Having lived a good life

Last night was the quasi-monthly meeting of the bookclub to which I belong.  Wait, I think I should restate that…of which I am a member.  That is more accurate, as after last night I’m not so sure about the belonging part.  The book we read was, The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan.  It was a memoir about the author’s and her father’s bouts of cancer which took place roughly at the same time.  Actually it was kind of a love letter to her father.  As such it was very well done.  Never mind that I didn’t really like either the author or her father.  The book was a quick read and is well written.

What it is also about is the time in life when you are someone’s mother and someone’s daughter at the same time.  You are in the “middle place.”  Before I go further I should say that I am the age of the other club members’ parents.  All but me are in their mid to late thirties.  Usually that isn’t an issue, except that they are all best friends as well and I’m just a fringe bookclub member.  But that’s okay.  The books are always good and I like the women in the group.  I’m just a lot older.  I was invited to join by one of the original members who has been my friend since we went through student teaching together a long time ago.

Last night as we discussed the book, someone said that “we” are all in the same place as the author of the book, which isn’t true for me, but NBD.  Eventually the zinger dropped.  “My dad just turned 60 this weekend.  He’s healthy and active, but really, if he got sick and died now, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.  He’s older, he’s lived a good life.  He’s not raising little kids.”  While I totally get the kids part, and I can’t imagine not living to raise one’s children, I’m definitely not in agreement with the other part.  She’s talking about my peer, and I don’t feel that the part about being done and ready to go now.  I have not yet looked at my life in that way.  I still see myself as having a lot of things left to do.  I’m not even thinking of retiring yet.  Frankly, the comment just creeped me out.  Made me wonder why I was there.  Or if I should return.  But I’ll get over it.  As long as the books are good.

On Redreaming

I just finished a book by Adriana Trigiani called Milk Glass Moon. It is the sort of page turner of a book that reminds me of a Hallmark movie.  Completely engaging, yet not especially edgy.  I’m not going to shout to everyone that it is a must read, but I enjoyed it.  The reason I mention it is that there was a concept in there that has kind of stuck in my head today.  That is the idea of redreaming.  This is presented as what you do when you reach your dreams.  You don’t stop and think you have arrived, you must redream.  Dream another one.

What I’ve been thinking about this is that sometimes when you don’t reach your dream you need to stop and redream as well.  I tend to be a rather nonspecific dreamer.  I have vague ideas of what I want to do or be, but seldom allow myself to be very specific about it.  Then I am distracted pretty easily, leaving me with only a sort of wisp of a dream.  Academically I know that if you wish to reach your dreams you must know what they are.  The Law of Attraction works best if you can be specific about what you are attracting.  Yet in practice, I seem to avoid actually forming a picture of my dream.  Being specific about my dreams, forming an idea of exactly what I want is a lot of work.  It means I have to make it happen.  So I just go with the flow.

For the past couple of years this is what I did in my work.  I went along with what was offered, and did as I was asked to the best of my ability.  I knew what I was doing wasn’t really what I would ever dream of doing, but I felt that if I did these things they would eventually lead to something I could feel passionate about.  It was kind of like paying my karmic dues, I guess.  I left what I was passionate about to go do something I only felt okay about, believing that in time I would return to my passion but on a different level.

It didn’t work out like that.  Without spending a lot of time on details, suffice to say that I returned to my original passion but different.  Way different, and it has been extremely difficult.  I’ve often been grouchy about it, have felt completely powerless and overly cynical.  I quit doing almost everything that nurtures me.  No exercise to speak of, not drinking enough water or eating right or even sleeping enough.  Sounds self-destructive, doesn’t it?  It has been, I now realize.

One thing that has brought me joy in the past months is photography.  I’ve learned to see things in different ways, and have grown more and more confident about myself in this realm.  I’m no competition for Ansel or Dorothea, mind, but I am happy when I’m behind the camera or playing with the shots I’ve taken, and that’s enough for me.  It is a start towards redreaming my life.  Seeing things differently on the physical plane may just create the habit of seeing other things in a new way.  I’m open to that idea, and plan to start some redreaming.  Only this time, I will practice being a little more specific.

2008: A Baker’s Dozen of Favorite Books

These are the ones I still have.

Here it is!  My top thirteen booklist for 2008.  I have been keeping track of the books I read for several years now, and because I’m a fast reader,  I include commentary so I don’t forget what they were about.  At the end of the year, I like to make a baker’s dozen list of my favorite books of the year.  It is usually harder to choose than it was this time.  My goal this year was to read more non-fiction.  Note that only two of the chosen ones are not fiction!  Anyway, here are my choices(Not in preferential order):

1.  Dragon Bones.  By Lisa See ~ Fiction
Main character is Liu Hulan, an American educated Chinese woman who is Inspector of Security in modern day China, married to American Attorney, David Stark.  Their child has died, they are estranged.  Both sent to the Three Gorges to investigate a murder and the disappearance of many ancient Chinese relics from an archaeological dig.  Thriller, spellbinding.  See is incredible.

2.  The Gate.  By Francoise Bizot ~ Memoir
The memoir of a man who was held captive in a Cambodian camp at the beginning of the Khmer Rouge reign.  Poignant, beautifully written.

3. The Other Boleyn Girl. By Philippa Gregory ~ Historical Fiction
The story of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII.  I know they made a movie of it, but the book is way better.  It’s a page turner, for sure.  Sometimes I just want one of those, and this one seems to tie pretty well with history.

4.  The Street of a Thousand Blossoms.  By Gail Tsukiyama ~ Historical Fiction
Japan at the time of Pearl Harbor, 1939; It has themes of Sumo Wrestling, Noh mask making as well as Japan in that era.  Beautifully written, as always.  Tsukiyama is a must-read author for me.  I have loved each of her books.

5.  The Fountainhead. By  Ayn Rand ~ Fiction
It’s Ayn Rand…Hard to read but completely compelling.  I read Loving Frank right afterwards – the similarities are strong between the main character in The Fountainhead and Frank Lloyd Wright.

6.  Prisoner in Tehran.  By Marina Nemat ~ Memoir
True story of an Iranian woman’s imprisonment in Evit prison in Tehran during the 1980s.  Completely compelling – highly recommended.

7.  Loving Frank. By Nancy Horan ~ Historical Fiction
The story of a love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah which scandalized society.  Closely tied with historical fact.  Hard to finish once I knew how it would end. (Because of course I Googled Mamah and Frank and read the Wikipedia entries while halfway through the book)

8.  The Latehomecomer. By Kao Kalia Yang ~ Memoir
Hmong story – eloquent.  This is the story about the Hmong I had long wished existed.  The book is divided in three parts, the first about life in Laos just before the author’s family escaped, the second about life in Ban Vinai refugee camp, where the author was born and the last about life in MInnesota where they came to live in the U.S.  It is so beautifully written, and my young Hmong friends say it tells their own story very well.

9.  Love Walked In. By Marisa de los Santos. ~ Fiction
I loved this book.  Loved it!!!  It is the story of love  in its different forms – romantic as well as that of friends.  It is the sort of book that I wish had lasted longer.

10.  Sweetness in the Belly. By Camilla Gibb ~ Fiction
I started listening to this book on CD in my car, but it was so good I decided I had to read it.  The time jumping became too confusing for listening, as well.  It is about Muslims in Africa then London.  The main character is a young English woman who was left alone as a child  in a sufi shrine in Morocco when her parents left town for a weekend and were murdered.  She had no other relatives and grows up studying the Qu’ran intensely.  No further details here – I loved it.

11.  Run.  By Anne Patchett. ~ Fiction                                                                   Outstanding.  Must read.  The story of a white academic family who adopted two African American boys, and the birth mother of the boys who, without anyone knowing keeps an eye on them their whole growing-up lives.  Patchett is so good. (Author of Bel Canto and several other good ones.)

12.  Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens, author of The Girls.   ~ Fiction           Fabulous.  Just read it.  It is the story of a little girl who is left with a trailer park neighbor when her mother leaves with her current boyfriend and never returns.  The story is so compelling.  Lansens is another author who is so far completely dependable. (Her first book, The Girls is another I highly recommend.  Just didn’t read it this year!)

13.  Looking for Alaska, by John Green.  ~ Fiction                                                            A YA novel set in a boarding school in Alabama.  When I began it, I thought it resembled “Catcher in the Rye.”  It quickly deviates from that course, and is a thoughtful, compelling read.  This was a gift from a young friend who is a prodigious reader.  Her taste in literature is impeccable – I loved this book!

If you want to see the entire list for 2008, it is at http://lynnjake.wordpress.com.

I hope you find something to read!

Time to begin again

It seems I’ve been on blog vacation for a while now.  I didn’t really decide to take said vacation, I just didn’t feel like writing for a while.  I guess I got busy with other things.  Now I remember that once I quit writing, the words build up so much that I lose track of what I might write about.

The first thing that kept me from writing was the massive decluttering I began.  (It may not be finished for some time yet.)  I had been talking about it for a while, and finally I just tore into a closet, and then a dresser drawer, and it took off.  One day I decided I was sick of trying to figure out how much I would owe next for the mini-storage unit I rented 2 years ago.  I corraled my son into helping me empty it, and then spent a couple of days going through all of the treasures I’d put there.  Fortunately, there was a big donation day planned for the victims of the recent fires to pressure me, and I managed to get rid of at least three-quarters of it.

What surprised me was how much emotion is attached to the stuff I collect.  For example, I finally decided to part with a favorite dress.  It was quite expensive when new, and I loved wearing it, but hadn’t done so for several years.  I kept it mainly because I remembered that my dad loved that dress; he thought it looked great on me.  As I put it into the donation box, I thought “Oh, but Dad loved this dress…Wait!! Dad died in 1991.  Even he would say enough is enough.”  So into the box it went.  On and on like that.

The next big purge was my books. That was really painful.  Even though I knew I would never reread all those books, it was really difficult to let go.  One day I invited a friend over to see if he wanted any of them.  As he picked through the books spread out on the bed, I heard myself dissuading him from taking the ones he wanted.  “I don’t think you’d like that one.  It’s fiction.  That one?  Well, maybe but maybe not.”  After he chose 8 or so, I had to tell him that if he found he didn’t want them, he could just bring them back.  My goodness.  I’m glad he persevered through my obstinancy and took some. In the end, I took three big boxes of hard-backs to the library, and traded in four more of trade paperbacks at the used bookstore.  Whew!

Now I have only the last quarter of the mini-storage stuff to deal with, and should probably make another pass through the whole house.  I’ll just open a vein and donate!  Who knew it would be so hard?

The Latehomecomer: A book review

Today I posted this review on the NWP ELL Network Discussion Listserv, and I want to make sure those of you who are not on this listserv have a chance to learn of this book as well.   It is truly a special book:

Today I’d like to tell you about an eloquent book I read recently about the Hmong.  For the past several years I’ve looked for such a book, one that would inform people who don’t know the story of the Hmong.  I also wanted it for my students who were born and raised in the U.S., as well as for those students for whom Ban Vinai Refugee camp is a distant memory.  Many of my Hmong students have expressed their wish to know more about their own history and culture.  There are other books that have been written about this group of people, but this is the one I have wished for.  It is called The Latehomecomer, by Kao Kalia Yang.  What distinguishes this book, apart from the beauty of the writing, is that the author is Hmong and the story is that of her family: her beloved grandmother, her parents, siblings and herself.

Beginning with the first paragraph she had my undivided attention:  “From the day that she was born she was taught that she was Hmong by the adults around her.  As a baby learning to talk her mother and father often asked, “What are you?” and the right answer was always, “I am Hmong.”  It wasn’t a name or a gender, it was a people.  When she noticed that they lived in a place that felt like it had an invisible fence made of men with guns who spoke Thai and dressed in  colors of old rotting leaves, she learned that Hmong meant contained.”

The story begins in Laos, during the Vietnam War.  She tells of her parents efforts to escape the certain death that awaited if they stayed, and their capture and imprisonment while en route.  The story continues through their crossing the Mekong River to Thailand, and their life in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. where the author was born.  It continues with their relocation to the United States and their efforts to fit into their new life in Minnesota.  She deftly weaves into the story historical information with cultural practices.  The writing keeps the reader gripped from the first paragraph to the end.   Every few pages I found myself putting little post-its to mark memorable lines.  (Which was of questionable value since I had borrowed it from the library and had to take them out prior returning it!)

I will end by saying that if you are interested in the Hmong, or if you wish to add an excellent resource to your multicultural library, take a look at this book!  You won’t be disappointed.

I will let Kalia’s words end this review:

“I dream that one day soon my book will be published, and it will show the world one more way into words. I dream that this book will have the power to give value to all the dreams I’ve collected along the way, not just my own, but those that were planted inside of me by my grandmother, my people, and the hard lives we’ve had all along history’s forsaken trails. I dream the writing dream: to live in language forever, to unravel the human story and grant it the power to change human life.”

To read the rest of this essay go to:

http://solbooks.com/blog/?p=12

To visit the author’s webpage:

http://www.kaokaliayang.com/home.html

The Latehomecomer

Kao Kalia Yang

Coffee House Press

27 North Fourth Street, Suite 400

Minneapolis, MN 55401

A safe haven? My disconnect between dream and reality

I often think of – dream of – my home as my “safe haven.” In my mind it is where I come to remind me of myself, to wash off the outside world and rest my body, mind and spirit. I listen to music here, and wander in my garden, sit on the brick patio, surrounded by fragrant herbs and just breathe. Sprinklers come on automatically to keep everything green and lush. Late at night I sit in my hot tub and watch the sky, always greeting Orion when I first enter the water. Here I am nourished and renewed, at peace in my soul.

Wait. The part about Orion and the hot tub is true, but that’s all. The rest has yet to be translated into realtime. I have so much stuff. I’m like a magnet for things that I wouldn’t miss if they went away. Yet when I look at each item, I am sure I need it or will need it. I totally get the decluttering talk – clutter holds your dreams, gets in the way psychically, as well as physically – I do. So why am I so attached to it, so unable to free myself from it? Books and bags and books and papers and books. Along with a few more books. Sounds like I know where to begin, doesn’t it?

Let’s see. The teacher books. I might need those. Or I could put them in the library at the writing project office and go borrow them if I do. They might even be read by other people if I do that. I can do that today. Then there are the art and garden books. I can’t get rid of those. I’m about to do some cool projects. Anytime now. Maybe tomorrow or next week. Or not. Still, if I take those out, I can’t borrow them back and I’ll want to look at them, I’m sure. And the children’s books. I have so many of those. Participating in the Children’s Choice book awards this year loaded me up with great kid’s books. And I have grandchildren – I need to have books for them to read, don’t I? Of course I do.

Okay, then what about the novels? OMG. The novels. I definitely could weed through those. I could either donate them to the public library or, on a more avaricious bent, I could trade them in at the used bookstore for more credit. For more books. I like having novels here, not because I read them again really, but because I like to share them with others. To lend them. Except to my friend who reads in the hot tub. She is grounded after she dropped the one book I asked her not to read there into the water. Then she loaned it to another friend who can’t find it. Not that I’d want it back anyway, with its pages all stiff and stuck together. That one I wanted to loan to my mom. She was interested in it after I told her of the graphic sex scenes that so surprised me after I wrote to the author and told him how I could so identify with the women characters in it, and I was thinking of taking a writing workshop with him. Yeah. That one. But there are others. Other friends who return them in good condition, and I like to be their book source. Their connection.

Books aren’t the only clutter that buries me, but if I begin with the books, I may free up some energy for the rest of the stuff. I’m going to go begin with the books. I’ll let you know how it goes.

A New Reader

In 2003 I traveled to Laos with a small group of people from California. Two of them were teachers from Modesto, and they had brought along children’s books written in Hmong and Lao that their school district had published. On this day we were visiting a Hmong village in the northwest corner of the country, near a town called Muang Sing, and they decided to give their books to this village. We were inside a large split bamboo Hmong house when they broke out the books. Never have I seen such delight at books. It was obvious that this was a new experience for the villagers. This man first held his book upside down for a while, until he figured out that something just wasn’t right. It seems disrespectful to him to post that photo, however. He wasn’t unintelligent, just inexperienced. There was one girl in the crowd who could read Hmong and she drew a crowd when she began to read aloud. This photo brings me back to a lovely day among some warm and friendly people.

This photo also makes me think about the huge part books have always played in my life, sometimes at the cost of doing anything but read. I wonder what I might have learned to do with my time had Ever since my grandma convinced the librarian to check books out to me when I was six years old, I’ve had one close by, ready for a reading emergency. The thought of not having a book close at hand makes me very uncomfortable. Guess maybe I should take a deeper look at that!