A brave, funny, insightful memoir precipitating a ramble - Deborah Jackson Taffa's Whiskey Tender

 

This was a chance encounter. I was browsing on my free library app Libby for available audio books. 

Native American history, literature, culture has been one of my main interests over the past few years. 

In fact, I recently watched Dark Winds and Flybread Face and Me both directed by Billy Luther, a fact which I hadn't realized until after I had watched both.

This memoir fit really well with those shows/movie as much of her early life was spent in Navajo country in Farmington New Mexico although she herself is of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo peoples. She was born on the reservation in Yuma. She currently is the director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. (rad job btw!)

This memoir explores her journey of identity as a person of "mixed ancestry" living amongst both whites, non natives, and in the midst of the more populous Navajo nation. The story is a gripping tale of her close knit family. One of a series of sisters, their parents worked diligently to give them a life that was not as marked by poverty as their own had been. This path led them away from their place of origin and to a life of walking the line between honoring the past and the traditions of their ancestors and trying to create a comfortable reality in the present which meant at times suppressing cultural identity.

I'm reticent to create any parallels to my own life, but I've been recently reflected on the power of identity. Most people want to feel part of something larger than themselves and as our society has expanded through industrialization and global commerce, I think the cost has been the sense of continuity that humans experienced throughout much of their history with a sense of family/tribe.

People try to re-create it and simulate it through other forms of belonging, but I feel the simulation falls short of what there is a visceral longing for. 

Sometimes we are raised to strongly identify with something and then there comes a point when that identity doesn't serve but actually hinders us from evolving and adapting to the present. I grew up strongly identifying as a rancher, but my life took a turn that didn't involve me being a rancher. I can talk about a strong cultural affiliation, but that is all it is. It doesn't matter than my family heritage extends back on three sides in that subculture all the way to the 1800s, It is not the reality of my present or likely future. So, I can imagine a little tiny bity - the pull of a heritage (referring to the book) that extends back not 100 years but hundreds or thousands and is both cultural and ethnic and how difficult it is to both honor and yet integrate into the ever pressing pull of present exigencies. My family and extended family is extremely tight- knit, supportive, and clannish and I feel so grateful for the security that has afforded me my whole life. 

The story was both interesting and personal. I got the sense that Deborah is an HSP so I definitely related to her on that level. She seems like a natural harmonizer who thought deeply about things and worked at both pleasing and being authentic which speaking from experience is kind of an ordeal.

There was a part that really stood out to me. I jotted part of it down hurriedly in the kitchen one day (Due to my full time work schedule my book listens happen in snatches while I'm cleaning up the kitchen at 6 am, on my commutes, or on my 30 min lunch breaks.) I think she was exploring her tribal history, traditions, rituals, healing medicines, ceremonies etc in order to try to feel connected to her roots and people and to discover her place in the world. At one point it's like she had an epiphany where she realized that that was all well and good but what she needed to internalize were the edicts. This is all I got down "I vowed to focus on their edicts." How I interpreted this and applied to myself is the following: You can't really re-create the past because all of those things that I listed, beautiful as they are, were part of their time- what was needed for the time, made sense, and served. I can do them now, but perhaps it is more important for me to discover the rituals, ceremonies, art and nature connection that will serve me now. Somehow I can honor even preserve ancient traditions, whilst still being open to creating new ones and being part of the constant evolution that is life itself.

I tend to elevate, romanticize, and be nostalgic about the past: my childhood, my ancestors, times gone by when I like to think that life was more natural or vibrant. Sometimes I fall prey to melancholy, wistful longing, and regret for what I have no power to re-incarnate or create. I guess what I'm saying and why I jotted this down is because I don't want to live there any more. I heard her say that she wants to take the spirit of her people and their edicts into her life. I want to do the same. I want to own and speak my values and try to integrate them into my life now. It feels hard to infuse a suburban existence with some color sometimes, but the reality is wherever I lived on the space/time continuum, I have to acknowledge that I might be having the same struggle. Perhaps creating life moment by moment, being awake to the beauty of what is evolving spiritually, emotionally, and our part in the greater cosmos can be as epic as we frame it.

 

SENSE OF WONDER by Rachel Carson

 "A child's world is fresh new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life..."

Source: Book Club

One of the titles on our mutual reading list with my fellow book club member. 

Delightful read! It was originally written as an article. 

I didn't realize how short it was because I checked it out on my library audio app and listened it. When it finished, I was startled, thinking I had accidentally only heard an excerpt, but no! 

Rachel Carson was both a scientist and writer. She was born in 1907 and the book was originally published in 1956. The article is inspired by her forays into nature with her grand nephew whom she eventually adopted. 

I then checked out the actual book from the library which included photographs by Williams Neill. (the photograph above is one of Neill's. I just found out he had made his home at Yosemite. Interesting as I just returned last weekend from a 2 night visit to Yosemite with my sister. It was my second time there.)

So some thoughts... Well, each entry is artfully crafted kind of like a journal but also like a poem. She talks about different experiences in nature throughout the seasons, ever conveying the way in which she experiences such scenes afresh as she introduces her nephew to their glories.

I've always been a parishioner of a sort of nature cult. Not sure if it was my early immersion in nature - for which I'm eternally grateful both due to circumstance and the adults who were willing/able to be guides. I have some scientists and naturalists in my genealogy on my Scot side - the MacMillans - keen observers and documenters of the natural world. 

Anyway nature is a deep rooted value of mine and when we were raising our girls, I considered excursions into nature as one of the highest priorities for their education. 

In book club discussion, we talked about nature experiences from childhood as well as with children. I loved hearing about the various experiences from mossy corners of backyards to Yosemite with grandfathers. It was a very poignant discussion. 

Carson really inspired me to be attune not only to the sights but to what is afforded the other senses. Prior to book club, I had been on a walk at our river preserve and I was especially attentive to the smells and sounds - the tangy river/sage, sound of the quail, honking geese on their journey far above.

One of the things I liked about this is that the setting is the east coast so the descriptions are very different from the world we live in here California and the southwest. We had had a rainless spell lasting multiple months (common for our summers) so reading about wet verdant places was very refreshing. Her entries about a solitary Maine ecosystem reminded me of LM Montgomery's nature passages. 

An offensive blight to romance [Review of Happiness for Beginners]

 I wrote this in 2023 but never published it because it sounds so mean spirited and snarky. It's like looking into my snobby soul but as I was re-reading it it made me laugh - so here you go world. Be advised, don't read this if you're a nice person which I only pretend to be apparently.

You really want Helen with and H to find herself and emerge victorious with a grounded center and vision for her life. You are misled to believe that it will be humorous, poignant, and romantic. wrong wrong wrong.

In the first 3/4 of the film you are mystified with Jake's fascination and obvious pursuit of Helen. Firstly, her oblivion. Jake appears in every scene (mysteriously and rather stalkerishly) staring at her moonstruck. Such oblivion guides natural selection and prunes the race of man. Somewhere along the hike, he gives her a note - which she doesn't even bother to read and forgets about? Until she gets home and discovers that it's a gorgeous love poem. Still after putting some pieces together she passively does nothing until Jake just happens to appear (again) and then as if she's a Victorian woman with zero agency she responds finally to his love and it seems like you should be happy and feel that was the outcome you were looking for instead you are dismayed by their lack of chemistry and left pondering about his interest at all until you put the pieces together.

Helen - just seems like a pent up grouchy wallflower with a pathetic rescue bent so Jake's (charming, smart, charismatic, and handsome) obvious pursuit even when she is downright rude - right away screams "Made by women for grouchy pent up wallflower women." You really want to see past the grouchy dull exterior to the endearing Helen that her brother and Jake seem to see but she really never emerges. 

Helen, who can't escape from being the rescuer and does she learn to do that on her hike? no.

Helen is so annoying on the hike at the beginning. The perfect combination of that person who wants to do everything right, be prepared, and is worried about everything but ignores basic common sense and becomes a burden. 

The cusp of my annoyance. Finally towards the end of a hike, Helen and Jake have a tender moment and finally Jake's pursuit of Helen makes sense. (to me) He reveals that he has degenerative blindness. Helen is finally kind and sympathetic for the first time. Makes sense (she can fall back into her rescue trope.) In fact, the only time Helen shines in this whole movie is when she has to rescue and help someone (fellow hiker who broke leg) - revealing that Helen's only purpose is her ability to be a guardian and caretake for others. This is the beginning of happiness? Jake could have the cute and fun adventurous twenty something but would she take care of him when he was blind? Maybe not. Helen, on the other hand, middle aged, boring, fish eyed, and predictable - yes! Makes total sense - Jake is a winner on the natural selection tree and Helen perhaps too - not because of any romance between them but just because of his raw innate survival instincts and her inability to resist helping someone. 

I think this is what really bugged me. I really wanted to believe that there would be a romantic something between the protagonists even though it was increasingly difficult to imagine. Then, the writers thought - aha - no natural chemistry - we'll create a scenario where he needs her so much - she can be his older sister/caretaker and that will satisfy our female audience? blech

Here's Helen's story - messy break up with loser husband - rebound to younger brother's friend who needs a caretaker. If you're looking for a romantic escape story, look no further! The sad thing - is that this probably resembles many real life stories and that's exactly what we don't want in a cinematic experience. We don't want to be reminded of the myriad practical reasons why couples end up together that have nothing to do with romance. 

   

Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz

 

This is one of my book club reads nominated by a founding member. This was an awesome read. I love anthropology and sociology because it's looking at a vast cross section of humans and asking questions like, in this case: how can marriage be defined?

The answer is vastly more complex than one would imagine and so varied across time and place that coming up with a cohesive definition is nigh impossible. Here are a couple of attempts she references "commonly stable, mated relationships between males and females" which exists pretty universally except in one instance "the Na" people who raised offspring in extended family groups and apparently didn't or don't have a recognizable marriage institution. Another definition: "the set of legal rules that govern how goods, titles, and social status are handed down from generation to generation."

The author walks us through the centuries - starting out with broad strokes across the globe and then migrating more to decade based deductions from marriage studies (mostly in the US) from the last century. (the book was published in 2005). There are so many fascinating aspects to how marriage is organized and what it has meant. Is it about division of labor, shared resources, influential connections? Or is it the passing on of lands and titles, and resources? ...and all of these are true to a greater degree or another. Also interesting in how involved the extended family or community has been in the selection of spouses and in the actual lives of the couple. In most times and places spouses were integrated into existing extended family households or tribes where the concept of privacy for the nuclear family or couple would have been a foreign notion.

 What is, according to the author, unique to recent history (the past 200 years) is the concept and expectation that marriage should be about companionship, love, and emotional intimacy. An expectation that she argues has led to a greater degree of marital satisfaction and quality than ever before but also has facilitated a greater fragility as people readily discard the institution if it fails to pony up the desired results. 

The industrial revolution, feminism, ready access to birth control and other factors have radically altered the way in which societies are organized and has had deep ramifications for how marriage is viewed and what it means. We're in a particularly interesting time now as marriage (as she points out in the conclusion) at least in this part of the world is usually totally optional and relationships are more customized than ever before to the whims of the individual. That being said, she proposes that marriage still "gives people a positive vocabulary and a public image that set a high standard for the couples behavior and for the respect that outsiders ought to give to their relationship."

I think there may be something to that. Just like everything for many of us, the vast array of options and choices can be exhilarating but also paralyzing. It's tempting to hearken back to a time when expectations, roles, and institutions were more static. I grew up with a higher degree of focus on traditional marriage values, division of labor between genders (apparently than many of my contemporaries), but at the same time was encouraged to be independent and assertive as well. I think it's normal for people to have to navigate mixed messages and try to integrate them into their adult lives. 

It was interesting to reflect on the fact that I entered marriage expecting it to look like "male breadwinner model" - a term Coontz considers to be a modern concept that never existed say for example in the middle ages where most women worked in cottage industries or farms alongside their spouses. I also (like most modern people) had extremely high "romantic" standards of what kind of companionship we would enjoy in our marriage (ie that marriage is the most important and central relationship of your life) - again not something that has been universally true in other times and places. For example, in the middle east where parental and sibling relationships might be much more emphasized in terms of closeness.) The expectation that marriage will be a built in friendship that will satisfy all emotional, sexual, and economic needs puts a huge degree of pressure on the marriage relationship that is definitely not always positive. 

An Update, a Book, an Observation

1. Update:

I started a book club! It's called a very proper "Ladies Nonfiction Book Club." It's a public group through meetup.com and we've had 2 meetings so far. Yesterday's meeting was so much fun. Co- conspirator and I started ransacking our shelves and Amazon wishlists for dusty books that we will now actually read!


We met at a new to me cafe called "Mokha Cafe" and the espresso was delicious but the setting a little noisy for a discussion group and quite limited seating. We're dashing back to Dagny's, a local coffee shop in downtown BK.

You know I actually already do read books; but now I will hopefully knock out even more.

2. Book: 

This was June's book for club. This was on founding member's wishlist and my own so we put it at the top of the queue.

The Schaeffers were a household name in the milieu of late eighties and nineties evangelicalism. They were elegant, intellectual, and sophisticated Bible thumpers. They lived in a chalet in Switzerland and their ministry was basically hosting young impressionable bohemians and "witnessing" through dialogue and by administering lectures which called upon the arts and the high points of Western Civilization to reinforce Christian beliefs.


Author, Frank is their youngest child and only son. This book was published in 2007 so it's been out there awhile and based on a podcast interview of his that I listened to recently, I'd wager that since 2007 he's evolved from Orthodoxy to more of agnosticism or atheism. Actually another more recent book title of his is Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God so it's not a wager.


This memoir recounts his childhood at L'abri the name of the Schaeffer's multi-location ministry, rise to fame as a member of the fledgling but soon powerful American Christian right movement, his exodus from that world and reinvention of himself as an artist and writer. He had a pretty free-range "unschooling before it was a term" homeschooled/autodidact childhood up until he did some boarding schools in the UK. 

I found his portraits of his parents and upbringing to be the most interesting aspects of the story. I was less interested in his subsequent career but related to his perspective and found guilty pleasure in some of the snark.  His portrayal of his parents was honest but not cruel and I think like many families who were renowned in some way, the pressures can be significant and I believe they were for Frank and his siblings and his parents too. 

A few passages I flagged. 

"Everything we did was to witness. (to witness was to share Christ; in other words, talk about your faith in hopes that you would convince the person listening to convert. To witness also meant to live in such a way that people would see Christ" in you and want to convert because your life was so admirable.)"

I related to this a lot. Again - doesn't sound like a big deal - but it's a lot of pressure nonetheless. 

"When we traveled on the Coroveglia, Mom pointed out that "We still have to pay for our tickets....' The idea was that because we were in the Lord's work, any person with a lot of money what was truly discerning would give us the boat passage and to do less was something like Mary and Martha charging Christ for supper."

This was kind of a painful connecting point for me as someone who raised funds for our "missionary work." I always found it incredibly awkward and murky. 

"Life had two huge demarcation lines, a cosmic before and after, from which everything else flowed. There was salvation, the crossing of the line from light to dark. And there was marriage, and life before "the wedding night" and after." 

Frank, well captured.

Re: his mom's long winded prayers that seemed to be for the benefit of the listener rather than have anything to do with God "I sometimes wondered if God ever tried to duck out of the room when he saw Mom coming." 

"When Jessica (his baby) is not keeping her food down, I learned the prayer that has no words, the one that I'd be praying forever after I became a father, whatever I called myself or converted to, or abandoned, when the feeling of dread is prayer - prayer and longing for what I could never give a child in danger, or myself; the guarantee of joy."

"What I don't want is to live in a culture that makes sweeping and dismissive secular or religious "theological" one-size-fits-all decisions that oversimplify complex issues." 

Preach

3. Observation. 

People talk about their conversions to faith. Sometimes it was a lightning bolt moment of clarity or a supernatural occurrence that was the catalyst for a faith to be born. Other times it was a gradual realization or onset of a decision. My deconversion feels marked by both of those things - moments even seconds of startling clarity and a recognition of sudden alignment after many years of ponderous deconstructing. 

Like a new convert I want to talk about it. I feel excited about the peace and congruence I feel. Like a new convert who wants others to experience their knowledge, freedom, and awakening, my deconversion has spawned similar feelings. Yet, I know that you can't sell your own experience too hard. You can touch on it - but others in your life have to witness it in their own way. They have their own journey; own monsoon strikes of insight to uncover. 

Deconversion from what? Certainly not from  openness to a conception of  God(s) , spirituality, or faith - merely from a religion and any religion that would seek to overly simplify, stratify, systemize, and dogmatize access to and revelation of the mysteries.

the Loud, Fast, Too Much World. The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person - Jenn Granneman and Andre Solo

 

Source: recommendation by friend and poet Emilee Weeks. I checked it out from the library

I can see why she recommended it to me. I've always known I was a little on the orchid side. People started telling me early on that I was "sensitive" usually combined with the word "too." 

I remember bursting into tears when my third grade teacher kindly advised me that I had used way too much glue on my art project. Thankfully I had super caring sympathetic parents who also encouraged me to be tough but didn't diminish my nature or make me feel "less than." 

I made a vow early in life that I would do my best to avoid the censor of any authority figure. I became adept at reading adults and conforming to their particular expectations. I'm not alone according to these authors. 

I've been aware of my "super powers" and "fatal flaws" for a pretty long time through my personality psychology studies, readings, and observations of myself and others. I'm pretty creative, empathetic, intuitive, conscientious, organized. 

This book offered new insights on how sensitive folks process the world at a neurological level. I think I've subconsciously been pretty hard on myself for some things that I guess I just saw as weaknesses. Like here's some examples - putting my jacket on and off 10 times during the day (constant temperature fluctuations,) blood sugar dips (why am I always snacking when other people seem to be fine?), difficulty concentrating in noisy environments, being overwhelmed by crowds (esp indoors - to the point of semi-panicked claustrophobic dashes for the outdoors), needing time (and preferably a way) to process anything and everything that occurs especially emotionally charged situations..

Then there's the empath thing. Walking into a room and immediately absorbing the mood and energy of everyone present. This sensitivity apparently makes it rough for HSPs in romantic relationships. Pair their incessant desire/expectation for high level in-depth interaction with their need for space, quiet, and recovery time - yep- tough lot. 

I think my main takeaways - are to give myself mental grace when I need extra recovery time and also to continue practicing habits that will re-center my nervous system. 

I really liked the chapter on job crafting. It really helped me feel positive about my job which is very detailed and introverted. It doesn't seem to tap into some of my giftings but after reading this, I really see how it actually is a great fit. I work in a quiet environment that is fairly low stress. I do highly detailed work. I enjoy a relative amount of freedom in how I prioritize tasks and I can continue to hone my role into something that is a good fit for me and a contribution to the company. 

A great read for sensitive souls or for someone who has one in their midst. 

Aweism in the Secular Life - response to Living the Secular Life by Phil Zuckerman

 

Living the Secular Life

New Answers to Old Questions - Phil Zuckerman

Source: friend recommendation from a discussion group I facilitate

There's a running theme in my life and readings. This is a well written book by a sociologist but it doesn't read like someone's thesis. It's full of personalized stories of the author's own life and of people he's interviewed. 

He cross references countries and cultures that are more secular compared to religious and discusses whether being religious truly makes a person or group more moral or ethical. 

It's a complex question but he seeks to dispel the myth that being irreligious means a slide into immorality. He uses various examples of both individuals and collective groups to back up his position. 

He talks about raising children with a secular worldview and offers some interesting stories about people's perspective on this. 

Zuckerman dives into such topics as death, community, morality, families, hard times and how people deal with some of life's big mysteries and challenges without a traditional religious view or structure.  

There's a chapter called "aweism." It was my favorite part of the book. "Aweism" is the author's coinage because he finds some other terms like humanist, atheist, agnostic, limiting. This section I will include below to wrap up really captures the author's fluid writing style and conceptual acumen. 

"Aweism encapsulates the notion that existence is ultimately a beautiful mystery, that being alive is a wellspring of wonder, and that the deepest questions of existence, creation, time, and space are so powerful as to inspire deep feelings of joy, poignancy, and sublime awe."

He goes on to say that accepting the mystery can lead to a happier state of being. I agree with this. 

"An aweist hearkens to the words of Albert Einstein (a self -described agnostic) who suggested that 'the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. he to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle."