Nonfiction Review: Gift From the Sea

In 1990, one of my closest childhood friends gave me the modern classic Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, with a lovely inscription in the front cover. I recently reread the slim book (my third time) and found the lyrical writing and insightful thoughts more resonant than ever.

Lindbergh wrote this small but powerful book during a brief writing retreat at the beach, some rare time for herself in the midst of a busy life as wife and mother. She began it as a journal to herself, thinking that no one else would be able to relate to her very personal musings. She was, of course, very wrong, as this book has remained popular and in print since its publication in 1955, speaking especially poignantly to women of a certain age. In eight chapters, she examines different types of shells that she finds on the beach and compares each one to an aspect of her life, for example, the channeled whelk as an empty home for various sea creatures, with musings about her own "shell." Or an ever-expanding oyster bed as a metaphor for women's lives in the "middle years of marriage," growing unwieldy and continuing to add on new pieces. Each chapter is written in beautiful language that expresses her deepest feelings, as a wife, mother, writer, and woman on topics of peace, balance, purpose, and more. I loved both her insights and her sense of humor in this passage:

"With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding, and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel."

Despite having read the book twice before, I felt like I was discovering it for the first time and could relate deeply to many of Lindbergh's thoughts and feelings, perhaps because I am now closer to the age (a bit beyond it!) that she was when she wrote it, in the midst of family, home, and a writing career. I found that far from being dated, her words written in 1955 are eerily relevant to our modern life in 2018, as here:

"For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels with it. What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now!"

Her words apply perfectly to our harried lives today, with social media and the 24-hour news cycle (can you imagine what she'd think of all this?). I could fill pages quoting passages in this review - she shares shrewd, intuitive thoughts on almost every page of the book. It will takes me hours to write all the passages I marked in my Quote Journal! As I envied her two weeks alone at the beach, I inwardly cheered for every page, thinking, "Yes! That's it exactly!" It's amazing that this slim book is so relevant and moving more than 60 years after it was written. As with my friend's thoughtfulness toward me, this timeless book would make a perfect gift for any woman in your life.

138 pages, Vintage Books
Random House Audio

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Though my copy is a 20th anniversary edition,  the version now being sold is a 50th anniversary edition, with a new introduction written by the author's daughter.

Listen to a sample of the audio book. 

Purchase Gift From the Sea from an indie bookstore, either locally or online, here:

 

Or order Gift From the Sea from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: The Little Prince

Can you believe I have never read the classic The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery? Not in school nor in all my 52 years. I was moved to finally read it after reading a chapter about it in Books for Living by Will Schwalbe, a wonderful book where each chapter features a book and a lesson learned from it (this one was titled, appropriately, Finding Friends). I wasn't sure how to title this review (children's? classic?) and settled on simply “fiction,” for this small but powerful tale of an alien and a pilot that has been inspiring both children and adult readers for decades.

In case you, like me, have somehow missed this ubiquitous classic, it is a unique story of a pilot stranded in the Sahara Desert who encounters a little prince who turns out to be from another planet. The two gradually become friends as they talk and get to know each other over the course of a week. The little prince asks the pilot to draw him pictures and also asks him questions, though he rarely answers questions himself. Gradually, the pilot comes to understand that the little prince is from a tiny planet, that he has planted and nurtured a very special flower there, and that he is interested in bringing a very small sheep back with him, though he is concerned that the sheep may eat the flower.

The little prince made several stops on other planets and asteroids before arriving on Earth. He encountered an authoritative king of a very small planet, a vain man who insisted on constant admiration, a drunkard, a businessman who was so caught up in his daily tasks that he'd lost sight of the bigger picture, and a geographer who had never explored his own planet. The little prince learns something from each of these people, though his overarching lesson seems to be that grownups are strange.

Yes, this is a very bizarre plot for a story! I had no idea at all that The Little Prince was about an alien visitor. Of course, the story is about much more than its plot, and the slim book is filled with insightful quotations that have become well-known since its publication in 1943, accompanied by delightful illustrations. It is about friendship, beauty, the difference between children and adults, and nothing less than the meaning of life.

The little prince meets the fox - original illustration by the author

Here, the little prince tells the pilot about meeting a fox that was looking for a friend:

“The only things you learn are the things you tame,” said the fox. “People haven’t time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!”

Of course, taming him requires time and patience, but the little prince follows his instructions, and they become friends. When they part, the fox says:

“Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

This little book is filled with astute passages like that. The lessons here are just as applicable to life today as they were in 1943 (perhaps more so, in this new digital world we live in). It took me 50 years to finally read it, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the little prince and learning from him, alongside the pilot narrator. I wish I’d known about this charming little novel sooner so I could have read it aloud to my sons when they were young. I thank Will Schwalbe for introducing me to it now.

83 pages, Harcourt, Inc.

(this was the version translated by Richard Howard, with original art by the author)

-->

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you. All of these links are from wonderful independent booksellers!

Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint ExuperyTrade Paperback

 Purchase The Little Prince from The Book Depository.

Purchase from Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT:

The Little Prince

   

Nonfiction Review: Books for Living

-->

Will Schwalbe became a best-selling author with his book, The End of Your Life Book Club, which described how he and his dying mother discussed books together, as a way to connect. I have not yet read that book, but it has been on my want-to-read list ever since I first heard of it. Schwalbe’s latest book, Books for Living, is a similar exploration of books, a collection of essays describing life lessons he has learned from various books. I was fortunate enough not only to read this wonderful, inspiring book but also to meet Will in person at Booktopia recently.

Books for Living is divided into chapters, with each one referencing a single book and a life lesson that it taught the author. The list of books itself is surprisingly eclectic and not the books you might immediately think of as inspiring. They run the gamut from children’s books to classic literature, from self-help books written more than 80 years ago to popular novels of today. My own copy of the book is filled with dog-eared pages: book titles I want to read myself, inspiring quotes I want to write in my Quote Journal, and moving insights from the author.

For example, there is a chapter on the classic children’s book Stuart Little, written by the renowned E.B White. This chapter is titled Searching, as that is the crux of the lesson that Schwalbe learned from reading the book. He describes his experiences reading Stuart Little as a child, how deeply he connected with the main character (in case you haven’t read it, Stuart is a smartly dressed, polite, adventurous mouse whose parents are regular people…a fact that is barely even mentioned). He writes about the writing of the novel, about E.B. White’s own thoughts on it, and finally what he (Schwalbe) learned from it. Here is an abridged excerpt from those last paragraphs, on the lessons one can learn from Stuart:

“Try not to run away but to go in search.

Try to remain polite when possible, as Stuart always does, and to accept what can’t be changed…

Try to be as brave as Stuart, and as resourceful as he was when he piloted the model boat to victory.

But more than anything: Try to be as cheerful and optimistic as you can be in the face of whatever comes next.”

In other chapters, Schwalbe explains how The Girl on the Train taught him about Trusting, how David Copperfield taught him about Remembering, how Gift from the Sea taught him about Recharging, and how Reading Lolita in Tehran taught him about Choosing Your Life. In all, there are 26 chapters/essays on 26 very different books and the lessons they taught him. Each essay and lesson is entirely unique, and the reading list is wonderfully diverse.

My favorite chapter/essay is the final one, What the Living Do, on the lesson of Living. In it, he recounts the moving story of a wife who finished reading her husband’s big stack of unfinished books after his death, and how that brought her closer to him. Of course, Schwalbe himself wrote an entire book about how books brought he and his mother closer together, as she was dying. This short chapter brought me to tears – and again when I was describing my own experiences to Schwalbe at Booktopia.

I lost my father almost two years ago, and one of the things I miss most is sharing books with him. As a child, he and I (and my mom, too) passed the latest Stephen King novels between us (this was when King was a newly best-selling author). As an adult, I loved to pick out books for my father as gifts – for holidays and birthdays and later, when he was battling cancer, just because. He still loved mysteries, thrillers, and horror – and still loved Stephen King – and I enjoyed finding new books and authors for him to try. When we got together, he’d excitedly tell us about the books he’d been reading. After he died, my husband and I inherited his extensive collection of Stephen King and Dean Koontz books, along with a few other of his favorite thrillers, and seeing that bookcase filled with my dad’s favorite books (in many of which he wrote the date that he read or re-read them) in our bedroom makes me smile and feel closer to him.

Here’s what Schwalbe says on this subject:

“Books and people are bound together. I can’t think about certain books and not about certain people, some living and some dead. The joy I’ve had from these books and from these people, and all I’ve learned from them, merge into one stream in my mind.

We can’t do much for the people we’ve lost, but we can remember them and we can read for them: the books they loved, and books we think they might have chosen.”

I found that entire chapter incredibly moving. As you can probably tell, I absolutely loved reading this thoughtful, special book about books. Schwalbe has a talent for condensing profound wisdom into accessible pieces. This book is not only moving and insightful, it is also warm and witty, like talking about books with a favorite friend. I can’t afford to buy many books for myself (I make generous use of my local library!), but I bought this one, and I know I will turn to it again and again. It’s a lovely reminder of the importance of books in our society, and how even the simplest books can enrich our lives and teach us something.

257 pages, Alfred A. Knopf

-->

Note: This blog contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me at no extra cost to you.

Link to Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT, which hosted Booktopia:

Books for Living

     

Books for Living
by Grof, StanislavHardcover

Fiction Review: And the Mountains Echoed

-->

I was excited when one of my book groups chose And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. I had loved both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns and was glad for the extra motivation to finally read his third novel. It was worth the wait – just as poignant, engrossing, and heart-breaking as his first two books.

Many different characters’ lives are interwoven in And the Mountains Echoed, but a brother and sister stand at the heart of this novel. Ten-year old Abdullah adores his 3-year old sister, Pari, and the feeling is mutual. In fact, Abdullah is more of a parent to Pari than a brother, since their mother died in childbirth and their father was first wracked with grief and later remarried. Abdullah cares for his little sister and makes sure she is clean and fed and loved. They share a unique bond.

Abdullah is understandably devastated when he and his beloved sister are separated from each other. They each grow up in their own worlds, many miles away from each other. Pari is also upset by the separation, but being only three years old, she soon forgets her precious brother and grows up in her own world, though she always feels that something is missing.

Although Abdullah and Pari are at the center of this complex novel, many other characters share connections with them: the children’s father and stepmother, their step-brother, a much-loved uncle, Pari’s adoptive parents, and eventually even Abdullah and Pari’s own spouses and children. Other characters who touch their lives are also introduced and explored. As with Hosseini’s first two novels, the result is a complex web of human relationships and emotions.

And the Mountains Echoed is a far-reaching novel, both emotionally and geographically, spanning the world from a small rural town in Afghanistan to Kabul to Paris and San Francisco. It follows multiple generations and includes a wide variety of different relationships. As with his earlier novels, Hosseini’s writing is beautiful, evoking both the scenes described and the emotions felt by its characters. I marked many passages that I wanted to write in my Quote Journal, including:

“I suspect the truth is that we are waiting, all of us, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.”

And another favorite of mine:

“I have lived a long time…and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person’s heart.”

As you can see just from these brief passages, Hosseini’s writing is achingly beautiful and thought-provoking, filled with philosophical insights into life and love and human nature. This novel explores romantic love, unrequited love, friendship, love between a parent and child, and of course, sibling love within the framework of an intricate, unforgettable story. It is heart-breaking and poignant, but, as with his earlier novels, it does end with an element of hope for a brighter future.

402 pages, Riverhead Books (a division of Penguin Group)

For more about the author and his novels, visit Khaled Hosseini's website.

Fiction Review: The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.

I had been suggesting The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier to my neighborhood book group for several months, so I was thrilled when the group finally chose it for our February selection. Everyone in the group enjoyed this insightful book about women, friendships, secrets, relationships, motherhood – there is just so much packed into this engaging novel that we had plenty to talk about!

As the novel opens, Kate, a mother of two young children, is still trying to adjust after the startling death of her closest friend a year before in a plane crash. The September 11^th attacks occurred just a few months after her friend Elizabeth’s death, and both events have left Kate feeling rattled. On their way to their annual family beach vacation, Kate and her husband and kids stop at Elizabeth’s house to pick up a small trunk that was left to Kate in the will. Elizabeth’s husband, Dave, is not too pleased that his wife mysteriously chose to leave this trunk, filled with journals that Elizabeth wrote, to Kate. She wanted Kate to be the one to read the journals and decide what to do with them.

On their vacation, Kate begins to make her way through the journals, starting at the beginning when Elizabeth was only a young teen, as her friend had requested. Before long, the journals have become something of an obsession for Kate, much to the irritation of her husband, Chris. It turns out that sweet, placid Elizabeth had a number of secrets – things she’d been through and hadn’t ever shared – as well as secret insecurities and anxieties that Kate never even suspected. Kate begins to wonder whether she really knew her old friend, and as she reads about some problems and secrets in her marriage to Dave, she also begins to question the stability of her own marriage to Chris.

This story is engaging and compelling with a bit of a mystery at its core – everyone in the group said they read it quickly and had trouble putting it down – but it is also thought provoking and insightful. Our group talked about it easily for a couple of hours, jumping from topics of women’s friendships to marriage to motherhood to journal-keeping to post 9/11 anxieties and secrets….and then after I got home, my mind was still spinning, thinking, “Oh, we didn’t talk about that” and “I should have asked what everyone thought of this!” In short, this novel really got under my skin and made me think.

I also loved Bernier’s writing. I turned down many corners of the book to mark quotes I wanted to write down later – just so many times when she perfectly expressed some truth about motherhood or being a woman or friendship or some other topic. One example is this musing from Kate on traveling with kids:

“For years, traveling as a family had been something undertaken with determination, their agility weighed by bulky gear and days defined by naps, meals, moods. It had seemed as if those years would last forever, though a small part of her wished they would. Memories of even the difficult times – children crying themselves to exhaustion in cars, planes, hotels – were beginning to take on the cast of nostalgia. She had watched them fall asleep at last, puffy mouths gone slack, with equal parts relief and heartbreak. They would never, she’d thought, be as fully hers as they were at that moment of surrender. The dawn of traveling freedom shimmered ahead. But Kate suspected this, like other things that surprised her, would come with a wistfulness for what had passed too quickly.”

With the dawn of real traveling freedom just ahead for us, with one son in college now and one in high school, I identified with every tired, yearning, nostalgic word of that passage. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of Bernier’s first novel and can’t wait to read her next one, which she describes in this video.

305 pages, Crown Publishers

NOTE: Nichole Bernier made a series of videos for our book group, answering questions we’d submitted ahead of time. In this video, she explains what was behind her novel and how she came up with the idea (don't worry - no spoilers in this one!)

Quote It Sunday 1/17

I had to make a slight adjustment to this weekly feature since I never had a chance to write on Saturday (we've had house guests...and a birthday party coming up today), so this week it's Quote It Sunday! Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting this feature.

I chose something a little different today, a quote (two actually) from a kids' book. Earlier this week, I read a wonderful middle-grade book, I Wanna Be Your Shoebox by Cristina Garcia (you can read my full review at my kids' book blog). The lead character, 13-year old Yumi, comes from a multi-cultural family and is dealing with lots of upsetting changes in her life, including the impending death of her beloved grandfather, Saul. Saul is from Brooklyn originally, though he lived in Japan for many years where he met Yumi's grandmother. Yumi spends a lot of time with Saul, listening with fascinati0n as he tells her his life story. I loved these passages between grandfather and granddaughter, so today's two quotes are excerpted from those discussions:

But change is inevitable, kid. No use trying to run from it or pretending to keep everything the same. It's a law of nature. Things die if they stand still too long. They get stagnant, like an old pond. That don't mean that everything will get better right away. But everything happens for a reason. In the long run, it usually turns out for the best.

And another:

...Listen up, Yumi girl, there's no use running away from your problems. 'Cause where are you gonna run to? There'll be up times and down times, and sometimes, looking back, they're the opposite of what you thought. Sometimes big changes force you to grow in ways you can't predict. But if you got a problem, look it straight in the eye and deal. That's good advice, kid. Take it. I wish I'd followed it myself. You can't return to the past, as much as you'd like to. Look at me: I couldn't go back to Japan, and when I finally returned New York, it didn't work out neither. You gotta keep looking forward, little one. Live in the present, take on the future. That's what I say.

Good advice, huh?

Hope you're enjoying a good weekend.

Quote It Saturday 1/9

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to participate in Quote It Saturday because of the holidays, so I'm glad to be coming back to my favorite weekly feature, where I share a quote from a book. Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting Quote It Saturday!

Today's quote is a partial excerpt from one of my favorite books of 2009, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells. I wrote a review of the audio book this week, but there were so many quotes that I loved and couldn't fit into the review!

Here's one of my favorites, a list that Calla Lily's mother, M'Dear, wrote that hung on the refrigerator of their home in the little town of La Luna, Louisiana. In the book, La Luna is both the name of the town and the name of the river, and Calla's mother also refers to La Luna, the Moon Lady, who watches over her. I've abridged this list a bit so as to not give away any spoilers:

The Rules of Life According to M'Dear:

• Sleep with the windows open (window screens are fine, when necessary).
• Whistle in the dark. Calla Lily, your attempt at whistling is good enough.
  
• Good enough is good enough. Perfect will make you a big fat mess every time.
• Sing anytime you feel like it, and even more when you don't feel like it. Sonny Boy, this does not mean in math class, although you have my permission to sing in all other classes. Will, all your silent singing is good, and also try to sing out loud at least once a day.
• Let love slip underneath closed doors, through tiny cracks in the walls, through your pores.
• MOST IMPORTANT: KEEP ON DANCING. Dance while you're brushing your teeth, dance while the sun shines, dance under the moon...Remember, La Luna waits for us to dance in her light, so dance in the streets. When life is happy, dance in the kitchen, and when life is roughest, dance in the kitchen...

- The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells

Lots of good advice, don't you think? I especially like "Perfect will make you a big, fat mess every time."

Hope you're enjoying a nice weekend and staying warm!

Quote It Saturday 12/12

Time again for my favorite weekly feature, Quote It Saturday, started by That Chick That Reads. I've chosen a short quote for today, just because we've had a difficult week. My two sons and I all experienced a severe flare-up of our chronic illness this week. My younger son and I are doing better, but my older son is still flat on his back.

Today's quote is from Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, a novel based on facts about the life of a woman who was a long-time lover (and, some say, the soul mate) of Frank Lloyd Wright. As the novel begins, she is a young mother and wife who is frustrated and feeling smothered by her dull life:

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.
- Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

While I didn't necessarily agree with her actions in the novel, I could certainly relate to this particular sentiment.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

Quote It Saturday 12/5

Welcome to my favorite feature of the week, Quote It Saturday. Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting it!

Since I just finished and reviewed Olive Kitteridge this week, it's fresh in my mind, so I thought I'd share a couple of other quotes from the book that I really liked. I mentioned in my review that parts of the book were a bit depressing, but these quotes feature a couple of the sections I referred to that emphasize joy and optimism instead. Both of these quotes really spoke to me and reflect my own feelings.

The first is about small moments of joy in life, as Olive recalls watching her son's soccer games when he was younger:

There was beauty to that autumn air, and the sweaty young bodies that had mud on their legs, strong young men who would throw themselves forward to have the ball smack against their foreheads; the cheering when a goal was scored, the goalie sinking to his knees. There were days - she could remember this - when Henry would hold her hand as they walked home, middle-aged people, in their prime. Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it. But she had that memory now, of something healthy and pure.

Having spent many, many similar hours on soccer fields watching my own two sons play, I know just what she means.

Here, in another chapter, Jane and Bob Houlton, an older married couple, drive through town looking at Christmas lights on all the houses:

And she was happy right now, it was true. Jane Houlton, shifting slightly inside her nice black coat, was thinking that, after all, life was a gift - that one of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren't just moments, they were gifts. And how nice, really, that people should celebrate with such earnestness this time of year. No matter what people's lives might hold (some of these houses they were passing would have to hold some woeful tribulations, Janie knew), still and all, people were compelled to celebrate because they knew somehow, in their different ways, that life was a thing to celebrate.

That one is particularly relevant at this time of year, don't you think?

Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

Quote It Saturday 11/21

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting my favorite weekly meme, featuring a favorite quote (or two!).

This week's favorite quotes come from The Art of Racing in the Rain, a novel narrated by a dog that I finished and reviewed this week. This book really grew on me, and I especially enjoyed the philosophical musings of Enzo, the book's narrator, who yearns to be human:

To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something I aspire to.

...I could have pulled him close to me, so close he could feel my breath on his skin, and I could have said to him, "This is just a crisis. A flash! A single match struck against the implacable darkness of time! You are the one who taught me to never give up. You taught me that new possibilities emerge for those who are prepared, for those who are ready. You have to believe!"

- Enzo, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

As you can see, Enzo is pretty wise. I'm so glad I read this wonderful book and wish I had Enzo by my side!

Quote It Saturday 11/14

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting my favorite weekly tradition, Quote It Saturday!

Today's quote is another one from 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time: A Semi-Dysfunctional Family Circumnavigates the Globe, one of my favorite memoirs, about a family from Brooklyn that takes their kids on a trip around the world. This series of quotes focuses on how quickly kids grow up, right before our eyes, and it really hits home for me:

So much information passes into obsolescence the moment an individual stands upright. It is like this throughout childhood, data gathered, then filed away, or discarded. This is how it is: you get comfortable, they spring something else on you. The twelve-year old kid, boy or girl, is a most perfect master, a king among kids, worldly in their world. They get so confident, they forget to duck when blindsided by adolescence.

...They would not be children long. The three of them walked around with expiration dates on their heads.

...Pressure, man. I can feel the tick of the clock. Soon the hair will sprout from under Billy's arms. Stubble will sully his smooth face. Who he is now will be found only on photographs and in addled memory. There is nothing to be done about it. When he complains, about not wanting to grow up, about wanting to stay his perfect twelve forever and ever, it is my job to tell him it is only in Never-Never Land that boys never get old.

...It was all so very familiar. The return of normalcy was fast approaching. Trip Time, that little rip in the continuum of Regular Time, was zipping shut.

- 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time, Mark Jacobson

I feel exactly this way about my two sons, especially my oldest, who is now 15 and shaving but still isn't sure he really wants to grow up. And that last line is one of my all-time favorites. Our family cherishes our summer road trips together. I love living in Trip Time,where it's just the four of us, living in the moment.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

Quote It Saturday 11/7

My family is very important to me, and I love traveling and taking my kids to new places. One of my favorite memoirs combines these elements: 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time: A Semi-Dysfunctional Family Circumnavigates the Globe by Mark Jacobson. Mark is a writer who, along with his wife, scraped enough money together to take their kids on a no-frills trip around the world, both to show them world and to bring their family closer together, as their kids grew older. I filled many pages of my quotes journal with excerpts from this wonderful memoir. Today, I'd like to share some quotes from the book that perfectly mirror my own feelings about family and how travel brings families together:

What remained was us. Little us, nuclear us. For the moment, the entropy that inevitably flings things and people apart was suspended. The force field of our own making ruled the day, a most favorable kind of gravity. We were together. The will by which we created life in our family, this fleeting passage during which we lived under the same Brooklyn roof, rode in the same Toyota Camry station wagon, and got on the same airplane to go on this trip that had landed us, currently, in the city of the Hindu dead, remained in control. That's what this trip really was, a grand, somewhat nutty gesture, a tribute to the ephemera of our lives together. Even if everything went perfectly, in the middle-class way of thinking of things - them doing well, going off to college, getting really swell jobs, etc. - we'd never be as close as we'd been over the 16 years since Rae came on the scene, followed by her sister and brother. Arrows on the dartboard; for now we'd landed here.

...You had to get it while you could, put aside a million mixed feelings, because those moments were irretrievable. It had been a big, juicy chapter, this time of us being together, this invention of us. In no small way, we were all just passing through, tipping our hats like any Lone Ranger, here today and gone tomorrow. It was hard to say where we would go next. With the next lightning strike, it could be over. Sometimes, things just fell apart.

The deal was to horde the here and now. What was known only to us. The shared knowledge, the inside jokes.

Wow. I can relate so well to all that, even better now than when I first read it, as my older son is now 15 and quickly burning through high school. These passages ignite my own urge to travel, to enjoy these fleeting years together, just the four of us. It also makes me want to read this book again!

Thanks to Leslie at That Chick That Reads for starting Quote It Saturday, my favorite weekly theme.

Quote It Saturday 10/24

Another tough week with both of my sons sick as well, but I do think I am finally, gradually gaining some energy back. I even drafted a book review yesterday, though I was too worn out to finish it and post it. I'm hoping for life to return to some degree of normalcy next week.

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting Quote It Saturday, one of my favorite features. Today's quotes come from Loud and Clear by Anna Quindlen, a novel about two very different sisters,one who works for a charitable organization and the other who is a very wealthy anchor on a highly rated morning show. Both quotes are about motherhood:

In the face of all this mythology [of the perfect mother] it becomes difficult to admit that occasionally you lock yourself in the bathroom just to be alone...The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit this quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.

Now I know that much of parenthood is watching and waiting for the chick to fall into harm's way, watching and waiting for the cats and the cold nights. The joyous enterprise has an undercurrent of terror.
- Loud and Clear by Anna Quindlen

Quote It Saturday 10/17

Sorry my blog has been so dull again this week. I had another long week spent trapped on the couch, too sick to write anything. Doing a little better today.

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting Quote It Saturday. I looked through my journal of book quotes this morning and found a couple from a favorite Elizabeth Berg novel, The Art of Mending, that I want to share, both dealing with simplifying life (something I could use more of!).

Here, the narrator, Laura, is observing the few items she has set near her bedside while staying at her parents' house:

There was a cozy completeness to this utilitarian still life. It occurred to me that one of the values of going away was that you saw that something far less complex than what you were used to would do just fine. More and more, I looked at my house, at my life, and thought, "Why do I need all this stuff?"
- The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

And, in another passage, she stays out late on a rare night out and just goes straight to bed:

So I had not done any of my usual nightly routine and it felt wonderful. I wondered why I cluttered my life so much. I felt so free...
- The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

This one reminds me of a favorite Baby Blues comic that my husband and I often laugh about. It shows the Mom and Dad both saying, "I think I'll go to bed now." Then, the Mom starts the dishwasher, folds the laundry, picks up toys, makes lunches for tomorrow, signs school permission slips, washes her face, brushes her teeth, etc. while the Dad goes right to bed and closes his eyes! Perfect, right?

Quote It Saturday 10/10

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting Quote It Saturday. I skipped last week because I was out of town, so I've been looking forward to posting a new quote this week. I browsed through my journal of book quotes to find something good. I have quite a few quotes written down from Rachel Simon's first memoir, Riding the Bus with My Sister. You might recall that I recently reviewed Simon's latest memoir, Building a Home with My Husband, and included some quotes from that on a previous Quote It Saturday. Her books just seem to speak to me, with all sorts of inspiring tidbits that I want to remember.

Just to set the stage, Riding the Bus With My Sister is about Rachel's mentally handicapped sister, Beth, who spends her days riding city buses, and the year that Rachel spent trying to get to know her better by riding the buses with her. These are a couple of the best quotes from the bus drivers, some of whom became like mentors to Beth and sound like some of the worlds' greatest philosophers:

It might seem hard now...but you have to have bad days to know how to appreciate the good ones.
- Tim, a bus driver

When you listen to somebody's story, and you see the troubles they have, you get a better sense of why they act a certain way. It might not excuse lousy behavior, and not everyone who has a difficult life acts badly. But going deeper, and really listening to someone, can help you see that they don't mean nothing against you, they're just hurting.
- Jacob, another driver

And, finally, a quote from Rachel herself that seems to perfectly express my own relationship with my sister, too:

I love her, and at last I believe she loves me, too, but I know that in her eyes I will always be the big sister. It is both my bridge to her and the moat eternally between us.
- Rachel Simon, Riding the Bus With My Sister

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

Quote It Saturday 9/26

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for Quote It Saturday!

Today's quote comes from Rachel Simon's Building a Home with My Husband. I wrote down many quotes from this wonderful memoir. This is one of my favorites:

That was one of the most important lessons I learned in the long educational process that I've come to call my life: although other people might create havoc for me, the more I seethe toward them, the more I make myself suffer.

- Building a Home with My Husband by Rachel Simon

I try to remember this lesson myself - that anger and bitterness hurt me more than they hurt the object of my dissatisfaction.

Enjoy the weekend!

Quote It Saturday 9/19

This week, two separate quotes from the same book:

The secret of life, though, is to fall seven and to get up eight times.

No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a role in the history of the world. And normally, he doesn’t know it.

- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I find the first quote especially inspirational - it's a reminder that it's OK if you fail or things don't go right. It's just a part of life and you keep getting up.

Thanks to That Chick That Reads for starting Quote It Saturday! Stop by her blog to check oput her quote for this week.

Quote It Saturday 9/12

I just read a new feature at The Chick Who Reads - Quote It Saturday, featuring a favorite book quote. I like this idea so much that I decided to adopt it immediately! I keep a journal of favorite book quotes (at least when I remember to write them down!), so this should be pretty easy and lots of fun. My first Saturday quote is one of the first ones in my quote journal, but it's also timely since the movie version of this book was out this summer...

Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details, you forget you are living it. There is always another appointment to be met, another bill to pay, another symptom presenting, another uneventful day to be notched onto the wooden wall. We have synchronized our watches, studied our calendars, existed in minutes, and completely forgotten to step back and see what we've accomplished.

- Sara, in My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

This quote really hit home with me. I should probably read it once a week to remind myself to see the big picture. It's so easy to get bogged down in the mundane details of every day.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!