tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61290648480042323612024-03-18T21:53:45.743-07:00Remains of the DayThe time of reflection
and
the crumbs on the floorAndreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.comBlogger1493125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-36619041907383489422024-01-19T08:55:00.000-08:002024-01-19T08:55:30.305-08:00Book Stack ~ December 2023 ~ And an Announcement<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">First, the announcement:</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">After 16+ years of posting here, I've decided to retire this blog. Part of me wants to write a long post about what I've learned and what it's meant to me and why I've decided to move on, but instead I think I'll just make a clean break of it and leave it at thank you for coming here for as many of those 16 years as you have, to read what I have to say. You can visit me at <a href="http://www.andrealani.com">www.andrealani.com</a>, where I'll post regular updates about publication news and upcoming events. You can also <a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" target="_blank">subscribe to my newsletter</a>, which goes out once a month and includes a short essay and news, and which from now on will include a regular "now reading" section to take the place of these Book Stack posts. Now, without further ado, here's December's reading list.</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">Now, the book stack:</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;" /><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a><br style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;" /><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></span><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">April 2023</span></a></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/06/book-stack-may-2023.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">May 2023</span></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">June 2023</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-stack-july-2023.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">July 2023</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/09/book-stack-august-2023.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">August 2023</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-stack-september-2023.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">September 2023</span></a></div></div><a href="http://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/11/book-stack-october-2023.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">October 2023</span></a></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="http://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/12/book-stack-november-2023.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">November 2023</span></a></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjNgFqPfgnc8mPefNO0uEStoAnIe4ZrXNVU27G9driEc-CkKN2ZhG47y0_uISSB8aNoTrEPwVLDHokmH4XPaKtd61m0vOfGriUu6RL_lClM2Dzk4fr87e6XTND3IrVsDtReW8isXUV_FkNVEDQ0IbayDWXq8P71vzRj4MahEZ0G2bRasQxwgUGmUK5Gygv/s4032/D23F8202-C4F8-47B7-A0BA-7CCDBB5E327C.heic" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjNgFqPfgnc8mPefNO0uEStoAnIe4ZrXNVU27G9driEc-CkKN2ZhG47y0_uISSB8aNoTrEPwVLDHokmH4XPaKtd61m0vOfGriUu6RL_lClM2Dzk4fr87e6XTND3IrVsDtReW8isXUV_FkNVEDQ0IbayDWXq8P71vzRj4MahEZ0G2bRasQxwgUGmUK5Gygv/w640-h480/D23F8202-C4F8-47B7-A0BA-7CCDBB5E327C.heic" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><b>Fiction</b></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">December's fiction reads had were vintage and seasonally appropriate mysteries. I was in the mood for comforting, classical mysteries and found <i>Monk's Hood</i>, a Brother Cadfael mystery by Ellis Peters, and <i>Strong Poison</i>, the first Harriet Vane mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers during a recent used bookstore visit. Coincidentally they both take place during the Christmas season, although neither has a strong holiday theme to them. They both delivered in the classic, entertaining whodunnit and cozy escapism departments. At another used bookstore, I picked up <i>In the Bleak Midwinter</i> by Julia Spencer Fleming. This one was on a seasonal display and therefore a more seasonally intentional choice. I don't always love police procedurals, but I enjoyed this one and will probably be on the lookout for more in the series.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><b>Nonfiction</b></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">I picked up a copy of Elizabeth Tova Bailey's <i>The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating</i> for a friend who was going to be going through a medical treatment that would leave her convalescing for a long while. I thought she would find comfort in Bailey's quiet contemplation of a pet snail that found its way accidentally into her home and heart while she was undergoing a long period of illness caused by a virus (similar to some people's experiences of long covid). I'd read the book some years ago and decided to read it again before I passed it on to my friend. I love all the snail literature and lore she includes and the surprising companionship the minute creature brings to Bailey.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">I also read Susan Hand Shetterly's latest collection of nature essays, <i>Notes on the Landscape of Home</i>. It's a lovely little book--I always enjoy Shetterly's quiet and wise way of contemplating the world, our place in it, and the changes that it's undergoing due to climate change, development, etc. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKRcI3rcvkNcVgfH5ykiLUmgnUd8kqJdUROYRl0ABNpFKfp4qc0oMJvSYeQf3l1b0neoS-CXA6FHWAVJZoCJFS0BqPhELhdIwR4vNESfwNhj4lVozAYPzYQd7gMPhOF0e4sJce-duvZtQyy-2d1rEZMS3vQ1wvKsYJjt9LucfR5UKvJvjOB5NPWuROEMTf/s3794/ECEB63E7-096D-4FEB-A531-453B3CC4878B_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2846" data-original-width="3794" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKRcI3rcvkNcVgfH5ykiLUmgnUd8kqJdUROYRl0ABNpFKfp4qc0oMJvSYeQf3l1b0neoS-CXA6FHWAVJZoCJFS0BqPhELhdIwR4vNESfwNhj4lVozAYPzYQd7gMPhOF0e4sJce-duvZtQyy-2d1rEZMS3vQ1wvKsYJjt9LucfR5UKvJvjOB5NPWuROEMTf/w640-h480/ECEB63E7-096D-4FEB-A531-453B3CC4878B_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, I finished these two monsters: <i>A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year </i>and<i> Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year</i>, edited by Jane MacMorland Hunter. I read the day's entry from each book almost every morning before I got started on the day. I'd started reading them in January of 2022, but gave up after missing too many days and not being able to catch up. This time, if I missed a day, I sometimes read it the next day and sometimes let it go. So there are a few entries from both books I didn't read--including most of July--but in the interest of avoiding an all-or-nothing attitude, I'm calling them read (and may catch up on July next year). Because they come from a British editor and publisher, they lean heavily toward British writers, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries, although there are some that go back as far as Pliny the Elder and a few contemporary writers thrown in. Like most collections of nature writing, both books lean heavily white male, although the ratio of women writers is higher than in many such collections. I also appreciate that the Nature Writing book includes a fair amount of fiction, some of it from surprising places (what you might not, on first glance, consider nature writing). So overall I enjoyed both books, was introduced to some new writers and reminded of some old favorites, and I enjoyed having the ritual of reading a poem and a short excerpt each morning. I need to find something to replace them with. (I also have a book from the series called a <i>Nature Poem for Every Night of the Year</i>, but I haven't yet gotten into the habit of reading from it before I go to bed.)</div><br />Scrolling back through all of my Book Stack posts, I estimate that I read 83 books during 2023. I didn't make much of a dent in the book stack, though, since many (most) were new acquisitions. (I'm going to keep working at whittling down that stack--which is now housed on book shelves and therefore less ominous looking--in 2024.) I was going to say which were my favorites, but looking back over the stacks, I see so many that I loved for different reasons, or, even if I didn't love them, I appreciated something about them. I suppose the Demon Copperhead-David Copperfield pairing was pretty close to the top of the list.<div><br /></div><div>Be well, friends. Hope to see you in other spaces (<a href="https://www.andrealani.com" target="_blank">website</a>, <a href="https://www.andrealani.com/newsletter.html" target="_blank">newsletter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/andrea.lani/" target="_blank">instagram</a>, real life). And reading in 2024!</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-61998870986332373592023-12-29T07:00:00.000-08:002023-12-29T07:00:00.135-08:00I Did It! 2023 Edition<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's time again for the annual pat-myself-on-the-back post. Past years can be viewed here: <a href="http://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2022/12/i-did-it-2022-edition.html" target="_blank">2022</a>,<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"> <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2021/12/i-did-it-2021-apocalypse-year-2-edition.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2021</a> (Apocalypse Year 2) <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2020/12/i-did-it-2020-aka-apocalypse-year-1.html" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2020</a> (Apocalypse Year 1), <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2019/12/i-did-it-2019-and-decade-in-review.html" style="text-decoration: none;">2019</a> (including decade-in-review), </span><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2019/01/i-did-it-2018-edition.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2018</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, </span><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2018/01/i-did-it-2017.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2017</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, </span><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2017/01/i-did-it-2016-version.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2016</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, </span><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2016/01/i-did-it-2016.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2015</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, </span><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2014/12/nibbling-on-elephant-i-did-it-2014.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2014</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, </span><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2014/01/i-did-it-2013.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2013</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">. Let's jump right into 2022's I Did Its! Shall we?</span></span></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/AVvXsEipCfn2LYCopHvzBZlHGVl2J2HyD3YLffVOUnYfKtv6OWwxUABRdrLKJGl8dEdXGAb7FxPX0o7jU_6A_1BNXaaVGtTmOgS8k0Q2qFRhrGrj5VUTJ5mLBoVHOr9D6Vb20cs51fAvib4VayKrNXwhSNjDJYZ-NG7EsQP3Tk4vgsUQAEEPYS0mqs_ksia6NUev/s4032/59AFBBB8-C0CD-4A1F-9AD0-AD5282815DF9.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCfn2LYCopHvzBZlHGVl2J2HyD3YLffVOUnYfKtv6OWwxUABRdrLKJGl8dEdXGAb7FxPX0o7jU_6A_1BNXaaVGtTmOgS8k0Q2qFRhrGrj5VUTJ5mLBoVHOr9D6Vb20cs51fAvib4VayKrNXwhSNjDJYZ-NG7EsQP3Tk4vgsUQAEEPYS0mqs_ksia6NUev/w640-h480/59AFBBB8-C0CD-4A1F-9AD0-AD5282815DF9.heic" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Andy Goldsworthy landscape installation at Alnoba in New Hampshire, here for no reason <br />other than it's a place I visited this year and never got around to writing about it. Also it's cool!</i><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><b>Writing I Did Its!</b><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Drafted a novel in my own version of National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), which I called JANOWRIMO. (And I love it!)</li><li>Finished revising and illustrating and writing a book proposal for my second nonfiction book, and submitted it to my publisher for consideration.</li><li>Did some work on my idea for a third nonfiction book.</li><li>Attended five book promotion events for <a href="https://www.andrealani.com" target="_blank">Uphill Both Ways</a>.</li><li>Recorded two podcasts promoting <a href="https://www.andrealani.com" target="_blank">Uphill Both Ways</a> (one of which can be heard <a href="https://www.hikingradionetwork.com/show/hiking-unfiltered/episode-43-what-is-it-like-to-drag-your-family-along-uphill-both-ways/" target="_blank">here</a>, and one of which will come out soon!)</li><li>Did a big <a href="https://defendourhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FINAL-DOH-PlasticBottles-Report_5.20.2023.pdf" target="_blank">freelance project.</a></li><li>Freelance articles: 2</li><ul><li><a href="https://www.greenhealthymaine.com/blog/tracking-maine-wildlife" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Stories in the Snow</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.greenhealthymaine.com/blog/maines-native-butterflies" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Maine's Native Butterflies</span></a></li></ul><li>Essay Submissions: 5</li><li>Essay Acceptances: 3</li><li>Essay Publications: </li><ul><li style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; list-style: disc outside !important; margin: 3px 0px 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px !important; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Faith in a Seed" <em style="position: relative;"><a href="https://outpost19.square.site/product/rooted-2-the-best-new-arboreal-nonfiction-edited-by-josh-macivor-andersen/81?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 233, 235); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 150ms cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53) 0s;" target="_blank">Rooted 2: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction</a></em>, Summer 2023 (reprint)</li><li style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; list-style: disc outside !important; margin: 3px 0px 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px !important; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"<a href="https://literarymama.com/articles/departments/2023/03/inflection-point-the-birth-of-a-mother-writer" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 233, 235); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 150ms cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53) 0s;" target="_blank">Inflection Point: The Birth of a Mother Writer</a>" <em style="position: relative;">Literary Mama</em>, March/April 2023</li></ul><li>Other publications: </li><ul><li style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; list-style: disc outside !important; margin: 3px 0px 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px !important; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"<a href="https://rooted2.substack.com/p/growing-an-essay" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 233, 235); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 150ms cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53) 0s;" target="_blank">Growing an Essay</a>" <em style="position: relative;">Rooted 2 Substack</em>, December 2023</li><li style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; list-style: disc outside !important; margin: 3px 0px 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px !important; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"<a href="https://literarymama.com/articles/departments/2023/09/the-ever-evolving-journey-an-interview-with-majka-burhardt" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 233, 235); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 150ms cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53) 0s;" target="_blank">The Ever-Evolving Journey: An Interview with Majka Burhardt</a>" Literary Mama, September/October 2023</li><li style="border: 0px; font-size: 16px; list-style: disc outside !important; margin: 3px 0px 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px !important; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"<a href="https://literarymama.com/blog/archives/2023/03/where-are-they-now-an-interview-with-anne-liu-kellor.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 233, 235); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 150ms cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53) 0s;" target="_blank">Where Are They Now? An Interview with Anne Liu Kellor</a>" <em style="position: relative;">Literary Mama </em>blog<em style="position: relative;">, </em>March 2023</li></ul><li>Residencies applied for: 3</li><li>Residencies accepted into and attended: 1 (a little about it <a href="http://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/10/season-of-change.html" target="_blank">here</a>).</li><li>Newsletters: 10</li><li>Blog posts: 27</li><li>Workshops taught: 2</li><li>Workshops taken: 2</li><li>Got through >75% of my book coach training program.</li></ul><b>Travel & Adventure I Did Its!</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We went to Europe!!! Can't really top that.</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO4jM2iE3YQZeiRom5tU1NOw-doz_MquJcgOl3bY2SzxYo5Fd2sSvdcPkl11wIwg_e1KOiIMaCdMMYs8VO5-QQq71ErXxFqFYm4x3XBvLlQ2Rm6ALKHzlU2rCaTV_V4XL-Qwj5ktTCtyzs1JOa_TvFoM79HQr3849RY5RXXg98mttNodnQ8LuIGaaGIzDR/s4032/A8F311D4-A157-4232-B6B2-5F88E7F211D9_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO4jM2iE3YQZeiRom5tU1NOw-doz_MquJcgOl3bY2SzxYo5Fd2sSvdcPkl11wIwg_e1KOiIMaCdMMYs8VO5-QQq71ErXxFqFYm4x3XBvLlQ2Rm6ALKHzlU2rCaTV_V4XL-Qwj5ktTCtyzs1JOa_TvFoM79HQr3849RY5RXXg98mttNodnQ8LuIGaaGIzDR/w480-h640/A8F311D4-A157-4232-B6B2-5F88E7F211D9_1_201_a.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Went on some local adventures to museums and other sites of interest around Maine, and one in New Hampshire, with family, friends, and on my own.</li><li>Did *some* kayaking, but much less than in recent years.</li></ul><div>Arts & Crafts I Did Its!</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Knit *one* pair of mittens!</li><li>Took up mosaic-making (mosaicing?), and made three projects, including these two:</li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYt690J7yNb5RRYbTg8FHPU5R0yVVK1Io30ufOpRzKyk-o5rpbF8NEdlXWtF7voicHCi_7xJFIaWOIevuVVk3ASRgI4QkfnfQSGGZ1L3Lc1Qrn1A3wCRSRTGFWFgoZpQYalLDeo6qDAY6RXLbQa2imP3pMwZRPfUxrv-eUOgW6s4YAymLj-sEjw-71twFA/s1440/4CCC5E30-E13A-4556-BA54-B1C37EA4DF99.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYt690J7yNb5RRYbTg8FHPU5R0yVVK1Io30ufOpRzKyk-o5rpbF8NEdlXWtF7voicHCi_7xJFIaWOIevuVVk3ASRgI4QkfnfQSGGZ1L3Lc1Qrn1A3wCRSRTGFWFgoZpQYalLDeo6qDAY6RXLbQa2imP3pMwZRPfUxrv-eUOgW6s4YAymLj-sEjw-71twFA/s320/4CCC5E30-E13A-4556-BA54-B1C37EA4DF99.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk8_zSFW-ZIkTf23H81dppvfI-AeIFP-5brnsbV_bdQSUYMZxSi4tVvz6W8LX2GJBks0NiJxo2IyKkt-taxRSHHNMeNPmlAdwKYzJsxb8AsOVzyUF4S6uyzy5OJTORd4f99FGPli6GSrIloZzm5RHJZeyWL_VFEB8N7sh5332Tcw8MVGjNAnbu646vZKdd/s4032/89A6589F-2752-451F-930A-8C0B80CF88C4.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk8_zSFW-ZIkTf23H81dppvfI-AeIFP-5brnsbV_bdQSUYMZxSi4tVvz6W8LX2GJBks0NiJxo2IyKkt-taxRSHHNMeNPmlAdwKYzJsxb8AsOVzyUF4S6uyzy5OJTORd4f99FGPli6GSrIloZzm5RHJZeyWL_VFEB8N7sh5332Tcw8MVGjNAnbu646vZKdd/s320/89A6589F-2752-451F-930A-8C0B80CF88C4.heic" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Other I Did Its!</b></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Got my older kid graduated from college and the younger two from high school. (Is this really my accomplishment? I don't care--I'm taking credit for it!)</li><li>Got the younger two kids off to college.</li><li>Hosted my parents for a couple of weeks in the spring (around those grads) and my sister for a few days in the fall.</li><li>Created a true <a href="http://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-room-of-my-own-for-reals-this-time.html" target="_blank">space of my own</a> in the vacated bedroom.</li><li>Maintained pretty regular yoga and walking routines (not-quite-daily).</li><li>Kept a daily journal and a fairly regular morning pages routine.</li></ul><div>I have some ideas about what I want to accomplish in 2024, writing-wise, and otherwise. But for now I'll just bask in the glow of self-congratulation for having written a novel and traveled to Europe and learned a new craft.</div></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-64669016877525464992023-12-08T07:35:00.000-08:002023-12-08T07:35:32.232-08:00Book Stack ~ November 2023<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a><br /><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a><br /><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a><div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div><div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">May 2023</a><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">June 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-stack-july-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">July 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/09/book-stack-august-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">August 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-stack-september-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">September 2023</a></div></div><a href="http://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/11/book-stack-october-2023.html" target="_blank">October 2023</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCrtpNn2zjSXvwUTCPMh8uY-FwqiekKO4VO5uyVgrwWhoDXE_ymcL-eU1MFnDtjiKbaKO1Oh_wLE977E5bRAZ21Bbs__iNIPJHx1wY2mWWB6IaMWO-VPj-2c9NrWWmC_9kkW4E_hMJEIOEU2-nisHWYXSbabxex6mKwEveDj0lfhVmbHHfUYzkkCi4E-NQ" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCrtpNn2zjSXvwUTCPMh8uY-FwqiekKO4VO5uyVgrwWhoDXE_ymcL-eU1MFnDtjiKbaKO1Oh_wLE977E5bRAZ21Bbs__iNIPJHx1wY2mWWB6IaMWO-VPj-2c9NrWWmC_9kkW4E_hMJEIOEU2-nisHWYXSbabxex6mKwEveDj0lfhVmbHHfUYzkkCi4E-NQ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCrtpNn2zjSXvwUTCPMh8uY-FwqiekKO4VO5uyVgrwWhoDXE_ymcL-eU1MFnDtjiKbaKO1Oh_wLE977E5bRAZ21Bbs__iNIPJHx1wY2mWWB6IaMWO-VPj-2c9NrWWmC_9kkW4E_hMJEIOEU2-nisHWYXSbabxex6mKwEveDj0lfhVmbHHfUYzkkCi4E-NQ" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>My reading this month was a little all over the place--representing my literary split personality. Starting from the bottom of the stack:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Nonfiction</b></div><div>If you swim at all in the sea of memoir writing, one of the books that gets referenced most frequently is Andre Dubus III's memoir <i>Townie</i>. I finally picked it up and gave it a read last month (and, if I'm being honest, which is what memoir requires, bleeding a little into this month). Man, it's a brutal book. <i>So</i> hard to read. I don't, of course, mean the writing, but the experiences of violence and neglect Dubus went through as a child and the violence he participated in as he got older and took on an almost pathological role of defending himself and the people he cared about. I was so mad at his parents, who didn't abuse or hurt their children, but who just did not do what they needed to to make sure they were safe and taken care of--his mom mostly because she was exhausted from working all the time to keep them housed and semi-fed, and his dad because he put his needs--writing, running, and dating college students--ahead of his family. I was also so mad at our society for creating the conditions where so many families fall into circumstances where they can barely survive. It is, ultimately, a triumphant story about overcoming adversity and one's own worst instincts, but it truly takes an extraordinary individual (like Dubus and his siblings) to survive let alone thrive after such an upbringing (many of the other characters in the book, raised in the same chaotic milieu as Dubus do not survive).</div><div><br /></div><div>On a totally different note, I read <i>Read Books All Day and Get Paid for It </i>by Jennie Nash, which is all about running a book coaching business, something I've been pursuing incrementally over the last couple of years.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Fiction</b></div><div>My sister sent me <i>The Hike</i> by Lucy Clarke, a thriller about four women on a four-day hike through the wilds of Norway that goes horribly wrong. Our day-after-Thanksgiving plans fell through, and so I spent a lot of that day reading, nearly finishing the book in one day. It was a fun read, with a good plot twist, and some interesting characters, each struggling with her own circumstances and her relationship to her friends.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, of course, I read some Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels. First, I found <i>Legend in Green Velvet, </i>the last book I needed for my collection, at a used bookstore I popped into on a trip to Portland. It's a totally fun and slightly ridiculous caper through the Scottish countryside (similar in vibe to <i>The Camelot Caper/Her Cousin John</i>). Then, because I was working with a friend on the beginnings of a novel she's writing that revolves around antiquarian bookselling, I pulled <i>Houses of Stone </i>off the shelf, because it has an antiquarian books element, and I was curious to see how the great Barbara Michaels made the subject into a thriller. The book doesn't disappoint, with all kinds of gothic elements and quirky characters and a really long chapter that takes place at an estate auction. Finally, I reread <i>Search the Shadows, </i>mainly, I think, because I needed a soothing antidote to <i>Townie. </i>This was the first Michaels/Peters book I read, way back in high school, and it's one of my faves--again, gothic elements, plus Egyptology. Love it!</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-10580964050512672762023-11-17T12:20:00.000-08:002023-11-17T12:20:55.798-08:00Book Stack ~ October 2023<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">May 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">June 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-stack-july-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">July 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/09/book-stack-august-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">August 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-stack-september-2023.html" target="_blank">September 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My books-per-month rate went way down between September and October, in part because I didn't have another week away at a residency and in (larger) part because I spent a lot of time binge-watching <i>Ugly Betty</i>. But somehow I managed to read three new releases, a possibly unprecedented occurrence. </div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9hn8WqcEHCArqrdiLmP7NWHRk6YXvWYwEw6S7xnIPLWXpHnJ6jIZEvnLnQjYFqeHC-_8iLweSsf_0zlsXUfNgfWFj2UlNQ5xiIzX0Te62vIFEBgEw_ilEizJa2dI89Ce0Le0gD6DlPkg8WmysykAHoV5o5V_CRrMOHsk1TOkkmXnGymrDwArm1hILPzfK" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9hn8WqcEHCArqrdiLmP7NWHRk6YXvWYwEw6S7xnIPLWXpHnJ6jIZEvnLnQjYFqeHC-_8iLweSsf_0zlsXUfNgfWFj2UlNQ5xiIzX0Te62vIFEBgEw_ilEizJa2dI89Ce0Le0gD6DlPkg8WmysykAHoV5o5V_CRrMOHsk1TOkkmXnGymrDwArm1hILPzfK=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Fiction</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">At the beginning of October, I participated in a book fair, and the author whose booth was next to mine was Rebecca Turkewitz, with her debut short story collection, <i>Here in the Night</i>, a delightful melange of spooky tales, which in an uncharacteristic move, I actually read soon after coming home with it. If you love short stories, you'll love this book. If short stories leave you vaguely unsatisfied, pick up this book--every single one hits that elusive short story sweet spot. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I also read one more Mary Stewart, <i>Rose Cottage</i>, which was a nice, pleasant read but not very suspenseful--there's a sense of something amiss when the main character returns home to clean out her grandmother's cottage, but it ends up going in a very different direction than Stewart's suspense stories. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Nonfiction</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I had the good fortune of attending a reading by my friend Melanie Brooks of her new memoir <i>A Hard Silence</i> in early October (and, again, read the book right away--perhaps I'm turning over a new leaf and no longer hoarding books before I get around to reading them!). It's about the corrosive nature of secrets--specifically the secret her family harbored for years about her father's HIV diagnosis, because of their (very rational) fear of the stigma they would experience. It's a heartfelt, moving, loving, beautifully crafted book.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSRMYT1jpZgdfeqXaa5f9kIz7FGKwvYbmLA9Jk8hnupxQwwcgyWRHTgEe5C3mK3TeY0tFarQt9BQFth8Pq4UDob_-AANzPq1KkBVbZ3LMCpP7m2rudE-vC8UFJtFvT0aZYV2Ifxpt7WboWaDduVpwMI6j832zWOrAaU6Ut1FBouczx_Qor2Fi1mb6XFcIn" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSRMYT1jpZgdfeqXaa5f9kIz7FGKwvYbmLA9Jk8hnupxQwwcgyWRHTgEe5C3mK3TeY0tFarQt9BQFth8Pq4UDob_-AANzPq1KkBVbZ3LMCpP7m2rudE-vC8UFJtFvT0aZYV2Ifxpt7WboWaDduVpwMI6j832zWOrAaU6Ut1FBouczx_Qor2Fi1mb6XFcIn=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Finally, I read <i>Soil</i>, by Camille Dungy, a gorgeous book (inside and out--I mean, look at that cover!!!) about turning a suburban lawn into a wildflower paradise, parenting during the pandemic, contending with nearby wildfires and other signs of climate change, grappling with systemic racism and the colonial history of agriculture, nomenclature, and taxonomy, writing about nature from a perspective other than the Lone White Male, and lovingly tending the land. I admire it so much, and it made me want to get my hands dirty, even though I'm the world's laziest garden (I really love that Dungy's primary garden focus is flowers--vegetables are secondary!).<br /><p></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-28627388974494570352023-11-10T13:01:00.001-08:002023-11-10T13:01:17.492-08:00Hearts Walking Around Outside Our Bodies<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVerFgnYabncmXbfjorKowYKc3en6kDwhFSKn34P_yt04xSkbcTu6XWvTYw33H1jrKLTrNFZq8sNa8nhpz3LV8zT3MCx2d_tbGZf66Wa_uedqMKNalA3t77f_eAHdXn2KGn2r0yPVu8CQQj-0TIFMzTxhdKXfVBiFz-HNbLmmwq0VZXNKZmQuEazBSdUEq/s1145/38CA2AEB-4F80-48DB-A4F2-1529F9E95507_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="1145" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVerFgnYabncmXbfjorKowYKc3en6kDwhFSKn34P_yt04xSkbcTu6XWvTYw33H1jrKLTrNFZq8sNa8nhpz3LV8zT3MCx2d_tbGZf66Wa_uedqMKNalA3t77f_eAHdXn2KGn2r0yPVu8CQQj-0TIFMzTxhdKXfVBiFz-HNbLmmwq0VZXNKZmQuEazBSdUEq/w640-h410/38CA2AEB-4F80-48DB-A4F2-1529F9E95507_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></p><p>Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.</p><p>― Elizabeth Stone</p><p>I was in the shower when news of the Columbine shooting came over the radio. C came into the bathroom of our little apartment in Gardiner and said, "There's been a shooting at a high school in Littleton." My sister went to Littleton High School at the time. I had to rinse the shampoo out of my hair and scramble into a towel before I could come out and hear the details--different high school. Other people's sisters and brothers killed.</p><p>I heard about the Sandy Hook shooting on NPR over Saturday morning pancakes--my car at the time didn't have a radio, so I didn't hear the news on the drive home. I spent the weekend weeping and grabbing my kids, who were in second and sixth grade, to hug them at random times. I didn't know I'd been holding my breath until five o'clock Monday morning when a snow day was called and I inhaled deeply for the first time all weekend.</p><p>The call about Lewiston came Wednesday night. C's college, across the river from Lewsiton, would be closed the following day due to an "active shooter" event--at least sixteen dead, several more wounded. The next morning, eighteen dead and the shooter at large. Grocery stores and businesses around the state closed. The twins' colleges, more than an hour's drive away from the shootings, suspended classes and organized activities, because no one knew where the murderer was. No one felt safe.</p><p>Thursday and Friday passed in a surreal state of dread. There was no reason to suppose the shooter would find his way to our corner of the state--or our children's. Yet low-flying planes and helicopters passed over all day. What could they possibly see from up there? You know the rest of the story--they found his body Friday night. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. For some reason they always kill themselves after inflicting maximum damage on innocent victims, never before.</p><p>I breathed a sigh of relief when my kids graduated eighth grade. They made it through elementary school without being shot. And again when they graduated high school. We live in a country where it is an achievement to make it through thirteen years of school without being killed in the classroom or the hallways or on the playground by a man wielding a weapon of war. But getting through school does not guarantee our children safety from being blown apart by bullets fired from high capacity guns. There is still college, the movie theater, church, big box stores, concerts, night clubs, and now bowling alleys and bars.</p><p>I do not want to write about this today. I do not want to think about my children walking around as vulnerable as hearts outside of bodies. Of the child killed last week. Of the adults killed who were somebody's children. Of the children being bombed and killed and terrorized in Ukraine and Gaza and Israel. All I know is that until we learn to value life over death, human hearts over weapons of war, none of us will ever be safe. </p><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8801635674128837451" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 622px;"><div style="font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2927945790936977036" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 622px;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">A version of thi</i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">s post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. </i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">Subscribe </i><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;"> and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."</i></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2927945790936977036" itemprop="description articleBody" style="font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 622px;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;"><br /></i></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2927945790936977036" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 622px;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, FreeSerif, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><i>*Header photo is an Andy Goldsworthy-inspired sumac leaf design by C, E, and Z, circa 2016.</i></span></span></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-9101802922393285682023-10-20T09:35:00.001-07:002023-10-20T09:35:02.110-07:00Book Stack ~ September 2023<p style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> <span style="text-align: center;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">May 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">June 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-stack-july-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">July 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/09/book-stack-august-2023.html" target="_blank">August 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I started the month with a week away at an artist residency, and I read <i>so </i>many books while I was there.</div></div><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKrt-JPDKi1MtQle_F2zMr7UeBVs8pTz-SX9JtOubw3BPkcQ95SEIym5Ss3Kcm-yPM_c8Ce2hIrxU0eKrXUjqUgb3skom44e44Soqo5xP-FSgbkfuwS7HnnMaHTIWtfOkvEga-QLXaIwlRwsJ3jI9j4m4O6Kg7qDiqtRH8hUSLeB_j3vUauGfbmp_KgOy/s4032/068C776A-65D9-4FDD-8B3D-38607950109A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKrt-JPDKi1MtQle_F2zMr7UeBVs8pTz-SX9JtOubw3BPkcQ95SEIym5Ss3Kcm-yPM_c8Ce2hIrxU0eKrXUjqUgb3skom44e44Soqo5xP-FSgbkfuwS7HnnMaHTIWtfOkvEga-QLXaIwlRwsJ3jI9j4m4O6Kg7qDiqtRH8hUSLeB_j3vUauGfbmp_KgOy/w640-h480/068C776A-65D9-4FDD-8B3D-38607950109A.jpeg" width="640" /></a></p><p>My big goal for the residency was to figure out if I still have the interest and motivation to work on a project that I've been thinking about and nibbling at over the course of nearly two decades, which is to put together a compilation of writing and biographies of women who write/wrote about motherhood and nature. So several of these were books I'd collected over the years in hopes of finding writing that would be applicable to this project and either hadn't read, hadn't finished reading, or had read in a different context. These were:</p><p><i>Linea Nigra</i> by Jazmina Barrera, a diary-style accounting of pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, with a lot of literature and art intertwined as well as earthquakes.</p><p><i>My Garden Book</i> by Jamaica Kincaid, a collection of essays about gardening, plants, and colonialism.</p><p><i>Parrot's Wood</i>,= by Erma Fisk, an amusing and grueling account of a month in primitive conditions at a bird refuge in Costa Rica by a retired woman who got involved in ornithology and bird conservation after the untimely death of her husband.</p><p><i>The Curve of Time</i> by M Wylie Blanchet, charming and often harrowing tales of navigating the coast of British Columbia in a small boat with five children after the death of the author's husband.</p><p><i>Shaped by Wind and Water</i> by Anne Haymond Zwinger, reflections on a life of nature writing from a week at an artist residency.</p><p><i>The Natural World of Louise Dickinson Rich</i>, a three-part account of the author's life in three zones of New England: the Piedmont of Massachusetts, the North Woods of Maine, and the coast of Maine.</p><p>I also had time for fun reading and kept going on my Mary Stewart streak, with <i>My Brother Michael</i> and <i>Nine Coaches Waiting</i>, both fantastic examples of the romantic suspense genre, as well as <i>The Wind Off The Small Isles</i>, which had a great setup and then sort of fizzled for me. I guess it's good to know that even a supremely talented writer sometimes swings and misses.</p><p>When I returned home, I read <a href="https://outpost19.square.site/product/rooted-2-the-best-new-arboreal-nonfiction-edited-by-josh-macivor-andersen/81?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false" target="_blank">Rooted 2: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction</a>, an anthology in which my essay "Faith in a Seed" appears, which was edited by Josh MacIvor Anderson and came out from Outpost19 books this summer. </p><p></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb4We2e7USHkdx9_mHNpF_ZcP9bXhr9GsC8gmqfgHPK6qIuS3OM7ZC1kCqEf__GcwCzbekGzM8gNJLTQ36j4Ten0ismdvfPl-eH_jDA5JMSEIhRszVvLd0zVz4-Cn-wRGJ3B3eadXzVJusA6DTohdiYk8gO3ezOjEliujJvGcGA9uh05AspRCorlUjpgrp/s2639/48322EA4-2100-4059-A44F-CD3DBDA719C7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2639" data-original-width="2639" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb4We2e7USHkdx9_mHNpF_ZcP9bXhr9GsC8gmqfgHPK6qIuS3OM7ZC1kCqEf__GcwCzbekGzM8gNJLTQ36j4Ten0ismdvfPl-eH_jDA5JMSEIhRszVvLd0zVz4-Cn-wRGJ3B3eadXzVJusA6DTohdiYk8gO3ezOjEliujJvGcGA9uh05AspRCorlUjpgrp/w640-h640/48322EA4-2100-4059-A44F-CD3DBDA719C7.jpeg" width="640" /></a></p>I admit to not always being a good literary citizen when it comes to reading the words that share pages with mine in an anthology or journal, but I read this book cover-to-cover and it is filled with beautiful and brilliant essays about trees. I would highly recommend it even if I wasn't featured inside.<p></p><p>Finally, in what is becoming a September tradition, I listened to the audiobook of the newest Richard Osman, <i>The Last Devil to Die</i>, and then I re-listened to the earlier volumes and then the new one all over again. I <i>love </i>these books. They're smart and funny and clever. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mHjWuax1R6qbGPaE9U5EXY8ZKsBqnM-3V1MRdZROcuEbm8S0CL6t-onRVC7Ylh_e_l1sWkq1MGUSB3QGxAVzLw4MPbeJWNTBYDsns1DetOJjsE4nwQRgogHjHyv4S_33rb7p2b13gAlKUPu2cC3GCVUNU9EA2b77sTOzI4sc8FWHKqO_C7oHEHIfLbep/s1145/DB32B3E6-F171-40C2-8625-52FFB704F24C_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="1145" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mHjWuax1R6qbGPaE9U5EXY8ZKsBqnM-3V1MRdZROcuEbm8S0CL6t-onRVC7Ylh_e_l1sWkq1MGUSB3QGxAVzLw4MPbeJWNTBYDsns1DetOJjsE4nwQRgogHjHyv4S_33rb7p2b13gAlKUPu2cC3GCVUNU9EA2b77sTOzI4sc8FWHKqO_C7oHEHIfLbep/w640-h202/DB32B3E6-F171-40C2-8625-52FFB704F24C_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><span style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">But I've had a couple people tell me they couldn't get into them (one as a reader and one as a listener) and that they got confused by the number of different characters and points of view. So, be warned about that. I've also been binge-listening to the Maintenance Phase podcast, which has made me much more aware of and sensitive to anti-fat bias and weight stigma, and so listening this time around, especially to the first book, I felt a little cringey about the way the detective Chris thinks of his own weight and the way his side-kick Donna nudges him toward using the stairs and not eating junk food. So be warned, these books aren't for everyone (then again, what book is?).</div></span></div><p></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-34204625987770153052023-10-13T09:25:00.000-07:002023-10-13T09:25:00.144-07:00A Room of My Own ~ For Reals this Time<p>Before we built our house, I had a dream of a little room just for me where I could read, write, knit, sew, make art, and do yoga. But we didn't put a room like that into our house, and if we had it would have become a bedroom for one of our kids when we jumped from one two three in one fell swoop.</p><p>Over the years, I've tried to carve out a little bit of space for me here and there: <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2008/08/room-of-my-own.html" target="_blank">a corner of the living room</a>, (which I've frequently <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2012/10/writing-desk-refresh-and-thoughts-on.html" target="_blank">reorganized</a> and <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2017/01/weekend-things-regroup.html" target="_blank">rededicated to writing</a> and <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2014/07/naturalists-corners.html" target="_blank">other pursuits</a>, and corners of my bedroom, where I kept my <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2008/08/organization.html" target="_blank">sewing machine</a> and <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2010/01/inside-out.html" target="_blank">one writing desk</a> or <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2010/05/corner-of-my-own.html" target="_blank">another</a>.</p><p>A gallery of these various corners:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigR06c1wj7YovXFEwmDh35JBaJBj8nhBiQnHSK0RiuPvLDFKQQwmkkhuOwPBBXakeMDfCECm2oUN8exv3biGdr4zwdO-AYNjeReDBZAjgaJ3MgbEtpQU2F0KoHmsgMl1bjvPKhG4OjbsYLTkMGwsZseCmNErPIiXjlFs7ldUuVaeCukATfSwcd09YxI08/s640/desk2.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigR06c1wj7YovXFEwmDh35JBaJBj8nhBiQnHSK0RiuPvLDFKQQwmkkhuOwPBBXakeMDfCECm2oUN8exv3biGdr4zwdO-AYNjeReDBZAjgaJ3MgbEtpQU2F0KoHmsgMl1bjvPKhG4OjbsYLTkMGwsZseCmNErPIiXjlFs7ldUuVaeCukATfSwcd09YxI08/w400-h300/desk2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-5LpfuFLz9TYR6cfBvYfRFqWc0cZD6JIANCtrE33h-d5tMaxzpdHUpTsjIXS_cYatFG57WkHQXWLliFAl1sg9QZIrHDqJ5I5WgEsPOuyxBWI-KW6YAxwrDYu4lvlQ4CupDCdkIUmI74-3tiE7agSvJtC_H93CUsiGf405gwWGxPv3A2enCutt25wtdu1/s640/IMG_1453.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-5LpfuFLz9TYR6cfBvYfRFqWc0cZD6JIANCtrE33h-d5tMaxzpdHUpTsjIXS_cYatFG57WkHQXWLliFAl1sg9QZIrHDqJ5I5WgEsPOuyxBWI-KW6YAxwrDYu4lvlQ4CupDCdkIUmI74-3tiE7agSvJtC_H93CUsiGf405gwWGxPv3A2enCutt25wtdu1/w400-h266/IMG_1453.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHb3IxQtCJk-gWi3ZaWHAJdSgFDilexT2aATKKiv6R9tRf6CUMwu4a36bWCpvJ1jN2g2oisEMhpwZv-MyOnezALlilz3PkikJd15K-OlSkDV9Ic7xYj-zuBMcBkVKUgOToRdouTSGNRd3T6C817IRPcG0N6jpr_MPRuVkTsrn4-OsB2044kePVEHriC4w/s640/IMG_8632.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHb3IxQtCJk-gWi3ZaWHAJdSgFDilexT2aATKKiv6R9tRf6CUMwu4a36bWCpvJ1jN2g2oisEMhpwZv-MyOnezALlilz3PkikJd15K-OlSkDV9Ic7xYj-zuBMcBkVKUgOToRdouTSGNRd3T6C817IRPcG0N6jpr_MPRuVkTsrn4-OsB2044kePVEHriC4w/w400-h268/IMG_8632.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3-ZohJBHr95aVxiJhe4UVtAM-Sj8rUdBshaPVtjzcQEar8gGhjmbGuURlx7W9-4pNC6hqmLJm0B2XQb4j2snZoc6AkbDGeapodwjWAQsmFWOlOfzWAr4REjBEix28I2OaxvhB4Oi2BX9WdrLu5JQZE_RgScGl4UdJ4neSEp_h0ZWbuy5sPev_YJzY6xwu/s640/August%202008%20015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3-ZohJBHr95aVxiJhe4UVtAM-Sj8rUdBshaPVtjzcQEar8gGhjmbGuURlx7W9-4pNC6hqmLJm0B2XQb4j2snZoc6AkbDGeapodwjWAQsmFWOlOfzWAr4REjBEix28I2OaxvhB4Oi2BX9WdrLu5JQZE_RgScGl4UdJ4neSEp_h0ZWbuy5sPev_YJzY6xwu/w400-h300/August%202008%20015.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpl3vvraJ0xAWT_lrrJVVyx7nH22w7pTu3lXwTxFUA8TLLFQqt0i6bTJWtrmmek-dlHjtuJ74GID_JPSW5-MRf_eHBZekSjcjMkpGshnPmOkBA_3GW3972bp-Ie8UgPPXZF2yXMut5QCxEzlL8tmGMnqH0zDQgFVEq2cgWowcPoOBPYXMNcvLXFy0P8LhZ/s1600/January%202010%20062.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpl3vvraJ0xAWT_lrrJVVyx7nH22w7pTu3lXwTxFUA8TLLFQqt0i6bTJWtrmmek-dlHjtuJ74GID_JPSW5-MRf_eHBZekSjcjMkpGshnPmOkBA_3GW3972bp-Ie8UgPPXZF2yXMut5QCxEzlL8tmGMnqH0zDQgFVEq2cgWowcPoOBPYXMNcvLXFy0P8LhZ/w400-h300/January%202010%20062.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXamzJbDZrbufcXwoGc4dw59XEuHMu0g-pXUFRfeZia3r3dZpxMRN9Q7Hfp0cZ7iZdgzr-lwzTiJbiF00_F_1eqCWFQnoe9xu0f756cOM7pSFSv9DJYZHRkmGFcBIr3L3YWKHSRkb0Sk8kNao-zX9aQ9AX2yKKnDUbkEvF8535sF6aXiZIsjOhYjdThqvk/s1600/May%202010%20092.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXamzJbDZrbufcXwoGc4dw59XEuHMu0g-pXUFRfeZia3r3dZpxMRN9Q7Hfp0cZ7iZdgzr-lwzTiJbiF00_F_1eqCWFQnoe9xu0f756cOM7pSFSv9DJYZHRkmGFcBIr3L3YWKHSRkb0Sk8kNao-zX9aQ9AX2yKKnDUbkEvF8535sF6aXiZIsjOhYjdThqvk/w300-h400/May%202010%20092.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Looking at these little writing spaces lined up like this, they seem so sweet and cozy, which they were in their own way (at least when I had them all tidied up and in photo-worthy condition), and they served me well. I wrote my zines and my blog in these spaces, I did my masters degree and my master naturalist program. I wrote my book! (Technically, I wrote my book mostly on the couch, but the desks are necessary for holding all the supplies and materials for the writing.) But there's no denying it was crowded and cluttered, and the more I added to my repertoire--illustrating and researching and juggling multiple projects--the more crowded and cluttered it all got. I never gave up on that dream of a Room of My Own.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So when Z and E went off to college last month, I wasted no time in moving into the room that had been M's when he was small, and then <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2011/06/boys-room-overhaul-complete.html" target="_blank">all three boys' room</a> after the twins were born and then <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-boys-room.html" target="_blank">just the twins' room</a> after <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2018/11/making-space.html" target="_blank">M moved to the basement</a> and then just Z's, after Z moved E to the basement.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There's room for a futon/guest bed, my dollhouse, my sewing machine, a table on which to make art, bookshelves, and, most importantly, a desk at which to write. I can move from one project to another without having to move all my books out of the way to make room for my laptop, or put away the art supplies in order to sew, or set aside the notebook and laptop in order to have room to paint. I can even leave my yoga mat set up, which is a good way to ensure I actually do yoga.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWlyL8MDe_krIWZeBIbeoVtjFxXWGmkS4AyXl7524YZWMep9iBqrwHB8953DP77j_B-Me8GQnPEOP9QHwhXXzUWNZhCT_LMVLkMgOPchYzoTPIX_h4DtI0yPMRYGRk9W4j0bHdN_YF9osy-UFdk1o5hrZrxe4LYug7QWDhBz8kOVyKFtI1vW0TtGyZpXo/s4032/24C4162E-7FD8-46B0-80AD-0B51487BEEA7_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWlyL8MDe_krIWZeBIbeoVtjFxXWGmkS4AyXl7524YZWMep9iBqrwHB8953DP77j_B-Me8GQnPEOP9QHwhXXzUWNZhCT_LMVLkMgOPchYzoTPIX_h4DtI0yPMRYGRk9W4j0bHdN_YF9osy-UFdk1o5hrZrxe4LYug7QWDhBz8kOVyKFtI1vW0TtGyZpXo/w640-h480/24C4162E-7FD8-46B0-80AD-0B51487BEEA7_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAYvV7p2NR2cVsC7C32V78NR-PuPlDJ0tfL6McDqm8oApw9IXGtALA6Qt0n3aDgs055RCMIsRZ2q3eYnS5XtbxTM0K5NPOLAJMz67Ootg-pPS_doaXP0LHNXaTtapwQISni4yMwgHZuc37esM5fGlwTEUEQnS0ukNxfkHDWZ7IOOAumUhrGESawwis_BO/s4032/BDA09A58-0AEB-43A8-A900-A9E43EBFA1BF_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAYvV7p2NR2cVsC7C32V78NR-PuPlDJ0tfL6McDqm8oApw9IXGtALA6Qt0n3aDgs055RCMIsRZ2q3eYnS5XtbxTM0K5NPOLAJMz67Ootg-pPS_doaXP0LHNXaTtapwQISni4yMwgHZuc37esM5fGlwTEUEQnS0ukNxfkHDWZ7IOOAumUhrGESawwis_BO/w640-h480/BDA09A58-0AEB-43A8-A900-A9E43EBFA1BF_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwaMlA9iDvakIYIUxP241FecN7P-datHrxTtq0jbSmDNcMn0hlRKznnD1sSaCzpqiAmnfyNH5ZwXrNLS9gi_9rlOisPZW1yD3d1LjFrvDtE4zwW0xfByuQmkUXx7afnCZ8_eTvd4ojpW1vhBWWWk45c9DkTxJyz3Mdmx2-OFsi8mvPvEdMr16KBa3LFyVJ/s4032/FD7254FD-DB59-48F3-A9AD-863F12751931_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwaMlA9iDvakIYIUxP241FecN7P-datHrxTtq0jbSmDNcMn0hlRKznnD1sSaCzpqiAmnfyNH5ZwXrNLS9gi_9rlOisPZW1yD3d1LjFrvDtE4zwW0xfByuQmkUXx7afnCZ8_eTvd4ojpW1vhBWWWk45c9DkTxJyz3Mdmx2-OFsi8mvPvEdMr16KBa3LFyVJ/w640-h480/FD7254FD-DB59-48F3-A9AD-863F12751931_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh24fQw3405usB9C102QL1G8rjyUNEagn8o3e3SX98PmWpnnODmwZlmRnQ79XJqGLYelqzx1NwDPUXtJHd4v_uI_PNpDSOxIugiXJBDU6ws-1LdOmwGLcFcYO4QnlUy1tKG0DX4FfJrcupYaIx2v2ZCDimz5W5loOODG_f7gJ5OnWubP5LYtL4HJY3X_tdG/s4032/194A75E5-D694-4520-A46D-F953165FE1EE_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh24fQw3405usB9C102QL1G8rjyUNEagn8o3e3SX98PmWpnnODmwZlmRnQ79XJqGLYelqzx1NwDPUXtJHd4v_uI_PNpDSOxIugiXJBDU6ws-1LdOmwGLcFcYO4QnlUy1tKG0DX4FfJrcupYaIx2v2ZCDimz5W5loOODG_f7gJ5OnWubP5LYtL4HJY3X_tdG/w640-h480/194A75E5-D694-4520-A46D-F953165FE1EE_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZSKbQPCT-Y8bjufJNLVK087k4IxTqLf_0AU381Zxz3FFGLJi4yW8U_C1hNp9hy3AHTnkmsE_Y6foWwaSiKX-qgkbQN1JojRL8LUew9JrtkeeVyHshCp9zN-eHYIfOJfaGNWg17FGDg4w-pM8dUztkNRuyODaA4FLIa1eCTnAdN_IjEUeuuSO2MeIk-h3e/s4032/15D92021-517D-47A3-A5D2-CB148A2082F7_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZSKbQPCT-Y8bjufJNLVK087k4IxTqLf_0AU381Zxz3FFGLJi4yW8U_C1hNp9hy3AHTnkmsE_Y6foWwaSiKX-qgkbQN1JojRL8LUew9JrtkeeVyHshCp9zN-eHYIfOJfaGNWg17FGDg4w-pM8dUztkNRuyODaA4FLIa1eCTnAdN_IjEUeuuSO2MeIk-h3e/w640-h480/15D92021-517D-47A3-A5D2-CB148A2082F7_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It gets tons of natural daylight, especially in the morning (which makes it a challenge to photograph). It is also very, very purple (<a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2019/03/boys-room-refresh-purple.html" target="_blank">the color E, Z, and I compromised on when we repainted the room a few years ago</a>--one of them wanted black and the other hot pink), and I'm not likely to have the energy to repaint it anytime soon. On the bright side, this mosaic shelf I made from pieces of broken Fiesta ware that have amassed over the years looks fab on the purple wall. I'll be adding more orange accents to offset all that purple.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SM_-fUqjzcky_FrEgkwmYMtB756Vn3KuXi9Ebp4H5M3zC-9utwAFqRqESBJQMv0YMiOeIS3s8_B0fCu7-zJC8MEYeO_HZZyvRUuI0Hq4BlquRRa6J7pNva0tchM72gR99C3mV9sFyjgYpijeYGshv7GiVwZA1qsVgeUDtkgCSRxov9DMRrceFG5RWMA1/s1440/4CCC5E30-E13A-4556-BA54-B1C37EA4DF99.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SM_-fUqjzcky_FrEgkwmYMtB756Vn3KuXi9Ebp4H5M3zC-9utwAFqRqESBJQMv0YMiOeIS3s8_B0fCu7-zJC8MEYeO_HZZyvRUuI0Hq4BlquRRa6J7pNva0tchM72gR99C3mV9sFyjgYpijeYGshv7GiVwZA1qsVgeUDtkgCSRxov9DMRrceFG5RWMA1/w640-h480/4CCC5E30-E13A-4556-BA54-B1C37EA4DF99.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The closet is also a bit of a mess, with all of Z's stuff tucked away inside, as well as a number of children's toys (the wooden barn and blocks and things I can't part with) and books. I'll be sorting through the books this winter moving my fabric and yarn up from the basement and into the dresser. But, I'm in no rush to get to all that. I'm just enjoying having room in which to spread out and work and think. Virginia Woolf was right!</div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-88016356741288374512023-10-07T06:02:00.000-07:002023-10-07T06:02:03.009-07:00Season of Change<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmoHGdm9ZF8msj2JF6OMO8hQeD94Eilf5mKg-jZUSlL7jpD6hjSrpQxcVEs0BSBec18qzGyludBMpEAqVgYPqXbUOebAHxUjIS5022Y6o5mKCSvYMsmlrg6rV5nYndjl3OyFCR6SzdhNkyc5bRjwAF7ThEsphAD3UzsYn42J-kj1t7x8_H_gOB5fzWLeAy/s4032/58425B56-F184-422A-9D73-EDCF2D3C841A_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmoHGdm9ZF8msj2JF6OMO8hQeD94Eilf5mKg-jZUSlL7jpD6hjSrpQxcVEs0BSBec18qzGyludBMpEAqVgYPqXbUOebAHxUjIS5022Y6o5mKCSvYMsmlrg6rV5nYndjl3OyFCR6SzdhNkyc5bRjwAF7ThEsphAD3UzsYn42J-kj1t7x8_H_gOB5fzWLeAy/w640-h480/58425B56-F184-422A-9D73-EDCF2D3C841A_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: inherit;">August brought big, life-changing events--my two youngest kids went off to college; my oldest moved home for an indeterminate time; I had a momentous birthday. When the last Friday of the month rolled around--my arbitrary deadline for sending out this newsletter--I hadn't had time or headspace to work out how I felt about it all, and so had no idea what to write. And then I looked at the calendar and realized it wasn't the last Friday of August but the first of September, and I was off the hook. (I told you it's arbitrary.)</span><p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">And now a month has gone by, and I still haven't meditated on what all this means. But here's how I'm feeling now. With regard to my kids at college: I'm happy for them, I'm worried about them, I miss them now and again, and I'm enjoying the peace and space left in their absence (especially Z's room, which I turned into my "studio" before the sheets had cooled). I wish they'd call home occasionally, and I wish I could turn off "nag" mode when I do talk to them. </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">About the eldest child moving back in: It's nice to have him around. He's not much trouble, and he can even be helpful. Also he's messy and noisy, and I hope that the challenge of finding a job as a recent college graduate in what was supposed to be a high-demand and lucrative field is just a temporary hiccough and not a (further) sign of the decay of our society.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">About turning 50: It felt exactly like every other birthday, which is to say, no different than the day before. It's only a big number on paper.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">So "life-changing" is a little less seismic that the term suggests. But I do feel my life changing, as I move into what Mary Louise Kelley calls "the third act" in her book </span><em style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;">It Goes So Fast</em><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">. As fate would have it, I began Act 3 in a way that I hope sets the stage for the rest of the play. </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">Early this month, I had the good fortune of spending a week on a lake at an artist residency. It was the same </span><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=0dc2fba0a0&e=eb02f8cf1b" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #007c89; outline: none !important;" target="_blank">place I'd stayed six years ago</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">, although in a different cabin; my cabin this time wasn't as charming, but it was closer to the lake and so a fair tradeoff. My work wasn't as focused this time, either--planning a new project as opposed to major revisions on a first draft.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">But once I got over the sensation that someone was looking over my shoulder </span><em style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;">tsk-tsk</em><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">ing over my lack of productivity, I settled into a rhythm. I swam in the lake. I went kayaking. I climbed a mountain. I took naps. I stayed up reading till 2 a.m. one night and went to bed at 8 p.m. others. I chatted with artists and writers from the other cabins, visited my friend at the local library, and had a long conversation the owner of a nearby bakery who made the best croissant I've ever eaten. I read nine books, drafted an essay, made some final tweaks to the almost-finished draft of one book, and did some serious thinking and planning and even a little writing on the new book project.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;">And now I'm back home, and it's fall, that season of settling down to work. While I don't have a lake out my front door and I don't have the house completely to myself, I am working on making at least a little piece of each day into an artist residency--shut out the world around me and delve into reading, writing, and thinking, with a little bit of wandering and adventure, too.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2927945790936977036" itemprop="description articleBody" style="font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 622px;"><div><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">A version of thi</i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">s post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. </i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">Subscribe </i><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;"> and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."</i></div></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-21407734281908287842023-09-22T11:15:00.002-07:002023-09-22T11:15:32.323-07:00Book Stack ~ August 2023<p> <span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">May 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">June 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-stack-july-2023.html" target="_blank">July 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Usually I take a photo of the books I read on the last day of the month, so that even if I don't get around to posting about them for another three weeks, I at least know what they were. This time I forgot to do that and had to recreate the stack! Luckily I hadn't gotten around to putting/giving them away so I'm pretty sure this list is accurate.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjJyu06XRIBaezPtoAJCx_QqLvEZ8hcQe-JPTXwR0j2K4NR0roRx86IU3Ss6ix1_iw-aLDPF59X5m04H6mY-4hY529Mn1pcMSDNy03289RcjnF2EBhib44t6ZQdkpCmuVcNZNONKNWLimuA4Rc7f2_N4KNRE_vJZJYwQ2FS325Ek7BeqyE4y3_mT5mrDod" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjJyu06XRIBaezPtoAJCx_QqLvEZ8hcQe-JPTXwR0j2K4NR0roRx86IU3Ss6ix1_iw-aLDPF59X5m04H6mY-4hY529Mn1pcMSDNy03289RcjnF2EBhib44t6ZQdkpCmuVcNZNONKNWLimuA4Rc7f2_N4KNRE_vJZJYwQ2FS325Ek7BeqyE4y3_mT5mrDod=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After reading some heavy stuff about the former Yugoslavia <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-stack-july-2023.html" target="_blank">in July, I had gotten onto a Mary Stewart kick</a> for something light. I continued that streak into August with <i>Madam Will You Talk</i>, a fun and suspenseful romp through the French countryside (and the second of her books that I've read recently which not only relies heavily on characters smoking to give them something to do while they converse--to avoid talking head syndrome--but also to provide a significant clue to solving the mystery. Interesting how dated that device is now!). I also read <i>The Stormy Petrel</i>, which had such a great setup--a remote Scottish Island, two mysterious men appearing out of nowhere into the narrator's life (and cottage), and a whole bird-watching sub-plot, but I felt like she wrapped up the mystery too quickly and neatly, and while I support the instinct of using the rest of the book to resolve a conservation/land development/bird protection issue, it didn't make for suspenseful, or even all that interesting, reading. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Back in the romantic suspense/romp through the countryside vein, I re-read (probably re-re-re-re-read) Elizabeth Peters's <i>Her Cousin John</i>, which has an alternate title in some editions of <i>The Camelot Caper</i>, because I'm interested in the caper as a genre (sub-genre?) and most suggested titles in articles about the style are by dudes. It's an entertaining and amusing book, and as a bonus it introduces a character who becomes a staple in the later Vicky Bliss series. I even found <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43855521" target="_blank">a scholarly article about it</a>, which I also found entertaining, both the fact that someone wrote it and the article itself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In a more serious but still thoroughly enjoyable vein, I read <i>Hotel Cuba</i>, the new novel by my friend and mentor Aaron Hamburger. It's based on the story of his grandmother's experience of emigrating from Eastern Europe to America via Cuba in the 1920s, when the US was not exactly welcoming of Jewish immigrants. Such an interesting peek into a slice of history.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqptLz1FEqugi40cN2C4ZyMIT2HoAtfVGCz3AnTo4Tf7-LKNdS0WbMqnnG5R8QtswHIUhZvJoanz1VOScjJOu_lTukYVJZYILfR7LdpEt8Vkf6OsH_aZ0JSF5JKrGyrvg734wKcWs4c4xj_rP3Ybg3bO57kGXW615HzHYDd4BX1rvTpeLIgJ1c3Q6VkUgh" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2972" data-original-width="3966" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqptLz1FEqugi40cN2C4ZyMIT2HoAtfVGCz3AnTo4Tf7-LKNdS0WbMqnnG5R8QtswHIUhZvJoanz1VOScjJOu_lTukYVJZYILfR7LdpEt8Vkf6OsH_aZ0JSF5JKrGyrvg734wKcWs4c4xj_rP3Ybg3bO57kGXW615HzHYDd4BX1rvTpeLIgJ1c3Q6VkUgh=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the nonfiction realm, I read Christian Cooper's <i>Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a black Man in the Natural World</i>, which delves into science fiction, growing up gay, Black, and nerdy, writing comics, traveling the world, and, of course, bird watching and the notorious events of the day on which a white woman decided to call the police on him for birding-while-Black, coincidentally on the same day George Floyd was murdered by white police officers. Fortunately Cooper came out of the incident intact and has since gone on to host a National Geographic program and do other great things around birding and social justice, as well as write this book, which is super engaging.</div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgm42MFo0e74DENJFo9trh7Vd2jCDNsUDSzHIcO60oG_rBXXf1BnV6RPzmDvZhBIZSobl8V1mQhsGkZ6TVA0pQtbu0xVqeiey0UKfpvoZDMvN4J6ZXU778kCSTJ_xupxyG7uVJD-SB_My6XdbLneS59SaPaNNr0gjOHN2VjNQzxrdx5GtnO8E-04ixLGFIV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgm42MFo0e74DENJFo9trh7Vd2jCDNsUDSzHIcO60oG_rBXXf1BnV6RPzmDvZhBIZSobl8V1mQhsGkZ6TVA0pQtbu0xVqeiey0UKfpvoZDMvN4J6ZXU778kCSTJ_xupxyG7uVJD-SB_My6XdbLneS59SaPaNNr0gjOHN2VjNQzxrdx5GtnO8E-04ixLGFIV=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />And, finally, I finished reading Elizabeth George's first craft book <i>Write Away</i>, which gives very useful advice for crafting a novel in general (not just a crime novel), the most useful of which is: <div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">You <i>will </i>be published if you possess...talent, passion, and discipline.</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">You will <i>probably </i>be published if you possess...either talent and discipline or passion and discipline.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">You will <i>likely </i>be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline....</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent <i>and </i>passion, you will not be published.</p></blockquote><p> Which is to say, sit your butt down and get to work!</p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-88694085677677812662023-08-18T07:00:00.003-07:002023-08-18T07:00:57.338-07:00Book Stack ~ July 2023<p> <span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">May 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" target="_blank">June 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4SyW8W8dS0a2b1ltxZX9K8qwSSwF_KPWy0s1d9aq0-cLzPKp-XsWwTJGDX4W_IdNzgV5u9c9dd3aRWMMMRQftYu0cBeIeLV_BnE4QrbKihcp7yj47YwfaAK_PZ74jL9pTV0MZHWesmMQvEZ_cjoH32A9yEbS-PCqU8oMEQGJfXNGg5AcVzug_hwmHxP0G" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2780" data-original-width="3707" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4SyW8W8dS0a2b1ltxZX9K8qwSSwF_KPWy0s1d9aq0-cLzPKp-XsWwTJGDX4W_IdNzgV5u9c9dd3aRWMMMRQftYu0cBeIeLV_BnE4QrbKihcp7yj47YwfaAK_PZ74jL9pTV0MZHWesmMQvEZ_cjoH32A9yEbS-PCqU8oMEQGJfXNGg5AcVzug_hwmHxP0G=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Vacation Reads</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Before we left on our trip to Slovenia and Croatia, I searched online for "books that take place in the Balkans" and came up with the first two on the list (as well as <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-stack-june-2023.html" target="_blank">two from last month's list</a>).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>The Tiger's Wife</i> by Téa Obrecht. This book tells the story of a woman doctor from an unnamed city (presumably Belgrade) who travels to a coastal town in another of the former Balkan republics (also not named) to provide medical care in an orphanage. While she's there, she learns that her grandfather had gone away to a clinic and died, without telling his wife or daughter the truth about his medical condition (cancer) or where he's going. The narrator intertwines her experiences at the orphanage, including trying to help a group of Roma who are digging in the nearby vineyard for mysterious reasons, with stories of visiting the tiger house at the zoo with her grandfather as a child and then delving further back into stories of her grandfather's childhood and the escaped tiger that takes up residence near his village, and magical realism and folkloric elements become part of the narrative. It's a strange and beautiful book.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Mix Ex-Yugoslavia</i> by Sofija Sefanovic. This memoir begins with the narrator taking part in a Miss Ex-Yugoslavia beauty pageant among the former Yugoslav ex-pat community in Australia and from there winds back through her childhood growing up in Belgrade and her family's emigration to Australia as tensions in that country rose in anticipation of war of the 1990s. While Stefanic didn't experience the war first-hand, it's still an insightful account of the experience of someone intimately tied to the place and a different perspective on NATO's role in ending that war--different from our own US roaring in as saviors story, and the collateral damage the wars had on the people living in Serbia who did not support Milošević or the ethnic cleansing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In Croatia I visited a bookstore (okay, in both Slovenia and Croatia I visited a LOT of bookstores) and picked up the following three works in translation:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Take Six: Six Balkan Women Writers</i>, edited by Will Firth. This collection includes stories, excerpts, and essays from six women writers who hail from six different Balkan republics. It differs from the previous two books, as well as The Hired Man, which I read last month, in that most of the stories don't focus on war. Rather, in a variety of writing styles, they delve into different aspects of everyday life of modern people, both tragic (drug use and death) and ordinary (falling in love), including a series of humorous stories that take place in ride shares and memoir vignettes by a teenager in a tuberculosis ward. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>In a Sentimental Mood</i> by Ivana Bodrožić and <i>Kindness Separates Night from Day</i> by Marija Dejanović are both books of poetry translated from Croatian into English. I'm not a great poetry critic, but I enjoyed them both, especially Kindness.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">When I got home, I immediately came down with a cold and spent three days lying around hydrating and not moving much, so I craved comfort reads and picked up a couple of vintage Mary Stewart volumes I'd ordered recently. Both <i>Touch Not the Cat </i>and <i>The Gabriel Hounds</i> have good gothic vibes, and <i>The Gabriel Hounds</i> has my other favorite suspense trope: travel to an exotic location (the desert of Lybia). They both also lean heavy on a trope favored by both Mary Stewart and my other suspense writer fave, Barbara Michaels: kissing cousins. <i>The Gabriel Hounds</i> is extra-squirmy, since the cousins' fathers are identical twins, which makes them, genetically, half-siblings. I don't know what it is with these authors, but they loved keeping it in the family. Is the ick factor of this a recent development in society and cousins getting together just no big deal in the sixties and seventies? </div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-71240540779797895352023-08-04T08:40:00.004-07:002023-08-04T08:40:29.918-07:00The Long Arm of History<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXNoQI6VSyJh7eh7jj_a3PSvD9Chw7pH-0X58J3fvBpDDpXuRScoYX0mD4CheAzEHxrYwWfGo6E0Q-wYRm_ebPt0JrC3c45-g1_7biyhIJ-4guTpiDQV-XTSfem6EZyVTHiFxRjEl-mvHrgPw56t1hTFjuZ7YATMbUfc9Cs_zoClsiQ_iISnjzcyIKgib3" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3456" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXNoQI6VSyJh7eh7jj_a3PSvD9Chw7pH-0X58J3fvBpDDpXuRScoYX0mD4CheAzEHxrYwWfGo6E0Q-wYRm_ebPt0JrC3c45-g1_7biyhIJ-4guTpiDQV-XTSfem6EZyVTHiFxRjEl-mvHrgPw56t1hTFjuZ7YATMbUfc9Cs_zoClsiQ_iISnjzcyIKgib3=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Mountains steep as church spires. Ancient mosaics. Streams of crystal-clear water running over chalk-white rock. A Roman emperor's basement. Twisting Medieval streets. Folk-art beehives. A bomb shelter. Opal-blue lakes. Saint's reliquaries. Deep, underground caves. Bullet holes and mortar craters. Cities the color of sherbet. Butterflies. Lizards. Storks. Swifts. Seas of red roof tiles. A sea of turquoise water. A sea of humanity.</p><p>These are just a few of the things we experienced during three weeks in Slovenia and Croatia this month. C and I wanted to take a big trip to celebrate all three kids graduating and *big* birthdays for both of us this year, and we've always wanted to travel to Europe (among other places) as a family, but the timing and the finances had never aligned. With all the fledglings perched to fly out of the nest, it felt like now or never. To make the trip happen we cobbled together our savings, sold some building equipment, and gratefully accepted support from relatives.</p><p>Our choice of destination came as a bit of a surprise--both to ourselves and to those we told about it--but after consulting a well-traveled relative and watching several episodes of Rick Steves, we concluded that the the two countries would provide exactly the kind of trip we wanted to experience: a mix of nature and culture, mountains and seashore, caves and church spires, art and architecture, and both deep and recent history. I also had a family connection--a grandfather who came from Slovenia--which added a bit of a personal journey element to the trip for me.</p><p>Slovenia felt in many ways like coming home for me--the spectacular Julian alps were not that far different than my own Colorado Rockies and the forested lowlands were every bit as green as Maine. Beyond those similarities, it was a completely different world, as clean, organized, and well-run as an imaginary land. I never saw a pothole, nor hardly a scrap of litter. Every house was charmingly built, in white or cream or pale green or yellow stucco, with a red-tiled roof, wide overhangs, and second-story balconies with decorative railings adorned with geraniums. And the houses stood in neat little villages, rather than sprawling over every inch of countryside the way they do here.The capital city, Ljubljana, is a fairyland of beautifully designed art-nouveau-style buildings, where even in the outskirts, modern skyscrapers and old communist-era apartment blocks manage to look attractive. Even industrial yards and junk piles behind farmsteads looked tidy. The people we met were friendly and kind, and the cake was amazing.</p><p>In Croatia we moved into a much more populous, much more Mediterranean land, where long arm of history exerted a greater influence and left a far less orderly imprint on the ground. Over two weeks, we wound our way up and down the stone staircases of ancient, fortified cities on the coast, visiting Roman ruins and Gothic churches. The white-hot sun beat down out of a white-blue sky and bounced back on us from the limestone walls and earth, and we sought relief in Euro-style lemonade (water with pure lemon juice; no sugar, little ice) and the Adriatic, its water a mystical aqua-blue, where, with little in the way of beaches and even less in tides, you swim off of rocks that you wouldn't dream of going near in Maine for fear of being dashed to death by the waves.</p><p>What struck me on my only previous trip to Europe--ten days in Ireland ten years ago--was the way the Medieval walls and Georgian townhouses and modern buildings were woven together into a tapestry that demonstrated that time is a continuum and we are part of history. This continuum was even more pronounced in Croatia, where in Pula a Roman amphitheater still stands among the walls of a modern, industrial city, in Split, where tourists throng through the cobbled streets of a town built by Medieval refugees within the abandoned walls of a Roman emperor's retirement palace, and in countless other towns along the Adriatic coast, where magnets and shot glasses and linen dresses are hawked from the tiny first-floor shops of the towering stone or stucco buildings from which, long ago, merchants sold bread or flax, indulgences or tinctures.</p><p>It's not hard to imagine the same steep, narrow, stone-paved streets, now thronged with tourists, instead surging with donkeys, unwashed humans, rotting produce, and waste. Here in the US we tend to keep history separate from life. We might visit Gettysburg or the Liberty Bell, but rarely is our past so starkly woven into our present. And what a history--the outer wall of Dubrovnik, the Grič tunnel of Zagreb, the forts and fortifications, all play the same role, a (often vain) attempt to protect the place, and the people, from invaders. This part of the world sits at a crossroads: between west and east, north and south. It's been battled over by the Illyrians, the Romans, the Slavs, the Ottomans, the Austrians, the Hungarians, the Venetians, among others, and, most recently, by the individual republics that made up the former Yugoslavia. You can see the signs of this latest war in the rebuilt tile roofs of Dubrovnik, where armies of Serbia and Montenegro aimed for the country's cultural history (and, across the border in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the rebuilt Old Bridge in Mostar, where Croatian army did the same).</p><p>Despite this long, hard history, which you might expect to leave the residents bitter or careworn, we met many delightful people throughout our journey: the proprietor of the tourist farm where we stayed our first four days in Slovenia and his family; a boy who guided us to our apartment in Koper; another young man who did the same in Zagreb; the hosts of several of our apartments who went out of their way to make our stay comfortable; many of the waiters in the restaurants we ate in (most of whom took great delight in joking with us and in our attempts at "hello" and "thank you"--which was the extent of our language acquisition); the woman behind the desk at the modern art museum in Dubrovnik, with whom I bonded over being a mother of three sons, including twins.</p><p>When it came time to prepare to come home, I didn't want to leave. I was exhausted by the heat and the many miles of stone stairs we climbed every day, and I really wouldn't have minded eating a few vegetables and drinking a tall glass of ice-cold well water. But I wasn't ready to break up the family party--M would be staying behind to travel for a few additional weeks, and, after we got home, the twins would be back to their self-contained ways. I was enjoying us all being together. I also wasn't ready to give up having new and interesting places to go and sights to see every day. Somebody said the sign of a successful vacation is when you're ready to go home at the end, but for me I think it's never wanting it to end.</p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-86728340506668626512023-07-14T07:39:00.002-07:002023-07-14T07:39:00.139-07:00Book Stack ~ June 2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"> A monthly post about what I've been reading.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com" target="_blank">May 2023</a></div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_TGz928DWfnf5tg6pxuVS5AgxV9HlFwqv8pQvjlz2tKcmdRW6Xt8_CkCzhR99ZYsDY2NmOTmL6QeqHrvXFxXGGp-FvSfpuKf8l5h6pxy8KIBMGhqAJJfwrBEDoIuPYL9vW9mzxhJxCcvoziO6BZ6alK8xPznLv2IHMwi9dSb0PFraUfuJ-nWxF9V5scI/s4032/3980BFF1-F7CD-4007-9AE0-7DDC249B8BE1_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_TGz928DWfnf5tg6pxuVS5AgxV9HlFwqv8pQvjlz2tKcmdRW6Xt8_CkCzhR99ZYsDY2NmOTmL6QeqHrvXFxXGGp-FvSfpuKf8l5h6pxy8KIBMGhqAJJfwrBEDoIuPYL9vW9mzxhJxCcvoziO6BZ6alK8xPznLv2IHMwi9dSb0PFraUfuJ-nWxF9V5scI/w640-h480/3980BFF1-F7CD-4007-9AE0-7DDC249B8BE1_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I started this month with a couple of fun mysteries by JS Borthwick, a writer I'd never heard of--despiete her having been a Maine writer--until I ran across her works in a used bookstore. I read her first and third installment of her Sarah Dean series. They're pretty entertaining, in the traditional mystery style, with some humor mixed in. I especially liked <i>The Case of the Hook-Billed Kites</i>, because it has a bird-watching theme, although I admit to getting confused by the many many characters. <i>The Student Body</i> was amusing because of the college that's a thinly veiled fictionalization of one of Maine's elite schools.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After that, I moved onto books related to our summer trip to Slovenia and Croatia. The first was <i>The Hired Man</i>, by Aminatta Forna, a novel follows the story of a man in a remote Croation town, who hires on to help restore the nearby abandoned house that a woman from England and her two teenage children move into. As he repairs the house and helps the daughter bring to life a covered mosaic, he revisits in his mind his childhood and young adulthood, recounting a friendship with the two children who lived next door and how one of those relationships blossomed and the other deteriorated. It has the tightly wound suspense of a mystery, as we sense that something very bad happened, but we don't know what or why.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I admit to not reading all 1,000 pages of <i>Black Lamb and Grey Falcon</i>, the classic travel account of Yugoslavia by Rebecca West, written in 1937. But I did read the parts relevant to our vacation, or a little less than 300 pages. It's a fascinating account of the region's history, people, and landscape. Maybe I'll read the rest when I get home.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Finally, I read <i>Rick Steves' Europe 101: History & Art for the Traveler</i>, by Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw. I took two semesters of Western Civilization in college, but that was a lot of years ago, and not a whole lot of what I'd learned stuck to the old gray cells, and I never took the opportunity to take Art History. So reading this book was both a great refresher and an introduction to art and architecture about which I only had a glancing knowledge. It's also laced with dorky but amusing dad jokes (eg., they call the Medieval dread with which the end of the 10th century was approached "Y1K." Har har.). It inspired me to want to visit a LOT more of Europe, where much of the continent's art and architecture are housed. Gotta keep on traveling.</div><br /> <p></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-29279457909369770362023-07-07T09:06:00.001-07:002023-07-07T09:06:00.151-07:00Look, Ma! No Hands!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5T790bjQrt26LSXhDPTaHv0Q-o0mO2Fncwop6O6VRutD-ulDj7Gw-TsJDTlxWpvDIr0n8J9BB_b750tQL_U27bd5lO7S_Wmc6ZHSuoOHBcoYRu6WYh3aYks_5CU2tXiB9f3E_Qs5pbO6fKlc0BrfA47bCQybsBBeU1bFxiJ_fQ-dAi1OklrMx8Hb7Obp4/s3405/C208BAD4-2870-4C9A-8E9A-E3AE7778022C_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2270" data-original-width="3405" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5T790bjQrt26LSXhDPTaHv0Q-o0mO2Fncwop6O6VRutD-ulDj7Gw-TsJDTlxWpvDIr0n8J9BB_b750tQL_U27bd5lO7S_Wmc6ZHSuoOHBcoYRu6WYh3aYks_5CU2tXiB9f3E_Qs5pbO6fKlc0BrfA47bCQybsBBeU1bFxiJ_fQ-dAi1OklrMx8Hb7Obp4/w640-h426/C208BAD4-2870-4C9A-8E9A-E3AE7778022C_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: arial, "helvetica neue", helvetica, sans-serif;">Twenty-two years ago, I sat on the purple velvet couch in our sweet apartment in Gardiner--the one with the high ceilings, tall windows, and claw-foot tub--with a hot, sticky, diaper-clad baby glued to my own hot, stick body and a fan blowing directly at us in our second-floor apartment in with all those south- and west-facing windows. It was July and it was hot, and that hot, sticky baby didn't want to be anywhere but glued to me. </span></p><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">I'm certain that in that moment, I believed I was living my permanent reality--that I'd been glued to a hot, sticky baby since the beginning of time and I would be glued to a hot, sticky baby for all of eternity. At a time when he wouldn't even let me lay him down of his blanket on the floor (where surely it was cooler than it was attached to me), I couldn't imagine that one day he would walk and talk and ride a bike. Perhaps, if pressed, I could have acknowledged intellectually that yes, one day this little ball of sweat and misery would one day graduate college. But viscerally? No. We were as we always were and always would be, eking scant relief from an oscillating fan. I had no way of knowing that every hot, sticky day he was imperceptibly but inexorably moving away from me.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">And then that day passed, and the next, and the next, and, more than 8,000 days later the inconceivable (in that moment) happened: the baby had become a man. His bald head had grown blond hair. His blue eyes stayed blue. He had learned to walk and talk and ride a bike. He had gone to school and learned to drive and traveled around Europe on his own. On the day after his twenty-second birthday, he walked across a stage and accepted his college diploma.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">I brought a box of tissues with me to graduation, expecting (after a weepy moment at baccalaureate the previous day) to be a blubbering mess. But as it turned out I felt no sadness or nostalgia, but only pure joy and pride and amazement. Perhaps it was that the college had pulled out all the stops to make it a lively, joyous occasion (to the extent of ensuring--somehow; I'm certain they have the resources to do it--that the rain poured only during the night and that both baccalaureate and graduation took place in spectacular sunshine). Perhaps I was distracted by the logistics of orchestrating a large and varied group of people who had come out to celebrate with us. Perhaps any sadness I might have felt was tempered by the mountain of his personal possessions that we'd moved out of his dorm room and back into our house over the previous days.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Whatever it was that brought me that sense of peace and rightness, as he made his way among his cap-and-gown-clad peers, I knew that those long days over twenty-two short years had led exactly to where they were supposed to. I couldn't have been happier, and I didn't use a single tissue.</span><div><span style="color: #757575; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"><br /></span></span><div><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">A version of thi</i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">s post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. </i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">Subscribe </i><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."</i></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-4071258443863284762023-06-16T07:22:00.002-07:002023-06-16T07:22:29.382-07:00Book Stack ~ May 2023<p style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"> A monthly post about what I've been reading.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">March 2023</a></div><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-stack-april-2023.html" target="_blank">April 2023</a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhncR5TXoNKEha6_ekncn26SIs_znSXuucvA-bKj7dgHtVuAgsq8anbCWV6SrAYHpS3-4UiRXRN10jFLl9BFINZr4wScA8sW3GmnrrzoIFM_-8ihQS27Es6D-tD8LsLuyz7n5VlGj7TF2tRQyaJtcRDBLLZOkuoN-H6BmRcLqwp3AncjmwHcxA3fwJ1jA/s4032/421BF9E1-6534-4B2E-9A13-0F11F6609CFA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhncR5TXoNKEha6_ekncn26SIs_znSXuucvA-bKj7dgHtVuAgsq8anbCWV6SrAYHpS3-4UiRXRN10jFLl9BFINZr4wScA8sW3GmnrrzoIFM_-8ihQS27Es6D-tD8LsLuyz7n5VlGj7TF2tRQyaJtcRDBLLZOkuoN-H6BmRcLqwp3AncjmwHcxA3fwJ1jA/w640-h480/421BF9E1-6534-4B2E-9A13-0F11F6609CFA.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div></div></div><br />I had a lot going on in May, so it was a kind of light reading month, especially toward the second half.<p></p><p><b>Fiction</b></p><p>I picked up <i>What the Dead Know</i> by Laura Lippman at a used bookstore, and I really liked it. It's about the disappearance of two little girls about 20 or so years in the past, told from multiple points of view and shifting back-and-forth between the present and the time of the disappearance, with lots of unreliable narrators along the way. Her style reminded me a bit of Elizabeth George (see below). I'll be looking for more of her books in the future.</p><p>Speaking of Elizabeth George, I read her first book, <i>A Great Deliverance</i>, which introduces her detective duo, Inspecter Linley and Sgt. Havers, and also introduces her style of multiple points of view. It's clearly not as strong as her future books, in terms of the character motivation and development and maintaining POV, but I like seeing how authors develop.</p><p>Finally, a book that was truly on my book stack, Jennifer Weiner's Then Came You. The premise of this book is what would happen if the egg donor, surrogate, and older sister and future mother of a baby conceived and born through egg donation, in vitro fertilization, and surrogacy were to all meet. The plot that gets them together is somewhat convoluted, and the ending is tied up in a bit too neat of a bow for my taste, but it was an entertaining story that gave a lot to think about with regard to unusual family structures.</p><p><b>Nonfiction</b></p><p>The first book (which is the bottom book), was actually from April, but missed the photo shoot for last month's post. <i>Trusting the River</i> by Jean Aspen follows Aspen and her husband around the US as they travel, meet up with friends and family, and try to figure out what they want their retirement to look like. It's a book about aging, planning, looking back over a long and full life, and enduring terrible loss. I'd read both of Aspen's previous books, <i>Arctic Daughter </i>and<i> Arctic Son</i> about her times in the Alaska wilderness as a young woman and, later, with her second husband and their young son. And I recently discovered her and her husband's documentaries, <i>Arctic Son</i> and <i>Rewilding Kernwood</i>, the first about building their magical homestead in Alaska and the second about restoring it to its natural condition after the loss of their son and the realization that they were getting older and would be unable to maintain it, while meanwhile encroachment on the wilderness by hunters was making the home vulnerable to vandalism. I really admired Aspen's wisdom in both documentaries and was excited to find she'd written another book. The book is lovely and gives a lot to think about, and fills in a lot of the narrative around her life before and after the other two books. I also think it could have benefitted from a good editor, as it meandered a lot. Still, I enjoyed reading about the full trajectory of a fascinating life and I appreciated the intention with which Jean and her husband approached their later years.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4ArsRdUahvJA373O4f11_oVzOchnLNYERz01sF-e7s-vz2jgMwtrmKoTLZyo6K1wEZDXNecClexznKth0uoNnHRBxw7W_pgUqyvwdEmd_Vw-q3r7GfUNe9ZUtRh7ZF65R15Yx7yjoeBkqdT8QGsHZjOKTtmDMeP4FdlOqewvp8uQHBy2GFGieChQig/s3644/0B999CEE-C527-4F30-ADF0-9CE79803B4C7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2728" data-original-width="3644" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4ArsRdUahvJA373O4f11_oVzOchnLNYERz01sF-e7s-vz2jgMwtrmKoTLZyo6K1wEZDXNecClexznKth0uoNnHRBxw7W_pgUqyvwdEmd_Vw-q3r7GfUNe9ZUtRh7ZF65R15Yx7yjoeBkqdT8QGsHZjOKTtmDMeP4FdlOqewvp8uQHBy2GFGieChQig/w640-h480/0B999CEE-C527-4F30-ADF0-9CE79803B4C7.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Finally, I don't often pick up a book as soon as I hear about it, but after listening to two interviews with Mary Louise Kelly on NPR, I grabbed a copy of <i>It. Goes. So. Fast</i>., about the senior year of her oldest son. The book begins with the realization that this is her last chance to be there for her kids, after years of having to make sacrifices in favor of being an international correspondent and news anchor on All Things Considered. Few motherhood memoirs encompass the teenage years, so I appreciated Kelly going there, and I really appreciated her honesty and her laying bare the challenges she has faced as a mom over the years. It's brave for anyone to do that, but especially so for a public figure. I also love the new life philosophy I got from the book, to whit: "Why should things be easy when they can be difficult?" Amen, sister.</p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-6944827861763563892023-06-09T06:30:00.001-07:002023-06-09T06:30:00.149-07:00The Fleeting Month of May<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaGcH1vzegXdXCQaWCFpnb1fr17KM-a9J1kKyBsolXTN-RipD0u7SldV_kioLvMDVluB5izHz3NlrdD3cpFhBPkNsT_EV_4VpQSxNGRxMJnZdNAGVDt2sIieFxdRlhx-U4rlshTjC93Q-LnCFk9aLxxOl09YejCX0-JpYaAMSjP4LurjzDSXR494LiAg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2166" data-original-width="2894" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaGcH1vzegXdXCQaWCFpnb1fr17KM-a9J1kKyBsolXTN-RipD0u7SldV_kioLvMDVluB5izHz3NlrdD3cpFhBPkNsT_EV_4VpQSxNGRxMJnZdNAGVDt2sIieFxdRlhx-U4rlshTjC93Q-LnCFk9aLxxOl09YejCX0-JpYaAMSjP4LurjzDSXR494LiAg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Where I live, May is the time for ephemeral things--apple blossoms, lilacs, migrating birds. Every year I'm reminded that if I don't pause, inhale, focus my binoculars, a sudden wind or rain or the mere passage of a few days will sweep away all of the sweet blossoms and feathers before I've taken the time to appreciate them. </span></div></span></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">Fittingly, all my babies were born in May, their early days and weeks and months and years passing by like the flitting wing of a warbler, the falling petals of the serviceberry. But unlike spring, whose cycles repeat year after year after year, the progression of childhood is a one-way road. I marvel when I walk into a store that sells baby clothes and toys and books--so much STUFF for so fleeting a time. You'd be better off putting all that money toward their future college or car insurance and instead giving them a bit of crinckly paper or a cardboard box to play with for that microsecond of infancy.</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">For a while, the middle-childhood years feel a bit more like winter than spring, with days and weeks and months stretching out slow and taffy-like, and you begin to believe that you've been pushing the Sisyphean </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">boulder of "brush your teeth" and "do your homework" and "stop tormenting your brother" up the mountain for eternity. But even that stage eventually passes and one day you wake up into a household of men, two actual 18-year-old MEN in your home, all simian arms and scratchy chins and rumbling baritone voices, and you gawp in disbelief that these six-foot bodies once fit inside your own (at the same time!).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">My joke has always been, "He/they can't be one or five or twelve years old, because I'm not one or five or twelve years older." I'm certainly not eighteen and </span><em style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">twenty-two</em><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"> years older than when my kids were born. There's nothing quite like witnessing your kids grow up to remind you that you yourself are aging. The other thing that raising kids reminds you of is your relative slacker-ness. In the first year alone, they learn to sit, crawl, walk, and talk. Meanwhile, you consider having taken a shower a major accomplishment. And it keeps going--reading, writing, long division, calculus, computer coding, Spanish, woodworking, pottery.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">They just keep passing you by, each moment like a cottony aspen seed, exquisite as it drifts by on the slightest breeze, but impossible to grasp. Some years, like senior year, are like the snowstorm flurry of those seeds on a breezy May afternoon. So many moments passing by, and nothing to do but try your best to appreciate each one as it flits by, before May rolls into June and June into July and so on and on.</span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNitR9NqToCAOyOM6FsPpehwDU1hi_piVdG4w33nlvWBs_NCywhaOZ1vrIwcKwaO21PjdFWmy31rNdSU1ht8ZSz-zBaVqanSLiaf2d2Di6kgBqBhngyC30R3lwkjfmvNAY5RFS0hME_ftH8SUnAkYx4M8E6XwmyHfkZSBm_Is-ro1cOoVY5m4WK8fXDg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2333" data-original-width="3500" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNitR9NqToCAOyOM6FsPpehwDU1hi_piVdG4w33nlvWBs_NCywhaOZ1vrIwcKwaO21PjdFWmy31rNdSU1ht8ZSz-zBaVqanSLiaf2d2Di6kgBqBhngyC30R3lwkjfmvNAY5RFS0hME_ftH8SUnAkYx4M8E6XwmyHfkZSBm_Is-ro1cOoVY5m4WK8fXDg=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>These babies turned 22, 18, and 18 last month!</i></div><p></p><p><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">A version of thi</i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">s post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. </i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">Subscribe </i><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."</i></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-67995303629331954332023-05-26T10:08:00.000-07:002023-05-26T10:08:04.448-07:00Lean into the Feelings<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD8LWIqbU1MlG8HKMSBpMvr4LIzp8SHEJQMLKR6wg3wrYOJLGy1YWwbwLnZZQlpzRzDdBggRH3xxROdYuHlqyawjgwOJDrROIgPjadG5unSVyUbs3KiR5VeigqzAEjH2HO6kq92PdSgQ8I0Pb9GrY8tWSDvBWomF0JlZ-8wLsNntjfQH2KYEhOlplx5Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD8LWIqbU1MlG8HKMSBpMvr4LIzp8SHEJQMLKR6wg3wrYOJLGy1YWwbwLnZZQlpzRzDdBggRH3xxROdYuHlqyawjgwOJDrROIgPjadG5unSVyUbs3KiR5VeigqzAEjH2HO6kq92PdSgQ8I0Pb9GrY8tWSDvBWomF0JlZ-8wLsNntjfQH2KYEhOlplx5Q=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;">A lot is happening in our neck of the woods over the next few months. Three kids have birthdays (18, 18, and 22). Three kids graduate (college, high school squared). Family will visit from across the country. Parties and ceremonies and events will attend it all. And then the five of us will depart on a VERY BIG trip. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;">I'm trying to lean into the abundance of it all, coaching myself to revel in each moment as it happens rather than feel like a steamroller is bearing down on me. My nature is, of course, to want to panic about all of the details that have not yet been resolved (hotel rooms, rental cars, house sitters, announcements, invitations, cleaning), and after 18 years of three kids' birthdays in May, my muscle memory of this time of year is wired to anxiety, even if big kids' birthdays aren't as big a deal as little ones'.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;">I read recently that it's not in human nature to be comfortable with feeling good. After millions of years of evolution preparing us to expect a saber-toothed tiger around every corner, we're wired to be suspicious when things are going well and we tend to short-circuit those good feelings with worry, deflection, and self-sabotage. I don't know if there's any scientific evidence of this theory's accuracy, but it makes sense. And I'm making a conscious effort to feel good about this moment in time: Our kids are nearly grown up! They've made it into/through college! We're finally getting a chance to travel after all these years! Hurrah!</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-size: 16px;">I've also recently heard that it's important to be comfortable with uncomfortable feelings as well. It's natural for anxiety to arise in the face of uncertainty---and until the twins settled on the colleges they are going to attend and until we pushed "purchase" on our plane tickets, we were swimming in a sea of uncertainty. There will continue to be uncertainty until each item over the next few months is checked off our lists---until the twins are settled into their dorms and M into his first post-college job---but I'm resisting the pull to hurry through it all and get to the other side, where the answers may be known, but it will all be over. This, here, now---in the sea of uncertainty and in the face of the steamroller of life changes is where life takes place. And I don't want to miss that, either the good feelings or the anxiety. </span></span><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;">A version of thi</i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;">s post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. </i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;">Subscribe </i><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666;"> and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."</i></span></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-70761885647601446812023-05-05T07:27:00.003-07:002023-05-05T07:27:33.206-07:00Book Stack ~ April 2023<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/04/book-stack-march-2023.html" target="_blank">March 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMn0eyg8p-7pHPqkFOYm3VEuhZfirLA-EeuA7-VwZm1X0aW6kpNtSeG_ISrzfB3x9V44Jqo9LHcga-IBbdj449iBZC6lVq79OTBIIbO-NBIi8cCaJfNygcwEtmF-xl-HGw9VTp2-rZ4rx80nUaFc0kdEGQop4BNei0z38ut3f7klm57wX3L4GjbsbgAw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMn0eyg8p-7pHPqkFOYm3VEuhZfirLA-EeuA7-VwZm1X0aW6kpNtSeG_ISrzfB3x9V44Jqo9LHcga-IBbdj449iBZC6lVq79OTBIIbO-NBIi8cCaJfNygcwEtmF-xl-HGw9VTp2-rZ4rx80nUaFc0kdEGQop4BNei0z38ut3f7klm57wX3L4GjbsbgAw=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">In April I applied myself to reading books actually in my actual <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2021/02/book-stack-january-2021.html" target="_blank">Book Stack</a>--ones that I didn't buy recently and that I haven't read before. I have hopes of finally clearing my bedroom floor of books this year!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Nonfiction</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">I usually read everything by Terry Tempest Williams as soon as it comes out, but <i>Finding Beauty in a Broken World</i> was published in 2008, when I was elbow-deep in mothering little kids and not in the right frame of mind for a book that I knew was largely about the aftermath Rwandan genocide. I picked up a copy at a used bookstore sometime in the last year or two (one that had been signed by the author!), and when I started getting delving into mosaics I decided to pick it up at last. The book begins with Williams taking a traditional mosaic workshop in Ravenna, Italy. From there it travels to a prairie dog colony in Utah and then to a survivors' village in Rwanda. I won't be able to explain well how these disparate elements are connected, but there's the metaphor of creating beautiful art from shattered pieces runs through the book, and in the village in Rwanda, Williams participates in a project of building a memorial that is covered in mosaic designs. There's also the ecological concept of a mosaic landscape, where different natural communities are patched together, creating varied and heterogenous habitats. There's also the basic inhumanity and barbarism required to both extirpate an entire species (or several species), like the prairie dog out of irrational animus, and how that is amplified in the extermination of a whole class of people (as in genocide). It is a heavy book, I'm not going to lie, but it's a beautiful one, as all of Williams' books are.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In a totally different vein, <i>The Big Leap</i> by Gay Hendricks was a required read for the book coaching training that I've been dragging out to a ridiculous degree. I really resonated with the initial idea that Hendricks puts forth, that we humans are uncomfortable with good feelings (out of a history of waiting for the next shoe to drop, or the next saber-toothed tiger to eat us), and so we sabotage ourselves with worry, deflecting, picking fights, etc. This gets in the way of our leveling up to our best selves (which Hendricks hyperbolically calls our Zone of Genius). So I've been working on letting myself feel good when things are going well. The rest of the book kind of proves the point put forth by the If Books Could Kill podcast, that most self-help books are mostly filler and fluff. There's a section on "Einstein time," which has something to do with thinking of time as elastic by not worrying or complaining about it anymore, and suddenly you'll have all the time you need...or something. He then contradicts this whole perspective with an anecdote about firing an employee who was late for picking him up at the airport (I mean, she was just on Einstein time, right? Also, why wouldn't you call a cab instead of expecting an employee to pick you up?). But still I'd say the book was worth the short time it took to read it for the change of mindset it engendered around allowing myself to feel good about things going well.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Finally, I finished reading a book I started about two or three years ago, having borrowed it from a friend, and stopped about 2/3 of the way through: <i>When Women Ruled</i> the World by Kara Cooney. It's about six women "rulers" of Egypt, over its whole long history. I'd thought, from the title, that it would be an empowering read, but as it turns out, these women who rose to prominence, either as regents for their sons or other young relatives or as women pharaohs (like Hatshepsut), were only able to obtain their power through strictures established by men and their personal power did not translate to more power for women generally. Also, there were only six of them over nearly 3,000 years. I realize it's kind of a "well, duh" to note that women who rise to heights of power are as vested in and obligated to uphold the patriarchy as the men who precede and succeed them. But reading about one after another of these women was a little discouraging (like watching an episode of <i>The Crown</i>, where, yeah, sure Elizabeth is queen, but everything she does is tightly controlled by a roomful of old white men with gray hair). So I got discouraged and quit, but I finally picked it up and was a little bolstered at the end by Cleopatra's story, which I didn't know much about. Yeah, sure she and her children died tragically in the end, but she was a bad*ss, and she managed to insinuate herself into the head of Egypt and manipulated both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony to hold Rome at bay (and it was those men's hubris, and their rivalry with other Roman leaders that brought them, and eventually her, down). And, of course, she was maligned by everyone ever since for daring to be a powerful woman (does anything every change?).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fiction</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">For fiction I read two books I picked up last time I visited my MFA alma mater, both written by faculty of the program. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">First up, <i>Generation Loss </i>by Elizabeth Hand, a mystery that takes place on an island in Maine, with the heroine, Cass Neary, a former photographer who's hit rock bottom and is sent to Maine to interview a recluse photographer, where she runs into all kinds of trouble--missing children, weird artwork, suspicious locals. It's a lot darker than the mysteries I usually read, but it was fun and entertaining and creepy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Second, I read <i>Make a Wish But Not for Money </i>by one of my favorite mentors, Suzanne Strempek Shea. It's about a woman who loses her job in a bank during one of our recent recessions and takes up palm reading in a burnt-out mall, discovering she has a special--metaphysical--talent for it. Her palm readings begin to bring the mall back to life, which in turn causes its own cascade of problems. It's a fun, humorous, and heart-ful take on love, friendship, and the socio-economics of the mall effect on Main Street.</div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-21956838223950075482023-04-21T06:30:00.001-07:002023-04-21T06:30:00.221-07:00Finish It Friday ~ Mosaic Shelf<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It is very strange that I have never blogged about my obsession with Fiesta ware dishes before, although they have made some appearances in the blog (notably in these posts: <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2018/07/kitchen-refresh.html" target="_blank">Kitchen Refresh</a>, <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-plastic-out-kitchen-edition_31.html" target="_blank">Getting the Plastic Out</a>, and <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/search?q=cocina" target="_blank">La Cocina en mi Casa</a>). In any case, suffice it to say I have a pretty big obsession with Fiesta and a pretty big collection thereof. And, since I live with a clumsy man and three kids, I also have a pretty big collection of broken dishes, every one of which I've saved over the last 20 years for "someday" making a mosaic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So when my friend Barbara set up a mosaic-making workshop with an artist friend of hers, I got out all my sad, broken dishes, sorted them by color, and gave them a bath.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivy_gQtCHE0HCEsouPPN6hBl9E6UIDwrc2rhTVYDOYGMKrWrryJiQJpqr0y3SVyxCklZJSFYJAvRBr6fy3_e9_RrC9xvCePC59khdSf6Pr5lMuGMhuqP9apOi45NP6sz-RqcFauxjJaj_AphTD13S4tyyD0_JydqDqKh2OmqJ1obSdBWRr7JXM6MhYJg/s2704/CF8978F5-553D-4DA5-A986-4B8E9544045E.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2704" data-original-width="2704" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivy_gQtCHE0HCEsouPPN6hBl9E6UIDwrc2rhTVYDOYGMKrWrryJiQJpqr0y3SVyxCklZJSFYJAvRBr6fy3_e9_RrC9xvCePC59khdSf6Pr5lMuGMhuqP9apOi45NP6sz-RqcFauxjJaj_AphTD13S4tyyD0_JydqDqKh2OmqJ1obSdBWRr7JXM6MhYJg/w400-h400/CF8978F5-553D-4DA5-A986-4B8E9544045E.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then I turned to Kaffe Fasset's book Mosaics for inspiration. The book includes a wall shelf project, and I just happened to have this sweet little wall shelf that used to hang in the kids' room, where it used to hold the antique toys C inherited from his grandfather. It was long ago evicted from the room and had been languishing in the basement.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatkr-GhV__BkGF1BP1uo_wACsMARzLAYtpOik2-yAAlI6TBoorOreFKVy0XNO26nL6BJyJHtmKagQC0F_yulvNmJ-V-_EcibLZpulQ1QvH3YNYu5quBvV3cCZWcZBO9xrgausXayE3x79lxgvBCJaDTKV8C0NtvqHCnmBcqaiHfhWyo6O9I837NipLg/s4032/0B8A62B7-D928-479E-9AE0-B1B32702CC32.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatkr-GhV__BkGF1BP1uo_wACsMARzLAYtpOik2-yAAlI6TBoorOreFKVy0XNO26nL6BJyJHtmKagQC0F_yulvNmJ-V-_EcibLZpulQ1QvH3YNYu5quBvV3cCZWcZBO9xrgausXayE3x79lxgvBCJaDTKV8C0NtvqHCnmBcqaiHfhWyo6O9I837NipLg/w640-h480/0B8A62B7-D928-479E-9AE0-B1B32702CC32.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />To prepare it for mosaic, I first vandalized it by scoring the surfaces I was going to stick the tesserae (that's the fancy word for little tiles for mosaic; another fancy phrase I learned is pique asiette, which means mosaics made from items like broken dishes) to and then I painted it a nice, bright tangerine color with several coats of chalk paint. Then the fun began.<p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxcIRKQA16AhThIjI-v-vwmvk-4Q2cScNFXHskvoaWHr-E057bY2bfmMTV9FuEth_7DvMbfcjFcyCswtJfqEn8XCyvjTZXvEd0GZxcUlH93JpUQ0MBt1YLmnrYgPV2edkHQgmYkFTc-IY0CplfvF6SFfOn8EZ_rZyY6jUy_UippAYX50PY58IKkK41rg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxcIRKQA16AhThIjI-v-vwmvk-4Q2cScNFXHskvoaWHr-E057bY2bfmMTV9FuEth_7DvMbfcjFcyCswtJfqEn8XCyvjTZXvEd0GZxcUlH93JpUQ0MBt1YLmnrYgPV2edkHQgmYkFTc-IY0CplfvF6SFfOn8EZ_rZyY6jUy_UippAYX50PY58IKkK41rg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><p>At my friend's mosaic gathering, I stuck shards (most of which I'd previously broken up) into mortar on the back panel of the shelf, with a butter dish finial and teacup handles for hooks. This mortaring part is what had held me back from trying mosaic on my own all these years, but it turned out to be incredibly easy. A lesson there.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNzLa82d66FPqlP9rqzuz8CGxWSJJwK-EFQJsJDEkmlc1sEZqH_ZbJ9eXfawvufRczcmj_f7nCB9zW246HL_-opKN-EAsXODq-5QQcxuWucuBpDwTqZq21y_ijo4s_t8KL5WxbwhhYDUmHuIFJ3U0QNaZRp0-wtzILzDvQmxYcUs8ZTsipqzcC4C3I5w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNzLa82d66FPqlP9rqzuz8CGxWSJJwK-EFQJsJDEkmlc1sEZqH_ZbJ9eXfawvufRczcmj_f7nCB9zW246HL_-opKN-EAsXODq-5QQcxuWucuBpDwTqZq21y_ijo4s_t8KL5WxbwhhYDUmHuIFJ3U0QNaZRp0-wtzILzDvQmxYcUs8ZTsipqzcC4C3I5w=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">At home later that week, I mortared pieces onto the outside panels of the shelf and then, later, grouted it all and touched up and waxed the painted surfaces. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJNT57olTcBs3EoCxP0d24X-NZzuKA2b0abQ27YQioN-OM4ZuCKQswuIb6nDdPvxZIH_MMr57H8M2vhjuUUcVXt0dXHpUZlz3NSK9tESuqnkd5bC0LWdWGUDGhgsa2UDtD2pQiiYamLNhWGJnEGx4k8Du6eVvK9BRzkNLdh241Rqf3MNefQqLfrqVUsw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJNT57olTcBs3EoCxP0d24X-NZzuKA2b0abQ27YQioN-OM4ZuCKQswuIb6nDdPvxZIH_MMr57H8M2vhjuUUcVXt0dXHpUZlz3NSK9tESuqnkd5bC0LWdWGUDGhgsa2UDtD2pQiiYamLNhWGJnEGx4k8Du6eVvK9BRzkNLdh241Rqf3MNefQqLfrqVUsw=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br />And now I just need to figure out where to hang it up--and what to mosaic next!<p></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-19997942963818093092023-04-14T08:39:00.002-07:002023-04-14T08:39:36.040-07:00Book Stack ~ March 2023<p> <span style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">A monthly post about what I've been reading.</span></p><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); clear: both; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" target="_blank">February 2023</a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjvb8v-F6qRE4IUTnSIEgX0feLJKuVVk9igoyg2Hftc6K9h5TfKvTKC6pVi6RPhSP2zPs-8-yf8Ixbqe4nQBzKGPYW8cYDgt1u1E7XgE0hpBMuf2Sb4N5PoFvqM6cA93srmK0x_0ZeXilUm320MqdqE6xQOkf8CM_Gk6igfxfywVM_gez6MNluMi6rgQ/s4032/23F52C20-C940-4563-A7D3-BA93F6800E28.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjvb8v-F6qRE4IUTnSIEgX0feLJKuVVk9igoyg2Hftc6K9h5TfKvTKC6pVi6RPhSP2zPs-8-yf8Ixbqe4nQBzKGPYW8cYDgt1u1E7XgE0hpBMuf2Sb4N5PoFvqM6cA93srmK0x_0ZeXilUm320MqdqE6xQOkf8CM_Gk6igfxfywVM_gez6MNluMi6rgQ/w640-h480/23F52C20-C940-4563-A7D3-BA93F6800E28.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I started the month by reading more Barbara Michaels--<i>Sons of the Wolf</i>, because I was reminded I enjoy Victorian gothic by <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/03/book-stack-february-2023.html" target="_blank">February's reading </a>and <i>Patriot's Dream</i>, because I remembered that it had a dream-based supernatural element, as does <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/finish-it-friday-janowrimo.html" target="_blank">the book I wrote in January</a>, and I wanted to see how Michaels handled it.</p><p>In other fiction news, I read <i>The Atomic Weight of Love</i>, which covers the adult lifespan of the main character who sets out to become an ornithologist but ends up married to a physicist who is hired to work on the secret nuclear installation at Los Alamos, NM. It's about the main character trying to hold onto her dreams and identity while being absorbed into someone else's world. It's sad but happy-sad, in that there's a certain amount of triumph and redemption despite it all. And I thought it was beautifully written. I also read <i>Bewilderment</i> by Richard Powers, which is also beautifully written but just plain sad-sad, about a single dad trying to raise an exceptional child in an ecologically damaged world. </p><p>In the nonfiction department, I read <i>The Middle Place</i> by Kelly Corrigan, which is fun and funny (despite being about the author and her father both going through cancer treatments at the same time), although I gotta say, the idea of being part of such a loud, boisterous, in-everyone's-business family gives me hives. I also read <i>MORE</i> by Majka Burhardt, a memoir covering the time period from the author's early pregnancy through toddlerhood mothering twins while she was also trying to run an international conservation organization and rock- and ice-climb professionally (and also deal with the pandemic). It's ultimately about the struggle to find a way that mothers can live lives in which they do meaningful work, care for their children, and have healthy and equitable relationships with their partners. Stay tuned for my interview with Burhardt to appear in <i>Literary Mama</i> later this year.</p><p>And finally, for creative inspiration, I've been doing a 100 Days of Poetry project, and a friend loaned me <i>Every Day is a Poem</i>, by Jaqueline Suskin, which has a lovely range of exercises for all kinds of poetic expression. I also re-read Twyla Tharp's <i>The Creative Habit</i>, which is in part what inspired me to focus on poetry now; one of Tharp's recommendations is to, after you finish a big project, put your efforts toward something totally different (thus poetry following a novel).</p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-85219841362437618102023-04-06T09:18:00.009-07:002023-04-06T09:18:52.496-07:00Signs of Spring<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlJuYG-OMIAX5llnCZUpUj_WNoi13ZVEaG6MlCv1t08Wk1QFlAeDbixU2SqJ5LAvzE14Gi-eO-cjN_UGmJCFXWkq7Ko10Gp6k1FgMTPBpjI4_f53gRJLtFqPHJtAJ3Sg80kAnh_gm6vpWZRrCZn5t5wjrmi0eoSVogXXz_X_LeIPqTEO9RC-eXyKVhLg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlJuYG-OMIAX5llnCZUpUj_WNoi13ZVEaG6MlCv1t08Wk1QFlAeDbixU2SqJ5LAvzE14Gi-eO-cjN_UGmJCFXWkq7Ko10Gp6k1FgMTPBpjI4_f53gRJLtFqPHJtAJ3Sg80kAnh_gm6vpWZRrCZn5t5wjrmi0eoSVogXXz_X_LeIPqTEO9RC-eXyKVhLg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7wH9jcynqgpg472Px1D7U2Jj9I26lKS-UNskyn_IDBi5yksBaEaZf51jxo5N9cw7Q3b2qy2v1GI22ltK3WVZb6HyqvmHFftBlJau_pXM-Ih9PCbrHeFl7nG82SGJUzJhiB5A5ptnu6BoYSNFIfU_MOjDh9EjScFgobHj1kU4COBzgBw5Ysu99F2xfRg" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7wH9jcynqgpg472Px1D7U2Jj9I26lKS-UNskyn_IDBi5yksBaEaZf51jxo5N9cw7Q3b2qy2v1GI22ltK3WVZb6HyqvmHFftBlJau_pXM-Ih9PCbrHeFl7nG82SGJUzJhiB5A5ptnu6BoYSNFIfU_MOjDh9EjScFgobHj1kU4COBzgBw5Ysu99F2xfRg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixfihn4247aSNtx780MwtoYnG6vH2YxSNYJV3p61HzE-yojQ2BKuHGOXk8h6eYv6NjMsFqsYNeuSOafMm31eE7rMz4EksbW5vciucMV40fWRrEUMDSzGyE9Gj440yEdShVZb78MGHLHbBAnqAd6YD2zg1epNa71vHVfxZbpfc6fMcn5UdEuGTSCWT6fg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixfihn4247aSNtx780MwtoYnG6vH2YxSNYJV3p61HzE-yojQ2BKuHGOXk8h6eYv6NjMsFqsYNeuSOafMm31eE7rMz4EksbW5vciucMV40fWRrEUMDSzGyE9Gj440yEdShVZb78MGHLHbBAnqAd6YD2zg1epNa71vHVfxZbpfc6fMcn5UdEuGTSCWT6fg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzE9rx__yWzteWS-H8VsUiRk2mi1tRt2zsyeEY9BGSYejodf4WfzYlbiVOpxfDC6YRedQv18TZ7h_9z1UViiBZ2ezd358ENZT4WL9fb7AmKZ_eZhBnWdKl6nrib8EAGhWEt__RElS9hcX2BnWEaLhYSYqKfyrlkvaz0SjAJf-7jILCK38NcXC-r0lw_Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzE9rx__yWzteWS-H8VsUiRk2mi1tRt2zsyeEY9BGSYejodf4WfzYlbiVOpxfDC6YRedQv18TZ7h_9z1UViiBZ2ezd358ENZT4WL9fb7AmKZ_eZhBnWdKl6nrib8EAGhWEt__RElS9hcX2BnWEaLhYSYqKfyrlkvaz0SjAJf-7jILCK38NcXC-r0lw_Q=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br />Every year at this time, I engage in a single-minded quest for signs of spring. In my memories of childhood on Colorado's Eastern Slope, March was a month of tulips and daffodils and wet, heavy snows, perfect for building snowmen and quick to melt. And while I've learned not to expect flowers during this month in Maine, that doesn't stop my from grasping at any indication that no, winter will not last forever.</span><p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">While the progression from winter to summer has not been as linear as implied in the above photos, taken from the same spot on my near-daily walks along our trail in the woods, there have been a few bright beacons of spring's arrival at our homestead:</span></span><ul style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); outline: none !important;"><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On March 11th bluebirds started checking out the real estate in our nest boxes.</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Barred owls started hooting March 12th.</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Turkey vultures and woodcocks arrived March 18th.</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We passed the equinox March 20th.</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On March 23rd Canada geese flew by for the first time and robins arrived in droves.</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A flock of red-winged blackbirds flew over on March 24th.</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I heard a spring peeper calling in our swamp March 26th (a day after Cu said he also heard one).</span></li><li style="outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I saw a tiny orange butterfly on March 27th (it fluttered away over our neighbors' huge field and I couldn't track it down to see what it was).</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">It has also snowed at least seven times this month, the annual April Fools' Day snowstorm is coming tonight, right on schedule, so we're not completely out of the woods yet, and the month got confused and decided to go out like a lion, with gale-force winds yesterday and temps not much above freezing. But the amount of snow and ice I tramp through or slip and slide over on my daily woods walk decreases every day, and each new snow lasts only a few hours (putting us in "poor man's fertilizer" territory, I suppose, another sign of spring).</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); outline: none !important;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); outline: none !important;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">And tomorrow April begins, a month associated in my mind with the color yellow--daffodils again, plus the warm light of an ever-stronger sun--with lots of spring energy for new projects, that turning-inward feeling of winter beginning to reverse into an outward expression of life, like the sap is rising from my roots and preparing to feed an unfurling of bright, new leaves.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"><br /></span></span></div><div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3842061048423131004" itemprop="description articleBody" style="font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 622px;"><div><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">A version of thi</i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">s post went out recently to subscribers of my newsletter, along with some bonus material. </i><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;">Subscribe </i><a href="https://blogspot.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b549dcd6f0b4da0c8c2ad8431&id=ae7457570a" style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #888888; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><i style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif;"> and receive a free PDF of my illustrated short essay "Eleven Ways to Raise a Wild Child."</i></div></div></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-47651923006039990722023-03-24T07:00:00.001-07:002023-03-24T07:00:00.201-07:00Finish It Friday ~ Another Runner Hat<p>After I finished <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2022/09/finish-it-friday-cross-country-hat.html" target="_blank">Z's cross-country runner hat</a> last fall, my cousin asked me to make one for her, so I picked up a skein of the same soft, squishy yarn in a sunny color called saffron, and got to work. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhE_kov1DkjQdurxB3BT9hVlrNq2GZwqL7tkOL1r8fZu9OpiJij3Lxm54RkSOirDRx4TI4E8zdGZk1pwhwZ6UjIw2CrpNqEudFEdGu6Oxlqq2a9kzQGaAXmaa9svbUsWYsknb5BAjcbnGRkXI0QY-OnUToLafSyF4sEcU85raD1sOglfAR_XYGVOfQw/s4032/089B3CE3-0B03-426C-A2FF-24BD6ECCEB9E_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhE_kov1DkjQdurxB3BT9hVlrNq2GZwqL7tkOL1r8fZu9OpiJij3Lxm54RkSOirDRx4TI4E8zdGZk1pwhwZ6UjIw2CrpNqEudFEdGu6Oxlqq2a9kzQGaAXmaa9svbUsWYsknb5BAjcbnGRkXI0QY-OnUToLafSyF4sEcU85raD1sOglfAR_XYGVOfQw/w640-h480/089B3CE3-0B03-426C-A2FF-24BD6ECCEB9E_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></p><p>I wanted to make this second hat smaller than Z's, which is pretty large and loose, so I went down a needle size, from 7/8 (ribbing/pattern) to 6/7, shortened the ribbing so it wouldn't be foldable, and focused on keeping my tension consistent throughout.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXqWJUpDA62B4vvTphv7OX6zChrH6rRnqcD_qKxsovjCqTcFFRLKKCbtTbFxkNiLJ-Sb8glAbmXFljIm0aYJ9_HbsKy62VZhctDUN6yAVgCruToUq51F3twYaDOe7nqOjJPF1tuguq17R6h9bMIZ39-CTpVswq7272iuqk5mF_ZSeQHomfZjllQN0rw/s2576/AD071690-1A81-4E07-B836-2B86093C2B20.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1932" data-original-width="2576" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXqWJUpDA62B4vvTphv7OX6zChrH6rRnqcD_qKxsovjCqTcFFRLKKCbtTbFxkNiLJ-Sb8glAbmXFljIm0aYJ9_HbsKy62VZhctDUN6yAVgCruToUq51F3twYaDOe7nqOjJPF1tuguq17R6h9bMIZ39-CTpVswq7272iuqk5mF_ZSeQHomfZjllQN0rw/w640-h480/AD071690-1A81-4E07-B836-2B86093C2B20.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Unfortunately, I also accidentally cast on 80 stitches rather than the 88 (or 90) I should have, and the hat turned out VERY snug. So I started again, with the correct number of stitches, and came out with two hats, one a form-fitting adult size and one just right for a kid.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiyTl7fxYTHK2jcOtYfVLWyxdgmr5Nns9HT_cvcOHYlpSoZSoDKnMBCvNHiN_VUz4qOf-GQmZ3W3HF5sDhkboekQqU_q8kdcolPgeIupx_GU7x3TOT9zbzdhu_m2a7X4M-Bz_f80hFHtc0--ziQwOi18Czf_2sZcpIk2lb8pscpjQxx-DZhiNG_j7SWw/s4032/1489A5D6-16DB-47DD-B1FF-F20B1B2926C4_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiyTl7fxYTHK2jcOtYfVLWyxdgmr5Nns9HT_cvcOHYlpSoZSoDKnMBCvNHiN_VUz4qOf-GQmZ3W3HF5sDhkboekQqU_q8kdcolPgeIupx_GU7x3TOT9zbzdhu_m2a7X4M-Bz_f80hFHtc0--ziQwOi18Czf_2sZcpIk2lb8pscpjQxx-DZhiNG_j7SWw/w640-h480/1489A5D6-16DB-47DD-B1FF-F20B1B2926C4_1_201_a.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I gave the small one to a friend who still has little ones in her home and sent the other one off to my cousin, with hopes for some cold weather remaining in the winter so she could wear it.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNlY23GI3pGOIVGlSuxUGEMr0xY3ZYfaAf-NQ9Qy6eVIJ_ji7kcAzEFUmGtPsKCz9fBgePMxhPJbL8QCouSweHhtKlkXep4Hfg-Z7_iy9FY4uzMYR4iZ4TFgTOAJFRn2LZSlmv_w6AefJ5aoox9SqDgH2YaCasD2Vqh5YePQuUHe3LE6ylQr32kQHNA/s2576/5C6D0BB4-50D5-4DCF-B31C-CFC8F0D96D43_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2576" data-original-width="1932" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNlY23GI3pGOIVGlSuxUGEMr0xY3ZYfaAf-NQ9Qy6eVIJ_ji7kcAzEFUmGtPsKCz9fBgePMxhPJbL8QCouSweHhtKlkXep4Hfg-Z7_iy9FY4uzMYR4iZ4TFgTOAJFRn2LZSlmv_w6AefJ5aoox9SqDgH2YaCasD2Vqh5YePQuUHe3LE6ylQr32kQHNA/w300-h400/5C6D0BB4-50D5-4DCF-B31C-CFC8F0D96D43_1_201_a.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ravelry notes (including an explanation of the cast-on conundrum) <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ALani/runner-hats" target="_blank">here</a>. Ravelry notes on the original hat with the pattern <a href="https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ALani/cross-country-running-hat" target="_blank">here</a> (including notes on how to lop off the Ancient-Egyptian-looking hands and an improved decrease over the first one I did).</div><br /><p></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-59332854598561286402023-03-20T08:23:00.003-07:002023-03-20T08:23:40.384-07:00Inflection Point in Literary Mama<p>I joined the staff of <a href="https://literarymama.com" target="_blank">Literary Mama</a> in the spring of 2014, shortly after I finished my MFA program. I'd published my first short story there, six years earlier, and had published an essay about finding models of mother protagonists in fiction--an adaptation of my thesis introduction--in the Literary Reflections department the previous month. My pre-MFA writing instructor Kate Hopper was resigning from editing the Literary Reflections department and recommended me as her replacement. At the same time, the editorial assistant for the department, Libby Maxey, moved up to take the other department editor position, vacated by Christina Speed. </p><p>Libby and I enjoyed eight years of highly compatible co-editing until she moved over to help run the Poetry department around a year ago. We became good friends, even though we didn't speak to each other outside of email until 2018, when I joined the Senior Editor team, of which Libby was already a member and began to participate in conference calls, and we didn't meet in person until last summer. Libby was the first reader of the first draft of <a href="https://www.andrealani.com" target="_blank">Uphill Both Ways</a>, and she's always been my go-to when I have a sticky editorial question or any question at all about poetry. I was a little afraid we might not be as compatible in real life as we were over email, but we talked nonstop for a solid four hours when we got together, and I'm pretty sure we could have kept going if we didn't have time constraints.</p><p>I've made other good friends in my years at LM, including former editor Amanda Jaros, who was another <a href="https://www.andrealani.com" target="_blank">UBW</a> early reader and a kindred spirit in the mother-nature-writer realm (and who is coming out with her own hiking memoir soon!). I really enjoyed working with the senior editor dream team we had for several years with Amanda, Libby, Christina Consolino, Amanda Fields, and Hope Donovan-Rider at the helm. And it's been a joy to be part of this literary community and experience its growth and change of the last almost-decade.</p><p>But all good things must come to an end, and at the end of this month so does my term at LM. I'm leaving the Literary Reflections department in good hands, and looking forward to stretching my writing muscles in new, possibly not motherhood-related directions. As a swan song, I penned an essay that's been bubbling under the surface for even longer than I've been an editor at LM. Please enjoy what Libby referred to as an "origin story" of a Literary Mama editor: <a href="https://literarymama.com/articles/departments/2023/03/inflection-point-the-birth-of-a-mother-writer" target="_blank">"Inflection Point: The Birth of a Mother Writer,"</a><b> </b>in which I weave together the many stages in my lifelong dream of becoming a writer with the monumental effort of getting to a writing conference when my kids were small:</p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMeurJv8imwZL5CX3Dii58iZy3_dnw9lp0vF3M17PzSNJgMh91BRTG4Yz6vjiC4bjzzlf1BMqmcf4i-azcCUkbTsbuQYKEgkm_KmndQ336oK6_S9o9ounSjDPNsBuDZeLvgERc4NgeutMpnhp_z6GNu5TdeJZSqUQtBVkK4STVQOBNHd0lSE3pOOLdww/s1200/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-17%20at%2011.54.47%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1198" data-original-width="1200" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMeurJv8imwZL5CX3Dii58iZy3_dnw9lp0vF3M17PzSNJgMh91BRTG4Yz6vjiC4bjzzlf1BMqmcf4i-azcCUkbTsbuQYKEgkm_KmndQ336oK6_S9o9ounSjDPNsBuDZeLvgERc4NgeutMpnhp_z6GNu5TdeJZSqUQtBVkK4STVQOBNHd0lSE3pOOLdww/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-17%20at%2011.54.47%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><p><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Six months before the conference</span> </b></p></span></b><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">You learn about the annual conference of writers from your writing instructor and look it up online. It will be held in April in the state where you grew up, where your family still lives, 1,800 miles away from where you live now. You check the school calendar, but the week of the conference does not align with the week of your kids’ spring break, so you won’t be able to turn it into a family vacation.</em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">I wanted to write as soon as I could read. In second grade, I decided I was going to be an “author” when I grew up. I’m not sure I knew what that meant, but Betsy Ray of Maud Hart Lovelace’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Betsy-Tacy</em> books wanted to be an author, and so did I.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Five months before the conference </b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">You spend all your discretionary funds Christmas shopping and don’t have the money to register before the early bird deadline.</em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">My third-grade teacher was big into creative writing and had us write a lot of poetry and short stories. I enthusiastically filled up her green poetry sheets with banal verse, clichés, and made-up words like “scrumpdillicious,” and she enthusiastically marked each page with a red A+.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85); color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium;">You can read the rest of the essay </span><a href="https://literarymama.com/articles/departments/2023/03/inflection-point-the-birth-of-a-mother-writer" style="font-family: -webkit-standard;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium;">. Enjoy!</span></p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-1357841081107987532023-03-10T10:08:00.000-08:002023-03-10T10:08:10.217-08:00Book Stack ~ February 2023<p style="caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> A monthly post about what I've been reading.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" target="_blank">January 2023</a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzljFMMThusEBGwyooeMBTjSDg4ujLqIYB2itHqlVpJSvjV5KejdPrGsWzbKR7ZGdrFkp8IyyT1iZc_--FkJLuQ-b1OiqF9ABxIbHREtRAfbkw2aRGTIlNrrc4eC8laQXRZVD3tztFX5v13fIm86ZW0-UM29-LrcVRK5maxRHXk1weTB9qkG7E7o_U-w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzljFMMThusEBGwyooeMBTjSDg4ujLqIYB2itHqlVpJSvjV5KejdPrGsWzbKR7ZGdrFkp8IyyT1iZc_--FkJLuQ-b1OiqF9ABxIbHREtRAfbkw2aRGTIlNrrc4eC8laQXRZVD3tztFX5v13fIm86ZW0-UM29-LrcVRK5maxRHXk1weTB9qkG7E7o_U-w=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Somewhere I saw a list called "Books that Don't Bum You Out," and when next February comes around, I'm going to find that list, because last month I read a lot of downers. February is not a month for books that bum you out; it's a month that requires all of the artificial means of mood elevation available. First, let's talk about the happy pill books I read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Fun Fiction</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I started the month by finishing off <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/book-stack-january-2023.html" target="_blank">the stack of Barbara Michaels books of suspense I had ordered in January</a>: <i>The Grey Beginning </i>and<i> The Master of Blacktower</i>, both delightfully gothic, with one contemporary and the other Victorian (sometimes I think I don't want to read a Victorian gothic, but I always end up enjoying myself when I do). I then threw in an Elizabeth Peters--<i>The Copenhagen Connection</i>--just for fun. This one's a caper, and while I don't know all the conventions of that genre, I'm pretty sure an element of the ridiculous is requisite, and this one had it in spades. I then read an Anne Hillerman my mom sent, <i>The Tale Teller</i>. While it's been a long time since I've ready anything by Tony Hillerman, and while the story was good, I don't think the writing quite stood up to her father's. There seemed to be a lot of banal dialogue that didn't serve the story. I'm also more aware of, and uncomfortable about, cultural appropriation than I was last time I read a Joe Leaphorn (detective) book. So I'm on the fence about this one. Finally, at the end of the month, I read another Barbara Michaels Victorian gothic, <i>Black Rainbow</i> (because once I remembered I liked Victorian gothic, I decided to keep going with the theme), as a palate cleanser after the heavy reads below.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Heavy Fiction</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>The New Wilderness</i>, by Diane Cook. In a post-apocalyptic world, a small group of people is sent to live in a manufactured "wilderness" and observed by the state to see how they fare. Lovely writing, beautiful exploration of mother-daughter relationships, interesting concepts, but just generally grim. I don't know if the idea of post-apocalyptic writing is to warn of coming dangers or concede defeat before it's even happened, but it kinda feels like the latter to me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>The School for Good Mothers</i>, by Jessamyn Chan. Not post-apocalyptic, but speculative, about women who make mistakes (ranging from momentarily lapses of attention to outright abuse) as parents being sent to a prison-like environment to "learn" to be good mothers (i.e., boundlessly self-sacrificing) by taking care of creepy robot dolls. Also grim, mainly in the way it so expertly reflected society's impossible expectations of mothers (and double standard with regard to fathers). But the ending was, if not redemptive, very satisfying.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>We All Want Impossible Things</i>, by Catherine Newman. A woman watches her best friend die in hospice and makes, shall we say, questionable behavior choices. This one contains all of the signature Catherine Newman humor and cooking and unbelievably generous and cheerfully self-sacrificing adults and funny, quirky, loving children of her nonfiction (somehow these traits are less believable in fiction than nonfiction--I mean, an ex-husband who comes over and cooks every night?). But there's only one way a hospice novel can end, so definitely a book that will bum you out.</div><br /><b> Nonfiction</b><p></p><p>I'm still working my way through Louise Dickinson Rich (I won't read it all--she wrote a LOT, and I'm not terribly interested in her fiction), and read <i>Only Parent</i>, about life raising her two kids after her husband, Ralph, died suddenly. It's an interesting topic for the time, when divorce was less common and less commonly accepted. And while she mentions the ways life is made more challenging by the lack of a second adult in the house, it's not a woe-is-me tale, but rather another series of her funny and prescient observations of everyday life. Definitely not a bummer.</p><p><i>Inciting Joy</i>, by Ross Gay. I was expecting more of <i>The Book of Delights</i>, but the essays in <i>Inciting Joy</i> are much longer (and more discursive; in some the parenthetical asides and footnotes run as long as the main text) and cover much heavier topics, although they may start from a benign subject like music, basketball, or gardening. I'm actually still mulling this one over, a few weeks after having finished, not entirely sure what to think, and I'll probably dive back in and read it again a time or two in order to fully grasp it all.</p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-18560668722063337532023-03-04T06:56:00.005-08:002023-03-04T06:56:37.309-08:00Boring But Not Bored<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">At the beginning of the year I started a 5-year journal, with about one-by-three inches of space in which to recount each day of the year, year after year. When I get to the end of each day and jot down the events--read a little, wrote a little, worked a little (I have a freelance project going on now, which makes me feel more at home now in the capitalist system in which when people ask, "What have you been up to?" they usually mean, "What are you doing to move money around?"), made a little art, walked the trail, watched the birds, cooked dinner, tidied the house, maybe knitted a bit or grocery shopped or talked to someone on the phone--I think something along the lines of "Wow, my life is really boring." Only the thing is, I don't *feel* bored (although I did go through a restless period last weekend, wherein I felt like I need a big project to work on, something physical and not reading-writing-art related, like building a shed or remodeling a bathroom; luckily I did not act on this impulse, and the mood, which I diagnosed as spring fever, eventually passed).</span></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);" /></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDOVUGmU3BPGQrtdZCCJBejrMqDiA2DHGwniUsLYgFnIOf1seeTczdX8KpjOsqm-YprRghbHb4gCN6sRI9jRiDrOeVGtSbdA80DxWj75O7XzWTCAtyi6lm4fC_OfQTAwckZGbTxQVMbDIFVYZxIVcDHTcgoHpunf8rpkUz3HoLo3dv6uSFai0bNYe2FA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDOVUGmU3BPGQrtdZCCJBejrMqDiA2DHGwniUsLYgFnIOf1seeTczdX8KpjOsqm-YprRghbHb4gCN6sRI9jRiDrOeVGtSbdA80DxWj75O7XzWTCAtyi6lm4fC_OfQTAwckZGbTxQVMbDIFVYZxIVcDHTcgoHpunf8rpkUz3HoLo3dv6uSFai0bNYe2FA=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br />February can be a hard month, with the first halfway between the solstice and the equinox, a good eight to twelve weeks until spring in my neck of the woods, no matter what the groundhog says. Though the days are perceptibly longer and the quality of light more golden, we started the month with the coldest weather of the year (-14.4 on 2/4) and we're wrapping it up in a similar vein (-0.8 this morning). The freelance job I'm doing is on a heavy topic and many of the books I've read this month have been heavy as well, and I've had to antidote it all with a heavy dose of rewatching ridiculous television shows every night. </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">For all these reasons, February is the month I most feel like hibernating, by which I mean loading up the wood stove and reading a little, writing a little, making a little art, knitting a bit, walking the trail, watching the birds, fixing a pot of tea in the afternoon. Maybe burrowing is more what I mean than hibernating--cozying down into a pleasant waking doze beneath a comforter with a plate of cheese nearby: torpor, dormancy, senescence. In other words, exactly what I've been doing.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(117, 117, 117);">Which isn't to say I've done nothing at all this month--at the beginning of the month I caught up with a few friends at a party and led a full-moon hike at a nearby nature center; yesterday Z and I met up with M for a day of cross-country skiing on some gorgeous groomed trails, and the snow was so perfect I decided that perhaps, rather than hanging up my cross-country skis for good (which I'd been considering, because I always feel so resistant to going), I'd instead trade them in on a pair that isn't missing the back half of one of the bindings and the top half of of one of the pole handles and most of the pole baskets, along with some boots that are warm and comfortable and don't raise blisters. In between I had a book talk and met a good friend for lunch and had countless appointments. And now that I'm nearing the end of the month, I think I'm ready to wake up a bit, to poke my head out of my hole and see if I see my shadow. It is, perhaps, another symptom of spring fever.</span></span></div>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6129064848004232361.post-2581652374906653392023-02-17T06:13:00.000-08:002023-02-17T06:13:06.442-08:00Book Stack ~ January 2023<p> A monthly post about what I've been reading.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhGujC9dXOjxBzX1jmXAXF_TWahmkq0Gjbw5kWD8sqpEe7CP8de4zihLOe3g5F7GmlplTk3iUQiPqoF8LIquzBoMmcOqWVX8PSMUaZQ8gJXrbRPj68WMwbfFDpqG4HSrP9uakVZ-9Dyu9TpUYs2obrBuwbCKkzdAta2GWShZq9GFkADZ8I0VBb5enQgg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhGujC9dXOjxBzX1jmXAXF_TWahmkq0Gjbw5kWD8sqpEe7CP8de4zihLOe3g5F7GmlplTk3iUQiPqoF8LIquzBoMmcOqWVX8PSMUaZQ8gJXrbRPj68WMwbfFDpqG4HSrP9uakVZ-9Dyu9TpUYs2obrBuwbCKkzdAta2GWShZq9GFkADZ8I0VBb5enQgg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">While Christmas shopping with my kids, I pointed to Barbara Kingsolver's latest book, <i>Demon Copperhead</i>, and told them they could get me that for Christmas. M took the hint, and in January I read the retelling <i>David Copperfield</i>, situated in rural Appalachia the midst of the opioid crisis. Through the engagingly delightful voice of young Demon--which never resorts to dialect or other cheap tricks to convey regionality--the reader is taken on a journey through systemic poverty, a failed social services system, and drug addiction. Born in a trailer in western Virginia, raised by an unstable mother, subjected to a cruel stepfather, shunted through a series of foster homes, and put to work too young in dangerous jobs, Demon has the deck stacked against him from the beginning. As with Dickens's character, despite the many ways life goes wrong for Demon, his fortunes often rise, and though he's forced to confront multiple villains, he is also blessed with good people in his life who help to steer him in the right direction. As a narrator, Demon is both innocent and wise in the telling of his tale, and through his voice and his life history, Kingsolver manages to convey the ravages that centuries of institutionalized poverty and exploitation and abuse by the tobacco, coal, and drug industries have wreaked on the region, while neither romanticizing the people nor condescending to them. She also celebrates the natural beauty of the landscape and the values of hard work, strong family ties, and attachment to the land that characterize the area. This book gripped me more than anything I've read in a long time--I stayed up way too late several nights in a row because I couldn't stop reading--and before I was even done I went out and got a copy of <i>David Copperfield</i>. It was a delight to read the original and see the ways Kingsolver turned a Victorian lawyer into a Virginian football coach, an honest and determined old fisherman into a feisty young nurse, and, of course, the ghastly Uriah Heep into the equally ghastly U-Haul Pyles. The combined 1,400 pages of the two books flew by in a matter of weeks, despite Dickens's version sagging a bit between about page 200 and 500 (due to young Copperfield going through a relatively good spell at that stage in the book).</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNa6UW9i48fCnQYE5X3mFvZR8ntTlwoWmC48GJDzi89zKAg0cOwBy2bLl0RjJ_rbQaZ0UQz8oIaL38DqD8GBy4AJyXbYNH1KmUGh9QmlRQbBXH-oEcb5DcKXJz947YuTPv8C3VqIjMul3xbc6tz1I6PFNmKeyF58nil_3A3EqJnnBA5kp4lsU_l78u1Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNa6UW9i48fCnQYE5X3mFvZR8ntTlwoWmC48GJDzi89zKAg0cOwBy2bLl0RjJ_rbQaZ0UQz8oIaL38DqD8GBy4AJyXbYNH1KmUGh9QmlRQbBXH-oEcb5DcKXJz947YuTPv8C3VqIjMul3xbc6tz1I6PFNmKeyF58nil_3A3EqJnnBA5kp4lsU_l78u1Q=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>On the lighters side, I also read three delightfully gothic Barbara Michaels novels: <i>The Walker in the Shadows; House of Many Shadows; Be Buried in the Rain; </i>and<i> Wait for What Will Come</i>. When I <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/01/book-stack-december-2022.html" target="_blank">realized in December </a>that I didn't own a copy of <i>Ammie Come Home</i>, I went through my collection to see what else was missing and ordered them from a used book shop. Michaels is the pen name that Barbara Mertz aka Elizabeth Peters used for her books of suspense. These often, though not always, have a supernatural element and are generally more serious in tone than her Peters books, though not without humor, and they frequently have gothic elements--the big creepy house, the young ingenuous heroine who can't leave for some reason, mysterious goings-on, often a housekeeper who is either alarmingly grim in demeanor or unbelievably cheery. Occasionally they take place in the classic Victorian gothic setting. There's always at least one handsome love interest (and in one case four), who is sometimes a friend and sometimes a foe, and sometimes the heroine doesn't know which until too late. These four are all contemporary (as in they take place in the '70s and '80s, when they were written), and they're evenly split between those with supernatural causes of the mysterious happenings and those with human villains. <i>House of Many Shadows</i> is fun for being one of the few of Michaels's books with an older protagonist (although there is, as always, still a pair of "confounded young lovers," as Radcliffe Emerson--chief hero of the Amelia Peabody series by E. Peters--would say). So it's never too late to find yourself in a haunted house.</p><p>The <a href="https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2023/02/finish-it-friday-janowrimo.html" target="_blank">novel I drafted in January</a> was a takeoff on the Barbara Michaels contemporary gothic--an homage if you will--so it was fun to read these at the same time as writing my own. I even hid some Easter eggs in the text, including Michaels's books on the shelves of the creepy house.</p>Andreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748454816480995214noreply@blogger.com0