"Even though she could say that based on the information that had been presented Alan Saturn was wrong--Dr. Rapp had behaved badly, and Nancy Saturn was right, such matters were worthy of judgment--she found herself siding with Alan because there was much in his single-minded devotion to a mentor that sounded a familiar note. In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant." 
--Ann Patchett's State of Wonder

Favorite. Just one.

I'm reading my first John Irving novel--The Hotel New Hampshire. It's uncomfortable (rape, incest, prostitution...), but John Irving is clearly a masterful storyteller; these characters with their bizarre life (can many characters live one life?) have become my friends (and my enemies). I was wondering what prompted me to pursue this title that has been perched on my "to be read" shelf for far too long, and then I remembered that one of my colleagues called it her favorite novel. I can't resist a "favorite novel."

My favorite quotation from The Hotel New Hampshire so far is "'Literature is for dreamers,' Old Billing would tell poor Fehlgeburt. Old Billing the radical, I mean. Old Billing the whore liked dreams; she told Frank once that dreams were all she liked" (Irving 234).

My fellow dreamers (and whores, too), what is your favorite work of literature? What one novel must I read?

(I'm asking you to choose one. I, on the other hand, refuse. My favorite(s)? A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. No, Bean Trees. Okay, To Kill A Mockingbird. I think it's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Today.)

Your heart is mine.

I feel deeply connected to my identity as a woman. If I were to make a list starting with "I am," the first thing to come to mind would be "a woman." It is my most intimate identifying mark. It is not only what I am, but who I am.

In Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone, one of the doctors explains to the young boys observing a group of pregnant women at the clinic, "'Look at them! All happy and radiant. In a few weeks, when labor starts, they'll be yelling, screaming, cursing their husbands. They'll turn into she-devils. You won't recognize them. But now they're like angels.' She sighed. 'A woman is never more a woman than in this state.'"

It's true. Pregnancy has helped me to feel more fully feminine. I have never before felt more sure of my role in the universe. My task is great. It is miraculous. This, this is so right, so unexpectedly right.

As I have lived with the heart of a mother who had empty arms, those women who long to be mothers have always been a part of my soul. Now I feel that so much more intimately. The overwhelming joy of pregnancy is met with the deep sorrow I feel for those who have lost babies, who cannot conceive, or who are waiting.

I am a woman. I feel your pain. I connect to your joy.


We are women. We're in this together.

It felt good on my lips.

"He kissed her. There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they found the strength to prevent themselves from succumbing every second. Rightfully, the world should be a whirlpool of kissing into which we sank and never found the strength to rise up again."

-Ann Patchet's Bel Canto

Librarian porn

Design Sponge did a post on book storage. Librarian/English teacher porn, I tell you. (This isn't bad, either.)

A few years ago, I heard a designer say a bookshelf filled with books is too much, and we should break the books up with other "stuff" on the shelves. It made me irrationally angry. Shelves filled with books are so beautiful! I'm thrilled to see the Design Sponge folks seems to "get" that!

Oh, the simple joys ;)

Not an auxiliary

"Having Dena in town was a real joy, especially since almost everyone I'd once been close to from college had gotten married. And it wasn't that you couldn't be friends with a married woman, but you weren't friends in the same way, she didn't have the same freedom in her schedule, especially not after she had children, and even before that, she didn't need you; you needed friendship, and friendship to her was an auxiliary, extra."

 - Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife

I have remarkable friends; that much is obvious. 

The hardest thing about having so many friends who have different priorities (husbands) and responsibilities (children) than I do, though, is that I need them and they don't need me. They have husbands, and I have them. I crave time with my friends--time when we can be ourselves and support each other. I don't think they have any idea how much I miss them. 

I used to think that, the more time I spent alone, the more accustomed to it I would become. I'm finding just the opposite to be true. 

I need a support system; mine isn't built in. Being the single friend is lame--sometimes, I worry that it's just as lame for you as it is for me. 

Life of Pi

The Literary Society (my students' book club) selected Yann Martel's Life of Pi as their next read. This novel has been on my "To Be Read" shelf for years. Now that I've started it, I'm so sad that I've put it off this long. I've never read more eloquent and insightful descriptions of our major world religions. I love the protagonist, and I'm so wrapped up in his worldview and his life. Our first section was but the first 60 pages, and I'm already certain this is one of my new favorites.

Some of my favorite passages thus far:

The deeply spiritual protagonist says, "I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation" (Martel 28).

and 

"He treated me like a grown-up; and he told me a story. Or rather, since Christians are so fond of capital letters, a Story. . . What a downright weird story. What peculiar philosophy. I asked for another story, one that I might find more satisfying. Surely this religion had more than one story in its bag--religions abound with stories. But Father Martin made me understand that the stories that came before it--and there were many--were simply prologue to the Christians. Their religion had one Story, and to it they came back again and again, over and over. It was story enough for them" (Martel 53).

I like it. I like it a lot.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I just finished reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and I don't think I've ever read a more beautiful novel. It is philosophy and beauty and life. Read it.

Can a person who only reads non-fiction truly be a romantic?

The book of the summer

This morning, it took much too long to drag my sluggish body up the stairs to take a shower.  Why?

a.) Jess, my mom, and Breanna are all out of town this weekend. I knew nobody would call, so I wouldn't have to explain my pajamas and lack of lavations. I rested.

b.) I started reading Gail Tsukiyama's The Samurai's Garden. I haven't been impressed with any of the books I've read this summer, until now. Oh my. The quietness of the novel speaks to my heart. She writes, "It's harder than I imagined to be alone. I suppose I might get used to it, like an empty canvas you slowly begin to fill" (13) and "But here in Tarumi it's different. Even the light is revealing; you can't miss the smallest nuance, the slightest sound. It's as if the world were concentrated into just these small rooms. I wonder if it appears the same to him" (20) and "Matsu's garden whispers to you, never shouts; it leads you down a path hoping for more as if everything is seen, yet hidden. There's a quiet beauty here I only hope I can capture on canvas" (31).

I've only just begun, but I think I'm going to love it. As I left Mrs. Bailey's house after book club on Thursday, she said, "If you haven't read this book, I'm sending it home with you." I didn't want it because I have too many other books on my agenda, but she knew that I needed this one right now. 

I could probably finish it today, but I don't want to. I'm going to savor the language.

Embracing my nerdiness.

The aroma of WHO bread is filling my home (even upstairs), and I'm safely hiding behind a book. This summer has been slow. The pace is different from the pace I'm accustomed to, but I'm learning to embrace it. Slowly.

So far, I've read (and enjoyed):

The Book Thief (our book club pick)

Me Talk Pretty One Day (Because I guiltily indulge in a Sedaris book in between)

The Bell Jar (in the vein of Catcher and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but darker)

and I'm currently reading:

The Good Earth and Buddhism Without Beliefs

I didn't love any of them, but The Bell Jar and Buddhism Without Beliefs were my favorites. 

I still plan to read Lolita, Before We Were Free, Cannery Row, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Middlesex this summer. Any books I MUST read that I'm missing?

Broken or different?

“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It’s like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction—every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it’s really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour.” –Silvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

I remember her refined, British voice coming through the speakers in my car. I don’t know her name, and I thought her ideas were radical. She was being interviewed on NPR, and she was calling for Muslims to adapt the Koran to meet the needs of more contemporary audiences. She also begged Christians to reconsider the Old Testament laws and decide which ones we must actually adhere to. She wanted to discard the antiquated laws. She spoke of the dynamic nature of faith, and I thought of the timelessness of the faiths of old. She spoke in tangents, and my brain (which has ADD tendencies) appreciated her dynamic speaking despite the obvious discrepancies in our thinking.

Then I really heard her: she was talking about a time when she went out with two of her gay friends. They were in a noisy, British pub, and the two women were trying to convince the speaker that she, too, was gay. She spoke of her epiphany saying, “I’m not homosexual; I’m a failed heterosexual.”

In many ways, I feel like a failed heterosexual. I often tell my friends I feel that part of me is “broken.” The men I’m interested in tend not to be attracted to me, and those who fall for me are too nice for my liking. They're just so boring.

It’s gone a step closer to failure, though. I always harbored romantic ideas of marriage and family, since my own family was broken in so many ways. I knew I would have a chance to “make things right” with a family of my own. I’m not sure I want that anymore.

I want to be a mama, but I’m not sure I will ever, again, want to be a wife. I know, for sure, that I don’t want to be alone, but I’m not sure community must come in the form of marriage.

Is that so wrong?

And not just the women in Brooklyn.

You know how, if you stay up really late, you get hungry again? It's like you have to have a snack or there's no way you'll ever fall asleep. In celebration of my late-night vigil to finish A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I had waffles at an ungodly hour.  

This might be one of my new favorite books. I love it. It has so many beautiful and profound passages. I could share forever. I will limit myself to this. It's underlined AND dog-eared--that must mean something.

"Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman . . . whether it was throwing stones or by mean gossip. It was the only kind of loyalty they seemed to have."               -Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Birth pains aside, I first noticed this in the mall at the ripe age of twelve. Walking around the mall, fellow teenage girls would give me dirty looks. It was teenage girl speak for "I hate you because you're one of me." I never understood it. We still hate each other. We compete for nicer homes, more stylish clothes, and the most perfect children when, really, we just need to hold each other up. To embrace the meaning of sisterhood. 

This book isn't even on SparkNotes.com!

I wish this wasn't so funny/familiar to me.

Listening skills

"'Listen to this,' she'd say. She needed to read it aloud, both the tragedies and the funnies."
- Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams

I love reading aloud. I always have. I liked reading to Kirk. Although I was too shy to volunteer, I always hoped my teachers would call on me to read in class. I'm pretty sure one of my secret motivations for becoming an English teacher is that I would be afforded many opportunities to read aloud to the class. As an English teacher, I can read aloud any time I want to, and they like when I use dramatic voices. It's fun.

The last couple of days (after reading Night and before starting poetry) we have been reading short stories. We alternate between listening to them on professional recordings and having me read to the kids. Today, I needed a break. I announced in an enthusiastic voice, "We're going to listen to the CD today!" A few kids protested, "We like when you read!" My heart secretly rejoiced as I sauntered over to the boom box to press "Play."

Then he said it: "I like listening to you read. Sometimes, when I'm reading at home, I picture your face when I read the characters' parts." I said, "Um, that's weird." The class erupted into laughter, I turned red, and I'm still feeling a little creeped out.

I think we'll stick to the CD.

Living.

I’m reading Velvet Elvis. The author talks about the concept of God in everything. I like the idea that the moments when I feel most alive are sacred. Despite the crazy stuff, I’ve had many of those moments lately.

The moments that stand out:

When I was rocking Chandler to sleep he looked up at me and smiled his we-should-play-instead-of-sleep-smile. I actually giggled. It took me a while to convince him to sleep after my giggle attack. Breanna spied on us and declared, “You smiled at him! I caught you!” Don’t tell Breanna that, before she walked in, I was actually laughing, not smiling!

I took my nephews for a “hike” at Sycamore Grove. Nature through a child’s eyes is remarkable. Cameron carefully chose the “perfect” stone for tossing off the bridge while Roman declared that the pond water was “icky!” I chastised myself for not grabbing the baby’s stroller (while I was at my sister’s), but it ended up being a blessing. As we began our walk, Roman started running and laughing. He would linger behind, then smile his huge grin and declare “Wait A Me!!”

I went to dinner with some work friends in the city last week. As we traveled home on BART, we smiled sleepy smiles at each other and declared that we were glad that we got together. We had full stomachs and contented hearts.

I got to visit my college friend Pieter recently. It’s been way too long since we’ve spent time together. As we drove home, I decided that our visit was “good for my soul.” He’s that kind of a person.

My friends have showed their love in unique, wonderful ways. Meaningful gifts, cards, and E-mails have touched my heart, lately.

Life truly is beautiful.

The Ocean

I've always loved to drink in the ethereal presence of the ocean.

She [Thrity Umrigar] says it better, "And now she finally understands what she has always observed on people's faces when they are at the seaside. Years ago, when she and Gopal used to come here, she would notice how people's faces turned slightly upward when they stared at the sea, as if they were straining to see a trace of God or were hearing the silent humming of the universe; she would notice how, at the beach, people's faces become soft and wistful, reminding her of the expressions on the faces of the sweet old dogs that roamed the streets of Bombay. As if they were all sniffing the salty air for transcendence, for something that would allow them to escape the familiar prisons of their own skin. In the temples and the shrines, their heads were bowed and their faces small, fearful, and respectful, shrunk into insignificance by the ritualized chanting of the priests. But when they gazed at the sea, people held their heads up, and their faces became curious and open, as if they were searching for something they knew would linger long after the wind had erased their footprints in the dust. Land could be bought, sold, owned, divided, claimed, trampled, and fought over. The land was stained permanently with pools of blood; it bulged and swelled under the outlines of the countless millions buried under it. But the sea was unspoiled and eternal and seemingly beyond human claim. Its waters rose and swallowed up the scarlet shame of spilled blood."

I cannot read without a pencil in my hand.

I judge a book's greatness by the number of pencil markings I have left in it. The book that I cannot read without a pencil is the book that I love. It's the book to which I will return, the book of which I will read excerpts to my friends. The margins of such a book are filled with my notes, with smiley faces, and with exclamation points.

This afternoon, I began reading The Space Between Us by Thrity Imirigar. I have only read the prologue and I am mesmerized. My pencil is moving rapidly. On Monday, I will share an excerpt with my students.

I dare you to read it

If I haven't talked you into reading Kite Runner, read Jessica's blog on the book.

Holy Place

I'm reading The Tender Bar: A Memoir for my book club. The author says, "Everyone has a holy place, a refuge, where their heart is purer, their mind clearer, where they feel closer to God or love or truth or whatever it is they happen to worship" (Moehringer 8).

Mine's the ocean at night. A few years ago it was Cal Baptist. When I was a kid, it was my church.

Where's your place?