Currently Reading

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One of the books that has been a current fascination to me is this i know: notes on unraveling the heart by Susannah Conway.

Conway’s memoir tells of her struggles after the man she loved died from a heart attack as well body image and being alone. Through amazing language and extraordinary Polaroid pictures  (she published this in 2012 and Poloroids are very rare), she seized control of  my heart. I am half her age and never have been in love, so much of what she was talking about, I couldn’t imagine, but it was relatable all the same because of her beautiful, yet fairly simple language.

At the end of each chapter, she had a reflection for her reader to do. Some of them I felt didn’t apply to me as I am not a photographer. But as I am a writer, some of them struck me as absolutely necessary. Such as this one that I’m going to do today:

Write down ten things your audience/readers don’t know about you. Conway called it “bean-spilling.” The beans that you spill do not have shake your families foundations. They can be about parts of your personality only known to you and a select few. For her first bean spilling, she wrote about her loved one dying from a heart attack. I am not ready to spill my own darkness quite yet, although I have written about it for myself almost too many times to count, but I will try to dig as deep as I am willing for my ten facts.

1. I love the rain and the way it smells like hope and forgiveness.

2. I have a comfort book. It is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. I read it whenever I’m down or stressed. I read it yesterday.

3. I am quiet, not shy. There is a big difference. The latter is being afraid to talk and the former is only talking when I deem it necessary (or when I’m nervous. I do, unfortunately, babble talk).

4. I like depressing books and find it hard to write stories and poems that aren’t depressing.

5. I have to be surrounded by music. I am currently listening to the music from Doctor Who Season 5. When there’s silence, I find that my thoughts are too distracting.

6. That said, I purposely force myself to drive in silence every once in a while because I really need to spend time with myself.

7. I like receiving letters and writing letters. The regular mail might be slower than e-mail, but I always feel a rush a pleasure at pulling out a new correspondence from my mailbox.

8. I am a very family oriented writer. Many of my creative nonfiction pieces are about my family.

9. I have a memory box which includes all my journals, letters, and other keepsakes from the past few years. Written on the lid and sides are quotes. The ones on the lid are the most important to me.

10. My favorite quote is “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” It is said by my favorite wizard, Albus Dumbledore.

Thank you so much Alice Conway for your delightful and inspirational book.

What would you, my readers, include on your list?

 

To the Squirrel Who Died in the Middle of the Road

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The first time I drove over you, I felt sad. By the time I came to the next intersection, I had started to feel slightly sick. But by the time I reached the bottom of the hill, I had already forgotten about you. Its funny how fast human beings forget things when they are in a hurry.

The next day was hot and I was glad that the car windows were  rolled up as I passed over you. My passing probably was as quick as the original hit that took your life, if not quicker. I can only hope that the owner of that car at least felt the bump you made and had a sudden twinge of guilt hit their stomach for a minute or two about taking a little four legged creature from its family and the nest it would have tried to invade the next day.

On the third day, I tried to avoid looking at you, but there’s something about roadkill and accidents on the road that draws your eye, even though your brain tries to resist it. You no longer look like a squirrel, but rather like spilled yellow take-out food.

On the fourth day, I pointed you out to a friend. We were in the other lane, so we couldn’t see you clearly, but I could have sworn that only half of you were there. I wondered if you were just being grounded into a smaller pulp or if half of your tiny body was caught up in a car’s underside.

I actually looked for you on the fifth day. But you were gone. All was left was a black smear on the pavement. It looked like an oil spill.

Its too bad that I didn’t get to see you while you were living, but I wouldn’t have been able to pick you out from all the other squirrels. Instead I got to see you in your smelly, squashed, dead glory.

Unfortunately I can’t say that you have changed my life for better or for worse, but I am sorry for you. I am sorry for the wife and children that I have imagined for you. I am sorry that you weren’t administered your last squirrel rites or had a proper squirrel funeral.

I will say this: RIP squirrel who died in the middle of the road. May squirrel heaven be filled with nuts.

 

In honor of Father’s Day

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I used to know what to give my dad for father’s day: a new hammock for the backyard. The squirrels would chew through the ropes of all the previous hammocks and tons of children and adults would play, read, and fall asleep in them, leading to their eventual deterioration in just a summer. But then, a few years ago, we found a hammock that has miraculously stayed alive.

As a result, I don’t really have a concrete idea what to give him.

So I’m giving him this blog post. And a list of my favorite memories with him. Because, after all, memories are worth a whole lot more than something that money can buy.

1. Making bubbles from scratch for a birthday party.

2. When I was in preschool, standing in my dad’s shoes and him standing “in” (more like on) my itty bitty ones.

3. Reading The Chronicles of Narnia together before school each morning.

4.Carpooling to and from my high school each day. Mornings would be sleepy and quiet. Afternoons could be loud and somewhat crazy.

5. Getting The Poems of Emily Dickinson for Christmas and examining them together.

6. Going on a hike and riding on his shoulders.

7. Falling asleep on the couch and getting carried to my room.

8.  Drawing at the duck pond and getting sprayed on by the sprinklers.

9. Him teasing me about living in my spare room when I’m a famous author.

10. Setting up this blog.

I love you so much, Dad!

And as a very cute kid at the park told his dad as I passed them, happy daddy’s day to you!

Happy daddy’s day to all the father’s out there.

 

Currently Reading

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One of my newest book interests has been Half a Chance by Cynthia Lord. The prevalent issue of the book is one that is very close to my heart as one of the characters is showing the early symptoms of dementia, the same disease that I’ve watched my own grandmother go through.

Being a book for younger readers, the language is quite simple, but typically difficult topics are easier and better said in the simplest form possible, so that children can understand it.

That said, Half a Chance does not claim to understand dementia in the slightest. It simply lays out what it looks like and feels like. And I’m glad that it doesn’t explain what is happening to Grandma Lilah, who is unfortunately aware of some of what is happening to her. The majority of people who witness their relations travel the Alzheimer’s path are forced to just simply watch. The book captures that helplessness perfectly because, like with most diseases, the Alzheimer’s patient is not the only victim. I’m not saying that I don’t want somebody to someday find a cure because I definitely do…

Dementia is not the only issue dealt with in the book. It also deals with the loneliness  and uncertainty of moving constantly as well as the everyday beauty of life. The narrator is remarkably observant. She reminds me somewhat of the narrator of Alice Munro’s “Walker Brother’s Cowboy,” who doesn’t understand everything she sees, but sees a plethora of things that many people might have missed.

Don’t let me tell you about the book (or Munro’s short story, if you haven’t read it), read it for yourselves. It speaks for itself.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

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This quote, often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, is currently hanging above my sink to look at whenever the dishes are piled too high.  Whether it was actually said by the 16th president or not, nobody knows, but as in some things (but certainly not all), the author of the statement matters less than its meaning.

If the statement had said “whoever,” it wouldn’t be as remarkably unique. Instead, it starts with the word “whatever.”  “Whatever is a word that has been infamously used by teenagers to annoy adults, usually parents and sometimes teachers. But when applied to a person, it becomes intriguing and somewhat confounding.

“Who” I am can be answered in facts like my name, my date of birth, my marital status. “What” I am is harder to answer. For the first five years of my life, I was something then for the next five or so, I was something else. Each year since then, I’ve been trying to become something more like me. But the trouble is… I didn’t know exactly what “me” was.

As I enter into my twenties, I think I know more about what “me” is:

1.a daughter

2.a sister

3.a roommate

4.a writer

5. a thinker

But aren’t these things facts as well? I am a daughter. I am a sister to my older siblings. I am all those other things. But facts are solid and don’t generally change. The words I have come up with to describe myself are always changing.

The daughter and sister that I was when I was six is dramatically different, I hope, than the daughter and sister I am. And since my roommate situation has changed over the semesters, I have changed as a roommate. I have always been a thinker, but it hasn’t been until the last few years that I’ve considered myself a writer.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

The quote charges us to be a good one of whatever we are. So… I should not only strive to be a writer, I should be the best I can be. That may not necessarily mean that my products will be good or that they will touch people as long or profoundly as Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen, or Emily Dickinson, but will be good enough. Of course that extends to every other “what” that I am.

My aim is to be a good daughter, sister, roommate, and eventually wife and mother. But then there’s the question of what “good” is.

I think I’ll leave that for another rainy, snowy, or otherwise  lazy day.

Smell/Taste/See

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In honor of finals almost being done, I want to do a writing exercise.

Prompt: Make a list of objects. Pick one that you can smell, one you can taste, and one you can see and write on each object for three minutes.

1. the smell of leftovers

The split pea soup was from two days ago. It smelled cold and moist, like it was slowly dying to climb into my stomach or into the trash can. The contents sizzled in the microwave and when I pulled it out, it enveloped me in green haze of cooked pea smell and rain in the evening and flowers poking out of the snow and getting called to dinner and my stomach rumbling in anticipation of the next meal it would digest.

2. the taste of lipstick

I bite into my sandwich, forgetting momentarily that I still had my deep red lipstick on. My stomach churns at the sight of the red half circle now implanted on my lunch, but I’m hungry and I have to be back in my costume in 20 minutes. Closing my eyes, I feel the taste of my ham tinged with metal invade my mouth and creep its way down my throat. The taste of tears, sweat, iron, and sickeningly fake redness cling onto my taste buds for the Waltz of the Snowflakes.

3. the sight of orange spray paint

Orange against black in a dark tunnel. It gleams bright under superficial light. It is a gang sign with a meaning I don’t know. The orange screams Caution! I’m dangerous! and Caution! We don’t want you here! It screams of innocence lost and youth trying to find themselves, but failing.

 

Currently (Re)reading

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I think there’s a certain attraction to rereading a book. Just like seeing a movie for a second time, rereading allows the story and the language to fully sink in.

Right now I am rereading A Sweet Far Thing, the last book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray.

One reviewer on audible.com wrote this about her experience with this magnificent series:  “Well, I might not be smart enough to get it,  it was overall a repetitious imaginary land of witches, witchcraft, fantastical beings, or maybe hobbits that went the wrong way looking for “precious”. Well, it wasn’t that great.”

It is an understatement to say that I was outraged by this reviewers’ view. It most certainly provoked a loud and rambling rant that I’m not quite sure was coherent.

I think this trilogy is magnificent because:

  1. Libba Bray’s language is deliciously spectacular.
  2. While it is listed as YA, there are certain themes (like sexual abuse and addiction) that a middle school reader might not have understood.
  3. It does reflect on serious issues, but it has a lot of humor. For instance, the main character complains that “The trouble with mornings is that they come well before noon.” As I woke up at seven for my eight o’clock class this morning, I completely understand.
  4. It does not have a particularly happy ending. It might sound odd to list this as a pro, but I think so often writers are so pressed to make all endings happy, that some of them don’t come out quite real.
  5. Libba Bray did a lot of research on the Victorian era and it shows because she captured the strict rules of that period quite nicely.

As always, if you  haven’t had the pleasure of reading this series, I would definitely recommend it.

If you have already read it, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Words: Beautiful vs. Ugly

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Many beautiful words are beautiful because they sound appealing and then some of them are attractive to us because of their meaning. Ugly words are exactly the opposite. Some are ugly because they grate against the ears and many are unattractive because of their social connotations. With the help of my roommates, here are lists I compiled on words from both ends of the spectrum.

Beautiful words

  1. hallelujah
  2. waterfall
  3. chartreuse
  4. glinting
  5. gurgle
  6. penultimate
  7. the right word (The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug – Mark Twain).
  8. luminosity
  9. glide
  10. gilded
  11. majesty
  12. denouement
  13. love
  14. live
  15. veritable
  16. swaying
  17. swish
  18. zest
  19. juxtaposition
  20. harmony
  21. cacophony

Ugly Words

  1. fart
  2. zit
  3. moist
  4. hashtag
  5. lack
  6. venial
  7. ratchet
  8. retard(ed)
  9. twerk (as in the dance move)
  10. any curse word (my personal opinion)
  11. bummer (sounds too much like butt, according to my roommate)
  12. crack
  13. diss
  14. fail
  15. hack
  16. fat
  17. the wrong word
  18. bloat
  19. vomit

There are so many others  as the languages of the world are several and as each language have a multitude of words.

What words are beautiful or ugly to you?

I remember…

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I remember sardines soaked in mustard while my sister read A Great and Terribly Beauty out loud.

I remember the imaginary horses in front of our van that I would drive with my dad.

I remember my sister moving into her own apartment and leaving me the shower and an extra fifteen minutes to sleep in each morning.

I remember my first crush. His name was Kyle.

I remember the moment I heard of my niece’s birth. I played “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder on the stereo.

I remember the game of Scrabble I received for Christmas one year.

I remember the certificate I received when I graduated from speech therapy. I brought it in to my second grade class for show and tell.

I remember the sting of the rocks at the end of my fall of the slide on my 6th birthday.

I remember falling asleep on the hammock, only to be woken up by a crabb apple falling on my stomach.

I remember the ambulance ride after breaking my leg. I was cold, even though I was covered with two blankets.

I remember falling asleep in a museum and strangers asking if I was okay.

I remember the rain turning into wet snow that never seemed sure if it liked its solid state.

 

First post/Currently reading

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I like to describe myself as a voracious reader, but since I am a college student, I do not get to cuddle up to a book as often as I would prefer. However, I will try to write about books I am reading (or rereading) as often as I can.

The book right now that is consuming me is Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally. A week and a half ago, I decided to watch the movie of the same title again. I wasn’t aware of its being a book originally until a sentence in the credits alerted me to its existence. I tried to resist getting it for about five minutes before ordering it used on Amazon. I’m a sucker for books.

To those who aren’t aware, Schindler’s List, details the true story of how Oskar Schindler saved more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II in Germany.  The author wrote the novel because one of the Jews that Schindler saved asked him to. The same man also was the main convincing force behind Steven Spielberg’s movie adaptation.

It is always a little strange and often frustrating to read the book after you’ve seen the movie, but by what I’ve read so far (I’m about half way in) the movie was extremely similar to the book. Which should be expected in a 3 hour long movie. But even in a 3 hour long movie, there were details that were left out. They were mostly relatively unimportant, but interesting, details like Herr Schindler’s upbringing, which the author devotes an entire chapter to.

A detail that was only hinted at in the movie, but is an important piece for understanding the historical figure of Oskar Schindler is the number of affairs that he managed at the same time with all of the women knowing.

After seeing the movie, one thing that I appreciated about the novel is the spattering of small insights into various people’s lives. For instance, the red girl in the movie has an actual name and personality. She isn’t just a symbol to Schindler.

I would definitely recommend reading the book and then seeing the movie. But be warned: do not attempt to read/watch if you are in a sensitive, feel-good mood. It is a book about history, therefore it contains both the pain and the unexpected humor of events of the past.