself this question and plan to work now toward figuring out how to make my own mayonnaise. (Recipes welcome)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Compost!!! This is so easy. Just google it. Composting and recycling cut my garbage output by more than half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stop using plastic grocery bags. This one wears me out because it is so easy to fix. This is the easiest of all of these problems to address. Buy a reusable bag. It's ok if you forget once in a while. I do too. What matters most is every time you don't forget.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but this is what came to me today while I was mowing what's left of my lawn, right after I picked the lovely tomato in the photo. If nothing else, grow your own tomatoes. It's really not difficult, and it's so lovely to be able to step outside and pick one when you want one.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-68760529558768070902019-11-13T17:07:00.001-05:002023-01-06T22:16:39.850-05:00My Most Difficult Book Post<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wE-c1JrKW6q5dLAIqEvq_M7iSGuYkwTfi0HCEmIh-6u0xn_8acMk8rSdM-0Lzw6zRiZVtOGSijDVTNqQCQNsWyEj_z-1Ys_-siNPYNHpF_AKbHF0hANQ_XB-uWM74kTgNS3VwexnJWs/s1600/crawdad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wE-c1JrKW6q5dLAIqEvq_M7iSGuYkwTfi0HCEmIh-6u0xn_8acMk8rSdM-0Lzw6zRiZVtOGSijDVTNqQCQNsWyEj_z-1Ys_-siNPYNHpF_AKbHF0hANQ_XB-uWM74kTgNS3VwexnJWs/s200/crawdad.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As soon as I finished <u>Where the Crawdads Sing</u> by Delia Owens, I wrote about it. I have edited what I wrote several times since then. A true girl child of my culture, it is very difficult for me to speak critically in public. Only in the last few years have I realized how much this cultural silencing has cost me. I love that there are still people who read a book and feel passionately about it. I never want to discourage anyone from reading anything. But since this is my blog, and since I well and truly suck at pretending, I'm going to tell you my experience with this novel. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't remember exactly when this book first came across my radar, but when I read a description of the story, I thought, "OMG, this book is so me." After a few months waiting for it to arrive from the library, I dove in eagerly. For the first fifty pages or so, I told myself I was disappointed because I had set my expectations too high. I convinced myself I could ignore the inauthentic dialogue, relax and appreciate the beautiful passages about nature, and enjoy the development of a main character I loved. The plot, however, continued to devolve into melodrama, and the annoying dialogue got even more annoying. By the time one of the characters drove from the North Carolina coast to Asheville to get supplies, I was almost mad enough to throw the book across the room. Instead, I returned it to the library unfinished.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over the course of the next few months, multiple people told me how much they loved this book, and I thought, well, maybe I've been unfair. So I re-ordered it and finished reading. As much as I love the character of Kya, and as much as I love the descriptions of nature and the themes of the appreciation and preservation of wilderness, I cannot love this book. In addition to the melodramatic plot, the dialogue is almost insulting. I have lived in North Carolina my entire life. Not once have I ever heard anyone use the term "Alabamee" for Alabama. If this was meant as a joke, it's not funny. And going to Asheville from the coast for any kind of supplies, what is that about? I can't even begin to address the insertion of bad poetry into the narrative because I can't begin to understand why anyone would do that or why any editor would let it pass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've spent a couple of weeks trying to understand why I am so disappointed in this book. I think it's because it could have been so good. It could have been elevating. Owens could have taken Kya and her surroundings and gone the route of Kent Haruf or Anita Brookner. Instead she went full on Michael Crichton. Good intentions and a great ability to describe the natural world do not make up for the missteps in a book I really wanted to love. </span><br />
<br />
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-24437861321465768532019-11-06T12:48:00.000-05:002019-11-06T12:59:00.214-05:00Tompkins Knob North on the MST<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyOBRTkv4dotPGId71fd_ts_EX6Wn8bw_mwi50oce_FMtlgR2p8zhvaruFPTHhDt7jNqqVu4y_q5lkgfgJZH8YcDd5ZtlTu-cv2Vmoz7veor4VyfhzldP9-U2nGM3BC2gYplMvfqiqACc/s1600/IMG_0405+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyOBRTkv4dotPGId71fd_ts_EX6Wn8bw_mwi50oce_FMtlgR2p8zhvaruFPTHhDt7jNqqVu4y_q5lkgfgJZH8YcDd5ZtlTu-cv2Vmoz7veor4VyfhzldP9-U2nGM3BC2gYplMvfqiqACc/s320/IMG_0405+%25281%2529.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cascades Overlook MP 271.9 on Blue Ridge Parkway</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
“But life holds mystery for us yet. In a hundred places we can still sense the source: a play of pure powers that—when you feel it—brings you to your knees. There are yet words that come near to the unsayable, and from crumbling stones, a new music to make a sacred dwelling in a place we cannot own.” ~Rilke</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I think the hike we took yesterday is going to end up being my favorite relatively nearby hike, which I define as being an hour drive or less. This hike in in Jeffress Park, which is only about 2 miles north of the Parkway entrance at Deep Gap just east of Boone. We parked at Tompkins Knob Parking Area at MP 272.5 and entered the Tompkins Knob / MST Trail going north toward the Jesse Brown Cabin and Cool Springs Baptist Church. It’s an easy 500 feet of trail from the Tompkins Knob Parking Area to the cabin. There’s a lovely little spring and spring house down behind the cabin on its southeast side.<br />
<br />
After passing through the clearing by the cabin and the church, the trail continues on for another easy half mile through a lovely wood to the Cascades Overlook at MP 271.9. This overlook is one of the most beautiful views I’ve seen on the Blue Ridge Parkway (see above).<br />
<br />
From here we entered the Cascades Trail, which is a short loop down to the Cascades Waterfall. This trail is usually fairly busy. Unfortunately, half of it has been closed for about a year now, so until they open the east side of the loop again, it’s an out and back instead of a loop. The half that is open meanders beside a beautiful mountain stream on the way to the falls. The Cascades Loop Trail is a mile total, so I assume the half that's open is about a half-mile.<br />
<br />
At the far end of the Cascades Trail, the Mountains to Sea Trail (MST) splits off and continues north into the woods. We got a little off track here because the "blaze tree" is down and looks to have been down for a while. MST forks very soon after you exit the Cascades Trail, like maybe twenty feet? If you come to a clearing with a maintenance shed near the BRP, turn around, you missed the fork. After some rambling around up and down the Parkway itself (which the dogs did not enjoy), we went back and found the MST fork and walked another half-mile or so north. This is a beautiful section of the trail with some lovely views through the bare trees down off the mountain to the east.<br />
<br />
I don't know our total mileage, but I would guess 3 to 4 miles, considering our rambling around lost for a while. We were on the trail from 11:30 to 1:30, taking plenty of time to take photos, visit the waterfall, and let the dogs play in the creek. One of the best things about this hike is that you can tailor it to your hiking ability. You could park at either Tompkins Knob or at Cascades Overlook for less than a mile of hiking, or you can continue on the MST as far as your feet will take you. This hike would be a good start for anyone who is intimidated by hiking, as there is a lot of payoff for not a lot of work. The elevation change on this part of the MST is hardly noticeable. We had a lovely day in the woods and were able to finish our current co-read, <u>The Castle of Otranto</u> in the car on the way up. I'll try to get a book post in again soon!<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-1210756081154156422019-10-30T17:41:00.000-04:002019-10-30T18:00:15.302-04:00Love Is The Only Answer I Know<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR0V90kw7M9QqvCxsJNKTWhIKsMdDyzVus8JctyU7_HuxeQEJovTi75cQRFQswN77QGm6L3rfn6l-1d1hpJPYPVRtwzYxr98uWqMDcMs6inezKffoy19jX_pR33ukNFCILg9c96676xmA/s1600/Mountain+Cloud.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR0V90kw7M9QqvCxsJNKTWhIKsMdDyzVus8JctyU7_HuxeQEJovTi75cQRFQswN77QGm6L3rfn6l-1d1hpJPYPVRtwzYxr98uWqMDcMs6inezKffoy19jX_pR33ukNFCILg9c96676xmA/s320/Mountain+Cloud.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday, I learned of the death of a person who was much too young to die, a child who was part of my life for two decades as I mothered a son who was part of his life. In the process of mothering our own children, we all mothered this son.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some deaths are inexcusable, unforgettable, untenable. When I was 21, one of my younger brothers died. When that happened, I thought, OK, that's it for me. No more trauma. Then I continued to be alive, and I discovered that life is trauma. To be alive is to be traumatized, repeatedly.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When my son was born, I wanted him to have the childhood Yeats described when he wrote, "when I was a boy with never a crack in my heart." I expect this is what we all want for our children. If you're lucky, this works for a while. Then life happens, something like yesterday happens, and we're all left trying to figure everything out all over again.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To my baby boy, I don't know how to help you with what just happened. I hardly even know how to process it myself. I wish I had answers. I wish I could lead you back to an uncracked heart. But the truth is that you and I were both just lucky to live this long without your heart cracking like this.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Is there anything any of us can do to find meaning in this? I don't know. I think everyone's answer to the question of meaning is different. What have I done? I've tried to be there for my kids. I've tried to reach out to people. All we know for sure is that we have each other in the here and now. All any of us can do is love each other while we are still in the here and now. Love is the only answer I know. </span>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-56867792578859086942019-10-08T21:25:00.001-04:002019-11-06T13:24:17.448-05:00Who Am I, Now That I'm Not Mothering?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzc16E6ywboowBCk-IcGDaZUJ0a-nuZGzUIEO0MxU0R2bSjX7o0qAVjR-a7FYAgHBRRC3WvsLGOFpiTN6dNtplgb829QflmJh97k4VV-m89_ZmzuP4KKVqU4PH9kr6imx6JAdPB-20j7w/s1600/kids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzc16E6ywboowBCk-IcGDaZUJ0a-nuZGzUIEO0MxU0R2bSjX7o0qAVjR-a7FYAgHBRRC3WvsLGOFpiTN6dNtplgb829QflmJh97k4VV-m89_ZmzuP4KKVqU4PH9kr6imx6JAdPB-20j7w/s320/kids.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every day, I wake up and think, "I am going to be a better person today!" Then life happens, and I go to bed wondering, "What exactly happened here?" Very rarely do I end the day feeling like I have met my goal of personal betterment. Recently, I've tried to enact a week-long deductible on all emotional reactions. If I ever feel compelled to confront anyone for any reason, I invoke my week deductible. Partly, this is a personal cooling-off period, because I do tend to run hot and cold. But more importantly, it is because I've found that truth is usually revealed very slowly. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-19e1bd8a-7fff-51b1-22c9-058846bd6045" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Let's take my own life experience as an example. When my son was born, my goals for him were that he 1. not die; 2. not end up in jail; 3. not impregnate someone before he was ready to be a father; 4. not end up a drug addict; and 5. not end up sleeping on my couch. I realize these feel like "givens" to a lot of folks, but at that point in my life I felt like Chicken Little. I fully expected him to die before he reached the age of five. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wasn't prepared for what would happen if he met all those goals, because I wasn't able to think that far ahead. He was my first child. When he was born, my mother had been dead for only about five months, and my younger brother had been killed a little over four years earlier. Somehow, I thought I was supposed to be able to find a way just to be okay with all of this. After all, I'd always been the strong one. What a crock of shit. When your life explodes, you can't walk away and pretend like the fire didn't touch you. I've been treading water his whole life and had no idea I was stuck in a rip tide. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the distractions leave, the scars will show. Only now, his life-time later, do I see how damaging it was for me, in my early twenties, to have been led to believe I was supposed to be able to handle all that trauma on my own. I never stopped to think about who I would be when I wasn't mothering. It's funny that my goal for my kids was for them to move out and move on, never giving a thought to how that would involve their moving out and moving on from me. I didn't realize how rarely they would be in my life once this goal was met.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every day now, I try to recreate myself into someone my children can be proud of, into a person they won't dread calling. It's not an easy task when your only real vocation has been to be their mom. When I start to berate myself because I feel so damn useless sometimes, I remind myself that there are two good people in a world that happens to need good people who are there because I've been able to stumble through the last twenty-five years more or less undiminished, and I forgive myself.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-1531088821587023162019-09-23T21:25:00.001-04:002019-09-23T21:25:03.683-04:00Surprise! But Why?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKaq7ebyj90-36IqalWQ8juSmGByZoYcysdqEKoasr-VmEJJ1Yy06cQ5LUL5Aok8sLbhuqvPpht_ma6S0pk9Pj791oWwNn_1zMSgEsfzslhofIe8K4aeO-qXU_TwZqAelOE_xHLgKKPHU/s1600/IMG_2906.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKaq7ebyj90-36IqalWQ8juSmGByZoYcysdqEKoasr-VmEJJ1Yy06cQ5LUL5Aok8sLbhuqvPpht_ma6S0pk9Pj791oWwNn_1zMSgEsfzslhofIe8K4aeO-qXU_TwZqAelOE_xHLgKKPHU/s320/IMG_2906.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Write About a Time Someone Surprised You"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today's writing prompt was hard for me, because most of the surprises I've had in my life have been bad ones, and I don't think that's the kind of surprise this prompt is referring to. My people have not spent a lot of time trying to surprise me, because they know I do not fancy surprises, and I expect they fear my wrath. I can be very scary when provoked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My best friend Regina did surprise me once. It was soon after she and I had been to Paris together. She offered to invite some other friends to her house and to make raclette for me for my birthday. We had experienced raclette for the first time on that Paris trip, and we both fell immediately in love. Raclette is basically a polite way to swill melted cheese like cheap beer. And there are potatoes! What's not to love? She even bought a raclette set when she got home. The main reason this surprised me is that Regina doesn't care for cooking, and she cares even less for throwing parties. I wish I had known then what I know now, which is pretty much the same as saying I wish I had been a different person for most of my adult life. (If you're under 40 and reading this, welcome to the party.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We never had my raclette birthday dinner because I couldn't find time to work it in around my boyfriend's schedule, a boyfriend, mind you, who never changed his schedule to work around me. Even at the time, I knew this was messed up. Still, I did it. I prioritized a person I haven't spoken to in about seven years and who I'd only known for about 18 months, over a woman who's been my best friend for over 20 years now. How many good things have I missed in my life molding myself to fit around men who, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">stuck in their perpetual adolescence, never work anything around me and aren't even aware molding has been done?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why do we do this to ourselves?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you've ever seen me wear high heels, make-up, or uncomfortable clothes, you can be sure I've been trying to please some damn man who was probably in cargo shorts, tennis shoes, and a tee shirt the whole time and who has never given even a passing thought to the state of his hair or to his particular personal odor. So when you see me now at the Food Lion in baggy pants, tennis shoes, and a tee shirt with dirty hair and smelling like I haven't bathed, realize this is what growth looks like. I draw the line at cargo shorts. At least for now.</span><br />
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-38916367956549129552018-10-28T13:44:00.002-04:002021-09-16T11:04:37.420-04:00What's in a Gendered Pronoun? A lot, Actually<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_wUOUu7TmkH7v3m61qHXYgKu5H3zGgJmZvFMo7J9Gn4UFzsUT9k9ZxRlXomn0K-qP77iRkXiwHSdrCoybZdv3LkQs2t4ad1ZuJYUrZ3wetRUTrtqjyK9cMkuOE_Mg43NQvDGgsdMZQY/s1600/Himself.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_wUOUu7TmkH7v3m61qHXYgKu5H3zGgJmZvFMo7J9Gn4UFzsUT9k9ZxRlXomn0K-qP77iRkXiwHSdrCoybZdv3LkQs2t4ad1ZuJYUrZ3wetRUTrtqjyK9cMkuOE_Mg43NQvDGgsdMZQY/s200/Himself.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've been thinking a lot about gender lately. Over the last few years I've been trying to read books by women. I'm aware this is sexist. I'm also aware that for centuries, women's work was either ignored, destroyed, or passed off as men's. So all you guys who want to cry sexist at the current idea of someone excluding you, be off with you. Men who are secure enough to understand why women and other minorities might want to focus on our own histories, welcome and thank you for existing.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-d6f65548-7fff-1973-a8f1-baacda7080ec" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few weeks ago, I wanted to take a bit of a break from reading anything that might distress me and read something a bit lighter, like say, a murder mystery. I saw a copy of an Ellis Peters mystery languishing on my shelf, so I picked up </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One Corpse Too Many</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (I mean that sounds light, right?) expecting to be diverted for a few days. I didn't expect to be enthralled by the story and by the prose. I also had no idea Ellis Peters was in fact, Edith Pargeter.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then in my quest to find a book club, I found that my new-ish local bookstore in Winston-Salem (Bookmarks) has a book club, and for October, they are reading </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Himself </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Jess Kidd. I had never heard of either the book or the author. I almost didn't read this book, because of the title. Halfway through and loving it, I googled the author and realized she was a she, not a he, as I had assumed. To make this assumption even worse, her picture is inside the back cover of the book I am reading. (I avoid the interior of the back of books. Many plots have been spoiled by even the merest glance there.)</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just this week, when recommending the Brother Cadfael series by Edith Pargeter to a friend, I remembered the Marcus Didius Falco series by Lindsey Davis and recommended it too. I had also assumed this series was written by a man. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law is named Lindsey, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I still assumed these books were written by a man.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Wtf?</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It seems that I, even after half a century existing as a woman who tries to be inclusive and open-minded, still automatically assume a book is by a man if the author's name is gender-neutral or male, even though I am well aware that women often assumed male names to get their books published and accepted. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, where does this leave us? Well, it leaves me with a reinforced sense of purpose when it comes to reading works by minority voices and with the thought that if your response to this is to tell me to stop being so sexist, you might not like the answer you get. It will be gender-neutral, but it won't be rated G. Read on, friends, and be sure to include minority voices in your journey.</span></span></div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-67314430860534756082018-10-16T21:01:00.000-04:002018-10-16T21:01:02.285-04:00Church Picnics at Doughton Park: The Persistence of Memory<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxx3SH60ecw6kvIpCkoXCcXbrL-K7IaGNqBXn4C7Js4tApw88jX585Z8Fx9tqeRf53_EZjFGnaOoW4UcObXQvqOFKlPWZhC3B2ftiGjDLXFimAC9q6YHQeNI0z1fZJZqO8wjwaYbM24hU/s1600/Doughton+Park+Tree+in+fog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1201" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxx3SH60ecw6kvIpCkoXCcXbrL-K7IaGNqBXn4C7Js4tApw88jX585Z8Fx9tqeRf53_EZjFGnaOoW4UcObXQvqOFKlPWZhC3B2ftiGjDLXFimAC9q6YHQeNI0z1fZJZqO8wjwaYbM24hU/s200/Doughton+Park+Tree+in+fog.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was young, my church went to Doughton Park for a picnic every October. I had no idea where we were once we got there. I never drove, so in my memory, it has always been this nebulous, unreachable place. I wasn't even aware it was on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think I’ve been afraid to look for it. Maybe I felt like I no longer deserved to find it. I’ve spent decades puzzling over where this place might be when it was so close, if I had just been brave enough to look.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Today I found the spot of those church picnics: all those hours of food, communion, peace, love, and acceptance. Was that not real? How did we lose all of that? Was it a ruse based on the facade of conformity the whole time? Looking over the empty tables, haunted for me by so many ghosts, I had to make myself stop searching for and grieving all those people who once meant so much to me and who are now lost to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So I parked there and walked through the fields I used to run through as only a child can, over cow patties (that at least hasn't changed), to the rocks that awed me both then and now, and as I walked, I thought, if I wanted to reconvene these people who once meant so much to me, how would I do that? And I knew that the only answer was that I would have to die, and then some of those left living might come to my funeral, if they didn’t have some other more pressing engagement that day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And I realized again what I’ve known now for a long time: We don’t do living right.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkA2_-V_T67LOCt8ye_5GGvGgfIIeMOtXWHWICFxbO1VwFbjvtAjdwKMW8bqU0XiceL3d2xhSh9QRr_wg-8ZtkGUsDnGgEgq7o37O4Hk1uztR2l6_3ZwQDMC-gD31qM0PVbvS3An5k6sU/s1600/Doughton+Park+Tree+with+Rocks.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkA2_-V_T67LOCt8ye_5GGvGgfIIeMOtXWHWICFxbO1VwFbjvtAjdwKMW8bqU0XiceL3d2xhSh9QRr_wg-8ZtkGUsDnGgEgq7o37O4Hk1uztR2l6_3ZwQDMC-gD31qM0PVbvS3An5k6sU/s200/Doughton+Park+Tree+with+Rocks.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-77655332632696100372018-07-29T11:27:00.002-04:002018-07-29T11:27:45.080-04:00Why Read?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqxAYtXSFODZvX3M3cuXF_rjFQEXKb6cIavP-TCixPe0ebv_ZdqU8Br7P3E78bdmWZ54QutwiGt3UV_iqCwcgEsv_E8V9wVcQANCchMpYnwXDbASd1Zs5TfY1jZSGLVdKAMgrkbmIVc98/s1600/Eleanor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqxAYtXSFODZvX3M3cuXF_rjFQEXKb6cIavP-TCixPe0ebv_ZdqU8Br7P3E78bdmWZ54QutwiGt3UV_iqCwcgEsv_E8V9wVcQANCchMpYnwXDbASd1Zs5TfY1jZSGLVdKAMgrkbmIVc98/s200/Eleanor.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-0cbe9882-e699-964a-6589-441f60551ad1" style="font-weight: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span> </div>
<div align="center" dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>"I was gradually getting used to feeling the range of available human emotions, their intensity, the rapidity with which they could change. Until now, anytime that emotions, feelings, had threatened to unsettle me, I'd drink them down fast, drown them. That had allowed me to exist, but I was starting to understand that I needed, wanted something more than that now."</em></span></span></div>
<div align="center" dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em> ~Eleanor Oliphant</em></span></span></div>
<em></em><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-d0304ff8-e69b-31a2-80a9-981baf81b7bc" style="font-weight: normal;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those who don’t see the point in reading fiction, here is an example of what fiction can do for you. In the book </span><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Gail Honeyman, toward the end of the book, which is the beginning of Eleanor Oliphant’s healing, Eleanor finally realizes that the negative, hateful, judgemental voice in her head that she always took for her own voice is actually the voice of her mother. Quirky, bizarre, broken, naive, and vulnerable as Eleanor Oliphant’s true voice is, she reminds me of who I might become if only I were brave enough. Her complete honesty and lack of facade are what I would like to strive for in my life. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I mentioned a few months ago, I’ve been going back to therapy this summer, and one of the things I’ve been trying to learn is to see, recognize, and know myself. I realize this sounds elementary and like something that should have been handled decades ago, but if you grew up a woman, especially, I think, in a rural society, you will probably understand why self-knowledge and self-determination has escaped me. Like many other women I know, I have spent too much of my life worrying so much about pleasing and displeasing others that I never truly learned what I needed to make myself happy. As my therapist has pointed out on numerous occasions, this is both an impossible and an exhausting way to live. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As children most of us were taught to subject our wills and opinions to those of our parents, and sometimes we internalized the voices of our parents so much that we never developed our own voices. I’ve always been overly-sensitive to the moods of others and as a child and teenager wanted more than anything to please my parents. I learned the lesson of worrying about other people’s moods and needs so much that it became who I was without my even realizing it was happening. Even now, I am still working to understand and believe that I don’t have to be this way, that learning to recognize my own voice is not selfish. Most importantly, I am learning that the voice in my head sometimes isn’t my voice at all, and that my job now is to find my own voice and use it. Thanks to Eleanor Oliphant for helping me verbalize this realization. Read a novel once in a while. You’ll be amazed what you can learn about human nature and about yourself.</span></div>
</b><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>
</b>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-17417551300714948292018-06-29T13:24:00.000-04:002018-06-29T13:24:59.560-04:00Less Sure About Less<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQaAsJlYZKXT86bQdGRUlwUiDB1qSenCwhELTGm_f7cbEJa_BvvmJlj5MbH1_5T8nv0n3TDyxIoiBMJo3f3z6s29WFwo_kyFRvR5t4kUH_ClEUviOmNHQl3UpA2-8V-dl9PyPMdjkX9u4/s1600/Less.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQaAsJlYZKXT86bQdGRUlwUiDB1qSenCwhELTGm_f7cbEJa_BvvmJlj5MbH1_5T8nv0n3TDyxIoiBMJo3f3z6s29WFwo_kyFRvR5t4kUH_ClEUviOmNHQl3UpA2-8V-dl9PyPMdjkX9u4/s200/Less.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<i>And at fifty, Less muses drowsily, you're as likeable as you're going to get."</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I experienced a strange transition reading this novel. I didn't think I was going to like it for a while. I wasn't even sure I would finish it. It just wasn't catching my attention. I don't know why. But then, about the time Less gets to Morocco, which is toward the end of the book, I loved it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A lot of the book was too much hapless Less mess for me, and I got tired of it. Maybe that was my problem with it. Maybe it was just because Zohra was the only character I could personally identify with, and she doesn't show up until Morocco. Maybe it was just due to my mood. Who knows? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the end, though, I enjoyed the book and am glad I read it. It was definitely laugh out loud funny in many places.</span></div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-5659646359503459912018-06-08T18:54:00.001-04:002018-06-08T19:41:53.083-04:00How to Save a Life, One Day at a Time<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfd5z5ieSJ3BlXHMhO-Yx5ahL1ZBJqGBK01hhMIJpU6kKU42q5eEMCoIf1H3pvdiQPKulLrU02i0FcmXGxLH5ZP5BR0GNX45tz73kV4VrXQmGi1q0bm72yichc4q68isxGK0OIODjNS0/s1600/Mountain+Cloud.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfd5z5ieSJ3BlXHMhO-Yx5ahL1ZBJqGBK01hhMIJpU6kKU42q5eEMCoIf1H3pvdiQPKulLrU02i0FcmXGxLH5ZP5BR0GNX45tz73kV4VrXQmGi1q0bm72yichc4q68isxGK0OIODjNS0/s320/Mountain+Cloud.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Amy Brandon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></em> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Little things heal our hurts. Sounds, scents, the spoken word, and music that may mean nothing to someone else can reach into our souls and do a work that ordinary methods cannot touch."</span></em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ~Joyce Sequichie Hifler</span></em></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the wake of this week sad news on the mental health front, I feel like I need to say this. I'm probably going to spend tonight spinning in my head about whether I should have shared this or not, but I'm going to be brave and say it anyway. I have struggled with depression for years. I've fought my own battles. So far, I've won those battles, but not without a considerable amount of self-harm, both physical and emotional. I've been lucky. Somehow, I've been able to continue to see the love surrounding me. If you are one of those people whose go-to reaction about suicide is to jump in and pass judgement, just stop. Each of us, especially those of us who live with mental illness, fight battles every day no one else can see, and just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't real. Unfortunately, mental illness is much more common than most people realize because the old-school stigmas still persist, and we just don't feel comfortable opening up about our struggles. People who are depressed aren't making a choice; they aren't being selfish; they aren't weak. Being awake to the darkness and staying alive through <strong>any</strong> days with that knowledge requires strength beyond what most of us understand. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In December, 2016 I spent a week at Forsyth Hospital on the psychiatric floor. This was quite probably the most important week of my adult life. It was the first time I had been taught that what was happening to me was not my fault, told that I didn't have control over it, that I didn't cause it, and that I couldn't fix it myself. It was the first time I learned to take care of myself. I'm not going to be glib and say it's all been uphill from there. My life since then has, in large part, consisted of my learning to set boundaries to facilitate my own mental health. Until I started therapy in 2014, I had never even heard of the concept of setting boundaries to protect my own mental health. (Probably this goes a long way toward explaining a lot of my adult life.) I know that many memes are shared on social media about getting away from things or people who make your life harder, and I know that a lot of us, including myself until recently, click "like" and "share" without giving those truisms another thought, but what I am beginning to discover is that in order to achieve real health, we do have to remove ourselves from situations and people who cause us harm. More importantly, we also have to learn to stop causing ourselves harm. The difficult loop here is to realize that you are causing yourself harm if you stay in a situation that harms you in any way. We are good at recognizing physical harm. Emotional and mental harm is much more difficult to see. When you learn to respect yourself, when you finally figure out that achieving self-worth has to be your most important job, it becomes so much easier to remove yourself from situations and people who damage you. I am speaking here only of my own experience. I don't pretend to have any idea what other people go through.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">None of this is easy. I have to work hard every day to be well. Some days, I am well. Some days, I am just ok, and some days, I'm a fucking train wreck. Wellness requires commitment and daily work. But how is committing yourself to daily mental health any different from going to the gym or getting an antibiotic for an infection? After telling myself I couldn't afford it, I went back to therapy a few months ago, and I am so much better now than I was even a month ago. Before you assume anything about me and my financial situation, I pay full price for those thearpy sessions because I have shitty health insurance, and I've had to give up some things to do that, but it is absolutely worth it. Sometimes getting help truly becomes a question of what your life is worth. Here are some of the free things that have helped me: yoga at home (YouTube), meditation at home (free apps), reading (library books), Krista Tippett's On Being Podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression Podcast, my dogs and cats, writing in my journal, gardening, bird-watching, cooking, cleaning my house, and reaching out to talk with people who make me feel better. Spend some time making your own list of things that make you feel better, and then do at least some of them every day. If you think you don't have time, consider how much time you spend watching TV or on social media. Think of this list as your mental health tool box and use those tools daily. A few days of self-care can make all the difference in the world. You don't need permission or an excuse. Your life is all the reason you need.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-35436534822343794602018-05-06T13:01:00.001-04:002018-05-06T13:01:49.110-04:00The Power of The Power<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCGqBKwOA2shyphenhyphenrGhUl9fxNUAbewefjYzDQmTdJxjk-uKYV-LYlA6z9DBdux_U6RSLLP89jmiY-yKDRCw_4KXHmZ5OTBxlsVPCcaSx9oe64Ksx0N386dMsF3lSBc_c34ldBalr9zVDNwB0/s1600/power.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCGqBKwOA2shyphenhyphenrGhUl9fxNUAbewefjYzDQmTdJxjk-uKYV-LYlA6z9DBdux_U6RSLLP89jmiY-yKDRCw_4KXHmZ5OTBxlsVPCcaSx9oe64Ksx0N386dMsF3lSBc_c34ldBalr9zVDNwB0/s200/power.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Amy Brandon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a book I almost didn’t finish and certainly didn’t love, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Power</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Naomi Alderman has dominated an awful lot of my thinking lately. So many questions, so many interpretations. </span></span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-cfe3b775-3662-19ab-6a1d-ffeec4793aa8"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the reactions of the women I know who’ve read this book seem to be centered around the female on male violence. That violence is what almost made me stop reading. I find myself abandoning books very often that include male on female violence because I’m tired of dehumanizing misogyny, and because I find any kind of violence disturbing. Perhaps an uncomfortable question to ask myself is why I was able to read past the dehumanizing female on male violence. I didn’t like it, and I felt like some of it went way too far, but I do understand the point the author was making with it. </span></span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-cfe3b775-3662-19ab-6a1d-ffeec4793aa8">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most common response I’ve heard from other readers, all of whom are female, interestingly enough, has been that they were disappointed with the way the women in the book used the power they were given. They all believe, as I do, that women would behave better. One person said that because women know what it is to be oppressed, she believes women would not jump straight to being oppressors. Another woman mentioned that women tend to be more nurturing and loving than men so it should follow that women would be kinder leaders. From the narrow view of my own experience, I agree with both of these assessments, but I don’t know many women who have survived the kinds of experiences that Allie, Roxy, and Tatiana (three of the women in </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Power</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) survived. I don’t know what my reaction to men would be if I had lived their lives. I do understand their bent to revenge more than the character, Margot’s, who seems to be a power-at-all-cost politician. I have no personal knowledge of or experience with a woman like this, although I assume they exist.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another common comment other readers made was that they liked the book for the first hundred pages or so but not after that. It was shortly after those first 100 pages that I remember thinking I might not be able to finish the book. I detest violence. I can’t even watch old cartoons, never could. I don’t care about power. I don’t understand the desire to be in control of another person. I don’t understand the concept of revenge at all. I do understand that I speak out of the privilege of my own safety.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Violence, revenge, control, and well, power, is what this book is about. Now, granted the book is hyperbolic and satirical, but those two traits don’t necessarily make the violence any easier to read. The plot moves along very well, and I’m sure for people inured to CSI and Law and Order and all those other TV shows the majority of us consume, the violence will not be an issue. Or anyway, it shouldn’t be. If you can consume male on female violence on a regular basis, then one book with a reversal should not be an issue for you. If you’re like me, and you generally eschew anything with violence, consider yourself forewarned. If you’re looking for love, peace, hope, or redemption, look elsewhere. Still, I think the warning this book provides makes it worth reading. </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
</span></div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-58457383688332146932018-04-30T17:15:00.000-04:002018-04-30T17:37:42.613-04:00Motherhood: It's An Asskicker Every Time<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1ZCKoNwomNzOQn-XarvG_ya1N4Vp_FsSGS2Y0zfAn2zgIAxbSUNvDcrS3kF83ArNM2qmteseRSGsLk_tas4uVnqE5WJcGu6GcT-E_vyTNQFx3WRydF2oM8LRCJLjYmk2K4GHCLTANDs/s1600/kids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1ZCKoNwomNzOQn-XarvG_ya1N4Vp_FsSGS2Y0zfAn2zgIAxbSUNvDcrS3kF83ArNM2qmteseRSGsLk_tas4uVnqE5WJcGu6GcT-E_vyTNQFx3WRydF2oM8LRCJLjYmk2K4GHCLTANDs/s320/kids.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are the People I Love Best<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Today, I realized what I've been mourning the last eight years is my motherhood. I understand that I am still a mother, but for me, the best parts of motherhood are over. I look at these younger mothers running around to little league and soccer and music, and I hate them. I hate them because I want to be them. We hate most what we don't understand, but in a crazy, only-human-way, we also hate what we want to be but can't. <span style="font-family: "georgia";">I know these women in a way they don't even know themselves. I know sometimes they hate what they are doing. I know some days they live for 30 minutes alone at night. I also know they have no idea what they have right now.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Often at my age, women take up "nannying" someone else's kids. While I now understand this inclination, it won't work for me. It's not kids I want. I don't even like kids. What I want is <strong>my</strong> kids back. I want my kids when their breath at night woke me up, when I was the reason their faces lit up when I walked into a room (is there anything else on earth like that?), when they would wake up and ask me what's for breakfast, and I would say, fix your own breakfast and pack your lunch while you're at it, yet still I felt safe in this world because I knew that no matter how much of a clusterfuck I was, motherhood was something I could do right every day, and I knew that here were two people who, no matter what I ever did, worshipped the ground I walked on. I know how they feel, because every day of their lives, I've felt the same way about them, even when I was mad enough to throw things (Sorry, B. I may have over-reacted. When you have your own kids, you can tell me. I love you). When I look at my kids these days, I feel content just to dial it in from here on out. Even if I never do one other good thing, I've done what I was sent here for. I hope you've had that in your life. It's the best I can wish for us all.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLmnzM7zq5iEI0lsxn3XtN9_W33H6m1lx7W14PkHIB1OFFgp-QfR2B_xpd-hB-fKWQu6wOZ0sfZAmlx8ca6I5gPRnevgJW3C2d-KgnWg0r9_Bui9ka0x_zDu4uKWs6Lat_UhmmHiiRDA/s1600/Kids+and+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLmnzM7zq5iEI0lsxn3XtN9_W33H6m1lx7W14PkHIB1OFFgp-QfR2B_xpd-hB-fKWQu6wOZ0sfZAmlx8ca6I5gPRnevgJW3C2d-KgnWg0r9_Bui9ka0x_zDu4uKWs6Lat_UhmmHiiRDA/s320/Kids+and+me.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me in the Sweet Spot and Not Even Knowing It</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-60897653908227880432018-04-27T15:14:00.000-04:002018-04-27T21:48:00.132-04:00We Are All Migrants<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYTXikhKfGpdZNTWmcEUsZdADpekb4vrP5ka1SjNMqv1e6QoHJws5vldH9vmBXConxD8AtHH9Zd4S7ShQWWmDe-bV9BSGxKKfr1oncgO0v72M8-xgM8dRA_CsKLDe2AmXR57ISlQlXrA/s1600/ExitWest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYTXikhKfGpdZNTWmcEUsZdADpekb4vrP5ka1SjNMqv1e6QoHJws5vldH9vmBXConxD8AtHH9Zd4S7ShQWWmDe-bV9BSGxKKfr1oncgO0v72M8-xgM8dRA_CsKLDe2AmXR57ISlQlXrA/s200/ExitWest.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em>"The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart." from <u>Exit West</u> by Mohsin Hamid</em></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em></em> </div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"></b><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-729abd43-0885-b894-18ff-bbf2cf490166" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last year when I read the review of Mohsin Hamid’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exit West</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the New York Times Book Review, I decided against reading it for two reasons: I couldn’t imagine how a story about the refugee crisis in our world wouldn’t be depressing; and I found the idea of the magic exit doors to be a little off-putting. Sometimes I enjoy magical realism, but I was skeptical about combining it with the serious, sobering issue of the refugee crisis. When the book showed back up recently in The Morning News Tournament of Books, I decided to give it a try, and I am so glad that I did.</span></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span> </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can understand why this book isn’t for everyone. It is not a deep, heavy treatise on the refugee crisis, but I don’t think it’s any less serious for its lack of depth. I found it to be a quick read, but one that nonetheless made me think deeply. The use of the doors worked well to reinforce the important point of how vastly different standards of living are with just a change in geography, but also of how nearly the same people are everywhere. People in Britain and America might have reliable access to electricity, clean water, cars, food, and safety, but they are not immune to the xenophobic herd mentality that plagues people everywhere. In fact, easy access to comfort and riches seems to make one more susceptible to isolationism. When you choose to look askance at the young men who join any kind of gang or militia, look around at how much this kind of assimilation happens everywhere (only the details are different), especially when family and society break down and leave people feeling alone and unsupported. Saeed and Nadia have fled a broken society where a militia has taken over and wreaked havoc, only to end up in London where “nativist provocateurs” threaten violence, and refugees under threat then retreat into factions of “their own kind.” Safety in numbers; comfort in sameness….this is common to us all. Whether you believe in a god or not, I think a lot of us would benefit from being more aware of the sentiment behind the phrase, “There but for the grace of god go I.”</span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>
</b><br />
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-75956621833152858242018-04-27T15:04:00.000-04:002018-04-27T15:28:43.621-04:00Exit West Notes<b style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-58ca1998-087c-5ea4-d292-bd5abde428fe" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P4 “...one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying, and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does.” </span></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P11 war escalates time (in this example due to the deteriorating of a bldg’s facade)</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P 28 Ironic that Sadeed uses a burqa to sneak into Nadia’s apartment to date. When everything is hidden, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">everything</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is hidden…</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P42: virtual world that is available to people in undeveloped nations stands in stark contrast to their own reality: “...children who went to sleep unfed but could see on some small screen people in foreign lands preparing and consuming and even conducting food fights with feasts of such opulence that the very fact of their existence boggled the mind.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pp46-47 description of psychodelic mushrooms on consciousness</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pp87-88 I like the idea of the exit doors...desperate people searching for a way out, but the theme is embedded in a somewhat clunky, jarring manner. I liked it better when he just used the vignettes instead of explaining anything. It is an interesting concept though, that you could just step through a door anywhere and get somewhere else, especially given how difficult it is to enter and exit some countries now. Maybe he’s making a point about the pointlessness of all the borders and patrols and “safeguards?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P94 Nadia is more comfortable with change and progress and variations of movement in her life than Saeed, in whom “the impulse of nostalgia” was stronger, perhaps because his childhood had been more idyllic? Same idea as people who have more fearing loss more</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P96 parents have to let go of children in order to save them</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P98 “...for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind…” so many people here for instance not being able to see their parents any more…</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P106 Doors west are heavily guarded; doors east are not</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P109 “ ...the militants had perhaps hoped to provoke a reaction against migrants from their own part of the world...and if that had been their hope then they had succeeded”</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Violence as a vicious cycle: Militants kill citizens and in return “nativist provocateurs” attack anyone who looks like the militants. What’s the difference in these two violent groups? Any violence: physical, verbal, mental, emotional, is equally wrong. People’s motives are easier to grasp: revenge or maybe just sadism, but regardless of motive, violence is wrong. And I know we think smugly to ourselves that we would never, but we do. We do every time we lash out at each other, it’s just a matter of degrees. Violence starts with ideas, moves to words, and so on, and violence always breeds violence, so it can never be an answer. I don’t have the answer. I just know it isn’t violence.]</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P138: build up to conflict, waiting: “the calm that is called the calm before the storm, but is in reality the foundation of a human life, waiting there for us between the steps of our march to our mortality, when we are compelled to pause and not act but be.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P139: “people are monkeys who have forgotten that they are monkeys, and so have lost respect for what they are born of, for the natural world around them…”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P140: If Nadia broke her promise to keep Saeed safe, would that “mean she stood for nothing whatsoever.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[The areas where the refugees have squatted become known as “Dark London” because of power cuts and also I assume due to skin color?]</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pp146-7: Refugees under threat retreat into factions of their own kind: safety in numbers, comfort in sameness </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[This story makes me grateful for everyday things like the ability to shower and wash clothes and to work and earn an income, for blankets and soap and towels…]</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P158: everyone both converging and diverging...the migration, mixing and unsettling and so, frightening...people become isolationist (see Brexti and MAGA) </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“T</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart.”</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P 159: “The fury of those nativist advocating wholesale slaughter...so much like the fury of the militants in her own city. She wondered whether she and Saeed had done anything by moving, whether the faces and the buildings had changed but the basic reality of their predicament had not.” </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...but then she grasps her freedom outside her homeland and grins “with a wildness.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Interesting that the Londoners are referred to as “Natives,” which usually connotes “uncivilized” peoples.]</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pp163-4: “Saeed wondered aloud once again if the natives would really kill them, and Nadia said once again that the natives were so frightened that they could do anything.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P164 “Our country was poor. We didn’t feel we had as much to lose.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P165 “...to love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you”</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P197: point of there being no natives left in the USA begs the question...then of where am I a native?</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P 209 “We are all migrants through time.”</span></div>
</b>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-55826866845283509532018-03-26T09:56:00.000-04:002018-03-28T12:55:25.549-04:00White Tears<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRM0_yVkAiPpk1RCbk9sVy1EQJ8pUzpfSf6st0pAl-lZdbX1B4jiu0L8Jj3NK4eOFFeI3pM47N7yGjUVYtGww1tt8lhrx7PT88iuEPV3BiWYlPQnrz6bTB4etNuYTLmV-uCZZrO6hGo-c/s1600/White+Tears.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRM0_yVkAiPpk1RCbk9sVy1EQJ8pUzpfSf6st0pAl-lZdbX1B4jiu0L8Jj3NK4eOFFeI3pM47N7yGjUVYtGww1tt8lhrx7PT88iuEPV3BiWYlPQnrz6bTB4etNuYTLmV-uCZZrO6hGo-c/s200/White+Tears.JPG" width="160" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-78f407e0-6280-f7d0-205f-8b6683429b4a"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>"On your record deck, you played the sound of the middle passage, the blackest sound. You wanted the suffering you didn’t have, the authority you thought it would bring...Then came the terror when the real darkness first seeped through the walls of your bedroom, the walls designed to keep you safe and dreaming. And finally your rising sense of shame when you admitted to yourself that you were relieved the walls were there. The shame of knowing that you would do nothing, that you would allow it all to carry on."</i></span></span></span></div>
<u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></u>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>White Tears</u> by Hari Kunzru is a strange, challenging, compelling book. I almost returned it to the library after the first 50 pages because it seemed to be yet another book about socially-dysfunctional, weirdly-obsessive white guys. The writing and the development of the plot kept me going. That's the author's gift, I guess: to compel me to read a book I think doesn't interest me that actually ends up interesting me. In the end, the white guys are just the vehicle, the <i>cheval, </i>for a story about lost blues musicians, the danger of obsession, futile white guilt, mass incarceration, cultural appropriation, and the powerlessness of being outside of the ruling oligarchy that is America.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Reading it made me feel a little crazy: obsessive and guilty and miserable about both our past and our present. I wonder if people who didn't grow up in the south surrounded by blatant racism and hyper-aware of their own ancestors' roles feel the same kind of pervasive guilt about the past that I feel when confronted with these truths. It feels horrifying and crippling, and I don't know what to do about it. Where does the guilt of the ancestors end and my own guilt begin? For I also am relieved that the walls are there for me, and I too am riding the easy waves instead of fighting the current.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This book was well-written with many deep, affecting themes woven into a short narrative, and the plot will keep you guessing until the end. Honestly, I'm still not 100% sure what actually happened and what didn't. It's definitely not a feel-good book, so if you're looking for that, look elsewhere, but in my opinion, it's worth reading, studying, absorbing. This post feels unfinished because I feel like this book is not finished with me yet.</span><br />
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-78761472932862023142018-03-04T19:34:00.001-05:002018-03-04T19:34:51.303-05:00White Rose, Black Forest<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjImW_TF4Gh2qZpxdBXXo1VNv7QY5gey__cJBNHDx3buX9Ho3MdtxDro5y64Owy7eSsjnhGj5OeUhm8VEjUqDBlnYvzk6Mc2DA1Ii4fE_XeQsppG0oPwy0LPZ1xEUSIMds30Vz-XTgLGLQ/s1600/German+Alp.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjImW_TF4Gh2qZpxdBXXo1VNv7QY5gey__cJBNHDx3buX9Ho3MdtxDro5y64Owy7eSsjnhGj5OeUhm8VEjUqDBlnYvzk6Mc2DA1Ii4fE_XeQsppG0oPwy0LPZ1xEUSIMds30Vz-XTgLGLQ/s320/German+Alp.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">photo by Amy Brandon</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"You are privileged to read these words so many are barred from. And why are they barred? Because the Nazis know that their real enemy is the independent thinker."</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> from </i><i style="text-decoration-line: underline;">White Rose, Black Forest</i> by Eoin Dempsey</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't read on Kindle as much as I read print, but a few weeks ago, a friend recommended <u>White Rose, Black Forest </u> by Eoin Dempsey to me, and when I went looking for it, Amazon First Reads seemed liked the best way to get it. I don't know if I'll stick with the program, but I thought I'd give it a try. If anyone has had any experience with the service, tell me what you've thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>White Rose, Black Forest</u> was an entertaining read. At first I wasn't sure I was going to stick with it, because it begins with a girl contemplating suicide, and I just wasn't sure I was up for that kind of book. Turns out, it's pretty much the opposite of that kind of book. Here are some key elements:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">a remote cabin in a snowy wood in the Black Forest in 1943</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">a strong female protagonist who happens to be a Nazi dissident</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the daring rescue of an enemy spy by said protagonist</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the enemy and the dissident snowed in alone for weeks</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the dissident's ex-boyfriend, now a Gestapo officer</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">an escape attempt through the snowy woods with a stay in a cave (I love a cave) </span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What will happen? Read it and find out. While much of the plot defies belief, it is an entertaining, escapist story, and if you're like me, a break from reality will be much welcomed. Also if you're like me, you will have to try your best to ignore how quickly and underhandedly Hitler's Fascists took over Germany in the 1930s. Scary stuff.</span></div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-58543912352763571232018-02-26T11:20:00.000-05:002018-02-27T00:08:24.862-05:00Alone Together<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ooiV6GSGCIGh5o8PgfL9yyriHAzKEJPk1hULwuGvGb7IYy4thirqKFRW83XRFG2yH0RNa8GMMHd7CA2bXJQeOAbbxILeenZcdH0SYw2_bXh6u38dfW3SoM4D_-PeV8ojGMtTP_NtwCs/s1600/The+Welcoming+Hands_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ooiV6GSGCIGh5o8PgfL9yyriHAzKEJPk1hULwuGvGb7IYy4thirqKFRW83XRFG2yH0RNa8GMMHd7CA2bXJQeOAbbxILeenZcdH0SYw2_bXh6u38dfW3SoM4D_-PeV8ojGMtTP_NtwCs/s320/The+Welcoming+Hands_2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Amy Brandon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">“So many of us are reaching out, hoping someone out there will grab our hands and remind us we are not as alone as we fear.” ~Roxane Gay</i></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-836fda50-d2cf-c0e8-c77f-5ca7794561ed" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A little over a year ago, I started working part-time and from home. For the first time in my life, my days are neither full of other people nor structured by any outside influence. Think about how strange that sounds. I don’t think my life has been like this since before kindergarten. I expect that would be true for most of us. It’s been like learning to be a different person. More properly, I suppose, it’s been like learning to be fully myself. I absolutely love it, but unforeseen learning curves have presented themselves. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the hardest questions I’ve had to ask myself has revolved around the questions of solitude and community. How much solitude is too much? How is community defined anyway? When I feel, as I often do, that there is no such thing as too much solitude, I begin to second-guess myself, to doubt my goodness as a person. What kind of misanthrope just wants to stay home all the time? But then when I do go out, I find both my social skills and my patience with what passes for entertaining interaction these days have atrophied to the point of being almost useless. And how about community? Is spending time with my husband community enough? Does online community count? Do I have to force myself to go out and do things I don’t necessarily want to do just to meet the requirement of being a well-adjusted person? Because here’s the thing, the days I feel the most well-adjusted are the days Ken and I are home alone together all day. Is that solitude or community? Maybe our cultureal expectations for what passses as well-adjusted are not right for some of us. I don’t know. I don’t have answers here, just hunches based on my own recent experience.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months ago I was asked to be involved in a small group based on the idea of a “Circle of Trust,” as defined by Parker Palmer in his book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I didn’t stay with the group, partly because I didn’t want to have to shower and dress and drive an hour round trip in the dark to go, but also partly because I don’t think I am ready for that level of openness with others right now, but that’s a different issue. What I did do was to buy the book and begin to read slowly through it. Just tonight, as I was contemplating emailing the group leader (who is also a pastor) and asking him for help with the questions I mentioned above, I picked up the book instead and came across this passage:</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If we are to hold solitude and community together as a true paradox, we need to deepen our understanding of both poles. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solitude</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people -- it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Community</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> does not necessarily mean living face to face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people -- it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.” </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I love that passage, but I feel like I don't quite fully understand it yet. Last Wednesday night my son and I were having a </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">conversation about what we should and should not expect from our relationships with others, both friends and partners, and some of his words helped me begin to broaden my understanding a bit. He said that we don’t need to expect a lot from most of our friends, if we have one friend or partner who is truly a reliable emotional partner to us. He said that what each of us needs is consistent, meaningful interaction with one person we trust, someone we feel free to be our true selves around. If we have this, we don’t need a lot of interaction with other people, but when we don’t have it, we feel driven to look without forethought and sometimes almost desperately for it elsewhere, and usually don’t find it because it is such a difficult thing to develop between two people. I had never formed that thought, but it explains a lot of the drama and distraction of periods of my own life when I felt that kind of connection lacking, as well as a lot of the drama and distraction of other people’s lives I watch from a distance.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I said, at this point, I don't have any answers even for myself to most of these questions, but I am going to try to be more attentive to my own inner voice telling me what I need, even if that's just to sit on the porch with the dogs and watch the birds. Having fully internalized the puritanical, capitalistic work ethic of our society, that kind of need makes me feel selfish because I don't feel like I am contributing to society. I struggle with this a lot, but something I saw last week on Facebook, of all places, helped me re-frame my thinking:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl7KBC7he7AiPML0z4uPOgRW4IKKz2s_B02KoEot5pepiJcu7Wb322iSv2XMdT1VbHYIfBuXVou3yej_cBzB6cuxFuxNXKIEwtvAp3CiBWafCnEoQC15g5MHpkL4VfOgWCTGqJfcBoC1s/s1600/27858372_10156261453176617_6816177652280063781_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl7KBC7he7AiPML0z4uPOgRW4IKKz2s_B02KoEot5pepiJcu7Wb322iSv2XMdT1VbHYIfBuXVou3yej_cBzB6cuxFuxNXKIEwtvAp3CiBWafCnEoQC15g5MHpkL4VfOgWCTGqJfcBoC1s/s320/27858372_10156261453176617_6816177652280063781_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-7707389232400935962018-02-18T19:43:00.001-05:002018-02-26T11:38:43.091-05:00Rough Notes on Lila <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m going to try something different with this post. This post is going to be an unedited version of the notes I made while I read </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lila</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Marilynne Robinson. I started this blog to help me remember the books I have read, and I’ve found that I’ve worried too much about perfecting the product and not enough about recording my thoughts about the books. So in this post, I’m going to be less of a perfectionist about the post and more true to my original intent. Following are my unedited notes about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lila</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Marilynne Robinson from my journal in the order I wrote them.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-cd5e7deb-ab83-6543-82de-1dc34bd48ecc" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Undated: This books is a balm for the overactive mind and weary soul.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1/23/18: I’ve just read the scene in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lila</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> where John Ames baptizes Lila. I think these may be five of the most moving, most perfect pages I have ever read. It cracked my hardened heart right open. Love, conciliation, grace, peace, remission. Remission? What does that mean? Remit like payment? Like a bill has been paid? The remission of sins -- I’ve never really thought about what that means before. Is that true? Is that a thing? Is it even possible? Because if it’s true, it changes everything. If the remission of sin is true, then that changes everything. And if I choose it to be true for me, then maybe it becomes true. I must think on this more. Maybe this is where hope comes from. If the birthplace of hope is in the remission of sin, then not having been acquainted with the concept of the one, no wonder I have been unable to have the other.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1/27/18: Talked some with Ken about the above and about how I feel that if this concept, the concept of the remission of sin, is true, then that pretty much negates anyone’s right to judge another person. If your bill has been paid without your own participation, then hadn’t you better just be glad for that and keep your nose out of everyone else’s business? </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2/11/18: In a world of this kind of grace, there is no place for “the spirit of self-destruction and nonbeing” (Dostoevsky) because that spirit often turns outward into judgement, cruelty, and destruction of others, all of which is antithetical to “salvation” or the “remission of sin.” If your own mistakes are wiped away, then there should never be any place in your heart for judgement of others, because judgment implies superiority. If you ask people straight up if they think they are better than others, they will say no, then they will proceed to live their daily lives as if they do, in fact, believe this very thing. But really, this “remission” thing is always a choice. You have to choose it to be true for you, first by forgiving yourself, then by accepting forgiveness from others, which changes the way you look at things and gives birth to hope.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When your only experience of life has been of its bleakness and meanness (like Lila), then you are only able to see bleakness and meanness. What you are unable to realize is that it is possible to forgive yourself. You are unable to see any path to wholeness. Any language of redemption and remission sounds overused and otherworldly, out of your frame of reference, so you just reject outright any exploration of the true meaning of or possibility of those concepts. Conversely, if your only experience of life has been ease and acceptance, you accept those concepts without ever really being able to grasp what they mean, I think. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2/14/18: This may be one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2/18/18: Lila’s rescuer, Doll, is not a Christian but behaves and lives more like Jesus than do most church folk, although Robinson does not make the church folk in her story unlikable or judgmental or ungiving. If anything I would say Robinson is more than fair in her portrayal of church folk. Matter of fact, the entire “gypsy” group Doll and Lila join remind me somewhat of the lives of Jesus and his disciples. These people are outcasts with no knowledge even of religion, yet they live in harmony and care for one another even though they aren’t all blood relatives, at least until the going gets too rough for survival. Doll never puts herself first. She trades any chance she has for her own life to save Lila, who is not even her kin. She is humble and always “turns the other cheek” to hide the burned scar on one side of her face.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Boughton and his beliefs, to me, epitomize one of the main problems with organized religion. He sits in his safe, warm, comfortable house, out of the weather,well-fed, loved, supported, coddled, and respected. He surrounds himself with a well-worn belief system, applying it to all, regardless of circumstance. He almost alienates Lila completely with his views on the afterlife. My view has always been why would you spend your time worrying about something (the afterlife) which you cannot truly have any certainty of, especially in reference to other people? Particularly if those views are going to hurt and alienate people in your life who need love and acceptance. Maybe I misunderstand Boughton and need to re-read him a little, but he seems to have a pretty rigid, exclusionary interpretation of the scriptures.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Reverend, on the other hand, seems too good to be true. To have lived his whole life in a small town surrounded by people who both agree with and respect him...well, it’s hard for me to believe he would end up as open-minded as he is. He did suffer a tragic loss as a young man, and tragedy does tend to open one’s mind. But the perfect love, perfect acceptance, perfect understanding that he offers Lila, who has had so little of any of those things in her life, defies belief. It’s a beautiful love story, but in real life, people are never that loving, understanding, or accepting.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2/26/18: After posting this, I realized I had said very little about Lila herself. Ironic, given that part of the reason I loved this book was that I identify so much with Lila. Maybe that needs to be its own blog post. We'll see.</span></span></div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-36361657940051112602018-02-17T03:06:00.001-05:002018-02-17T11:50:02.362-05:00O How We Howl<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ3USloaEp6K9sSh_AnKvEfw8oVnL1IxwhkJ8xlIaYB8Jq46NZiEU4GRwuU3TSZG4n7W6xEf8IOfWNhUCA7A0MElFBj8d6PGQhXSMwpsKN51mP9tnJVd98XKdQ5VW4O4XE3yzH0zwNRpo/s1600/Frozen+Creek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ3USloaEp6K9sSh_AnKvEfw8oVnL1IxwhkJ8xlIaYB8Jq46NZiEU4GRwuU3TSZG4n7W6xEf8IOfWNhUCA7A0MElFBj8d6PGQhXSMwpsKN51mP9tnJVd98XKdQ5VW4O4XE3yzH0zwNRpo/s320/Frozen+Creek.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Amy Brandon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are a broken people. The majority of the phone calls we
get are from people we don’t know and don’t want to speak to. The majority of
the mail we get is from people we don’t know and don’t want to hear from.
Somehow we have convinced ourselves that digital interactions with people who
check in with us on their own schedules are enough for us, that we don’t need
to take the time to cultivate the living, to build non-digital relationships
with others who, at times, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">will</b>
interfere with our own busy schedules. After all, we have hundreds of friends available 24/7 at the stroke of a computer key.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Few of us , including me, </span>seem to have the capacity any more to be real-life, in-person, on-call
friends to one another in these times of digital ascendancy. It’s a lot easier
to like a post or type “I love you” or “I’m praying for you” than it is to sit
across from another person and let her pain assault you while you drown in your
own helplessness. And we wonder why the most vulnerable, the most broken and
isolated among us, break in horrific ways we don’t understand. We have neither the
time, the patience, nor frankly, the interest, in being the right kind of
friend, the saving kind of friend, any more. That is the hard truth. That is
not the truth of the Bible we all like to say we follow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the midst of the horror and pain of this week, I finished
reading <u>Lila</u> by Marilynne Robinson. <u>Lila</u> is a beautiful book. It is art of the kind that redeems humanity. As I’m sure you know if you’re
reading this blog, I don’t review plots or discuss character development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you’ll read the book for that. But I
do want to say that this book spoke to me in a particular way as I was able to
identify so completely both with Lila’s logic and with her dysfunction. The one
question Lila continually asks her husband, who is a minister, is why do things
happen the way they do? Throughout the book, he evades the question until
toward the end when he finally says what I discovered a long time ago. Some
things just don’t lend themselves to being asked why. There is no fair, there
is no deserve, sometimes there is no over-arching logic available to a human
brain. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can see where this line of
thought could lead to nihilism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Personally I think that is the lazy way out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To keep trying to love, to keep working for
peace, to keep hoping, these are the hard ways out. These are the paths of the
brave.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No man is an island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m pretty sure several famous people stressed this on several occasions
over the course of written history, but we seem to do a fine job of forgetting
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I struggle personally with this
because I don’t like or need a lot of people. The truth, though, I think, is that
most of us don’t need hundreds of friends. We need one friend, one friend who
will hear us when we howl and who will be there to absorb that howl and to help
us find our way out of it so the howl doesn’t overwhelm us all in the end.</span></div>
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-48132248988957170122018-02-11T16:24:00.000-05:002018-02-11T16:43:50.149-05:00Am I My Shadow Self?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVQHrHqZuTHW-X8f5YHSrzL8t5TrvHVwrRtqknAK-3XOU0XIyRinaFDEkAIMxHBLyru8jUhAks_PtjOu1J4wDKyTytoHvMDPD0Ayea2ALq9E1L2h2NqQ2mtFb3mb_mtqNyQVAG2jaZdM/s1600/IMG_4399.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVQHrHqZuTHW-X8f5YHSrzL8t5TrvHVwrRtqknAK-3XOU0XIyRinaFDEkAIMxHBLyru8jUhAks_PtjOu1J4wDKyTytoHvMDPD0Ayea2ALq9E1L2h2NqQ2mtFb3mb_mtqNyQVAG2jaZdM/s320/IMG_4399.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Amy Brandon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I realize this may sound strange, but I’ve waited until I
was 50 years old to figure out who I am.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some of the waiting was my fault; some was not.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first issue I should address is the who of who I am discovering
myself to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may be offensive to
some of you. I prefer cats, dogs, and birds to most of the people I know. (If I’ve
lost you here, you should probably stop reading.) Most of the time, I prefer silence,
books, animals, trees, flowers, and mushrooms to people. Sometimes I think
maybe I am a reasonably intelligent person, and then I find myself staring for
hours at the birds on our feeders. I would go into debt to buy land for these birds,
if my husband would let me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not
a sign of intelligence as we understand it. So you can see why I often doubt
myself. For most of my life, I was told these qualities made me not likeable to
the people around me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The worst insult in
my culture is “she's just not a people person.” This continues to be a
problem. I’m pretty sure it will be until I learn to “fix that shit,” which, let’s
be honest, at this point probably is not going to happen. I’ve given it (fixing
that shit) a good go for 50 years though, which is why I still don’t quite really
know myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I go through periods
of feeling like a kick-ass human being and periods of feeling particularly fragile
and isolated. During recent months, mostly I’ve felt the
latter. Through one of my current books, <u>The Dance of the Dissident Daughter</u>
by Sue Monk Kidd, I discovered May Sarton, specifically, her <u>Journal of a
Solitude.</u> From the first entry in this journal, I felt like I was reading
my own thoughts. First and foremost, I discovered that I am not the only person
who goes “up to Heaven and down to Hell in an hour,” and for whom, all too
often, “every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too
much, sense too much, am exhausted by the reverberations after even the simplest
conversation…the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate,
tormenting, and tormented self.” I can’t bring myself to delve into or elaborate
on this journal right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need more
time with it, time to buy my own copy, mark it up, meditate on it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Concurrent with my reading of <u>The Dance of the Dissident
Daughter</u> and <u>Journal of a Solitude</u>, I also have been working through
<u>The Portable Jung</u> edited by Joseph Campbell, <u>Bad Feminist</u> by
Roxane Gay, and <u>Lila</u> by Marilynne Robinson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The intersection of thoughts and ideas in
these works has felt eerie and has helped me begin to understand the underlying
truth of Jung’s collective unconscious, the revelation that some things are true,
whether or not we understand and accept them. I wonder if maybe this truth is
what some of us call God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I spent my childhood and adolescence pleasing my parents. I’ve
spent my adult life shaping my children, who have turned out to be more than I
could have ever wished. Now it’s my turn to find me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think I could have better companions
for this journey than the people whose works I am currently reading. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just hope that in finding myself, I don’t
lose others. That seems to be the danger, the narrow line women are asked to
walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Find and acknowledge yourself or
continue to prioritize everyone else?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is
this asked of men?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is this ever asked
of anyone, regardless of gender?</span></div>
<br />Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1397715447752979124.post-40493662568834312592018-01-16T14:02:00.001-05:002018-01-16T14:02:45.755-05:00How Can You Talk If You Haven't Got a Brain?
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-s3vAIHcvntOcsOky7poIX6Il8u3H631ohmqHF101qTgoNlcMPmHfnqVyw4IquhyQo4dmfxmilump79N9mTe-aJE4g3aEtJMuAkdUDPfG2tLIvSroSFkP8fdBKo70LR6j2lLLNEH8O9c/s1600/Metal+Man+in+Wall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-s3vAIHcvntOcsOky7poIX6Il8u3H631ohmqHF101qTgoNlcMPmHfnqVyw4IquhyQo4dmfxmilump79N9mTe-aJE4g3aEtJMuAkdUDPfG2tLIvSroSFkP8fdBKo70LR6j2lLLNEH8O9c/s320/Metal+Man+in+Wall.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Amy Brandon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></i> </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></i> </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?” </span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Once a year, when I was a child, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wizard of Oz</i> would come on the one TV set we had in the
house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was before streaming, or
recording, or any other way of watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wizard of Oz</i>, so it was a BFD. Everyone watched it; everyone loved it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I did not love it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could not
watch it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried, but I was already on
the edge of the couch ready to bolt when the house fell on the witch, which is
pretty early on and fairly important to the plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The menace of the grasping trees pushed me
over the edge and out of the living room. This scenario was repeated more than
once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept trying because I wanted
nothing more than to silence my brothers’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>taunts and to be like everyone else and to love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wizard of Oz.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Eventually, I made peace with that part of myself and quit even trying to watch, which is
why until recently, I had never seen the movie. This didn’t stopped me
from belting out “Over the Rainbow” on a fairly regular basis over the course
of my life, but the complete story of Dorothy and her friends…no idea.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
Well, until now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
few weeks ago, as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was reading in <u>The
Dance of the Dissident Daughter</u> by Sue Monk Kidd, I came across this
passage:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I realized that the Tin Man
character, at least in the early part of the movie, seemed an apt symbol of
patriarchal consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a
frozen figure, standing with his ax, his blade of power, in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story tells us he’s lost his heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s lost the ‘juices’ of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even his tears are frozen on his face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His ability to feel and relate at a deep
empathetic level is gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you ever
wondered how the Tin Man got into such a deplorable, frozen state?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book says the Tin Man was a woodsman
whose ax became cursed, causing him to cut away his own body, piece by piece,
including his heart, until he was no longer covered in warm flesh but encased
in an armor of tin.” (Kidd, 78)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What an
evocative, provocative thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
reading that, I had to read the book. I wondered what the Cowardly Lion inside
of me had made me miss.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
There is so much in this little story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like I need to read it again to be
able to absorb more of the depth of the ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Tin Man’s story of his loss of the ability to love and some of his
quotes in that telling are fabulous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
more you read, though, the more you realize that the Tin Woodman, the
Scarecrow, and the Lion are all looking for something they already have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Tin Man believes he can’t love because
that is what he’s been told, and yes, he is frozen when found, but he is
moaning about his frozen state, far from apathetic about it. Frozen isn’t dead,
and frozen isn’t heartless, and he spends the entire journey showing great love
for his companions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect that many
of the people we encounter who seem "frozen" may be those who have felt the most
and thus have been hurt the most. The Scarecrow, likewise, has been told that he
needs a brain to reason, yet often, his reasoning saves the company from
certain death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(As the story is
metaphorical, we will dispense with the rationality of functioning in any way
without a brain or a heart.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lion’s
problem comes also from his misunderstanding of courage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He believes courage to mean the absence of
fear. Yet often throughout the journey, he stands up in the throes of his fear
and helps the little company pull through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Toward the end of the book, the Wizard tells him, “True courage is in
facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in
plenty.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Perhaps the most powerful metaphor in the book is found in
the Wizard himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Wizard is no
wizard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s just a man who has found a way to fool a lot of people into believing he is something he is not. (Sound familiar?) While the Wizard of Oz was a fairly harmless leader, all too often it seems that people who desire power either have lost or never had the qualities they need most to rule: compassion, empathy, humility, a sense of justice and fairness. Luckily for the citizens of Emerald City, their wizard was willing to give up his power as soon as he was given the opportunity. Unfortunately, this is an instance where I doubt life will ever imitate art, so I'm just going to keep hiding in my books.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Amy http://www.blogger.com/profile/15353920822811597411noreply@blogger.com2