Cross-Denomination Book Club
One of my favorite things is how the Body of Christ works in many places at once. I love when four or five churches in a community are moving to do the same thing at the same time. I love when men and women of God are studying and praying over the same topics, separately but together. I love pondering the idea that the Lord never does just one thing at a time and He instills passions into His people in ways that work together for His purpose, even if we’re not paying attention.
These are the things I enjoy paying attention to most.
Several years ago, this point was driven home to me when my church studied Blackaby’s Experiencing God. It is one of my favorite studies to recommend to people of all ages, and it was the first one my current husband and I walked the children through when we first began the habit of family bedtime bible study. (Training up our children in the way they should go is very important to me and I am so grateful to have a husband who leads us, rather than one who abuses.) Prior to my remarriage, even when married to my first husband, bible study was an activity kiddo one and I did alone. This “new” habit (two years and counting) has been refreshing.
But while we study as a family, I also find it encouraging to study with other women, both from my church and others. I enjoy being a part of online book clubs, but even more I enjoy discussing rich books with my personal friends. I’m not talking about sitting in a circle drinking wine and arguing over literary merits. I’m talking about each family reading a book, finding biblical truths in it, and sharing those truths with their friends. I’m talking about Christians who go to Baptist churches, Catholic churches, Lutheran churches, and more, all discussing God’s Word and books that point us to bits of God’s Word we may have missed.
My desire to write this particular blog post was born of two books and a series of interwoven events.
A woman at church passed me a note suggesting I read a book by Rosaria Butterfield called The Gospel Comes With a House Key. I got home from church, looked it up on Amazon, saw that it was backordered but hit the button anyway and largely forgot about it.
Then, The Other Half Of My Brain, as I call her (my college roommate) was reading Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley with a group of women in her town five hours north of me. She messaged me saying she was pleased with the contents, I should check it out. She had also shared it with her sisters, who all live elsewhere. I read it, I loved it! When I shared it with my friends, I told them what The Other Half Of My Brain had expressed to me: It’s full of fantastic tidbits that you can implement into your life with 45 spare seconds. Most self help books are all about waking up an extra 45 minutes here, or take an hour and add this to your week, etc. Earley, on the other hand, wrote a book full of biblical truths and household wisdom for tired, busy people.
“My greatest hope,” Earley writes, “is not that you sit down in a quiet place and read this book alone. […] rather, that you read snatches of it between toddler fits and soccer trips. I hope that you nod off during a chapter because the baby was up last night, and get distracted at a good part because your twelve-year-old drops a surprise question about sex.”
He goes on to say that he hopes you read it with your spouse, that you skip around, that you use what you can and ditch what doesn’t work. Make notes in it, spill coffee on it, etc. This book is truly a tool, something that I try to remind everyone about all books. It’s about raising kids to follow God in the midst of a chaotic life.
The thing that struck me most is how useful it could be for grandparents as well, even though it isn’t marketed for them. My mother-in-law proved this point without even knowing when shortly after I finished reading this book she added to the Sunday lunch liturgy for the children. Later that week I shared with other grandparents I knew, and slowly more people in my extended circle were reading the same material and implementing elements of Earley’s recommendations in their daily lives.
In Earley’s book he includes lists of additional resources. Lo and behold, one of the books he refers his readers to is The Gospel Comes With a House Key. I was still waiting on my copy when another friend of mine was toying with starting a book club at her church and one of the potential members recommended it as the first book. I was so excited, “I have that book on the way to my house, I’ll read it with you!” In the meantime, I discovered some friends from a completely different circle of people who had also already read Earley’s book.
Aside from an actual marketing campaign, these two books are making the rounds in the Christian communities I’m associated with and this excites me––not in a part of the in-crowd or bandwagon way. I think when books are leapt upon as more useful than the bible by church groups, trouble follows (think the 1990’s and I Kissed Dating Goodbye.) I don’t think anyone should pounce of Earley’s or Butterfield’s books and put them on pedestals above or even alongside their bibles. However, reading the books with fellow Christians, praying about truth revealed, and discussing the merits and flaws of each idea presented is an exciting activity, especially when it’s not even happening in a formal way. There is no “gather in the library at six, password candles,” happening here. It’s just people reading and casually discussing the books that have impacted their lives that week in passing. You’re welcome to join the club.
Thornton Burgess Nature Stories
A year ago today, I was reading Cinnabar the One O’Clock Fox by Marguerite Henry with my daughter. We were in the middle of studying American History and what better way to fit in a nature story for “school” than to add it to your history lessons. George Washington’s crafty fox was a good excuse, especially in February as Washington’s birthday lands on the 22nd. This year, we’re studying ancient history again, and while Kiddo tackles Herodotus, I’ve been reading The Adventures of Reddy Fox by Thornton Burgess to my son. (What foxy title will I be reading next February, I wonder?)
Since last year, I had a baby, bought a new house, my mother died, my niblings came to stay for two months, and though we kept on schooling––as homeschoolers are apt to do––we needed some calm. Calm came in the form of Thornton Burgess, an old childhood favorite of mine.
I grew up on little pocket paperback two-for-one-dollar deals from good ol’ Wally World. Most of those now sit on my kids’ shelves, being enjoyed by the next generation of bibliophiles. Among those paperbacks were Thornton Burgess Bedtime Stories. Each little paperback following the tales of a new anthropomorphized character: The Adventures of Old Man Coyote and The Adventures of Prickly Porky, to name a few.
Imagine my glee when I found a Thornton Burgess Nature Stories, short tales from the Smiling Pool where Grandfather Toad spends his days. Thoughtful anecdotes that teach children about different kinds of birds and how they nest, through stories about mischievous rabbits trying to spot them. Eels with wonder lust, who find romance… These stories are the perfect medicine for children who have lost a grandmother, a breath of fresh air when it is too sweltering to go to the park, a cozy ray of sunshine when it’s actually the dead of winter. I am determined to collect them all and read every single one of them to my children, even after they have grown too old. They are simple, there is no mistaking them for great literary works. But they are beautiful. Sometimes we all just need a little more of what is beautiful.
If you haven’t read these little gems to your children or grandchildren, the entire collection is free on kindle. As for me, I like collecting the old copies.
The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree
“Why are the virgins trimming their wicks?”
We were listening to Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around. Not but a month or two ago we discussed how it was a song about Revelation, because her mind was blown that I had put Johnny Cash on my Spotify playlist of gospel music. She is also taking a poetry class and is significantly more interested in lyrics and their meanings than ever before. This time, the song came on because I had been sent a meme of a cat riding a dog that said, “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the rider’s name was death.” It was pretty funny. I had a good laugh. I posted it on social media with a link to Cash’s song and started playing the song, because how can anyone resist? The song itself is a thing of beauty.
“Well, do you remember Matthew 25?” I pulled out my bible and started reading her the Parable of the Ten Virgins. She, with her impeccable memory, started reciting it.
Matthew 25:1-13, New International Version
At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
“I remember that one,” she said, “But I don’t know what it means.”
And we talked about Jesus coming again. Because of a Johnny Cash song, we talked about how it is important for Christians to ever be ready for Christ to come again, because we don’t know when that will be.
Don’t just talk about being a Christian, live your life as one. Study the Word daily, pray without ceasing, don’t be the one the Lord says, “I never knew you,” to. Our relationship with Jesus is more than just a religion, more than just showing up on Sunday, more than a series of rituals. Saying we are a Christian means we are followers of Christ and the words should not be slung around lightly. Because, as Cash says (referencing a story in Luke), one day, “the father hen will call his chickens home.” We definitely want to be one of the chickens.
WHEN THE MAN COMES AROUND – JOHNNY CASH
“And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying,
‘Come and see.’ and I saw, and behold a white horse”
There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won’t be treated all the same
There’ll be a golden ladder reachin’ down
When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter’s ground?
When the man comes around
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin’
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettledrum
Voices callin’, voices cryin’
Some are born and some are dyin’
It’s alpha and omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till armageddon no shalam, no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise man will bow down before the throne
And at his feet they’ll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin’
Multitudes are marchin’ to the big kettledrum
Voices callin’, voices cryin’
Some are born and some are dyin’
It’s alpha and omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees
It’s hard for thee to kick against the prick
In measured hundredweight and penny pound
When the man comes around
“And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
And I looked, and behold a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him”
Shelter-in-Peace
Quarantine—or Shelter-in-Place—has meant many things to many people. Most people are scrolling Facebook incessantly. I’ve done a bit of that, but no more than usual, which is still too much. The memes have been great, but the complaints I have found unusual, even though intellectually I understand them.
My mother is an extrovert, so I am accustomed to inexplicable loneliness in others when they are left to their own devices.
I’ve been poor, so I relate to the sudden lack of income and the terrifying limbo of not knowing where your provision will come.
I’m curious to a severe degree, and I can comprehend boredom, even though I usually manage to find a way out of it fairly easily…
You see, I am an introvert who was more than happy to have a good excuse to cancel all my plans. Being a non-essential worker—a bookseller—I have lost my nearly thirteen year stint, and I’m actually happy, relieved, and overjoyed to be home every day. As a homeschool mom, my one desire was to spend my days trapped on my property with my kid reading books and right now, I’m living the dream.
Since Corona virus has hit, all we’ve done is actually live our best life.
We’ve spent hours in the garden literally watching the lilies bloom, observing the shockingly not-so-slow metamorphosis of caterpillars to butterflies. We’ve read an obscene number of books off the Mensa reading list for kids, are digging deeper into our Latin studies, memorizing new spelling and vocabulary words we never had time for before, and relishing the fact that third grade math wasn’t just learned, but mastered.
I’ve spent copious hours on ancestry.com, wikitree.com, and prowling books and resource materials here at home learning about my family history. I’ve had the pleasure of baking whatever I want whenever I want (key-lime cupcakes, anyone?). I’ve almost completed a short story anthology for my book series, I’m nearly done with a granny square blanket out of old forgotten yarn, and the only thing I’ve failed to do is maintain my blog and my workout schedule because I’ve been so busy enjoying everything else and it’s hard to share the living room.
The gist of it is: I’m a weirdo who is loving being forced to stay home.
Since my last post, I finished a biography on Margaret Thatcher, a summation of the demise of classical education, a fascinating biography on Amerigo Vespucci as well as some of his original writings, another installment of Cahill’s armchair history series, a terrible account of a transition from “protestantism” to Catholicism (written by a guy I’m convinced was in cults and not a protestant denomination at all), an essay on magnetic currents, several of my favorite children’s chapter books (The Pushcart War never gets old), and one of Prebble’s brilliant histories of the Scottish clans. (Please, take a minute to follow me on Goodreads.)
I suppose my point is this: I know it can be scary… pandemics, shady governments, untrustworthy reporting, not knowing what’s next… but there’s something beautiful about actually stopping to—watch the lilies bloom (and, of course, read a good book).
Harvey
Pre-Harvey I had made a plan. I now had Fridays off from work and I was going to get on the review writing routine again. I had planned to post a review and a book related blog article every Friday and fully embrace my life as a bibliophile.
Then Harvey happened.
I did what all good Texas women of the Gulf Coast do: I checked my back up water supply (ten already filled gallons which had been stored in the spring for potential summer hurricanes), I made sure we had food (the canned goods closet for such occasions was already stocked by my mother), I filled up my gas tank (it was only on half and that’s when I fill up usually anyway), I stopped by the ATM and made sure I had some emergency cash. I explained the process to my six year old as we deep cleaned the house (if you’re going to be stuck inside for a few days, you want everything spotless). I knew I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until the next day when I started craving pie. Bake. All good Southern girls bake during a hurricane. We made a cherry pie. If you scroll through a southern Facebook feed, you’ll see an awful lot of cookies and cakes too.
We made it through the rain and the wind. We prepared a tornado closet under the stairs during the warnings. I had the go bags with extra clothes, provisions, and toiletries already packed. I even packed an emergency go-homeschool bag so we could continue school work.
I watched the west fork of the San Jacinto rise. Conroe opened the flood gates and I watched the river rise some more.
Tuesday morning, my street that didn’t even flood in the Great Flood of 1994, had water so high that when my friend in a truck came to get my daughter and I (because my car, Nigel, is not an appropriate one to escape in such weather), that he had to borrow a boat.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so enjoy this one of kiddo:
The water would later reach this man’s waist. Let’s gloss over our adventures in taking shelter at the church where kiddo had an absolute blast and the dog made all sorts of new best friends. (Seriously, we actually had a lot of fun there.) To the part where my car, Nigel, was completely flooded and is completely totaled and molded. The house got 13 inches.
And yet, God provides and we are well.
God blesses through amazing people. By the grace of God and generous friends I am now driving Irma-Joan. My lovely friend Shelly Veron hosted a GoFundMe which met its initial goal of $3k to cover a down payment, and has raised it to help me cover future car payments. I could not ask for more amazing and wonderful people in my life during and after the storm.
I am back to work, and my parents are renovating the house. We made it through everything safe and sound and I’m currently residing with my best friend. God is Good, even when the world feels like crap. And people are kind and gracious, especially when the world feels like crap.
https://www.gofundme.com/a-vehicle-for-andi-after-harvey
My Art Soothes Me
I used to draw a lot. I found that over the years I have done less and less, and the more I discovered the dark plot points of the marriage I thought was a beautiful work of fate, the more I realize why so much of me began to get buried.
It would resurface, bouts of artistic fancy. And I’m equally strong willed and oblivious, so it’s kinda hard to quash my spirit. I’m naturally pretty confident and bold despite my anxieties.
Still, I finally know why I wasn’t drawing. Snippets of the comments and criticisms and endless amounts of his self loathing after seeing me working on a piece, I stopped doing it as much, or tried to do it when he wasn’t paying attention. My sketches just became something he would behave bitterly and annoyed about because I could draw and he could not. He’d praise me in front of others then get hopelessly drunk and emotional and yell about how it must be nice to be me and why the hell wasn’t I making any money at it. Then tell me it was all just copying other things and that I wasn’t an artist anyway. He said that last bit so often, I’ve even repeated it to others. I love to draw. I sell pieces now and then, but ultimately, I don’t want my drawings to be something I have to force for pay. Where career choices are, I’d rather write. Can’t I keep one thing for myself and not sell out to the worship of the Dollar Bill?
Ultimately, I didn’t even see it as something I wasn’t doing because he was oppressive; it was merely a way I showed my love… not flaunting something that he got so upset about. Why would you do things that make your best friend feel bad? You don’t. The terrible truth, however, is that he gets so upset over everything. I cannot be responsible for his emotions, and I’m finally learning – in my thirties – that we can only be responsible for our own behavior, not our spouse’s feelings.
So, back at my parents house, I’ve been building a garden and raising my daughter. I’ve been rediscovering the beautiful embrace of my Heavenly Father’s love, something I’ve been struggling to do since my husband decided that he wasn’t really a believer anymore and decided that Judas Iscariot was actually the ultimate hero of the bible. And I’ve been revisiting my sketchbook, almost weekly now, instead of yearly. In it, I am soothed.
Uhtred and I
I’ve been away from the blogosphere for awhile. I went back to working in the bookstore full time and between homeschooling my kiddo and working 40 hours a week, even though the reading didn’t stop, my reviewing slowed greatly.
However, last spring I was head over heels into the Saxon Tales by Bernard Cornwell.
It was a time of hope for me. I had finally moved out of my mother-in-law’s house and into a rent house. We lost our home in 2014 and a year and a half of paying off debt and trying to start over at my in-law’s, my husband and I were on our own again at last. The previous five years had been beyond rocky. My husband was struggling, I struggled to deal with his struggling, my daughter was becoming more aware of the situation; but finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel. My husband was on probation for his second DUI, but there was nowhere to go but up, right? We’d all hit rock bottom together and it was time to grow.
I binge read the Saxon Tales (I’m still reading them, but I read the first four or five all in a row that season), and while smitten with the character and the author, and the entire idea of the era (we homeschool chronologically through history and were studying a lot that coincided with the books), I found the energy to write a novelette.
The novelette is called Nancy & Uhtred, and it’s about one of my favorite characters from my imaginary small town, Lily Hollow, falling in love with the Saxon Tales. It’s hopeful and funny. It’s evidence that, though I don’t write autobiographical fiction by a long shot, elements of my mood can be found in my writing. It’s my shortest published work in the series, but possibly my best. I love it, I love the time period it represents in my life… before everything finally came crashing down once and for all.
The other shoe dropped – again. The proverbial rug got ripped out from underneath me.
My husband was out of work, drunk while on probation for another DUI, screaming at us, and as my daughter barricaded the door – again – I thought, “This won’t end.” My hope and my funny left me.
So I kicked him out, obtained a restraining order, begged him to get help, and waited.
Seven months later, we are not legally divorced, but he has public online dating profile, attempting to woo women with what a great guy he is. I’ve loved him for more than half my life. I’m devastated. I am grieving. I don’t know what the future holds. But whatever it is, it’s in God’s hands.
All this to say, Nancy & Uhtred is published, and reminds me of what I can accomplish when I am focusing on God, focusing on hope, digging deep and taking inventory of my life and who I am, and making an effort to be the best version of myself I can be. It is my best writing and I hope to write more like it in the future. Nancy speaks to the me I used to know and encourages me to wake up, pray hard, and try new things without abandoning the old things that I’ve always loved. I hope others find something good in it, too.
Currently, back in my parent’s home, I am catching up on all the reviews I meant to do in what I thought would be our glorious recovery and reconciliation phase that has not happened. He’s apparently sober now, thank God, but has no interest in being my husband. I pray for him daily and hope my readers who pray will too.
So as well as an awkward announcement of my latest book release, this is also a shout out to the many patient indie authors awaiting reviews for copies they sent me. We are almost finished reading Jorie and the Magic Stones, I’ve been reading it aloud to the kiddo and we’re having so much fun with it. I’m also slowly plucking through High Flier by Susan Kotch, but I admit I’m having a hard time caring about teen romance when the man I’ve loved since I was fourteen is discarding the promises we made to each other. This is not Kotch’s fault, it’s a good book, like the first in her series, I’m just not interested in romantic love in the slightest right now. The very thought of it starts to nauseate me.
I’ve been Anakalian Whims for a long, long time, and though my posts have been rapid at times and nonexistent at others, I will continue to write. I will continue to process my life through the pursuit of God, and the reading of more and more books.
I am not looking for sympathy, I do not need comments or messages, please if you read this and feel anything at all, just take a moment to pray. Goodnight, world.
My Life in Literature Meme
Piggy-backing off of A World of Randomness who apparently piggy-backed off me, which I’m sure I ripped off someone else at some point… It seems we book bloggers love revisiting this bit of fun every year.
Using only books you have read this last year (2015), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.
Describe yourself: A Scattered Life (Karen McQuestion)
How do you feel: Screw-jack (Thompson)
Describe where you currently live: Paper Towns (John Green)
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Haunted Bookshop (Morley)
Your favorite form of transportation: Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees (Agosta)
Your best friend is: Wild (Strayed) [Not really, it’s just the only thing that seemed to fit.]
You and your friends are: Looking for Me (Hoffman)
What is the best advice you have to give: How to Build an Android (Duffy)
What’s the weather like: Rain (Kirsty Gunn) / Storm Front (Jim Butcher)
You fear: Everything I Never Told You (Ng)
Thought for the day: It’s About Time (Evers)
How I would like to die: Peace Like a River (Enger)
My soul’s present condition: A Grief Observed (C.S. Lewis)
My Complete 2015 Reading List is as follows (kid /young adult chapter books were read aloud to the kiddo):
1. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice – Laurie R. King
2. Serendipities: Language & Lunacy – Umberto Eco
3. The Haunted Bookshop – Christopher Morley
4. The Death of Woman Wang – Jonathan Spence
5. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
6. Magic Tree House #20 – Mary Pope Osborn
7. One Hundred & One Dalmatians – Dodie Smith
8. Guide to Wild Foods & Useful Plants – Nyerges
9. A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
10. The Excellent Wife – Martha Peace
11. Garden Crafts for Kids – Diane Rhoads
12. The Homeschool Life – Andrea Schwartz
13. The Gardener’s Bed Book – Wright
14. Wild – Cheryl Strayed
15. One Woman Farm – Woginrich
16. The Quarter Acre Farm- Spring Warren
17. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
18. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
19. Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry – Elizabeth McCracken
20. Dirty Pretty Things – Michael Faudet
21. How Reading Changed My Life – Anna Quindlen
22. The Penultimate Truth – Philip K. Dick
23. Observations on the River Wye – Gilpin
24. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
25. Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees – William Agosta
26. How to Build an Android – Duffy
27. The Pythagorean Theorem: The Story of Its Power and Beauty – Alfred S. Posamentier
28. Clans of the Alphane Moon – Philip K. Dick
29. Minority Report – Philip K. Dick
30. A Grief Observed – C.S. Lewis
31. The Man of Numbers – Keith Devlin
32. Pheromones and Animal Behavior: Communication by Smell & Taste – Tristram D. Wyatt
33. Ape and Essence – Aldous Huxley
34. Solar Lottery – Philip K. Dick
35. Deadly Ruse – E. Michael Helms
36. The Almagest – Ptolemy
37. The Clover House – Henriette Lazaridis Power
38. The Thief Lord – Cornelia Funke
39. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
40. Looking for Me – Beth Hoffman
41. The House of Paper – Carlos Maria Dominguez
42. The Colossus and Other Poems – Sylvia Plath
43. High Moon – E.J. Bosley
44. Nerve – Bethany Macmanus
45. A Scattered Life – Karen McQuestion
46. Liber Abaci – Fibonacci
47. Vanity Fare – Megan Caldwell
48. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie
49. The Martian – Andy Weir
50. Critical Lessons – Nel Noddings
51. Echo – Lorena Glass
52. Jewel of the Seven Stars – Bram Stoker
53. The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
54. Haunting Jasmine – Anjali Banerjee
55. Casey of Cranberry Cove – Susan Koch
56. The Christie Curse – Victoria Abbott
57. City of Dark Magic – Magnus Flyte
58. Screw-jack – Hunter S. Thompson
59. CATastrophic Connections – Joyce Ann Brown
60. Where I Was From – Joan Didion
61. Getting the Girl – Zusak
62. The Secrets of Droon #1 – Tony Abbot (read this aloud to kiddo)
63. Storm Front – Jim Butcher
64. The Pharaoh’s Cat – Maria Luisa Lang
65. Paper Towns – John Green
66. The Quick and the Dead – Louis L’amour
67. Early Bird – Rothman
68. It’s About Time – Liz Evers
69. The Secrets of Droon #3 – Abbott (read this aloud to kiddo)
70. Better With You Here – Gwendolyn Zipped
71. Rain – Kirsty Gunn
72. Sackett – Louis L’amour
73. Transcendental Wild Oats – Louisa May Alcott
74. Fern Verdant and the Silver Rose – Diana Leszczynski (read this aloud to kiddo)
75. Secrets of Droon #7 – Abbott (read aloud to kiddo)
76. 16 Lighthouse Road – Debbie Macomber
77. The Emotionally Destructive Relationship – Vernick
78. Peace Like a River – Leif Enger
79. Keeper – S. Smith
80. The Year of Learning Dangerously – Quinn Cummings
81. Anemogram – Rebecca Gransden
82. The Summer We Read Gatsby – Danielle Ganek
83. Wren – Regina O’Connell
84. The Writing Circle – Corinne Demas
85. The Good Neighbor – A.J. Banner
86. Spelling V – Meb Bryant
87. Ross Poldark – Winston Graham
88. Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
My Issue With Sylvia Plath
Disclaimer: If I was a coward or a sensible human, I’d post this as some sort of fictional work. I am neither. But if you know me and would rather pretend this post isn’t real, for the sake of our friendship, that’s cool.
I’ve been trying for days to figure out how to write this post without sounding like a bitter, unfeeling hag. Then, I realized, more than that, I have to find a way to say what I mean to say without sounding like a pitiable, whiny, woe-is-me turd. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I just need to say what I’m going to say, post this “review” and let it sound however it will sound; because ultimately, though I am a writer and can be precise or flowery with my words, I cannot control how you hear/ read them. I am not that powerful. Maybe that just means I’m a terrible writer, but we’ll let those insecurities ride for another day…
I finally read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. It was my dead friend’s birthday and I thought he deserved a proper wallow, what better way to have a healthy wallow than to read a classic novel written by a woman who put her head in an oven?
So I took a bath, all appropriately scalding hot, and settled down into this:
There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: “I’ll go take a hot bath.”
This, of course, made me giggle at the wisdom of my selection.
Mostly, though, I felt a familiarity about the book, the characters, and all the feelings, that just outright angered me. She talks about things that make her sad and tired, and then how thinking about being sad and tired makes her more sad and tired. I found one of my own personal college friends in Doreen, the party girl from the deep south. I found myself in the narrator’s alter ego, inspired by an outing with Doreen, the party girl.
As I read, I got deeper and deeper into the narrator’s not-so-dark and twisty brain and followed her around as she thought about killing herself and received shock therapy while being hospitalized with the other crazies. I thought of Girl, Interrupted and Susannah Keyson and realized why, exactly, this book was familiar, and enjoyable, but ultimately a deep itch under my skin.
Everyone feels that way – the way Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical character feels. Everyone struggles to live, and if they don’t then I’m shocked. Reading The Bell Jar I just wanted to scream at a very dead Sylvia Plath, and every other depressed person I’ve known, and even the depressed person I’ve been and sometimes still am:
WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL? What makes you so special that you get to bask in your insanity? Nothing. That’s what. You’re just taking advantage of living in a world that works harder than you to exist.
That’s probably unfair, and shows an utter lack of compassion, but it’s how I feel.
Because it is hard work. Getting out of bed every morning is a mental exercise. Keeping yourself from crawling back in – or worse being a drunk slob for the hours you’re awake – is a physical exercise. Every day you have to create and maintain specific habits to keep yourself from sliding into the glorious abyss of a terrible wallow… a wallow of anxieties, simultaneously deep and restless sleep, an attitude called The Mean Reds (thanks, Holly Golightly), and a conflicting desire to both eat yourself into obesity or starve yourself to death – it could go either way.
Every day is a challenge to make the counting in your head stop. And with all this counting, it’s a struggle to actually sit down and count the things you’re supposed to. My drawer was ten cents off at work the other day, which naturally (and I would have said the same thing to anyone else), they teased me about not being able to count – because it wasn’t actually off, I had just documented it as off. Want to know what that sounds like? If your brain is anything like mine, which for the sake of this entire post I’m going to assume that for many people it is, my brain processed the comments a bit like this…
A Rising Panic Attack
Recognition that this was a joke
Panic Attack Subsides, only to start up again wondering if they think you’re stupid, or, worse…
Did they catch on to the fact that you were counting dimes over top of the counting already happening in your head – the one that finds itself ticking in time with any and every clock on the wall, the one that falls in tune to your steps as you walk across tile floors, still looking at your feet when you walk even though you are now in your thirties. The rhythm that helps you get your work done fast when you’re methodically shelving and alphabetizing, but might trip you on the street if you encounter a crack in the sidewalk – because you’re never sure if that day is a no crack day or a step ON the crack day… not until you do one or the other and the part of you begins to panic. Did they notice this?
While all this is happening in your head, you realize your rhythm is gone. Your heart was racing, but now it suddenly stopped altogether and you find yourself both mentally and physically trying to catch your breath, but you play it cool when you remind yourself that even though you *feel* like your head has bubble wrap duct taped around it and that you’ve been thrown into a swimming pool – that’s not what you look like. No one sees your bubble wrap face. They also don’t realize, hopefully, that you can’t hear them right now.
Your left pinky finger starts to tingle and you crack the knuckle to make it stop, to regain feeling. Only this time it hurts and you look down and see it is more bent than usual. Long ago it was broken, right now it simultaneously feels numb and broken. You wonder if you re-broke it sometime this week and didn’t notice.
The Heart Flutters.
Post-it notes are raining on your head, but they are in teals and oranges and easily arranged and filed into your handy-dandy mental filing cabinets – alphabetized and roughly dated. (Yes, I have those. If I’m too terribly distracted, the notes turn yellow and green, they’re only their orange and teal shades when I’m looking directly at them. The filing cabinets are the old metal kind, the ones you find on the side of the road or in ancient school building, rickety and decidedly thrown away by someone more sane than me.)
During all of this, life goals and contingency plans are running in the background. What if my husband dies? I could come back to work full time here. We’ve accomplished x,y,z so it’s probable. But I can’t count dimes, that might be a problem. If he died by car crash, I go _____. If he dies by _____, I go ______. If I die, he does not die…. If this than that. It takes me 30 seconds to map out a life plan from a newly presented scenario. It takes another 30 seconds for me to make a list of resources I think I need to implement this life plan effectively. Life Plan 3,069 logged away in filing cabinet 192, June 2015.
Your ears pop – as though you’ve ACTUALLY been under water, which briefly makes you wonder. Wonder about what? The Matrix, of course, are you in The Matrix? Or God’s brain? My husband thinks we are all synapses in a giant God-head’s brain. I ponder the biology of that while I – or you – think about The Matrix and how Neo didn’t realize he was stuck, naked, in a bubble of goo while his brain was plugged in to what he thought was real.
Suddenly, you’re cold all over and briefly wonder if you might be in goo too. Then you realize that for some inexplicable reason (the smell of old books? the comfort of the books? the smell of the person who just passed you by?) you’re not in goo, you’re just horny and why haven’t you ever had sex in a library or a bookstore? Oh, because the NSA is watching, yes, that’s why.
Less than a minute has passed since you were teased about the dimes and your inability to count. People have been talking around you, and you’ve even piped in – whether sensibly or not, you can’t be sure – and finally a customer asks you a question. This part is easier. The question is a book title, or an author. (I honestly don’t remember now.) But when someone asks something like this, it’s easier to get around all the warehouse like noise in the mind. The color coded post-it notes of fragmented thoughts are discarded, the flow-charts of contingency plans for life are swept momentarily aside and you consult your filing cabinets and bookshelves for the answer to their question. Maybe they asked you about dystopian fiction and you’re walking them through a list of your favorites. Maybe they just want a book that reminds them of red fields of grass, which they have to read for sophomore English – naturally you pluck up Catcher in the Rye by Salinger and they marvel at how you knew, or (depending on the customer) take it for granted that of course you knew exactly what they were talking about because they described the book so well.
The point is, this is constant and every day. Everyone has a thousand things happening in their heads that no one knows about. And frankly, not everyone needs to know about. When I’m having a hard time quieting the characters for my fiction, who like to gather around my filing cabinets and gab at me, or making the what if flow charts stop, when I can’t seem to stay out of the damn bubble wrap pool party – I chatter. I get clammy and chatter to whoever will listen. Because if my mouth is running, then I don’t have to listen to the chatter in my brain as much… I can ever so briefly shut them the hell up. The point is, I’m not sticking my head in any ovens. I make do.
It’s not fun. It’s not easy. It’s down right exhausting. It’s noisy, and it’s lonely. It is an effort to remember to feed myself and to feed others, and when I eat – not to eat too much. I am held together by the fact that I must sweep and mop this floor every day, that the things happening in my husband’s head are far worse than mine so someone has to keep it together. That some people out there have worse problems – like being raped and or being torn from limb to limb as they refuse to renounce Christ.
Yet, this twat, who was an amazing writer and artist, who had two kids that needed her… stuck her head in a freaking oven. Would that be easier? Yes. Was she crazy? Yes. But no more or less than anyone else, in my self-admittedly judgmental opinion.
Despite all that, I checked out her Bed-Book and read it to my daughter – it’s a lovely children’s picture book, and am currently reading both her diaries and her letters to her mother. Because I like her, I do. I feel like I know her and have been her. I feel like if I am not careful, I could be her again – but at least I’ll have the sense to keep my head out of ovens. (Although, when I was a kid, I used to bend over in the laundry room, holding a button down, to dry my hair in the clothes dryer – very effective…)
Ptolemy – Dwight Howard – Same Thing…
I’ve never felt like a bigger idiot than when trying to read Ptolemy’s The Almagest. First of all, I inevitably always pronounce the P when speaking about it. And constantly get corrected, but can’t stop doing it. Secondly, I switch the m and the g of “almagest” in my head so often that in my deepest heart I’m not reading The Almagest, I’m reading The Algamest. Third, it’s a lot of information that I’ll never remember. I hate knowing that what I’m reading is not going to sink in… it’s all just a passing whimsy and I’ll be able to tell you nothing of value about it when I’m done with it.
Nevertheless, I’m enjoying reading it. Mostly because I’m a glutton for punishment, I think. Also, it’s included in The Great Books, it’s fat (roughly 600 pages), and it’s part of our ancient history – which I’m a huge sucker for.
Reading stuff like this is kind of like watching certain sports for me. I can follow the games, I know what’s going on, and I thoroughly enjoy them – but I don’t have sports lingo dripping from my lips and I rarely will discuss them with people because I know I’ll just sound like a moron. I like the ambiance of the game and the thrill of hard work and athleticism paying off. Just like I love the exertion it takes to read things slightly outside my knowledge base. They are similar experiences for me. Dropping me into a martial arts ring is more like breezing through fiction – I know it so well I can function there with my eyes closed.
It sounds completely absurd, even as I type it – but Ptolemy is like watching The Rockets play. I’m there. I get it. I’m enjoying. I love it. I will devour it – with chips, salsa, and beer. I will not, however, scream and shout with the other fans or talk about it tomorrow; and if you try to talk to me about it, I’ll clam up. Mention apogees in anything other than reciting a chant from Bedknobs and Broomsticks and you’ll see the same blank expression on my face when people shout “Wet!” I read that, I heard that… I internally absorbed it somewhere in my brain. But please, please, don’t quiz me. That’s recipe for an anxiety attack right there.
There are some things in life we should be allowed to simply enjoy without analyzation. Therefore, just like I will never be any good at fantasy leagues, I will also never be able to give an intelligent lecture on Ptolemy and his great work. But I’ll have fun being a half hearted amateur/ closet fan of both.
Anakalian Whims 