And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,
And rolls through all things.
-William Wordsworth, Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey
one of the very many bookshelves in our house
When Amy tagged me several weeks ago with a meme about one’s top five books, and then Kristen wrote about her dream bookshelf, I decided it was time for me to think about this. It’s heroically difficult for me to name my favorite books, and on any such list I know I will have left off some important titles and writers. But I love reading lists like this from other people, so I wanted to give it a try.
I come by my passion for books honestly. My father has said, famously, early, and often, that “home is where you keep the books.” I grew up tripping over stacks of books (in English, French, and German) and in an environment where it was a game to flip open the Norton Anthology, read at random, and ask the person listening to guess the writer and piece of writing. Dad read us Treasure Island and Swallows and Amazons and Mum made me a Pippi Longstocking Halloween costume one year.
Anne Lamott wrote of her family in her beautiful column for the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, “Books and wine were our glue, and so also our grace.” This is such an apt evocation of my own family that it brought tears to my eyes.
With that, here is my attempt to list my favorites. In some cases I’m cheating and listing a few I love from a writer or even a category. People, this is still really hard for me. I know I’m leaving some important writers and words out.
Annie Dillard: Holy the Firm, the Writing Life, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Annie Dillard, more than anyone else, shakes the truth in my eyes that divinity is right here in front of me in the natural world. Her voice is a clarion call that reminds me to open my eyes and to see.
Devotion by Dani Shapiro. To say this book changed my life isn’t an exaggeration. I read Dani’s book and Katrina’s (below) within a couple of months and my entire sense of the world shifted. I felt known and seen – by people who were, at that time, strangers – in a way that was eerie, unsettling, and profoundly reassuring. I understand in a new way the power of memoir and personal writing. I felt a surge of fierce hope: I want to (try to) do even a fraction of that. And then the universe, in its incredible grace, introduced me to both Katrina and Dani. I’m wildly honored to call them both mentors and teachers now. My life has never been the same.
The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison. See above. I’m certain that Katrina’s new book, Magical Journey, will join this list immediately upon my reading it. I’m counting days.
Harry Potter: the whole series by JK Rowling. I’ve written endlessly of my passion for Harry Potter and the world of Hogwarts. I’ve named Dumbledore as my favorite fictional character. School as safe haven, teachers as protectors and guides, the magic that is revealed in learning, the quest to find out who we are, the power of love. Rowling’s world has it all. I’m on my third reading through of the series, and I love it more each time. My faith in this series to transform the reader’s sense of the world and of self is so strong that when I meet someone who is not a Harry fan (which has only happened a couple of times) I am instantly skeptical of them as a person. Literally.
Poetry: The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich, Collected Poems by Mary Oliver, The Selected Poems by Wendell Berry. Poetry is my lingua franca. I love novels and memoir but it is in poetry that I feel most at home and to poetry to which I turn when I need solace. Lines of poetry that I know deep in my marrow run through my head all day long, pulled from their residence in my brain – my spirit! – by some subconscious need or impulse whose order I would love to divine. It’s very, very difficult for me to pick favorites, but I think these three are they.
Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient, Divisadero, The Cat’s Table. Ondaatje’s prose is poetry. His lines, like those of Rich, Oliver, and Berry, recur in my thoughts several times a day. The novel I’ve been working on on and off for years is named for a line from one of Ondaatje’s books. His stories stay with me, shimmering, and their messages reveal themselves over time, layers and layers of image and metaphor and sensual detail. If I was forced to name a favorite novelist, it would be Ondaatje.
What is on your dream bookshelf? Please tell me! “What are you reading” is among my most-asked questions, and the various ways that people respond tells me a lot about who they are. “What are your favorite books” is also on that short list of common, and telling, questions.
I had a Chinese scroll of my grandfather’s framed, and after I unwrapped it at home I was about to throw away these four pieces of cardboard from the corners. Grace asked if she could have them. Sighing, I agreed, thinking of clutter, and of how our house seems to always be filling up with things. That night, when I tucked her in, she showed me what she’d made of the four corners. Peace, love, hope, smile. This is not clutter, it is loveliness, it is my daughter taking someone’s trash and making out of it treasure. Peace, love, hope, smile, indeed.
I love Twitter. I’ve mentioned that before, right? It was through Twitter, a couple of weeks ago, that I found a marvelous post called My Life in Numbers on GFunkified, a new blog to me. I have written my alphabet of right now a couple of times, and I have put a weekend with special friends in terms of data, but I have not recently thought about this life of mine in terms of numbers.
38- the number of years I’ve been on this earth
1992- the year I graduated from high school
3- the number of countries I lived in before I was 12
1- the number of times I’ve been married
2-the number of times I’ve been in labor
40- the hours that my first labor took
3.5- the hours that my second labor took
0- the number of times I’ve been medicated during birth
1- the number of deaths in my immediate family in the past two years
0- the number of pets that we own
over 20- the number of magazine subscriptions I have
3- the number of godchildren that I am blessed to have
3- the number of blog URLs I’ve owned
3- the number of times I cry on any given day
2- the number of pictures of the sky I take on any given day
4- the number of family members in our house
2- the number of sets of identical twins in my immediate family
10- the number of lunches I pack per week
5- the number of blog posts I write per week
10+- the number of pages of additional writing I do per week
2- the number of half marathons I’ve run
1:52- the time of my most recent half marathon
2- the average number of cups of coffee I drink each morning (half a cup each, with rice milk and agave)
1- the number of 20 oz Diet Cokes I drink a day
2- the number of glasses of homemade green juice I drink a day
2- the average number of trips to the library I take per week
8- the average number of books I read per month
10:00 pm- the time I like to turn out the light
8:30pm- the time I like to get into bed
30-45- the number of minutes I have between my 10 year old going to bed and my getting into bed. Problematic.
Please share your life in numbers!
Poetry and hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things that get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”
– AA Milne
I’ve been thinking about these lines since my friend Garrett reminded me of them a few weeks ago.
This is as good as any summary I’ve read of what my life is essentially about: going where life’s outrageous beauty can find me. Remaining open to the poetry that exists in every day. That sounds simple, or at least unequivocal: who wouldn’t want to be open? Who wouldn’t choose that?
For me at least, though, it’s not that clear, nor very simple at all. Going to where the poems can find me entails a great deal of pain. A couple of weeks ago, I was folding laundry on a rainy Sunday night. Matt walked in to find me sitting on the floor by the base of our bed, a blue t-shirt of Whit’s clutched to my chest. My face was streaked with tears. In alarm he looked at me and asked what was going on. I held the shirt to my cheek and looked at him mournfully.
“This is a baby Gap size 4T t-shirt. I remember buying it with Whit. He was home sick, and we went to Harvard Square in the afternoon, just to get some fresh air. He picked this shirt out.” Matt nodded slowly at me. “I won’t ever get that day back,” my voice caught in my throat. “And I won’t ever buy him a shirt from baby Gap. He is too big now.” I shook the shirt out, looking at the robot on the front. I could reach back and feel that day, turn it over in my palm, the memory visceral, real. But also: gone.
“Lindsey,” My husband shook his head.
“I know. Do you think most people get tearful when they fold the laundry?” I wiped at my face as fresh tears streaked down.
“No. I’m pretty sure they don’t.”
That is the poetry of life right there, isn’t it? The swift passage of the years, the brilliant, mundane, heartbreaking contents of a day, the blue robot tee shirt that contains in its soft cotton folds a memory of a long-ago day when my blond son held my hand as we climbed the Gap stairs. So much poetry. And so much heartache. The poems and hums can find me, there’s no question about it. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it’s not easy. It is never, ever easy.