Tues Twenty 030210: Books Redux

I’ve been thinking about books a lot lately. I just finished reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, a memoir of her life and friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. What is it about books, whether mysteries or memoirs or monographs, that have such power to move me? Just Kids was at times poignant, at times an exercise in frustration, at times an obscure literary lesson and at times a huge 60s and 70s cocktail party. But, at the end, when the final scenes for Patti and Robert were played out before his death, I was moved to tears. It was such an unavoidable description of the realities of goodbye and hello and time spent and time lost and unexpected outcomes and enduring soul kinship. And, since I’m writing this to the backdrop of Little Drummer Boy and Baby Girl giggling and playing together, I’m realizing it was also a story of life lived and how it moves on. Quite a range of thinking from just 279 pages.

I’m not sure I have ever in my life been able to read words on a page without thinking about them. Yes, I sometimes realize at bedtime that I’ve reached the end of my 647th encounter with Corduroy or Harry the Dirty Dog or The Tale of Peter Rabbit without remembering the actual act of speaking the words. But, the first time I read them I thought about them. The first time I read them I engaged in some strange process of extracting personal reactions or obscure life lessons. Many of the books my children read are copies I had as a child myself. I’m sure my first time reading them as a parent produced different thoughts than my times reading them as a youngster. That’s just how it goes.

I’m in the midst of deciding on the next book to read and culling down a list of possibilities gleaned from way too much time spent with NPR email alerts and the New York Times Book Review. I don’t know why I always get indecisive with this process. It’s not like I can’t put a book down and pick up another one at my leisure. Sometimes the decision represents some tantalizing combination of being afraid a book won’t live up to its billing and of being afraid it will so surpass its billing that it will haunt me for months or years. Perhaps I’m overthinking. While I decide and reign myself in, I thought I’d offer up a Tuesday Twenty list of books I’d be delighted to RE-read. I just read an interview in the LA Times with John McPhee, the author and long-time columnist for The New Yorker. The article was about his upcoming book of personal essays (just another addition to the list of reading possibilities *sigh*), and in it, he offered some sage insight about being a reader, despite his ample experience being the writer in the equation. He observed that “the creative person in this process is the reader, by a long shot. The writer supplies three or four words, but the reader makes the picture.” These books have afforded me the opportunity to paint a unique picture on one or more occasions in my reading. And, I’m convinced another reading would give me an entirely new view. The power of a good book.

1. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Some folks tire of the intricate detail found in Edith Wharton’s work, but I really enjoy the description of New York society during the turn of the 20th Century. It’s a toss-up between this more popular novel and The House of Mirth. Both have such a wrenching view of women living outside the constraints of the trappings of that society.

2. Emma by Jane Austen
Fills my latent romantic tendencies. Downright funny at times, and there’s a happy ending!

3. Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
The most poignant part in the first reading: Ellen thinks her last name is Foster because people always refer to her as “that Foster child.” Hers is a story of triumph and Kaye Gibbons’ Southern stream of consciousness is remarkable, if you like that sort of thing. I’d read any of her books again. Seriously.

4. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Vermeer. Enough said. But, the fictional tale surrounding the moments captured in one of his most astounding works is bittersweet, eloquent and artistic.

5. Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather
Years later, I’m still thinking about the bittersweet end of this beautiful novel about a woman who wants so much more than what the culture she lives in is willing to give her.

6. A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Bailey
Told entirely in letters, this story of a woman’s powerful spirit made me want to go out and buy stationery. The lost art of letters never looked so attractive.

7. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
I can’t tell you how many times I read this as a child. It still stirs me, both from the family story, the independence of “Jo” and my own memories of reading it.

8. 31 Hours by Masha Hamilton
Published just last year, I’m astounded by the restraint in this book, by the new perspective on terrorism, by the mother’s heart described, by the uncommon experiences found in the common subway.

9. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls was my best friend in elementary school. It would be good to see her again.

10. The Lively Art of Writing by Lucille Vaughan Payne
This little book was my 9th grade English textbook. Thank you, Mrs. Armstrong. I still use the principles today. And, I still choose when to lovingly ignore them.

11. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
I read this book way back in college, and I think explored the evolution of cities in a project centered on it. It is an amazing glimpse of the fragmented sociology of kingdoms told by a fictional Marco Polo. The young European explorer offers Kublai Khan, the aging asian emperor, tales of the cities throughout his empire. As it turns out, the stories all describe the same city — a lesson in points of view.

12. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
No elaboration required.

13. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
An unforgettable non-fiction account of one reporter’s indoctrination into all things Southern and a beautiful and quirky account of the mystery and crazy culture of Savanah, GA. Best tombstone epitaph: a bench at the grave of Conrad Aiken is inscribed with “cosmos mariner, destination unknown.”

14. Night by Elie Wiesel
You may have seen the account of my first reading of this memoir. I still shrink back from the book, but crave the undeniable reality check on human nature it offers.

15. Creating a Beautiful Life by Alexandra Stoddard
Every time I look at this book, I’m encouraged to pay attention to the little things and value beauty in my life. Beauty, as I behold it, is important and it’s not that hard to achieve.

16. On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon by Kaye Gibbons
A very moving tale of a woman during the Civil War era. In my first reading, I was compelled to record Emma Garnett’s thoughts on seeing the jarring, but numbing realities of that war through photos, and how it would have been more powerful in paintings…

“If Monet or Manet or Toulouse-Lautrec had performed the scenes of battle, I might have been urged toward emotion, for the horror would have quivered on the surface of the page and beckoned my mind to follow attendant sensations deeper and deeper to the core, down into the true, wasted, stupid, futile blasphemy of that conflict.”

17. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
An example of C.S. Lewis’ creativity and a treatise on the nature of evil told from the perspective of a young devil in training.

18. The Divine Romance by Gene Edwards
A beautiful telling of the story of God–his creation, his work, his redemption–expressed as a love story. The very first page describes two essentials of God’s existence in the pre-dawn of creation. God was alone. And, God was love. A profound paradox of coexistence for both God and man — the lover without the loved.

18. My Mississippi by Willie Morris
Who can escape the words of Willie Morris. His thoughts about his (and my) home state are moving, steeped in memory and the fervor of the unique life here. His essay is accompanied by a collection of photos of the state taken by his son.

20. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
The first descriptive word that came to mind when I read this book originally was “ethereal.” Its descriptions of characters and of the Newfoundland area were beautiful. The journey of a man coming to grips with his own history and finally learning to love was like a deep breath.

Tuesday Twenty: Counting Ways

This month (this week) brings much focus on love, often in the form of hearts and flowers and sweets. Love IS sweet to the soul. Love blossoms often in unexpected spaces. And, real love always encompasses the whole of a human heart, unshielded. So, I suppose those familiar trappings apply.

One of the most well-known pieces of literature ever written describing love is found in the Bible in First Corinthians 13. It presents a laundry list of love’s qualities surrounded by convincing arguments for its supremacy above all other virtues and pursuits.  And, the picture shown is not one as easily configured on a greeting card as one might assume. The descriptions are full of “not”s that are all too common and daily occurences for most of us. It’s a picture worthy of our pursuit, but not easily attained because of the self-sacrifice and self-revelation involved.

In honor of our culture’s penchant to pursue and acknowledge that greatest of gifts this week, I give you a boiled-down and scrunched-up version of love’s description from the famous Corinthian passage–another up-sized Tuesday Twenty: Counting the Ways of love. This one shows love’s most heart-challenging qualities expressed in those verses–words or the antitheses of “not”s found within. And, there’s eyecandy, too! I popped some of the enumerated words into this month’s tardy, but still relevant desktop calendar. Point-clicky the image above and enjoy!

LOVE IS….

1. essential

2. patient

3. kind

4. trusting

5. discreet

6. humble

7. polite

8. unselfish

9. good-natured

10. forgiving

11. just

12. truthful

13. tolerant

14. affirming

15. hopeful

16. enduring

17. unfailing

18. abiding

19. whole

20. supreme

Tuesday Twenty-Five: Courageous Acts

Back in December I was trying to decide if I wanted to adopt a theme word again for 2010. If you followed EyeJunkie last year, you’ll barely recognize the concept since I was woefully inconsistent in posting about “harmony,” my theme word for 2009. The purpose of the theme word was to center my thoughts on a single concept I was interested in developing in my life over the course of the year. Lofty goal! And not one easily achieved for a wandering mind like mine. Before choosing something for this year, I was determined that I would commit myself to posting at least once each month on the theme. Good news! I’ve already missed January. (Such is life. What’s it to you?) Laugh with me. Please.

Tardiness aside, the chief determining factor for whether I would go live with the theme word posting pursuit again was this: if I chose a word, WHAT IN THE WORLD would it be? It took me all of five seconds to realize that the word was staring me right in the face, socking me between the eyes with the sheer craving for it in my life. November and December were filled with conversations and current events and mundane activities and life experiences urging me, cajoling me, demanding me to really live, to commit myself to moving beyond existence. To soak up the marrow of my life in all its dailiness and embrace it. Engage it. Pay attention to it. Live it. Vibrantly.

And in this day and age of slow slumber, all that living takes a rousing amount of… (wait for it)

COURAGE.

cour•age
–noun
1. the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery. (thank you dictionary.com)

Ta Da! Theme Word 2010 presented itself without so much as one tiny strain on my brain. Yes, courage is needed in abundant supply. If only I had some! So, this year I’m pursuing courage in my mind, in my writing, in my loving, in my living. And, you can hear tell of it here on occasion. I’ll follow up with the “post behind the post” soon enough, but to begin this pursuit, I give you another jumbo-sized Tuesday Ten: 25 Courageous Acts I hope to really act on in 2010. What about you?

Garnering the courage…

1. to speak

2. to feel

3. to embrace difficulty

4. to confront issues

5. to ask the question

6. to take a chance

7. to think

8. to decide

9. to be who I am

10. to stand

11. to let go

12. to hold on

13. to look closely

14. to give

15. to release

16. to befriend

17. to stay

18. to step outside myself, but not away from myself

19. to see

20. to be moved by what I’ve seen

21. to act on what I’ve seen or learned

22. to say no

23. to say yes

24. to wait

25. to live

Tues Ten 120809: Christmas Spirits

I’ve been at home for much of the last two days recuperating from some sort of respiratory infection. During my sojourn on the couch, I’ve had the occasion to look pretty closely at our Christmas tree. A lovely sight. I was actually in the bed on Sunday when most of it was being decorated, a very unusual situation since I’m such a celebration and tradition junkie. The tradition of trimming the Christmas tree is pretty big for me, and this weekend it was only eclipsed by my total inability to take a deep breath.

Having now had the opportunity to gaze at the finished product, I’ve seen a few spirits from Christmases past. You can tell a lot about a person by the ornaments on their Christmas tree. Now, I won’t begin to draw any comparisons between tree trimming and Myers-Briggs or anything, but suffice it to say that I saw a lot of myself in some of those ornaments. I thought I’d share for this week’s Tuesday Ten: 10 lovely ghosts.

1. A big orange square–at least that’s what Bug calls it. This big orange construction paper square is turned on it’s side to be a diamond and framed with popsicle sticks with a pipe cleaner hanger. It’s filled with little swirlies and the words “God with us,” all covered with glitter. It was a craft project I did with a bunch of 4-year-old children at Sunday School quite a few years ago. Those kids are high schoolers now. My how time flies! I’ll never forget the wide eyed smiles at the prospect of using glitter, as well as the strained looks of concern from some of the parents. It may have been the first time glitter had played a starring role in Sunday School. But, hey, what’s a Christmas tree without a little glitter? That’s what vacuum cleaners were made for!

2. A Coke can from 1993. Its only qualification as a Christmas tree ornament is the great picture of Santa printed on the side–an odd choice of ornament, I know. The Coke can represents a new beginning and a sense of freedom for me. It was the first Christmas after my divorce from my first husband and the first Christmas I had in my own apartment as a single woman. In a sense, it was my first Christmas tree–at least the first unencumbered by the sense that there had been something just not right in my life. Some college boy added it to my Christmas tree at a party I had that year. I was so thankful for a wide and unique circle of friends who were willing to share the sacred act of tree trimming and Cokes.

3. A Frank Lloyd Wright detail. I bought it on a trip to the Chicago area where I saw Wright’s home and the Robie house. It’s a replica of some pattern from one of the windows or floor inlay or some other exquisite piece of Frank Lloyd Wright’s obsession with the details of the built environment. It reminds me of a time when I was able to stand in some of the best spaces built in the twentieth century, and of a time when I was immersed in buildings and their architects — a place I still find myself every now and then.

4. A reindeer made of clothes pins. It has wiggly eyes and a red pom-pom nose — not an unusual holiday craft. What is unusual is that I received it from a Malaysian graduate student named Wing we knew quite a few years ago. He had visited my house on many occasions and knew of my general Christmas-Crazy tendencies. Before he left Starkville to go home, he brought me a zip lock bag filled with ornaments he’d bought in his short few years in the states. I suppose he wanted them to have a good home, and I think they do.

5. A mother goose book, a parachuting bear and a pajama-clad girl holding a lamb. Yep, these were bought in 2005, 2006 and 2008 at the local ever-correspondent Hallmark shop. I couldn’t resist commemorating the years of my gifts’ births.

6. A shiny blue box with a plastic gold ribbon. It probably came in a package of eight or ten and cost about 89 cents sometime in the 1970s. My mother began my path of being a celebration junkie with her unsquelched ability to make almost any situation celebration-worthy simply by how you pay attention to it. When I was a child she made a production of decorating for Christmas. One of the things she always did in our living room was put a pile of those tiny and shiny multi-colored dime store packages into a little gold and porcelain bowl that normally sat on one of the shelves. There was something about the shine that I just couldn’t resist. She gave me the blue one for my room, which was quite a treasure at the time.

7. A hot pink die with silver dots — as in dice (like craps). I bought the wacky piece on the first of two summers I spent in Las Vegas during my college years. Proof that what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay there.

8. A large mouth bass in a Santa hat. Yep, it’s kind of funny, especially since it’s tail fin is partially missing due to an unfortunate incident with Buddy the Cat. Before Quiver and I married, I gave it to him atop a tiny lighted Christmas tree decorated with red fishing worms and bobbers–the only Christmas decoration his bachelor abode had seen. It was his first experience with my insistence on Christmas cheer, a reality that still takes some recovery time each year.

9. A yellow glass tear-drop shaped ball – with a red center. You’ve seen them before at your grandmother’s or in some book on nostalgic ornaments. I have absolutely no memories associated with it. I bought it at a junk store in a package of four — two yellow and two pink. The celephane was missing from the yellowed box and it had all the great typefaces and illustrations so common in the 1950s. I simply couldn’t resist the notion that it had led a life of its own on some unknown Christmas tree, and I had to give it new life on mine.

10. FPCCC 2007 written on a red wooden stocking. It was a gift to Little Drummer Boy from one of his classmates a few years ago. It hangs alongside lots of other little inexpensive ornaments like holiday bookmarks, ribbon ornaments with names on them and cross-stitched bells that were gifts to me from classmates when I was a child. I guess some traditions just come naturally.

O Christmas Tree.

10th Day of Thanksgiving: Little Thanks

Welcome to the special souped up Thanksgiving issue of The Tuesday Ten Twenty-Five! It’s a quick rundown of 25 little (or big) things–silly and profound–that I’m in love with this Thanksgiving season. By all means, enjoy yourselves.

1. Little Drummer Boy–your remarkable storytelling and trips to the “hug store”

2. Squiggle Bug–your unquenched spirit and tender heart

3. Baby Girl–your infectious smile and undaunted joy

4. Quiver–your steadfast hope, your gentleness and truth

5. Hershey’s chocolate bars

6. Big piles of leaves–and watching boys jump in them

7. Attention–giving and getting it

8. Kermit, the trusty laptop–I think I love you

9. Bedtime stories

10. The chance to make something right

11. Nacho cheese Doritoes–yep, still thankful for those

12. Books

13. Realizing it’s not as late as you thought it was

14. A Sonic Mocha Chip Java Cooler–saves many a frustrating moment

15. A good night’s sleep

16. Lamps and their ambient light

17. Old friends–the continuing gift of yourself after all this time

18. The Dave Matthews Band–just sayin’

19. “Coincidence”

20. Old issues of Dwell magazine–and by old I mean the ones from the last two months I haven’t gotten to

21. The quiet hours after 10pm

22. Clean, white, unlined paper

23. The Canon PowerShot–wowza!

24. Candy Corn–and doling it out before dinner

24. Honest conversation

25. The astounding and humbling power of words