August Is for Reading Women

The reading theme for August is Women. This is such a fun theme (a repeat from last year—that’s how much we enjoyed it): any reference to a female in the title is all that’s required, common as well as proper nouns, and even pronouns. Broad. (Did I mention fun?)

I have been heavy on fiction in this first part of the month—so far I’ve read The Lady in the Lake, Raymond Chandler; The Handmaid’s Tale (graphic novel version—so fun), Margaret Atwood; Huntress, Malinda Lo; The Bride Test, Helen Hoang (loved this); and Hagar Poems, Mohja Kahf, which I also loved.

I do have some nonfiction in progress, though. My main focus has been Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez (it’s very informative and quite depressing); Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson (I am not far in, but so far I’ve loved every page); and The Friendship of Women: The Hidden Tradition of the Bible, Joan Chittister.

We’re not even halfway through the month, so plenty of time to get in a few more women. I’m just starting Mother Love, Rita Dove, as my next poetry book (this is a reread; I loved it when I first read it many years ago). I’m pretty sure my next fiction book is going to be My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite. But until I actually start it, you never know.

Additional fiction I’d like to read for this theme:

• Queen Sugar, Natalie Baszile
• The Fate of Katherine Carr, Thomas H. Cook
• The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark
• Wench, Dolen Perkins-Valdez
• The Alice Network, Kate Quinn
• The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen, Katherine Howe

I can’t imagine I’ll get more than two or maybe three more read yet this month. So hard to choose. I want to read them all.

I have a similar problem with nonfiction. I would like to read all of these this month:

• You Play the Girl, Carina Chocano
• The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy, Peggy Caravantes
• The Black Girl Next Door, Jennifer Baszile
• The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness, Brianna Karp
• Give a Girl a Knife, Amy Thielen
• The Crone, Barbara G. Walker

The Crone would be a reread for me. I thought I needed a crone in there to balance out all those girls. I loved it when I read it in the 1990s. I wonder if it would still strike a chord, now that I’m so much closer to cronehood?

Last month’s theme was water. Just listing the titles is kind of fun: Dragons in the Waters, Daughters of the Lake, Skinny Dipping, Watership Down, Wade in the Water, The Arm of the Starfish, River, Waterborne.

This is turning out to be a very good reading summer. I hope you are finding yours equally enjoyable.

Happy reading!

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Backyard: Disaster Area or Nature Refuge?

My back yard has never looked worse. The red-twig dogwoods are out of control but are also being invaded by stray elms. The wood and wire compost bin is at a serious slant. The grass is knee high, and there are plants/weeds growing that seem to be new to the yard this year. I was going to hire a landscaper to come in and clean it all up, but that didn’t work out.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. In any given summer, I usually get an occasional juvenile robin or two, and on lucky years, I see juvenile cardinals.

This year has been a bumper crop. A few weeks ago I started seeing a couple of young robins (spotted breasts), usually with one of the adults. But not just occasional this year. Not daily, but nearly so. Always two young ones. And then today, I saw at least four juvenile robins, possibly six (they were flying around and I couldn’t count them all at once). So many youngsters was a first for my backyard.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw what I thought was a female cardinal on the back feeder. Turned out to be a juvenile cardinal (they look like females but have dark beaks rather than the bright orange of the adults). I haven’t seen any since, but even one sighting is welcome, as they don’t happen every year. And there’s plenty of time to see more.

A week ago I got a happy surprise: baby wrens. Fledged, mind you, and able to fly, but small and oh so fast! At first I thought they were mice, the way they scurried on the ground (there were about four of them). But then one flew, and their cover was blown. I’ve had a house wren visit every summer, but this is the first time I’ve had a wren family. How fun!

Today, I was sitting at the blue table and a woodpecker was hanging out on the large downed tree branch I’ve been meaning to take out for about two weeks. But what was different about this woodpecker? And is it a downy or a hairy? On closer look, this is something I have but haven’t seen before. A hairy woodpecker, yes, but different, with red on the front of its head (the forehead) instead of the back. A quick look at the field guide confirmed I’d just seen my first juvenile hairy woodpecker.

The catbird returned (the same one? not sure) a few weeks ago, but then I didn’t see or hear it for quite some time. But about four days ago, it showed up again, and has been back daily since. I am hoping that perhaps I will see some baby catbirds sometime down the road here. (That would be another first!)

This is the first summer I’ve ever noticed young chipmunks—two of them, at least. Like the baby wrens, exceptionally fast. Another fun sighting.

The narrow part of the yard that runs along the side of the house is happily overrun with common milkweed. It’s growing up here and there all over the yard, but it’s quite dense on that side of the house (such that it’s falling over the sidewalk, but I certainly don’t want to pull it, so I try to prop it up). Monarchs are a common sighting in this part of the yard, lots more than last year, and often several at a time.

So, there it is. I look at my yard and flinch. And then I look at my yard in wonder. I’ll let you know if I see any baby catbirds.

Water, Water Everywhere: July Reading Theme

During the hottest month of the year, it feels good to immerse yourself in water, be it lake, river, sea, or pond. So we’re immersing ourselves in “water” books for the month of July. I’ve finished three so far:

• Dragons in the Waters, by Madeleine L’Engle. This turned out to be the second book in the O’Keefe series, and now I have the first on order from the library. I loved the Wrinkle in Time series; the O’Keefe series is showing promise as well.
• Daughters of the Lake, by Wendy Webb. I loved this book by one of my favorite local authors. I didn’t think she’d ever write anything I loved as much as The Fate of Mercy Alban (set in the famous Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, though it isn’t Glensheen in the book of course), but Daughters of the Lake was every bit as engaging. A contemporary gothic mystery set on the shore of Lake Superior, this one had me baffled right up to the end.
• Skinny Dipping, poetry by Suzanne Collins (what better in July?)

I have a good selection of watery fiction to choose from:

• The Sea, John Banville
• The Odd Sea, Frederick Reiken
• The Shape of Water, Andrea Camilleri (first in a mystery series set in Sicily)
• Ocean Sea, Alessandro Baricco
• Bay of Angels, Anita Brookner
• The Marriage of the Sea, Jane Alison
• Rain, Kirsty Gunn
• Madras on Rainy Days, Samina Ali
• The Lady in the Lake, Raymond Chandler

Notice how almost all the authors’ surnames are from the start of the alphabet? I stopped looking through fiction after the letter G because I already had such bounty. (I did go search out The Odd Sea, though, because I knew I had it and I wanted to be able to pick between a regular sea and an odd sea). I think it’s a grand list and I hope to get several more books in yet this month. It is July, after all—lazy days on the front porch (or under the ceiling fan) reading. It makes me feel all happy inside just thinking about it.

Nonfiction is much skimpier:

• St. Croix Notes, Noah Adams
• Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, Thomas Cahill
• When the Water Smokes, Bob Simpson
• Water and Sky, Alan S. Kesselheim
• Seasons on the Pacific Coast, Susan J. Tweit
• Sippewisset, Tim Traver
• Facing the Wave, Gretel Ehrlich

I have started the Ehrlich book, just a few pages in. But earlier today, I glanced at Seasons on the Pacific Coast, and I think it may just win out. It looks so compelling, and it is so much of my mood in a July. It’s subtitled A Naturalist’s Notebook, and it has lots of beautiful illustrations (I am a sucker for illustrations; pictures, too). It’s a singularly attractive book with a siren call.

As is usually the case, there are a number of good titles in poetry. I am most looking forward to Wade in the Water, by Tracy K. Smith (current U.S. poet laureate). Sheila and I are reading this together to discuss. It’s been awhile since we discussed a book of poetry. I’m looking forward to it. Also in the poetry stack:

• River, Fred Chappell
• Crossing the Same River, Patricia Goedicke
• Waterborne, Linda Gregerson
• The Water Carrier, Steve Straight
• Water Becomes Bone, C. Mikal Oness
• From Where the Rivers Come, Richard Solly
• You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake, Anna Moschovakis
• White Sea, Cleopatra Mathis
• Fleet River, James Longenbach

So many options available for long summer days. I’m picturing the front porch, a little stack of books, and a big glass of iced tea with lots of lemon.

Happy reading!

Deep Kindness

I’m nearly halfway through the kindness book, and already it’s making a difference. No, I have not become a better, kinder person overnight, but I have begun to take notice.

A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You, by Donna Cameron, can be read in many ways. It comprises 52 chapters in 12 sections. You could read a section a month, a chapter a week, or just pick it up and read a chapter whenever you feel like it (which is the way I’m doing it). The chapters are short, generally 3 to 5 pages, and invariably give me something to think about.

I don’t underline in most of the books I read, but this one I am. As I finish each section (five so far), I’m writing to the friend who gave me the book, telling her what stood out for me in each chapter. Now she’s rereading the book and we discuss it each time we meet for lunch (she’s saving the cards so we can discuss later as she reads at her own pace). What fine conversations we’re having!

Here are some of the things that stood out for me in the first part of the book:

In the introduction, Cameron calls kindness a “superpower that has the capacity to transform lives and change the world.” Hmmm. That’s a bit of a tall order. I will wait and see.

In the first chapter, she talks about the difference between niceness and kindness. “Nice doesn’t ask too much of us. It isn’t all that hard to be nice. In fact, it’s easy. It’s also benign. Passive. Safe.” Kind people go beyond what’s expected of them; they go beyond the easy response. And they do it without expectation of anything in return. I am a nice person, but I am not a particularly kind person. Occasionally yes, certainly. I rarely go beyond the expected response, and I usually do expect something in return—like gratitude or a thank you.

As you can see, I have a ways to go.

One particular thing the author says in the early pages really caught my attention. She’s talking about how she’s been practicing kindness for over a year now, and she’s getting better at it.

But there are still days when, as soon as words come out of my mouth, I recognize that they were not especially kind words and contributed nothing of value.”

That made me stop and think about my own speech, and it has stayed with me. How many times every day do I say words that are not especially kind and contribute nothing of value? Far too many, I will tell you. But there is good news already: I have started to take notice of it (“That wasn’t very kind, was it?”) and I think my behavior is already slowly starting to improve. Not bad for page 24, huh?

There’s a lot of research on kindness out there, and they’re finding that acts of kindness have a positive effect on the body’s immune system, and they produce serotonin (the brain’s happy chemical). Interestingly, the recipient of the act of kindness also experiences the positive effect on the immune system and the serotonin, and—wait, there’s more!!—even bystanders who simply OBSERVE the kind act get the immune and serotonin effects! Seriously, who knew besides all these researchers and everyone who’s read this book?

It gets even better: Kindness is contagious. The giver of the kind act, the recipient, and, again, the observers are all more likely to go on and do kind acts, and it doesn’t stop there. It spreads outwards to three degrees of separation. So my kind act will cause those around me (or at least increase the likelihood) to also commit kind acts, and then those observers will commit kind acts, and the observers of those acts will commit kind acts. That’s quite a potential effect.

But even if every act doesn’t go that deep, there’s always the potential. You just never know.

On the other side of the fence, rude behavior acts in a similar manner. People who experience rude behavior are more likely to subsequently behave rudely, and even those who simply observe the rude interaction are more likely to engage in their own form of rudeness.

And there I was, stopped in my tracks again. What? A rude behavior on my part can precipitate three degrees of rudeness? Now there’s a motivator. At so many given junctures I can choose to be kind or rude. Either act will have a ripple effect on those around.

As I pondered the numbers, I realized that if more people increase kindness and decrease rudeness, then kindness will spread. And if it does indeed affect observers as well as actors, and to three degrees, it could spread quite quickly.

And that would be a very good thing. I’m going to give it a try.

Reading in June Is All About Size

Happy June! June brings a lot of wonderful things, like strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb and cactus blossoms. Also, a new reading theme.

The theme for June is size (think small, medium, large, and take it from there). I’ve been looking forward to this theme ever since Sheila suggested it, and I will not be disappointed.

Nonfiction is especially enticing this month. I’ve started with Small Victories, by Anne Lamott. Talk about the perfect book at the perfect time (although it’s true that I tend to like Lamott at any time, this one seems particularly perfect). Next up is likely Small Wonder, by Barbara Kingsolver (the rare writer who has written both fiction and nonfiction that I’ve loved). Other books in the nonfiction pile:

• Any Small Thing Can Save You, Christina Adam
• The Big Picture, David Suzuki
• Sleeping Giant, Tamara Draut
• At Large and At Small, Anne Fadiman
• The Marginalized Majority, Onnesha Roychoudhuri (is a majority an amount rather than a size? It feels like a size)
• The Big Squeeze, Steven Greenhouse
• The Small-Mart Evolution, Michael H. Shuman
• The Size of Thoughts, Nicholson Baker

Not bad, huh? And a nice range in topics.

My fiction stack is skimpier (but note, I have only gone through about two-thirds of my fiction). I’ve started with The Long Way Home, by Louise Penny. At first I thought “long” a bit of a stretch for the theme, but I’m good at stretching, and when I remembered drawing sticks when I was a kid (the kid who drew the long stick got to go first; the kid who drew the short stick had to do dishes—like that) I knew I was home free. Meeting with Sheila before the theme began, I started reciting my reasoning for “long,” sticks and all, and she laughed and said she already had a “long” book in her reading pile. Oh I do love my friends.

I also have two books by Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep and The Little Sister. I’m leaning more towards The Big Sleep, and I’ve just remembered I have a graphic novel of The Little Sister. Maybe I’ll read both!

Also in the pile:

• A Little Yellow Dog, Walter Mosley
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie
• The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, Tiffany Baker
• The Last Full Measure, Jeff Shaara

A short but appealing stack.

In poetry, I’ve started All the Short Poems, by Valerie Worth. This is a lovely book, with illustrations by Natalie Babbitt.

Poetry has given me some of the best titles for the size theme:

• The Tiny Journalist, Naomi Shihab Nye
• A Slender Grace, Rod Jellema
• Skinny Dipping, Suzanne Collins
• In This Thin Rain, Nelson Ball
• Crossing the Great Divide, Jean Feraca

A new month, a new reading theme, new birds and new plants. Turning the page on the calendar. Entering the lazy season, for lolling on the porch, reading and napping. Count me in.

Happy reading (and napping) to you!

Emotional Maturity

I honestly thought (assumed, really) that by the time I got well into adulthood, I would become wise and emotionally mature. No more temper tantrums or sulking. No jealousy, no resentments (that I can’t get past no matter how hard I try).

Holy cow, was I wrong.

While it’s true that I don’t sulk nearly as much as I used to, that’s only because a friend called me on it. We were on a road trip, and I didn’t get my way on something, and after an hour of me sulking in the car, she said something along the lines of, “So are you just going to sulk all day, or what?” Well.

Apparently, I thought in my wee mind that nobody noticed my sulking. Or at least if it was noticed, there was a tacit rule that it not be mentioned. But I think mostly I thought it was somehow not that noticeable. Why, I cannot say. Is there any behavior more annoying in a friend than sulking? It’s annoying in children and even more annoying in adults.

I’m embarrassed to admit that this event took place in my 40s. I’m pleased to admit, however, that it effected immediate change. What? You can see my sulk? That behavior ended that very day. Not without an occasional backslide, I’m sure. But it was quite a verbal slap to the face, and I am ever grateful to my friend for pointing out my poor behavior. I still feel sulky once in a while, wishing I had gotten my way. But now I usually either say something or just get over it. The hours-long sulk is behind me. Which goes to show that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

And resentment. Don’t get me going on resentment. I don’t think I’ve made one iota of progress on that front. When I was young I could carry a grudge longer than god, and that hasn’t changed much. Oh, except that I don’t get grudgeful nearly as often. But still the grudge is inside and it festers. Why can’t I let these things go? Years ago I said something that offended a friend. They demanded an apology. I said I wanted to tell my side. They said I didn’t have a side, and apologize or the friendship is over. Well, I apologized, but of course as you know, the friendship was over.

I’m still not sure to this day whether I’m more outraged or flabbergasted, that a friend would tell me in any kind of disagreement, “You don’t have a side.” Who says that? A judge, perhaps. A dictator, certainly. A czar, a despot, a tyrant.

Forgiveness. Definitely not my strong suit.

It all feels so petty. I thought I would be past this by now.

In a somewhat different realm is worry. Worry can be useful if it reminds you to do things. But once you’ve done everything and you’re still obsessing, worry becomes less useful, and it can even become debilitating. I used to swirl in worry, but I’ve learned (or been taught) some tricks: food and drink often serve as an excellent distraction, especially if the food is good and the drink is hoppy. Getting out in nature almost always soothes my soul, and if I can manage at least two hours, sometimes the worry moves away like the clouds. I can also find solace in physical activity: raking, weeding, doing dishes, cleaning out storm drains.

So this is a bit of progress, a bit of maturity. I’ve found some productive outlets (detours?) for my emotions.

I began drafting this post weeks ago (some posts are tougher than others) and just a few days ago I got an amazing (to me) gift from a friend. A book, A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You, by Donna Cameron. While kindness is not exactly an emotion, it sure seems to be tied to a lot of emotions that would not well entertain things like sulking, resentment, and worry.

I am intrigued. I was originally going to write, “I don’t think kindness is a panacea for my emotional immaturity” but I couldn’t do so, because now that I think about it, it might indeed be a cure. I mean, if you really think about it, kindness might well be the cure for many things. Maybe even for everything.

Could kindness save the world? Stay tuned.

Reading Theme Update

May is underway and I’ve shifted to the May reading theme, which is Black and Blue. An odd fit for May (why didn’t we do Green?), but usually our monthly reading themes aren’t attached to the month, so there you have it.

If I recall correctly, we got to Black and Blue because we were trying to choose a color theme, and black and blue seemed the most viable. But we thought perhaps there wouldn’t be enough with just one color, so we combined them. It made sense at the time. In retrospect, though, I think the theme would have been broader had we just chosen one of the words. Say what? If we had chosen black, for example, I would certainly look for books with black in the title. But I would also include things associated with black, like night, dark, and ebony for sure; but it seems like there could be additional variations—black birds, perhaps. Blue could have incorporated the concept of sadness, all words for shades of blue, and seriously blue things, like the sky, the ocean, and sapphires.

But when it’s black AND blue, I feel compelled to limit myself to those two specific words, because in my (perhaps strange) mind, the theme loses its cohesion if I stray into all those other territories. Not that anyone would care. (I don’t think even Sheila would mind—no, I’m sure she wouldn’t. She didn’t even get annoyed last year when I only read one book for the theme month because I devoted the month to a completely different theme. She is so much more emotionally mature than I am.)

So, sticking specifically to black and blue, the gleanings from my bookshelves are pretty skimpy (I have a couple of books on order from the library). But this is not necessarily a bad thing, because May is a busy month (birding, yard, garden) and reading is a lower priority. But also, I’d rather have a few good books to choose from than a lot of mediocre ones, and I’ve got a few good ones this month.

I’m about one-third of the way through Well-Read Black Girl, by Glory Edim. This book is basically an introduction to brilliant black women writers. It contains several lists of recommendations: classic novels by black women, books on black feminism, books about black girlhood and friendship, science fiction and fantasy books by black women, plays by black women, and poetry by black women.

Each list is followed by three essays, and the list of contributors is impressive—Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Barbara Smith, Rebecca Walker, and N.K. Jemisin, to name a few. And it’s a wonderful package, an added bonus, with illustrations (mostly small but a few full page) of each of the contributors. A book beautiful both inside and out.

For poetry, I’m reading Blue Horses, by Mary Oliver. I am not far into it, but already I love it. Much of Oliver’s poetry deals with nature and I have thoroughly enjoyed most of her books. She can string together a few words and I will feel like I’m right there with her in the marsh (except she isn’t there, it’s just me in the marsh). No other poet does that quite so well for me.

I’ve not started a fiction book yet, but I’ve decided on Blue Eyes, Black Hair, by Marguerite Duras. It has many wins in its favor: the title contains both black and blue, of course; also, it’s short—117 pages; even with that short length, there is a lot of white space—the margins are wide all around, the font isn’t small, and there’s frequent double spacing between paragraphs; and it’s a novel of erotic obsession. Granted, novels of erotic obsession can be really bad, but if this one is, it’s only 117 pages.

The reading theme for April was Men (any variety will do). I read a monk, a boy, three men, plus Jack, Jim, Tolstoy, and Arthur Truluv. I didn’t read nearly as much as I wanted to in April—I had so many good theme books. But we had some beautiful days, and the lure of the bike and the river held sway.

It’s hard to stay inside. My rhubarb is nearly a foot high; the lilacs are starting to flower; the crabapple is in full bloom; the forsythia has peaked and the leaves are now in. I’ve had fox sparrows (3), a Lincoln’s sparrow, and scads of white-throated sparrows in the last several weeks. The house wren is back, and I’ve had both Swainson’s and gray-cheeked thrushes in the backyard. I do love the spring bird migration.

Happy reading (and birding)!