Book of Books - 2012

Dear Little Sister-

You already know this, but my good book friend Jo died in August.  She was instrumental in convincing me to keep a BOB, or Book of Books.  In January, I purchased a leather-bound journal and started my own BOB, faithfully recording the date, title and author of each book I read as soon as I finish it.  In less than a year, my BOB has become one of my most treasured possessions. 

When Jo died, I volunteered to type up her BOB so that each of her children and grandchildren could have a copy. I thought it would be a nice tribute to Jo.  (It would certainly be more meaningful than a sorry elegy.)  Jo only kept a BOB for the last ten years of her life, but Jo read a LOT.  Because I typed up her BOB, I can tell you she read 812 books in those last ten years. . . that's a lot of books . . . and a lot of typing!

Although I'm not as prolific a reader as Jo, I'm hoping my BOB will record my reading over the next 50 years.  I don't know whether my BOB will ever contain 812 books, or whether anyone will be interested in what I've read after I'm gone.  But just in case, I thought I could provide you with a typed copy at the end of each year to save you some time. Hope this helps.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff ****

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash **

A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer Dubois ****

And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman ***

Asylum by Patrick McGrath **

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson ***

Being Dead by Jim Crace ***1/2

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin ***

Canada by Richard Ford (B) ****1/2

Defending Jacob by William Landay **

Elizabeth Street by Laurie Fabiano *1/2

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada *****

Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky ****

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman ***

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn****

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ****

How it All Began by Penelope Lively ***

I am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits ****

In One Person by John Irving **1/2

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri ****

Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks ***1/2

One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper ***

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle ***

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (B) ****

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones ***1/2

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (B)*1/2

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy ***

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Phillip Sendker *****

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ****1/2

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otuska ***

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst ****

The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew **

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson ***

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walker ***

The Ghost at the Table by Suzanne Berne ***1/2

The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken ***

The Girls by Lori Lansens ****

The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle ***

The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff *

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh ***

The Light Between the Oceans by M.L. Stedman ***1/2

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore ***

The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis ***1/2

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean ***

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides ****

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg ***1/2

The Nightwatch by Sarah Waters ***

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin ***1/2

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy **

The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac **

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey **1/2

The Submission by Amy Waldman **

The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D by Nicole Bernier **

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones **

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry ****

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown **

The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson ***

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz  ***1/2

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum ****

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd (B) ***

What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman ***

Sincerely,SEE

P.S.  The (B) next to some of the books indicates that it was part of a reading group or discussion.  It doesn't mean I didn't like the book, it just means I didn't choose it. 

P.P.S.  Yes, I realize that one shouldn't use the pronouns "a" or "the" when alphabetizing a list.  Unfortunately, Microsoft Excel is not as savvy as I am and I don't know how to teach Excel. 

Humor Me.

Dear Friends,

This isn't SPAM.  I actually wrote a poem in iambic pentameter and it won a "contest" and now it's been incorporated into a Christmas hotline and I'm so, so proud of it.  You should call and listen.

Just dial 855-HPB-FONE (855-472-3663) and press 2 for a reading of my poem.

Sincerely,

SEE

Hello, Goodbye

Dear Cowboy-

You are the only blind date I’ve never actually met.  I’m usually pretty good at first dates.  And second ones, too.  But you and I only had two conversations in us.  And we had those on the phone before we even met. 

During our first conversation, you told me you wore cowboy boots nearly every day.  But you aren’t necessarily a cowboy.  You’re simply self-conscious about your height.  I'm willing to overlook the fact that you are a man who wears heels.  And the fact that you’re insecure about your height.  Everybody has their issues, right?  Then you told me that you don’t leave home without a jug of water and a jacket in the car.  That’s quirky, but I could use someone who is generally more-prepared than me.  Then you told me that you don’t eat beef or dairy and you have a neuro stress test every year because you don’t want to wind up in an ambulance.  Ever.  But that's okay too, because healthy living is a good thing, right?  Then you told me that you hated to travel, were terrified of flying and avoided vacationing in the state of Florida because your great-great-grandfather was murdered there.  Whoa. 

So, I’m on the other end of the phone, trying to do the math . . . if I have two grandfathers and four great-grandfathers and eight great-great-grandfathers, and one of those eight was murdered in a different state, and I knew about it, maybe I would avoid that state too?  Maybe, but probably not.  But I don’t particularly care for Florida anyway, so that’s not a big deal.  Not traveling and refusing to fly seems like a deal-breaker.  But I’m single, and I’m tired of being single and I’m trying to be open-minded and how much time does a couple really spend traveling together anyway?  Maybe two weeks a year.  If they’re lucky.  That’s like . . .  less than 4% of a lifetime.  I could do it.  I could.

Then we talked again this week.  You had a terrible Thanksgiving because you walked inside and smelled duck.  You hate duck.  You can’t believe you drove all those hours to walk in and smell duck.  (You could have saved time by flying, but I didn’t say anything.)  You haven’t eaten duck since 1994.  Or maybe that was pork?  In either case, if you smell duck or curry  or spicy food, you get mad.  Because you loathe those things.  I’m trying to be a good sport, and I’m trying  to keep up. 

But then it’s my turn to talk.  I tell you where I went to college and how I spent 6 months studying in Paris.  You interrupt me to ask, “Why would you do a thing like that?”  You aren’t as good a sport and you can’t hide your scorn.  I take a deep breath and point out that some people enjoy traveling and learning and experiencing different cultures.  You go silent.  After you catch your breath, you say,

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who thinks you can take a train from London to Italy, are you?” 

Well, no, Cowboy, not exactly.  You’d have to get on the Chunnel in Waterloo station and then change trains in Paris, but then you most could certainly get to Italy.  If you wanted to.  Would you want to take a trip like that?

“Seriously?  You can’t actually believe there’s a train that goes under the English Channel?”

I don’t have to believe it.  I’ve been on it.  Twice.  From Paris to London and then back again.  The air pressure changes when you go underwater and your ears pop.  I promise its real.

Without masking your reproach you say, “You’re making it up.  There is just no way.  And even if it was true, I wouldn’t want to take a trip like that because what would I eat?  What if I got sick?  I don’t even have the slightest idea how to get a passport.  Because I don’t want one.”

By then, you’d lost me.  I may be willing to overlook your vertical challenges, your picky eating, your fear of flying, your compulsive disaster-preparedness, your insistence that the smell of duck cooking can ruin an entire Holiday, and even your refusal to obtain a passport.  But I have my limits.  I am not willing to be made to feel stupid for believing in the reality of a train ride that I personally experienced.  I’m not going to defend my passion for gathering up as many new experiences as I can.  I’m not going to feel ashamed of the stamps in my passport book.  Maybe a person only gets to spend 4% of their life traveling.  But you get to spend 100% of your life living. 

If I’m going to share my life with someone, I want it to be with someone who wants to live too.  For me, that means learning and traveling and reading and asking questions and exploring and soaking up as many positive experiences as I can find in the world.  I may be limited by laws and regulations and social constructs and financial realities, but I won’t allow myself to be limited by my partner's fears.  Call me selfish, but I want to share my life with someone who can make my world bigger, not smaller.  And that has nothing to do with height.

Best of luck to you, Cowboy.  I’m signing off now to plan a trip to Europe.  It’s too bad you can’t come—it’ll be a blast.

Sincerely,

SEE 

Riches

Dear Ranier Maria Rilke-

I re-read your Letters to a Young Poet often. So often, in fact, that I have never shelved the slim volume.  It's been a fixture on my night side table since it was given to me in 2004.  I regret that you and I didn't live here at the same time.  (If we had, I would have pestered you with letters until you wrote one back.)  Instead, I read through your published letters and try to imagine that were addressed to me . . . just like I did last Thursday.

I spent most of Thanksgiving trying not to think about Thanksgiving.  Holidays always make me contemplative, thoughtful, uneasy.  I've been having a particularly rough go of it, and it's hard not to think about all the things I've lost over the past year and a half.  It's tempting to catalog the things I used to be grateful for but no longer enjoy.  But I don't want to be the kind of person that keeps an accounting of every personal grief or slight. 

I cracked open your Letters to a Young Poet. I was looking for a passage that I vaguely recalled but couldn't quite remember.  And there it was staring back at me in black and white:

If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

Touché, Ranier. The truth is that even though this has been a difficult time for me, it has also been a year full of unexpected kindness, generosity, mercy and love. 

Like the moment I unexpectedly saw my dad for the first time in nearly a year.  I'd imagined that if I ever saw him again, I'd punch him in the gut, antagonize him about every lie he'd told, and then kick him in the shins before proclaiming that I hoped he died poor and lonely.  But when I did see him, his head was hung low . . . so low, that he almost walked into me before he saw me.  I was overcome by an entirely different emotion than the rage that had filled me for so many months.  Somewhere, from some unknown place deep inside me, I felt overwhelming empathy for my dad.  Just for a moment.  But in that moment, I found the courage and strength to became a better person that I ever dreamed I was capable of being.  I gave my dad a hug.  There were no apologies. No justifications.  No questions and no denials.  There were no words at all, really. Just a single hug.  In that instant, we weren't two members of a family at odds with one another.  We weren't estranged adults battling out our contradictory version of the truth.  We were just a father and his daughter who suddenly remembered that before the year of hurt and pain and grief and sorrow, there had been decades and decades of love. 

 

There have been many not-so-dramatic, yet just-as-significant experiences like that in the past year. Times I loved, times I felt love.  This is the year I braved multiple tornadoes to rescue my sister from a midterm meltdown. This is the year my friends celebrated my birthday the entire month of August.  This is the year I rescued two little dogs and found them forever homes.  This is the year a friend's four-year old son called out to me as I was leaving the fair, "Miss!  Miss!  I love you!"  This is the year I made it to my little brother's out-of-town high school graduation.  (On a Wednesday afternoon.)  This is the year I received SIX separate Thanksgiving invitations. 

I continue to be reminded of how much I am loved, and of how much I can love.  So, I wanted to set the record straight.  This has been a hard year, but my everyday life is neither a poor nor indifferent place.  Not at all.  By calling forth the riches (and the richness) I have experienced in the past year, I can see that my life is full of grace and warmth and now, gratitude. 

Thank you for helping me out with that, Ranier. 

Sincerely,
SEE

Thanksgiving Break

Dear Family,

I can’t make it to Thanksgiving this year.  I can’t even come up with a reasonable excuse for why . . . I guess I'm supposed to tell you that I have to work this year?  Or maybe I should tell you that I can’t find anyone to keep my dog?  Neither of those things are true.  I don't have to work and I do have a pet sitter; I don’t have any excuses for not coming.  I can’t make it to Thanksgiving because I can’t.  I’m so, so sorry.  I’m not trying to punish anyone or prove a point.  I just don’t have it in me this year. 

The summer before last, Dad made a hasty (and hurtful) exit from our family. For several months, all any of us could talk about was Dad’s new girlfriend, Dad’s credit card bills, Dad’s ridiculous car payment, Dad’s more ridiculous claim for spousal maintenance,  Dad’s unemployment, Dad’s stupidity, Dad’s immorality, Dad’s insanity.  But once the shock wore off and the divorce negotiations were mostly finalized, our thoughts turned to the holidays.  We fretted and plotted and planned and decided that no more holidays should be spent at home.  Ever.  We planned elaborate (and expensive) trips away.  The strategy was to create so many new memories and experiences that no one would notice Dad’s absence.  If we just traveled often enough, maybe we wouldn’t miss our Dad?  Maybe we could even forget that we ever had a dad? 

As crazy as it sounds, it almost worked.  We spent an entire year coordinating plane reservations and rental car options and hotel locations.  There were group trips to Disney World, the State Fair of Texas, New Orleans, SxSW, Park City, Utah, and Montego Bay.  I traveled home at least one weekend a month (sometimes two) for minor events and milestones alike.  I spent countless hours of planning and coordinating the trips, packing and getting ready to leave, making the trip, coming home, unpacking.  After each trip, we’d exchange hundreds of digital pictures and then engage in heated debates about whether we had a single picture that could be used on the family Christmas card to convince everyone we know that we are just fine, thankyouverymuch.  It was like running marathon.  Run far and run fast . . . and don’t stop until you’re so far away that you can’t remember where you started.  And never, ever look back. 

After a year of running full steam ahead, I’m exhausted.  I can’t make another trip right now.  It isn’t the traveling that wears me out—I actually enjoy traveling.  It’s the pretending that’s killing me. Sometimes, we pretend that we never had a dad.  Most of the time, though, we pretend that Dad was the shittiest human being in the world.  (To be fair, Dad really might have been the shittiest husband in the world.)  We pretend it doesn’t bother us when Mom recounts the story of how Dad left her to every flight attendant, rental car agent, and tour guide.  We pretend that Dad’s girlfriend is evil.  We pretend that Mom’s boyfriend is a godsend.  We pretend that our baby brother is doing okay, and we ignore his profound loneliness.  We pretend that one of our parents is incapable of making a good decision.  We pretend that our other parent is incapable of making a bad one.  We pretend not to mind that Mom can’t maintain eye contact or a conversation because she’s working her iPhone like a 15  year-old girl.  We pretend not to notice our our baby brother storming off (and slamming doors) when Mom’s new boyfriend calls.  We pretend that it’s okay that Dad signed away his parental rights.  We pretend it’s okay that Mom paid him for that.  We pretend that we aren’t hurting.  We pretend that we don’t miss our Dad.  We pretend that our family isn’t broken. 

We are broken, each of us in our own way.  And all of that pretending otherwise has left me depleted, exhausted.  I feel like a nub of a human being . . . worn down emotionally to nothing but my base.  I have no more reserves.  I have nothing to give.  And I simply cannot stomach two more days of pretending right now.  So, I’ve decided to stay home for Thanksgiving.  I hope you can forgive me.  Over time, I’ve no doubt that we’ll develop a new sense of family identity.  I’m counting on that.  But this year, I'm going to need to take a break.

Sincerely,

SEE

Lucky.

Dear Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton-

I woke up this morning and realized that today is Election Day.  I needed to vote.  I had to vote.  I had to remember to vote.  So, I do what I always do when its morning and something important needs doing:  I sing.  No, I'm not insane.  Its just that sometimes there are so many things to do that I make up sing-songs to remind myself of the most important tasks.  This memory tool can't possibly be unique to me--I'm sure psychologists and sociologists have studied the matter.  In any case, the point is that today being Election Day, I began singing the tune of one of my favorites songs from one of my favorite childhood movies, Mary Poppins. 

Votes for Women!

Votes for women, step in time,

Votes for women, step in time,

Votes for Women!

I sang that verse all the way to my designated polling location.  While I waited in line to vote, I read the lyrics of the other Mary Poppins songs on my iPhone.  Although "Sister Suffragette" wasn't my favorite song when I was a kid, it might be my favorite today:

We're clearly soldiers in petticoats
And dauntless crusaders for woman's votes
Though we adore men individually
We agree that as a group they're rather stupid!

Cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters' daughters will adore us
And they'll sign in grateful chorus
"Well done, Sister Suffragette!" 

After I submitted my ballot, I walked out of the poll feeling outrageously, blissfully lucky.  Sometimes I forget that voting euphoria, but it happened again today and I remembered that I'd felt this way before.  It's a subtle transition I go through every Election Day.  My stream of consciousness goes something like this:  I need to vote . . . I have to vote . . . Self, don't forget to vote! . . . I'm going to vote . . . I'm voting . . . I GET TO VOTE . . . I'm a lucky girl.  

I am lucky.  As you know, women living in the United States were granted the right to vote in 1920. That means today is only the twenty-fourth time American women have voted for president.  That's not very many presidential elections.  I'm so glad that I live in a time and a place where I have the right to vote.  And today, I'm particularly glad that you lived here too, before me.  I know achieving suffrage for women couldn't have been easy.  I'm sure each of you (and many others) made significant personal sacrifices.  But thank you . . and just in case no one's ever said this to you before, "Well Done Sisters Suffragette!" 

Sincerely,

SEE

Insect Infiltration

Dear Market Pantry-

Someone once told me that its good luck for a ladybug to land on you.  Is it also good luck if you bring home a ladybug in a bag of randomly-selected Market Pantry frozen spinach?  Probably not.

Because if you waited until the last minute to make your spinach dip, which I did, it means Target is closed and you can't go exchange your contaminated spinach.  So, it means you go to another supermarket where you have to buy another bag of frozen spinach.  And this time, you strain it without looking because you are tired and you don't want to know what you might find in this bag of frozen spinach.  While you're focused on not-looking, you realize that you're missing the edge of the sink and dripping spinach water down the cabinet and on to the floor.  You sop up the spinach water with paper towels, and dump the half-strained spinach into the sour-cream-soup-mix dip.  You're tired and trying really hard not to think about the bugs that you probably eat everyday without noticing.  You decide to go to bed and get up early in the morning to clean the kitchen. Which you do.  Except now there's a colony of ants that have moved in.  They thought spinach juice on the floor was an open invitation to bring all their family and friends over.  It wasn't.  So now you spend an hour cleaning up wasted spinach, spinach dip, spinach juice, 10,000 ants, and one frozen ladybug. 

Dad used to remind me that "Some days, you're the bug, and some days, you're the windshield."  But that's really leaving out a whole category of people.  Some days, you're the frozen ladybug.  Some days, you're Market Pantry and you get people to buy contaminated food.  And some days, you're the sorry customer who buys the contaminated food, but is lucky enough to find the frozen insect before serving the spinach dip to co-workers at the annual Halloween luncheon. 

All in all, I'm pretty sure it is bad luck to find a ladybug in your food.  But at least I wasn't the ladybug. There's always that. 

Sincerely,

SEE