all over the map

I have had this blog for awhile now. At first I wrote about my cross cultural experiences living in Italy, my kids, some of my thoughts etc. Then I decided that was too personal and vulnerable and I removed them all from here and reverted them to drafts.

I revamped the blog in 2017 and made it about the books I'd read which reads like a school assignment - only with worse grammar and much funnier.

I don't want to spill all like some bloggers, although reading about other people's stuff can be interesting and make you feel better (or worse) about your own.

I also feel guilty blogging because I hate reading other people's blogs. (not hate, just don't take the time. If have time to read I prefer a book.) I felt it would be inauthentic and unfair for me to blog when I don't take time to read other blogs. It's like having a conversation where you do all the talking. 

I have been listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's podcasts about the creative process, based on her book Magic Lessons. They've been fun in a lot of ways. They also helped me to realize how much I long to share my writing, and how afraid I am of sharing my writing. It's so much safer to not convey. I can have a pristine face for the world to see. What if someone catches a glimpse of me through my art? What if they laugh? Liz would say "What if they do? They're probably laughing at you anyway, giving you flack, or most likely not thinking about you at all. And if you put yourself out there they might despise you, like you, or love you for like one minute and then they won't be thinking about you again."

I guess this is me giving myself a pep talk on a public forum (That no one reads because I don't promote haha.)

So I might be doing more writing, about writing, the creative process and maybe my forays into sharing more. I might retreat again after experimenting, but life's too short not to grow and not to experiment, and not to risk disapproval for something.

The Silent Library Books

I have a confession to make. I check out lots of library books and do not read them. I actually check them out, studiously enter their due dates in my calendar (even setting a reminder to sound off in time for me to return them), and THEN I renew them. Repeatedly. Until one of two things happens: I incur library fees, those loathly accountability shame-mongers that I despise (because I despise a free public lending library becoming a paid attraction because of MY ineptitude); OR, I despair of reading them and return them. Never mind that the librarian doesn't know I haven't read them. I know I haven't read them.

So, instead of reading one of these charmers right now, I'm writing about not reading them, because apparently that might be more fun

Just take a look at these titles. Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired [Abridged]...skip to the bottom--What Jane Austen Ate and What Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist -- the Facts of Daily Life in 19th Century England,  and my favorite title of all (move up a row), Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems. Who wouldn't want to read a book that says "Break, Blow, Burn" in caps-lock on a hot pink cover???

*Sidenote--All, I repeat, ALL of the picture childrens' books which I dutifully check out for my daughter GET READ. By her, by me, by us, together or apart. Why is it that I do not permit myself the pleasure (or the discipline--ah! that might be more to the point) of reading the oh-so alluring biblia which have attracted me enough to go to the trouble of checking them out, lugging them home, trying to not be overdue in returning them, and risking failure at the aforementioned life skill? (I also cyclically check out hoped-for reads of chapter books for my daughter, ostensibly for me to pre-read, but alas, here I also fail to read most of them).

Back to the original question--Why do get so many "free" books, renew them 3-5 times out of their 9 renewal lifespan, and return them either overdue and unread or on time and unread? Not sure (lack discipline is not fun to admit, but probably the truth), but a gratifying little discovery emerged about this topic after riffing on this theme with Zona... The power of community. That is my rescue rope. After discussing my issue with my friend and getting a good laugh out of it, I actually picked up the Reduced Shakespeare and plunged in. The friendly sarcasm has me stifling a smile about every paragraph or so. Not my usual fare, but it makes the material fresh, plus I'd like to brush up on Shakespeare a bit, and this looked a fun way to do so.

I also broke open the first book in the Infinity Ring series, which I checked out to pre-read it to see if it might be worth recommending to my son to read. I had learned that Michael de la Pena authored a later book in the series, and since I enjoyed his illustrated children's book, LOVE, I thought I'd give the series a go. (Apparently they are authored by a variety of writers. Interesting.) It's a time-travel book which goes back into history to save the world. The parents are involved, and in the first ten chapters or so, the disrespect so casually paid to adults in general was minimal. Yay. I don't know if I'll finish it, because I would actually prefer to read more grown-up syntax and diction and to be carried along more sophisticated themes than this one has; however, I've appreciated the exposure to the book as a window into some reading at my kids' level.

Despite the genuine kick I've gotten out of writing about the books I've checked out from the library,  I sincerely hope that I'll spend a few more half-hours reading them instead. 

This moment of truth was brought to you, with a chuckle, by Emilee Weeks Ames. Thanks for reading.

Mary Austin

I really want to be kind here because this woman had quite a hard life. Father died, several siblings, died, and she was treated indifferently by her mother who hero worshipped her oldest son. 

I really wanted to like this autobiography. Land of Little Rain was pretty interesting if disjointed and mystical in expression.

The hardest thing about this was the way she referred to herself in the third person and then would occasionally revert to the first when things got emotionally intense.

Her perspective about her childhood in the post civil war Midwest was the most interesting part - also her pioneering days in this area (Kern County).

The whole theme of the book was a manifesto about her being a someone. To me, when a person goes out of their way to outline their accomplishments and lists all the influential people that they met even briefly, it is indicative of a deep cavity within that feels unrecognized. This makes sense in light of her father's early death and her mother's total lack of affirmation or recognition for the gifts of this bright unique woman. Her husband also was stuck in a time capsule and had no vision for her contribution. They eventually went separate ways.

I think Mary's encounter with Indian culture is what most fascinates me. It spoke to her at a deep level and helped bridge the gap between her convention loving Midwest upbringing and her creative spirit - also how to connect with God outside of organized religion. Perhaps this is where she and I meet. I've never had a direct connection with an indigenous culture (sadly) - perhaps my visit to a Oaxacan village in southern Mexico would be the closest thing - but it was superficial at best. However, I do encounter God best outside of organized religion though I'm not against religion, persay. This is one of my favorite passages from Earth Horizon: "There was a small campody up George's Creek, brown wickiups in the chaparral like wasps' nests. Mary (why not just say I?? - oh maybe she hoped someone would have written her biography and no one did so she wrote it herself.... ooohhhhh). Mary would see the women moving across the mesa on pleasant days, digging wild hyacinth roots, seed gathering, and as her strength permitted, would often join them, absorbing women's lore, plants good to be eaten or for medicine, learning to make snares of long, strong hair for the quail, how with one hand to flip trout, heavy with spawn, out from under the soddy banks of summer runnels, how and when to gather willows and cedar roots for basket making. It was in this fashion that she began to learn to get at the meaning of work you must make all its motions both of body and mind. it was one of the activities which has had continued force throughout her life. 

I also liked her description of her artists' colony in Carmel. They were a band of nature worshippers - sense seeking through outdoors stimuli. I can relate to that pursuit. I try not to worship it though, the creator doesn't like it. He likes to be celebrated through his creation. He does like it to be appreciated. Am I too brazen, speaking for him? I'm just too lazy to profess it as my opinion. It is my opinion. 

At one point, she confesses that she really missed out on being cared for by a man. I thought that was interesting. She associated with and admired women who were  at the forefront of feminism - she herself lived an unconventionally independent life for a woman of her day, yet felt that there was an intrinsic role that she was not privy to. 

So Far Away by Meg Mitchell Moore ~by Emilee Weeks Ames

Hi folks,

This is my first guest post on Light and Set, and the second novel by Meg Mitchell Moore which I've read. (Check back soon for my post on the first novel, The Arrivals--which incidentally was her first novel too).

I'm noticing a phenomenon with Moore's novels... the first fifty pages in, my heart gets invested quickly but then recoils...I feel too closely what the characters are feeling -- so I set the book aside. Only to pick it back up a day or two later, too curious about the characters and budding plot to abandon the story. And then I move on to fall in great like with the novel.

Word of warning--there are no chapter divisions. For me, that required more resolve to find my own stopping place, set down the book, and recommence the next day. (Binge-reading numbs me similarly to binge-watching.)

Quick summary--two protagonists intersect in So Far Away, a 60-something year-old archivist (Kathleen) and a 13 year-old girl (Natalie) in search some moorings for their lives. Both women find themselves drawn into the memoir of a long-since-departed great-great-grandmother (Bridget) of Natalie, which reveals secrets which otherwise would have gone to the grave with her.

Both Natalie and Kathleen have their own crises to deal with: Kathleen with the persistent (suppressed) grief over losing her runaway teen daughter, and Natalie with plowing along, quite isolated, without help from her absent, separated parents too mired in their own lives/depression to parent her. This, added to Natalie being cyberbullied by her former best friend, drives Natalie to seek help deciphering the spidery writing in a black notebook she has found in her basement (we come to learn it is her distant relation's memoir).

First, I love the dual female protagonists and the intergenerational/ancestral connections with the journal.  I enjoyed getting to know Kathleen's quirks (cooking a gourmet meal when lonely) and inner monologue ("all around us, girls in danger"), and seeing her long-lost daughter through the eyes of memory. Natalie's inner world, her tenuous sense of self without any real ally (until Kathleen starts personally offering support to her), and her blow-off-the-adult-and-act-apathetic verbal manner with mis-stepping parents was very believable, and I felt great empathy for her. (This resulted in giving some imaginary lectures to her parents.) It was lovely and poignant to watch these two women, younger and older, tentatively get to know each other, then come to depend upon each other.

But there's really a triad of main characters, because Bridget's delightful memoir becomes a third character in its own right. It reminds me of how Anne Bronte similarly inserted another story into the main narrative in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. (However, Moore keeps interjecting Natalie's breathless suspense into the reading of Bridget's account, which gets a bit annoying. Yes, author, we haven't forgotten that Natalie is here, doing the reading with the co-archivist, Neil.) I won't spoil her tale for you here; I hope you'll read it for yourself. 

I enjoyed the interplay of dramas of the supporting characters and their subplots. For me, the crux of the dramatic tension rippled through the pages when Kathleen and Natalie once again met, in crisis, with no guard up, and their whole stories came out--finally!--to each other. That was what each needed the most...(Natalie to Kathleen): Tell me your story. Tell me why you are guarded, responsible, shut down--and maybe I will find a thread connecting me to you. And Kathleen to Natalie: Tell me the truth about your mother, your father, your ex-friend, what's happening to you. And I because I love my disappeared daughter, I can't help but love you and will do my utmost to bridge the gap to wake the people in your world whom you need the most.

I loved how Kathleen realized she couldn't re-live her time with her daughter through her connection with Natalie...if only life were so simple. But she could be who she was: a darn good archivist who helped people fill in the gaps in their family tree, in their story, in their hearts. And I dearly loved Bridget's journal's last words after her scandalous confession therein--life keeps going, for that's what a life does.

Unless we tell our stories, they will go to the grave with us. But they live on if they are shared. They can do some good to those we share them with, even if (especially if) they include the "bad" parts...those things we have learned the most from because they cost us, or our beloved ones, the most. That resonates with me, and the tale was well told.

Thumbs up.

by Emilee Weeks Ames

Neither Wolf Nor Dog

I  heard this book mentioned several times on the Thomas Jefferson hour and since I'm an indianphile like I'm a celticphile, and cowboyphile - apparently like everybody else - a despised wanna be - reiterated by Dan the ancient Indian interviewed by Kent Nerburn in this 1994 book - I requested it from the library.

This was a provocative book. I tried to write it off at first - because the author's first encounter with the old Indian was met with such rudeness and seemingly entitled race obsession. The protagonist couldn't get over the travesties of atrocities that had occurred to his people. I use those words on purpose to be dramatic. I was raised in a culture where individual responsibility for one's actions reigned supreme - not collective. Some of my ancestors were Scottish - who earned hundreds of years of disenfranchisement and persecution because of their tribal ways. I'm sure if you go back far enough there is  "Dan" amongst my pict ancestors.

It seems that the author "Nerburn" had been selected to be verbally crucified on behalf of all white people everywhere regardless of his own tribe or creed.

That did happen. The author endured a kind of death as he sacrificed his agenda and swallowed his retorts to absorb the guilt of over a hundred years of history. He is demoted to a childlike state in the backseat of a car that sweeps through the badland country disregardless (I told you I make up words) of roads, time, and Nerburn's wife and son who now dwell in another dimension.

Part of me, was like get a life, lots of people and people groups have endured persecution (like the jews) and cultural disenfranchisement. They picked themselves up by their bootstraps, hid their menorah, and forged ahead.

The other part of me, was captivated by the idea of Nerburn absorbing this cultural guilt, and giving Dan (who had been kidnapped from his parents to live in a boarding school where he had been forbidden to speak his own language) a chance to vent his frustration about what had been stripped away. I stuck with the story and after the characters undergo a storm of spiritual proportions, Nerburn has an almost out of body experience at Wounded Knee. Dan seems to have purged away some of his anger through his talks with Nerburn and with the engagement of hope that he has had a chance to tell a true story - one in which he is not a victim, a massacerer, or a "wise indian."

Ultimately they forge a strange frienship. There is a kind of meeting of minds that was painfully real and I recognized it. I appreciated that the story was provocative. I liked Dan's exploration of spirituality and his take on Jesus. "I like Jesus, He didn't own anything. He slept outside on the earth. He moved around all the time. He shared everything he got. He even talked to the Great Spirit as his father. He was just like an Indian."

I see that they made a movie in 2016 - looks like they're wrapping up their screenings. Hope I can get a copy of it eventually.

Despite my ramblings, I really wanted to be there in that car roaming over the badlands country. (prefer a horse though) There is something in me that just wants to explore all those remote places in the world and talk to the people who live where those scattered lights pop up when you fly over. I want to eat with that old woman who lives in a bowl shaped crevice in the middle of the prairie with no road leading to her home. Maybe I even want to be her one day.

Cherish - Gary Thomas

I should be positive about any book that encourages people in their marriage. Marriage is a wonderful God designed institution. 

This just felt so similar to other books I've read by pastors whose wives like flowers, lots of phone calls, chit chatting, discount shopping, food reviewers, and probably scrapbooking. 

No crime here people.

Lots of good sermonic anecdotes and stories about people who made it in marriage and some who didn't. 

It's very nice.

I like the word cherish. It's a good word.

I could certainly improve in this area.

There are some basic orientations that men and women have. We have to be careful about gender generalizations. Some characteristics are more based on temperament than gender I think. I do believe that John Eldredge nailed it better than many myriad other marriage handbooks. He says men are asking the question "Do I have what it takes?" and women are asking the question "am I captivating?" But that's pretty much one of the only things that I think may be true intrinsically across the board. Many other differences between people are based on temperament or background.

I think people who are visionary types are often drawn to nuts and bolts people then they write books about how they learn to navigate this divide in a nice way. That's good, but overdone.

The Land of Little Rain

The Land of Little Rain - Mary Austin

I stumbled upon this book on a website where I was searching for another book that was referenced on the Thomas Jefferson Hour.

This is another turn of the century woman writer and it's interesting that there was something about this era where certain ahead of their time women like Helen Hunt Jackson, Pearl Buck, Mary Austin, etc. were able to showcase their work. 

Lyrical, poetic, whimsical, and yet somehow scientific. I was intrigued by her observations but I soon tired of them towards the end, finding myself more curious about the writer herself than about her nature observations. I think I will request her biography next.

She lived in the Owens Valley which is east of Kern County on the eastern side of the Sierras. She makes some pithy little profiles about characters (both animal, plant, and people) that she encounters in this arid land: prospectors, buzzards, Paiutes, Shoshone, coyotes, etc. They are short essays about different topics. She has a dry humor and it was an enjoyable book. 

Of course I want to explore the Owens Valley. Some of my family members have camped at Alabama hills which is in the area. Perhaps I will make a literary tourism pilgrimage to Mary Austin's home and imagine her roaming around and contemplating. 

https://www.noehill.com/inyo/cal0229.asp

Kindred Spirits

What do LM Montgomery and Sheldon VanAuken have in common? 

LM Montgomery - Anne of Avonlea  - an old friend - audio read

Sheldon VanAuken - A Severe Mercy

I don't know that LM Montgomery coined the term "kindred spirits," but in using it she managed to capture something ethereal and intangible, but "you know Teacher" as her student Paul said to her whenever he described something that lay in the realm of the imagination. And that's just it. The quality of kindred spiritness lies in the invisible connection that binds two people who know how to dwell in the realm of the imagination. How can you perceive it? You know it when you find it. It might lie in the etherworldly gaze of someone who is thinking of something far away. Those who speak in metaphor and linger too long in the dusk watching the remnants of the sunset. An unmistakable exchange of a glance of understanding and sympathy that no one else perceives. A conversation that drifts into hours that feel like minutes exploring an idea to its full ripeness. An exchange of pure silence when words are not needed. Thoreau -  "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." Those who seek out the less taken path  - veering from the confines of convention.

I have found these folk in real life - a rare exchange, not something one stumbles upon every day or week or year. Most often I have found them in the pages of a book.

Sheldon VanAuken's exploration of love told in the context of the devotion he experienced with his late wife "Davy" is such an encounter. Their devotion was overshadowed by their submission to a greater devotion - that of God that encompassed their marriage and accompanied them through her death and the rest of his life.
The author weaves in poetry (usually his own) and an exchange of letters with CS Lewis about faith, life, love, and loss. The kindred spiritness comes in as he describes his and Davy's avid love of nature and a general worship of beauty and the intellectual life that reached a climax during their stay in Oxford where they discovered a community of like minded people who eventually helped channel them to God in Christianity.
It's an honest and moving expression of their story. There are some good theological points, and an inspiring account of sacrificing something good and beautiful for something better - a familiar death. (Familiar to me) I know the devotion of God and his passionate jealousy for anything that might be a high place idol - sin or otherwise.
However it is also a celebration of kindred spiritness.
Vanauken speaks of their pledge to the Shining Barrier - a pledge that nothing would supercede their love for one another - a romantic notion that as a girl (I actually did read this when I was in my early 20s I think) - I might have thought incredibly romantic, but as an adult feel slightly cramped and suffocated by - mainly the notion that they would have no pursuits that they did not share.

Anyway - they did knock around in a boat for some time - foraging off the coast of the chesepeake  - that sounds lovely.

Anne of Avonlea  - a dear old friend of my girleen hood. Remember Miss Lavender? What a dear sweet kindred spirit, who lives at Echo Lodge in her wee stone house with Charlotta the 4th trying not to be sad about true love who was lost to her. Cheering herself up with echoes, and pretty dresses, and teas for imaginary friends coming to call.
What about Mr Harrison and his parrot Ginger - and his tidy wife who shows up unannounced to the surprise of all.
Paul Irving with his kindred spirit rock people.
And most of all Anne. organizing the AVIS (Avonlea Improvement Society) - teaching her school children, bringing up Daisy and Dora with his funny questions and philosophies, Marilla - softened with tenderness, Hester Gay's little spot discovered by the picnic, all the seasons of lovely PEI fully celebrated by author and heroine, ignoring stirrings for Gilbert, Diana's engagement to Fred ( I remember when my friend got engaged to someone who I thought was hopelessly bland) - he's grown on me now. And... Miss Lavendar's marriage to her lifelong love who she thought she had lost forever.
It's funny. There really isn't much of a plot. Just a collection of anecdotes woven with humor and insight. Characters change and progress, but that's about it.