A Thing with Feathers

We passed winter in quarantine.  

The days are now more often with sun.

Strawberries and blueberries dot the farmers' stands with color.

Pecans have made a surprise appearance.

Spring, at a minimum, will include pies.

Turnaround

 The quarantine continues.

As we near 150 days (obligatory), I do wonder at how quickly time has passed.  The "inside the house" routine continues as "normal" but I still long for the day when we're allowed to go outside for a walk.  It is extraordinary how we can grow accustomed to (normalize) something that really is so strange.  

It's that thought as my segue to my July readings:  The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek.  

Thomas' book was a powerful read.  Three years after its publishing, we are still presented with the same battles, the same injustices, and the same frustration and anger that most of the time, there is no accountability.  I have kept this quote at hand for when the news gets too heavy:  

“Yet I think it’ll change one day. How? I don’t know. When? I definitely don’t know. Why? Because there will always be someone ready to fight. Maybe it’s my turn." p. 319

It is my turn. 

And maybe, that's what made me reach for a business book for the first time in ages.  

Sinek references a host of people we read about in the MBA years, but not in the same way.  His book grabbed me early with:

“For all the technology he has at his disposal, empathy, Johnny Bravo says, is the single greatest asset he has to do his job.” p. 22

We are frequently taught to make decisions by analyzing numbers but those numbers represent a lot of individuals who are easy to forget through the lens of excel and power point org charts.  Sinek references a "Circle of Safety" that we need to create for our organizations.  I agree, but let's do more.  

Let's work harder in our communities, let's speak up and out regarding injustices, let's be better as humans.

June Ruminations

As a follow-up to my last post, I wanted to also highlight Justice in June* as an additional resource for reading and learning.  Plans are broken down into 10 minutes, 25 minutes or 45 minutes a day.  Learning about injustice is essential, but a reminder that we need to follow up that knowledge with action to cause change.

When not reading the news, recipes, or coronavirus statistics in June, I sped through two other memoirs.  (Sped: pushed by the due date to spend a weekend reading despite having had the loan for a fourteen days.)

I loved Lab Girl by Hope Jahren!  Due to our ongoing quarantine, I still cannot be outside among the trees and it was such a gift to be reading about them and imagining touching them.  I can't remember exactly when it was that I started "Nature Walks" with my nieces but it's become one of our standing activities during my visits.  We began with touching the bark on trees to learn how they were different, then as they grew, we moved to leaves and now we identify them by name.  Her memoir was touching in its nod to science, her connection to it ,and her lab partner, Bill.

Educated by Tara Westover was a harder read.  Though knowing she eventually "made it out", her childhood story and the subsequent returns to this home place made me catch my breath wondering what would be the next trauma she would have to endure before the circle would be broken.

The themes that stayed with me through both books were the power of influence of our parents, the beauty of friendship, the pain of mental illness, and the courage to advocate for yourself.  We all have something special inside, waiting to sprout out if we can just get the right nutrients and be stubborn in the soil.

* Discovered via Washington Post

Mercy Me

It dawned on me only afterward that I had read two consecutive books with mercy in the title and then another about the power of forgiveness.

"The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving.  It's when mercy is least expected that it's most potent - strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and victimhood, retribution and suffering." 

- Stevenson B. Just Mercy p. 317 (Libby version)

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is a book everyone should read.  And I'd recommend to follow it up with The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton.

"I was born with the same gift from God we are all born with - the impulse to reach out and lessen the suffering of another human being.  It was a gift, and we each had a choice whether to use this gift or not. 

- Hinton, A. R. The Sun Does Shine p. 140

Neither are easy reads but they shouldn't be.  Criminal justice reform, wrongful conviction, and the death penalty are topics from which most would want to turn away rather than turn towards.  For ways you can get involved, the Equal Justice Initiative is a good place to start.

Praying in the Bathroom

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott was another respite in this time of quarantine, in this time of not traveling.  Kept inside by proclamations and duty, moving through new rhythms, adapting.

How fortunate I am to pass this time with someone who understands my sometimes urgent need to read and to let me pass hours, uninterrupted, shedding tears or laughing aloud without judgement or noise and replenishing the glass of water by my side without my having to ask.

My faith needed a boost and my spirit needed a lift.  

An unexpected answer to a prayer.  

I'm totally going to start adding exclamation marks to a few of the names on my list.

Pruning

It was a little over two weeks ago that I found myself wide awake at 1:00 a.m., unable to sleep, and without a book to read.  I had a few queued up in the list, but none were available from the library.

Like a lot of you, I have a set of Notes that are devoted to books, movies, and podcasts recommended by others.  Some of these are half-jotted from a cocktail party, mis-spelled because it was a dark room, and one stood out:  "Bones Blood Better." What in the world was this, and when did I add it to my list?  Google alerted me to the error of my notation and gifted me the author's name.  Was it available?  Absolutely.

The next morning, I was reading through the NYT and clicked "My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need it Anymore" by Gabrielle Hamilton.  I took this to be a sign that it was time for her book.   Blood, Bones, & Butter first, and then I'd let myself read Hamilton's piece in the Magazine.

Between meals, clean-up and the practice in pastelería, nearly half of my day is in the kitchen.  It's not a complaint, it's just a channel in the quarantine.  I wanted to read about cooking and about writing and about hard loves and well, life.

I couldn't help to get pulled back into my memories of Vermont and five minutes showers and crazy family meals where I felt like the outsider as the lone Southerner.  I remember my midnight tour of Rome and the early morning snack and drinks, and how did the Colosseum look so magnificent and empty?  And I think about Argentina and family meals and cooking.

I like that about books.  These threads that bind us as humans, even if we're never met, even if our experiences are not the same.  That we all have flaws and courage, and sometimes it's just better to lay it all out like a mise en place, waiting for that moment that the dish comes out just the way we like it, even if maybe we didn't do it in the order in which we were taught.

By the Numbers

I have been counting a lot more:

• 4 books working on 5
• 37 days since leaving the apartment
• 42 days of homemade meals*
• 80 pages of Spanish homework

And the list goes on.  I think the counting helps to make order of things in disorder while also maintaining my record.  I'm journaling more, though my days are more similar.  We are still holding applause at 9:00, called to balconies by a distant neighbor banging his pot hanging outside his kitchen window.  He's backlit so I can't see his face.  

Some days I would like to bang a pot too.

Most days, I try to be grateful for a small herb garden, fizzy water and FaceTime.

* I could also talk about the meal distribution, including number of unique bases with corresponding variations, but that might seem a little too nerdy.

Believing

If you're not paying attention to the task at hand, there's a higher risk of an error.  And so it was, that I returned Confessions of a Prairie B*tch by Alison Arngrim instead of When Breath Becomes Air.  Arngrim's book was a friend's recommendation, especially if I Liked Little House on the Prairie.

(Read all the books - check.  Watched all the episodes - check.  People called me Half-Pint - check.  Re-watched countless episodes with my uncles in adulthood - check.)

I was half-way through the book when User Error kicked in.

What would I read now?

A few hours later, I received an alert.  Becoming by Michelle Obama was ready to check-out as a "front of the line" if I'd commit to reading it in one week.  Yes, please!!

So this week, I was immersed in becoming, in overcoming, and in hope. I was wrapped up in kindness and humanity and helping.  I knew I wanted to read Mrs. Obama's book, but I didn't know just how much I needed to read it.  I'm so grateful that she shared her story and her journey.  I'm so grateful for her mom and family.  I'm so grateful for the women that surrounded her to encourage and lift.  I'm so grateful for her service to country and once again, to that of her husband, our 44th President.

I returned the book with a full heart.

A few hours later, another alert.  Seems Arngrim was ready again.  I still think books appear when we're ready.

Happy Hopeful Easter weekend!

And I Won't Back Down

Two years later, I went back to When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.  (My March reads have definitely put a lockdown quarantine into perspective.)

The foreword by Abraham Verghese sent me on a "Where have I read him before search?" to my Nashville life of nine years ago and from there, a pause, and a deep breath, and I began.

I read Kalanithi's story in just a few sittings and as I sit to type, searching for words, I fail.

I do have the sense that Paul lived.  He pushed.  He pursued joy and was not afraid of suffering.  A reader can't help but look inward and ask, am I doing the thing I am called to do, that I love?  Am I living my minutes?  Also readers, if you are like me, you will cry.  If somehow you make it to the epilogue with dry eye, I can't imagine you could remain unaffected by the words of his wife, Lucy.

Although limited with our movements around the world, there are still avenues to push, to learn, to love with open heart, not backing down from suffering.

Don't Hold the Applause

For the last ten days, at 21:00, we are one as a country, leaving our apartments and houses to land on balconies and yards.  There are no differences in income, in health, in language, in culture, or in age as we applaud together in service of healthcare workers and support staff in the frontlines against COVID-19.

The first night, I was surprised to hear a noise outside and even more so, to discover it was a sound of celebration rather than of anger.  The second night I was perplexed, so I googled "applause at 21:00 Argentina".*  The third night, I stood on my balcony with joy as such a small action amplified throughout community brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, a neighbor added an anthem before the applause and over the last week, there have been more lights and whistles, with hoots and hollers (as we would say in my other home).  For just a few minutes, we are one:  in celebration and in sadness, in isolation and in community, in body and in spirit.

* Thanks Google!

88, Ra

There's plenty of time to read in a quarantine.  It is difficult to select a book.  I oscillated between genres, authors, and languages like my metronome, finally breaking the rhythm using the library's list of newly available titles.  I chose the first book that was available and on my reading list.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore accompanied me from requested social distancing and quarantine to the mandatory lockdown which arrived Friday morning.  In this read, Moore takes us through the elation and empowerment of new jobs though the crescendo of suffering these women endured at the hands of radium.  Moore uses their own words to highlight their hope and spirit in the fight against the corporations and the difficulty it was to effect change in their industry.  It was challenging for these women to find answers to their unusual ailments and then after receiving news of their fate, it was another mark of courage to launch a years' long battle for justice.

Their small stone in the pond caused ripples touching other industries and lives for years to come.  Several times in reading, I was moved to tears.  I marveled at their grace and perseverance, and I lamented that greed and power still push industries today to value ROI over their human investments.  I'd definitely recommend this title for your list.

In the face of uncertainty, I hope we too can find the strength to do the right and courageous thing.

Good luck with your reading lists and quarantines around the world.

NYC to Bach's Suite in C

The combination of long haul flights and fiction helped me knock a couple other novels off my list.  It can be a hard decision of which book to be married to for nine hours, through turbulence and calm skies,  dinner and breakfast, ignoring all movies, until you hit the tarmac.

The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms drew me in with what I thought was a letter to her Mom but was instead the prelude to Chapter One.  When I started Chapter Two, I re-started the book and then read, well, until the seat belt sign came off for the final time.  It was a fun read about mom-ing, friendships, dating, reading, with a few journal entries (in the form of letters) thrown in.  Amy, our main character, who is Mom and librarian, has a hard jolt that eventually works its way into a blessing and a "Momspringa".  I liked Amy's parenting style, her awkwardness in adjusting to time way from her kids, and her capacity for forgiveness.  The kids were a-ok too.

I tried four other books before I settled into Everything You Are by Kerry Anne King.   I enjoyed this book enough to keep reading but I didn't fall in love with it.  I really liked the characters and their hardened edges, but I had a hard time accepting the thread that binds several of them together:  the acceptance of a lifelong commitment to play an instrument or dire consequences if you stop.  There certainly were no shortage of tragic events in the novel and throughout them all, I was rooting for Braden Healey and his daughter, Allie.  I also wanted Ophelia MacPhee (Phee) to find her happiness.  In this way, King's novel was a success for me.

I am not sure if I will stay the course of fiction or swing back to non-fiction for a bit.  As always, if you have any recommendations for my book list, please send them my way.  Happy reading!

Worth the Weight

After a series of nonfiction and memoirs, I had forgotten what a sheer pleasure a good novel is to read.  I had started The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish one Friday morning.  With the hot, humid weather, I did not have a strong urge to be outside other than that which was necessary, so I read.

I read and I remembered my childhood summers, spent plowing through books with my mom asking me each day, "don't you want to go outside?"  The answer was almost always "no" and I worked through my booklist.

The Weight of Ink lends itself to long spells of reading and procrastinating all which is non-essential.  I am not normally a fan of titles which jump from one time period to the other, but after a few chapters, this style really did move quite seamless with the noted change of vocabulary for the events of the 1600s.  Reading electronically was also a treat as a definition was just a moment away when needed.  When I wasn't reading, I was thinking about reading.  And now, that I've finished, I want to go back and read it again for the things I have missed.  (I'm relatively certain that I have never wanted to read an historical fiction book twice.)

My last history class was a few years decades ago and even then, I am not sure we covered more than "there was a plague in London" as the teacher tried to cover 100s of years in days or weeks.  Ester, our protagonist, is wonderful, as are the other characters in her household:  Rabbi Mendes and Rivka.  In present day, Helen and the Patricias are magnificent.  I was moved with all the characters at one point or another.  Their strengths, hesitations, and failings are displayed without judgement or applause, leaving the reader to cheer or sigh.

The Q&A included with my copy was also great insight into the story's beginnings and the amount of effort that Kadish put into research was really extraordinary, which lends to the book's heft as a "thinking novel".  I would definitely recommend it for your reading list!

Feeling List-ful

I've been a list-maker nearly all my life.  It's my preferred way to capture both long and short term goals as well as the odds and ends in-between.  One of my more recent lists is a Gratitude List.  It lines up well with my most recent read and my journaling, but it also fits into one of my list categories of "no guilt" when I review it.  There are no items on this list that I have not done (unless it was with intention), but rather it's a reminder of a happiness experienced because of something I have done (or chosen).

After the Camino and a lot of time spent in other countries, my list includes some basics:  finding the same butter dish that I had in the US (which, as a baker, is something I use A LOT).  Weight, durability, closure, with a hint of vintage style all went into the original equation and I was more than delighted to find the same dish in Argentina.  Gratitude.

Yesterday, I encountered my first two North Americans in my barrio.  I think they were as surprised to meet me as I was to meet them.  It was joyful talking about places and cities we both shared (and who can be unhappy when you're talking about Dollywood?!) and just to speak in English for a little while was a Sunday gift.  It took 42 months and 1 day for this happenstance; it went on the list.  Gratitude.

A Friday Still

la merienda, enero 2020

Mate with chipá is one of the best meriendas you can enjoy.  If someone brings you these cheesy rolls (best eaten while warm) from Corrientes, know with all certainty that you are loved.

May you receive numerous acts of kindness and love this weekend.

el viernes

Friday mornings bring the sound of the flautas de los afiladores.
Later, on my morning walk, there was John Lennon's Imagine.
At the gym, there was a catalog of Eminem.

In the afternoon, I was greeted by a "Cleveland Browns" t-shirt and not half a block later, the "Memphis Grizzlies".  

In the suburb, I am pleasantly delighted by the familiar in the unfamiliar.

I continue to be in love with Argentinean pears.