Month: November 2017

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
      And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
      When I put out to sea,
   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
      Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
      Turns again home.
   Twilight and evening bell,
      And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
      When I embark;
   For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
      The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
      When I have crost the bar.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
For many years I’ve known that my father wanted this read at his memorial service.  On Sunday, it will be.

Books I’m Giving this Holiday Season

I believe books are the best present and they often make up a large part of the gifts I give.  For the last several years, I’ve written about the books I plan to give during the upcoming holiday. My previous posts are here: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.  I used to share ideas “for children’ and “for adults” but as my children, and many of the children I know get older, the lines are blurrier.  So, this year, my list in no particular order.  I’d love to hear what books you plan to gift this year!

The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (Book of Dust, Volume 1)– Philip Pulllman.  It’s no secret that I’m a huge Pullman fan (fun fact: so is R.J. Palacio: Auggie Pullman in Wonder is named for him) and I can’t wait to read this new book (the first of three) which revists Lyra, the intrepid, compelling heroine of the The Golden Compass.

Strong Is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves – Kate T. Parker. One of Grace’s godmothers gave her this book and she and I were both smitten.  Inspirational, strong, powerful, this book is an affirmation for anyone – girl, boy, adult, child – that being ourselves is the most beautiful, and most important, thing.

Artemis – Andy Weir.  For any fan of The Martian, this is a must-read.  I loved Andy Weir’s first novel (and love the story of how it came to be, with his self-publication followed by enormous success followed by traditional publishing taking notice). I plan to read this after Whit undoubtedly tears through it.

Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery – Scott Kelly. I found this book, of Kelly’s journey from childhood in New Jersey to a year in the International Space Station, as riveting as the photographs he tweeted from space. A marvelous book for anyone in your life who is interested in space, exploration, and the human race pushing the boundaries of the known.

Turtles All the Way Down – John Green. Grace and I will have to take turns with John Green’s much-anticipated and awaited new novel.  He can do no wrong as far as she (and I) are concerned.

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver – Mary Oliver, my favorite poet.  This beautiful collection is a perfect gift for a friend who doesn’t yet know of Mary Oliver’s luminous poetry, or for someone who is just beginning to discover her. Or, really, for anyone.

I’m the One Who Got Away – Andrea Jarrell’s.  Jarrell’s first book, a slender memoir, reads with the urgency of a freight train.  In spare, beautiful prose, she writes about how we live with and move past our childhoods, in her case a particularly challenging one.  I can’t stop thinking about this beautiful book.

Saints for All Occasions – Courtney Sullivan.  I’ve established that I didn’t read much meaningful fiction this year, but Sullivan’s engrossing, compassionate novel about family, loyalty, secrets, and identity is one I keep recommending.  The Washington Post just named it one of the 10 best of the year, so I’m not alone in loving this story!

The Burning Girl – Claire Messud.  I also loved Messud’s novel, and have been mentioning it along with Saints to everyone who asks what I’ve read recently.  Her story, about the treacherous road girls can travel from adolescence to adulthood, has stayed with me.

Full disclosure: the links are Amazon affilitate links.

we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.
…
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

– W. S. Merwin

Thanksgiving and the fullness of life

This is always a poignant time of year, and this year it feels more so than usual.  I wrote last year about Thanksgiving 2002, when Matt’s father had his heart transplant, when the course of our family’s life bent permanently.  Last year Matt’s whole family gathered to celebrate his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, which was also the 14th anniversary of his transplant.  It was a gathering none of us will ever forget.

Of course things are very different this year.  Matt’s father is gone, and his sudden departure has punched a big hole in all of our lives.  On Wednesday we’ll gather with his family, and on Thursday with mine. I can’t stop thinking of that morning in 2002, with our colicky newborn in the back of the car and my father-in-law still in a coma at Mass General.  I can’t stop thinking of Thanksgivings in Vermont, before that, when Matt woke up before dawn to go hunting with his father and brothers.  I can’t stop thinking of last year, and the spectacular Florida sunrises, and the heartfelt toasts to mark 50 years.  The memories feel thick and close this week, sharp, vivid.  The people who are gone feel near, and I wonder, as I often do, where they are.  There’s so much I wonder about death, so many questions I have, both metaphorical and literal.

I wrote on Instagram last week of how this year I’m particularly aware of the losses that 2017 has brought to us.  Of course, there have been many beginnings, too. We began this year with a strong sense of optimism, aware that 2016 had been a difficult year, and the first months were full of good news.  Then, of course, came some bad news and some endings, Matt’s father’s death the most significant by a mile of a longer list.  We come to the end of this year in a more reflective mode than we began it, but perhaps that is a normal rhythm.  It strikes me that it probably is.

As the ghosts and memories swirl around me, what I feel, more than anything, is gratitude. I feel privileged to have lived those moments, even the difficult ones, and to have known and loved (and been loved by) the people who are no longer here.  I feel thankful for the family who remains, who hold some of the same memories I do.  I feel a tangible sense of honor to be on this earth, taking pictures and writing about my experience, looking at the sky, loving my family.

Kunitz’s words, “how shall the heart be reconciled/to its feast of losses?” run through my head.  How to honor what is gone while also remembering what has begun?  That is the task of these weeks for me. I feel thankful in a newly deep way, a gratitude shaded by the awareness of life’s losses and heartbreak.  Maybe this is adulthood: an elegy for what is gone and a song of celebration for what is at the same time.

I think what I’m saying is that as I get older, difficulty and glory are more closely intertwined, the light and the dark of life more inextricable.  Every joy is striated with awareness of sorrow, but the reverse is true, also. That’s either the most depressing thing I’ve ever written or the truest, I don’t know which. Maybe it’s both. But this period of my life is marked by a simultaneous embrace of what is – of thanks for what still is, in some cases – and the aching, echoing reminder of what was.

As I write these words it occurs to me that I am talking about nothing less than holding the fullness of life.  The losses and the beginnings, the heartbreak and the beauty, the mundane and the magical. All of it, all the time, simultaneous, bittersweet, dazzling.  Life itself.

 

 

 

We need you

You’re not too much. You probably haven’t shown the world nearly enough. We need you to be your strong, imperfect, direct, funny, brash, hilarious, sometimes intimidating self. We need you to surround yourself with people who don’t need to diminish you in order to feel more secure. We need your ideas, your vision, your leadership, your presence… all of it, 120 proof. If we need a chaser after being around you, that’s up to us to figure that out.

-Steve Wiens, An Ode to the Women Who Are “Too Much”

I may be shy, but I’ve also been told more times than I can count to take it down a notch, that I’m too intense, that I need to stop taking everything so personally.  I’ve been offered unasked-for feedback more than once.  I say sorry too much, and so does my daughter. I love this short piece and am sharing it with her.