Books: #1, #2, #3

 Okay, here goes:

Making a list of books I'm currently reading is similar to constructing a family tree, the lines of one leading to another, including the ways the books showed up for me. 

Let's start with Geraldine Brooks.  I'm sorry to say I haven't read her fiction, but after reading this lovely memoir, Memorial Days, shared with me by Freda, I will start with Horse. 

I love reading writers' personal stories before reading their poems and fiction and essays.  I can picture Geraldine now almost like a friend I've actually met, living on Martha's Vineyard.  Her writing is so vivid that it takes you there.  She talks like we talk, only better on paper.  In person, she tells us she's shy, but her friends are a bunch of rowdy women.  She throws parties, because Tony loves them, but he's the gregarious life of every party--while she prefers serving the food. 

I wish that back in the day, when I was a child and reading every book I could find by Lois Lensky, I had known that Lois was a real person who lived a certain kind of life.  I wish I could have gone to You Tube and looked for speeches and interviews, or gone online to see if she'd written a memoir or autobiography. Back then, it would have been called the latter. 

Geraldine and Tony Horowitz, her Pulitzer Prize winning husband, live a fascinating life--two renowned journalists who traveled the world writing for esteemed magazines and newspapers.  He had just completed his book, Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide, when he suffered a massive heart attack on a book tour in Chevy Chase, Maryland.  

Geraldine and Tony had met in the Columbia school of journalism and had been married for 31 years.  His death was devastating for her and their two sons.

After three years of doing all the minutiae required to deal with the death of a spouse, she realizes that she's never had the full-throated expression of grief that she yearns for.  So she goes back to her homeland in Australia and stays in a media-free rustic cabin on Flinders Island.  

"This will be, finally, the time when I will not have to prepare a face for the faces that I meet.  The place where I will not have to present that things are normal and that I am okay.  Because it has been more than three years and, contrary to appearances, I am not at all okay."

I have now ordered one of Geraldine's novels (she's also a prolific novelist and Pulitzer Prize winning one) and the kindle edition of Tony Horowitz' last book, Spying on The South.  

Thanks to the internet, I can track down interviews and book talks--so the lines in the tree are taking me all over the place on this Sunday morning. 

Postscript to the previous post

Geraldine and Ann Patchett are good friends.  Of course, they are.

Ann, as you know, is not only a stellar fiction writer, but also owns Parnassus Books in Nashville.  I made a huge mistake on my recent trip through Nashville--I should have planned the whole return trip around Parnassus. I didn't yet know that Luci would have been warmly welcomed there, and by Nashville I was too crumpled and exhausted to stop for an extra day. 

Ann Patchett does wonderful book talks and recommendations every Friday, and you can find them online.  

As Geraldine recalls, when she met Ann in the bookstore ten years ago:

"I loved the bookstore on first sight, because it was full of dogs.  Ann, like me, is a dog obsessive, and her staff are encouraged to bring their dogs to work."

Ann told her, "I"m one dog away from being shut down by the health department."

The writing and dog loving worlds almost always overlap.  I love knowing how friendships begin and grow: 

Ann is both empathetic and acerbic, a combination that reminds me of my mum.  When her novel Commonwealth came out, I persuaded her to present it at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival so that we could hang out together.  She and her husband, Karl, a chevalier from Mississippi, stayed with us.

And now we shared a strange bond.  The very last time Tony and I were together was in Nashville.  I'd joined a week into his book tour.  The events manager at Parnassas thought it would be fun if I interviewed him, and I jumped at the chance to join him on the road and reconnect with Ann.

The last meal we'd had together was after that event, with Ann and Bruce, Tony's roommate when we were grad students at Columbia Journalism School.  Bruce, a Southerner, had settled in Nashville, in a house just a few doors down from Ann.  

"I may be old, but I know stuff."

 On Friday, Jan sent me a strange text: "HAPPY LINDA HARRIS DAY!!!"

I didn't get it.  Later she explained, "This is the anniversary of the date you reclaimed your rightful name!"

Oh.  Oh yeah.  I remember doing that about 20 years ago, but I couldn't have recalled the date if you put me under hypnosis.  I told her that.

She replied, "I may be old, but I know stuff!"

I am hereby adopting that line for future use.  It's such an apt phrase to pull out when a younger person assumes you don't know shit about anything pre-1994 when the world as they knew it was just getting started. 

When my spinal cord stimulator stopped working, I told the pain management PA, "The vibrator isn't working to ease my pain anymore."

"I hope you don't call it that around your kids," she said--she, being about the age of one of my kids.  She didn't even try to conceal the smile that expressed her amusement that a person of my age knew what a vibrator meant in common parlance.  

I informed her that "spinal cord stimulator" was a mouthful; "Vibrator" was just my shorthand for the device implanted in my spine, that was, even as we spoke, vibrating my feet so noticeably that I wondered if other people even saw my feet shaking.

Younger people do that all the time!  "Do you do email?" they might ask--instead of "Wha's your email address?" 

Do I DO email?  I was doing email, Honey, before you were born.

Sometimes we really don't know things for a minute.  We've hopped on the bandwagon of the digital world, for example, but may temporarily not recall that "digital" used to refer to the fingers on our hand.

I mentioned a minor issue to my dermatologist.  "Occasionally, I feel a tingle in my fingers that feels like a tiny bee sting. " 

"Oh that.  It's a digital mucous cyst," she said.  "Nothing to worry about." 

In other words, a tiny harmless cyst in the finger joints.  Ohhhhhhh!  

Here I was thinking that even my fingers were in need of a password change!

As I left the dermatologist's office, one of the receptionists asked "Can I pet that dog?" and all the others laughed.

"Yeah," I said--"But this girl is really a dawg, not a bear,"

I heard them saying to each other, "I'm surprised she knew that one!" 

Yeah, I'm super cool for such an elderly person.  I know about memes and things go viral!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P8JgEAmToC8

Making and Reading

Making things--that was the seed pod in my childhood.  (That and church and piano and library books)

My mama made so many things: 

Every garment she and I ever wore.

Wardrobes of tiny dresses for my Christmas morning dolls. 

Stuffed animals made from scraps from our clothes.

Complex stained glass hangings, churches, lamps, kaleidoscopes, insets for doors and windows.

Cross-stitch and crewel embroidery.

Quilts

Flower beds

"Surprises"--little fold-over pies with left-over pie crust dough, filled with cinnamon, butter, sugar, and pecans.

Shorter term, she painted china dishes with her friend, Bea, and built a display rack for them on the walls of our carport-turned-den.  

She used to say she could fix anything if she could just go sew for a while.  Her sewing machine was a lifelong place for thinking things out, making decisions, and healing.  I spent countless hours conversing with her as she guided fabric under the presser foot. 

I was never as good a seamstress as she, but I'm certain that my lifelong love of papers and fabrics comes from the hours we spent in McConnell's poring over pattern books then walking the aisles and handling the fabrics and deciding what fabrics went with which dress patterns.         

Calico, gingham, corduroy, velveteen--ah, how lovely even the words!

When my daddy gave me the McCalls Make-It Book, it became my favorite book.  The pages showed me how to carve animals out of soap, how to weave pot holders, how to make Chinese lanterns out of construction paper--things like that.

Making books is satisfying in a similar way sewing was for Carlene.  (She just gave me her Bernina sewing machine)   I love the precision required to measure, cut, and fold papers.  I love that final happy moment of stitching when the cover snugly holds the pages together.  And I love poking in thrift shops for braids and buttons for final touches.

This has been a tough week with my feet.  My PT released me after 8 sessions ("It's not working for you") and sent me to a spine doc, suggesting that there could be something going on in my spine.  So this week I have three medical appointments.  I'm also looking into other options, one of which is low-dose radiation, another is nerve ablation. But in the meanwhile, it's virtually impossible to stand at my beautiful cluttered-with-paper dining table long enough to finish a book. 

So, as we used to say about things that got in the way of what we really wanted to do and opened up time for something else: "The Universe must want me to read more." 

So that's what I'm doing:

I'll write about that tomorrow.  

Sports

I can't believe I'm watching March Madness!  (I didn't even know what it was until this week). Due to early-onset athletic deficiency (last to be picked on every team, for example), I have never had an ounce of interest in sports.  If someone so much as mentioned a game of ping pong or pool in somebody's  garage, I was the one to go wash the dishes, just to get as far away as possible. 

Marcus, along with a friend of his, is doing the commentary for VCU radio.  So we turn on the games on CBS without sound, while we listen to VCU on our phones.  I am amazed at the scope of his knowledge about sports, all sports, and his ability to recall stats on the spot whatever game he's announcing.

It makes me think about how we all choose our unique paths--based in large part on what is loved and enjoyed in our first homes.  Whether music, sports, animals, cooking, or reading, it's likely that those seeds are planted in early childhood.  

I remember being at their house when Rutgers was playing, back when Marcus was just a toddler, how they all put on Rutgers jerseys and took sandwiches and snacks to the basement for game night.  In those days I might have glanced at the game from time to time, but mostly I was fascinated to see a whole so INTO the game.  Even Day--who used to be pretty sports-averse like her mama, but last year coached girls' football at her high school! 

Buffalo Bills--the whole family, including Leary aunts and uncles and cousins, watch every single Bills game, without fail, all wearing jerseys and texting back and forth throughout the game.  

I didn't get it, until now--when the Pritchett/Harris/Leary's texts go on from start to finish. 

I might be starting to be a little bit of a sports fan!

Monday Afternoon at the Rodeo

This is rodeo season in San Antonio, and Elena is racing in anything open to teenagers.  Not only that, she's working with a trainer after school most days to up her game. 

She did great runs in the weekend barrel races--three this weekend and another tonight. 

On Thursday she found a newborn orphaned goat and has added goat-feeding-every-four hours to her busy days.  I can't believe how agile and sturdy Annie is so soon after birth, relating well to the dogs and horses and kids in rodeo world. She was a big hit with all the kids in the bleachers yesterday. 

Big old furry Conway, half blind, is turning out to be a natural surrogate mama,  treating Little Orphan Annie like his own little kid. .

From Rumi

 Man, man, man,

what kind of lightning are you, setting farms on fire? 
What kind of cloud are you, raining down stones?

What kind of hunter?
Caught in your own trap—
a thief stealing from your own house.

You’re sixty years old, you’re seventy years old, 
and you’re still uncooked?
Still won’t let Love’s flames near, 
won’t let them burn you up?

Enthralled by stuff and status, 
the crown, the turban, the king’s beard—
thorns pricking your hands,

but where is your flower?

Gazing in the mirror, 
you tilt your hat like a crescent moon—
but where is your light?

The Year of the Puppy

Every night, during the months-before-vaccine of Covid, I looked for puppies online.  I had a certain one in mind, something black and white, a breed that ended with poo.  When what we are looking for doesn't show up, or is way too expensive, we sometimes don't see what does show up. 

I will be forever grateful to my friend, Janet Oglethorpe, for scanning SNIPSA's site with fresh and wise eyes and sending me a picture of a dog who was, she said, already "my dog."  

But she's not a puppy!  "Don't get a puppy," she wisely advised me.  "Get a grown-ass dog."

As for color and breed and lineage, Janet knew before I did that none of that mattered.  

She found Luci online on the infamously memorable January 6th.  She grabbed her as a foster dog until she could introduce us.  

On January 7th, when she called to say she'd found MY dog, I hesitated.  January 6th had gutted me.  And I didn't yet have a fence.  

Nevertheless, she persisted.

On January 8th, she said, "I have to take her back today unless you want her.  Can I just stop by and introduce you two?"

In came this adorable little copper and white dog with a tail one observer has since called "resplendent."  Having just had surgery so as not to produce any more puppies that could wind up in shelters like she had, she was not particularly active.  She sat beside Janet and on her lap.

And then I picked her up!  She curled up in my lap, a tiny circle of fur, looking for all the world like a newborn fawn.  Then she put her head on my shoulder--that did it!

She was my ten-pound shadow, following me from room to room, curling up beside the bathtub when I bathed, standing between my legs as I made dinner.  Small as she was, she jumped all the way from floor into my bed and slept beside me.  The rest is happy history!

If you are inclined to get a puppy--or know anyone who is--you must buy Alexandra Horowitz' book, The Year of the Puppy." 

Ironically, just when I was writing that sentence, a family from the end of my street, along with a visiting grandmother named Lucie, knocked to show me their new little one-pound puppy, Remi--who loves following his new brother Moochoo, around the house.  

There is probably nothing cuter in the animal kingdom than a puppy!  

Luci was probably 10 months old when I got her, past chewing on furniture and whining all night and peeing on the floor.  On the first day she did chew up my favorite leather pocket book and a phone case, but I told her that was not allowed, and she never did it again.  Based on her laid-back and sweet personality, after reading this book, I'd say that her dog mama was very attentive and gentle with her.  And that whoever her first human people were taught her good manners.  

If you're a little on the older side, with no kids in the house to play with, and you want to take your dog with you everywhere, I'd suggest this formula: ten pounds, ten months.

"It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your children are?"

Do you remember when the local newscasts ended with that question?  It was long before I had children myself, back in 1967 when I was a newly-married person living in San Antonio, but I often recalled it years later when my children started driving and being people out in the world without needing me so much.

Now three of my four grandchildren are older than I was when I moved to Texas trying to figure out how to be an adult in Texas, how to finish my degree, how to be married, and how to keep up without a TV or in-house telephone.  (There was a phone booth two blocks away and a friend sometimes invited me over to watch her TV). 

Now that I'm a grandmother, and still a mama, I come home from a trip wondering where they are, how they are, and what they're doing.  

So this morning, I got a call from Day along with pictures of her recent retreat to Virginia Beach for a crafts weekend with Deanna's family and friends.  Also pictures of Marcus and Lucia who are visiting for the weekend. 

At the Virginia Beach retreat, Day made a deck of face cards:  (I told her she's the most playful creative I know!) 

Everybody's okay--that's what I really want to know.  Marcus has lost a lot of weight from his recent mono and just found out he needs a tonsillectomy, but he's lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree.  Jackson doesn't get a spring break this year now that he's working.  Tom and Day are going to Denmark this spring--after they come here for Easter weekend. 

So they all love Lucia!  

Here is the morning conversation between Day and Tom:

"Okay, Tom, we can't get too attached to her.  She's from Spain, who knows where this is going to lead?"

Tom: "It's too late.  I can't help imagining them holding our future grandchildren!"

She's a basketball star and an art major, her parents were both Olympians.  She speaks three languages fluently.  She adores Marcus.  And vice versa.  What else do I need to know? 

Even I--who've never met her--am starting to get "attached" and hoping to get to meet her in the spring. 

The funeral of Jesse Jackson

I wonder where the expression came from: "She never darkens the door....," a phrase that I associate with non-church-going people like me?

Except for the occasional wedding or funeral, I never "darken" the doors of organized religions.  But today I'm making up for a bunch of Sundays, watching the five-hour funeral service of Reverend Jesse Jackson. I'm on Hour Two, but I intend to watch it all the way to the getting-saved part if that's how it's going to end--which is typically the wrap-up of a good Baptist church event of any kind. 

Thousands of people attended the service in Chicago today--from choir members and soloists to preachers and speakers of all stripes and colors, to a handful of Democratic Presidents and dignitaries, Jackson's wife,  children and grandchildren on the front row.

As I was napping this afternoon, You Tube on, I woke up to the dynamic speech of Al Sharpton.  I'd never heard him deliver a sermon, I know him mainly as a host and guest on programs aired on MSNow.

But he rocked the congregation today, Martin Luther King style.  He got impassioned shout-outs and AMENs and applause from the people.  After hearing that, I decided to watch the entire service.  (The last one I watched similar to this one was the funeral of Mahalia Jackson.)

A cardinal, a rabbi and a Baptist preacher delivered poetic powerful prayers.  I copied a few lines from the prayer of the Baptist preacher, Otis Moss: 

Jessie Jackson was "a son of the South, a practitioner of good trouble, and an acolyte of holy mischief."

(Baptist preachers love threesomes, phrases with three parts!) 

"We come to honor a spiritual artist who painted upon the canvas of democracy with a rainbow coalition of colors that had been marginalized by antebellum myths that dismissed human dignity....

We honor the rhetorical genius of a man whose oral dexterity reshaped notions of what is possible.

The simple phrase 'I Am Somebody' when deployed by Rev. Jackson empowered a generation suffering from the lingering residue of confederate bacteria resting upon the unrealized constitutional promises in a space called America..." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZQ2CD6UEZE