the planet’s last dance. January 29, 2010

Ways I am not like Elizabeth Bennet:

• I do, in fact, consider myself a great reader. Call me conceited. Whatever.
• I only have two younger sisters and neither of them ran away with a penniless, morally bankrupt militia man. (Although, they both are married.)
• My mother is a delight and never complains about her nerves, even when I’m sure they’re bothering her.
• I have never been subjected to awkward conversation with a haughty dance partner.

I’ve been attempting to write this post for about a month now, and I’ve given up on the perfect way to announce this, so I’m just going to go for it, and you all can email me for any clarifications you would like.

Jesse and I dated several years ago. He broke up with me, and I was heartbroken. I finished an M.A., took an adjunct position, got a job in software and found my feet in the adult world. He moved home to his parents, went back to school, became involved in his church and focused on his relationship with God. We stayed in touch. This past summer, we started spending more time together, he visited my church, we rebuilt our friendship.

Shortly before Christmas, Jesse called my dad and drove down to talk to my parents about moving our relationship to an official level. Or, I guess I should say, back to an official level.

We are, and have been, first and foremost, very good friends. We are still learning to navigate, again, the complications of aligning two lives, the compromises and the trust it requires. Where are we going from here? We’ll see.

I understand that this may seem different from the outside than it does from where I stand. Know that there was much discussion, prayer and thought before we got to the point where he went back to my parents. This may not be entirely how I envisioned my life, but, as a friend of mine said, we are a people of redemption, and I am content.

We have spent the last month introducing him to my new brother-in-law and my charming and brilliant nephew, reacquainting him with the quirks of my family’s get-togethers. (Arguments about Don McLean songs, stories about catching that raccoon under the back patio via barbed wire, eight bajillion pictures of Asher hamming at the camera.) We travelled hundreds of miles over Christmas between our respective families. We have been cooking, playing games, and sitting in silence reading.  But most of all, we have been thanking God for a second chance, for the changes He worked in us that brought us back together.

baby, baby this is all for you. January 28, 2010

The Unit, by Nonni Holmqvist is a strong contender for best book of 2010. Dystopian literature, as my friend Rachel lately pointed out, seems to be one of my areas, if not of expertise, definitely of interest. This book caught my eye on goodreads because of some of its similarities to another favorite of mine, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. (I just searched my blog, convinced I would have written a review of that book, since I followed up reading it by recommending and lending it to everyone I could get my hands on. Apparently I didn’t.)

On her 50th birthday, Dorrit packs up and moves from her home, leaving her lover and her dog behind. She enters the unit where she will live out her days with other women over 50 and men over 60 who are now dispensable individuals – people who did not have children and have the foresight to choose a career that bettered the economic whole. With no living offspring who needed them, they are to participate in medical testing and trials until they give their final donations of major organs. (“‘But what about me?’” Dorrit asks vehemently at one point about her sister, who has already finished the process. “‘Perhaps I needed my sister, why doesn’t anybody care about things like that? That brothers and sisters might need each other?’”)

An interesting picture of a world where fetal life supercedes that of our elder population, which I think speaks to some of the complexities that face our country right now. If the government has charge of our health, where do you cut from when the money runs out? As one character disagrees, when Dorrit bitterly says that time and people are both money, “‘People are people,’ he said seriously. ‘Life.’”

Before I leave, my cautions. This is a Swedish author, and the s.x content is a little higher, more stark than most. Be aware. Also, my main problem with the believability of this book is the gentle kindness with which all those in the unit love and support each other. Humanity, as I know it anyway, does not stop to nurture others when being forced to give up their lives for the common good (of those who had foresight to choose a good job and have a child.) While it made for a more peaceful, meaningful narrative, I don’t think it would go down like that.

So many things I would like to say about this book, but I don’t want to wreck it. If you enjoyed Never Let Me Go, or Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, or P.D. James’ Children of Men (an excellent book, a terrible movie, by the by) I would strongly, almost vehemently recommend this book. I read it in one day, even though I’m working long hours and exhausted. That should say something to you.

life’s about fast cars and passing each other… January 27, 2010

Do you have to like the narrator of a book in order to appreciate it? Do you have to respect them? Identify with them?

I was pondering that the other morning on my drive to church, having set down Waiting, by Ha Jin when I finished my coffee and gathered my Sunday School materials. I don’t like Lin Kong much at all. I’m sure I don’t respect him. I’m not sure I can really even identify him. Married in his youth to a woman his parents feel will be able to take care of them in their old age, he supports her back in his home village while working at an army hospital far away. Shuyu is not what Lin considers presentable in his city life, so he visits on his leave and feels content with how his dying parents are cared for.

Enter Manna. A nurse at the hospital Lin works at, she strikes up first a friendship, then a relationship bordering on the romantic with him. Finally, she asks him whether he is going to divorce his wife and marry her. The first line of the novel tells us “Every summer, Lin Kon returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.” Every year, Shuyu backs out at the last moment, or is saved by her brother’s vehement opposition, and Lin returns to the hospital to let a disappointed and increasingly dissatisfied Manna know the news. For seventeen years he continues this, until in the eighteenth year of separation he is allowed to divorce his wife without her consent.

We wait with Manna and Lin, watching their struggles, his changes of heart, her anger and frustration. We wait with Shuyu, who seems simple-minded in her affection for her estranged husband. The ending of the book, too, is rather well-done, where Lin finds himself again waiting, again in confusion.

Lin is not particularly unlikable. He’s honorable in his own way, refusing to sleep with Manna until they are married, supporting his ex-wife after the divorce. He’s intelligent, if a little brainwashed by the political system. But he’s such a spineless fellow. His entire life is guided by what is expected of him, by Shuyu, by his superior officers, by Manna, by his daughter. He questions and re-questions the decisions he’s made, even after making them, and seems unable to throw himself wholeheartedly into any of his relationships.

Manna, on the other hand, is frustrating. She refuses to understand what sort of claim Shuyu might have on Lin’s life and time, even after giving up her life to care for his parents and their daughter. She only sees how the waiting has affected herself, and she ends up taking it out on Lin in passive-agressive arguments and insecurities even after they finally are married.

Other reviews I have read  have claimed that Shuyu’s pure heart and easy-going commitment to the people in her family regardless of technicalities like divorce make her the only admirable character in the book. I’m not sure what I think about that. I do think that this was a good novel for considering how often we throw all our eggs into the WANTING of something and forget to appreciate it once we have it. Oh, how lovely my life will be when I finally…get a job that pays all the bills, get married, can stay at home with my kids, retire, etc. We start to build our life around the desire for a certain situation or conclusion, and then when it comes (college is over!) we don’t know how to enjoy where we stand because we’re so used to the discontent.

And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t live with discontent. I think that’s what drives us forwards, and it can be a positive thing. But sometimes, it’s good to read a novel that reminds me to look around and see all the things I’ve come through and all the longings I’ve had fulfilled and how wonderful that is. To dwell in the moment and revel in where I am. I have graduated, both from college and with an M.A. I have a good job. My family is safe and solid (and all on American soil!!) I am not alone.

The rest will come, with time.

remember this, remember. January 23, 2010

The other night, I devoured two Bookmarks magazines, the result of which is that I reordered my entire to-read list on Goodreads. Inspired, I went to the library and the used bookstore today, and I’m now in the middle of a bunch of new reads. I am rereading Such a Pretty Fat, by Jen Lancaster, as my New Year’s thinspiration. We’ll see if her caustic wit and general self-deprecating humor can inspire me to get running again here after the holidays. (It’s so COLD. I hate coming out of the gym all sweaty into the frigid temperatures. So…I end up just making excuses and sleeping instead. Isn’t that what this time of year is for? Hibernating?)

Other than that, I stumbled on to a copy of Wolf Hall at the library, and I’m so excited to read it. I thought there would be a long waiting list, so I snatched it up. I’m also in the middle of Kestrel, by Alexander Lloyd. And a couple of others, but who’s counting?

Really I’m just writing to let you know that I’m still alive. Work is crazy busy, and there’s a lot going on in the rest of my life, so I’m just thankful to get a weekend of quiet to make granola and peach salsa and maybe, if I’m lucky, some soup or something tomorrow. For now, I’m going to go read and knit for a while. Loves to you all.

And ice, mast high, came floating by… January 18, 2010

So it has been foggy for days, here, despite the cold. Yesterday, when the fog waves rolled away, the trees and bushes and power lines were left covered in sparkly rime*. I wanted to stop and take pictures, but I had to get to church to prepare my Sunday School lesson about Jonah’s choices about ministry and how they compared to Philip’s choices about ministering to the Ethiopian in Acts. Yes. I know, they’re in 1st and 2nd grade. I didn’t make it super-complicated. It more had to do with rejoicing over forgiveness than anything else.

I also finished The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. It was okay. It definitely didn’t blow me away. The main character seems to be an older, repressed woman who is obsessed with the younger generation’s love lives and idealizing her youth’s only relationship. The club mentioned in the title never materialized, but there was a lot of internal philosophizing, which got old, really fast. (Remember The Elegance of the Hedgehog?)

So I’m moving on…to some childhood re-reads and a book on principles of design that I’m reading for work (cooler than you would think.) This is going to be another good week.

*Funny story, I was thinking of the term “salt-rimed” this morning (thus the Rime of the Ancient Mariner blog title) when I was driving to work. But I was unsure how that was spelled, so I looked up “rime” and it actually means “an accumulation of granular ice tufts on the windward sides of exposed objects that is formed from supercooled fog or cloud and built out directly against the wind.” Perfect.

minutes into hours and the hours… January 12, 2010

It seems fitting, that the first book of the new year is one I actually have been reading for months. Really. Months. I know it’s not like me, but I’ve really only been reading it in snatches in the evenings or while I have my coffee before work, and this is (literally and figuratively) a weighty tome.

Stephen Carter’s New England White is a mystery, and like his other books, is centered around the elite African Americans who are close to political power. I remember really enjoying Palace Council, but little quirks I overlooked in it were what drove me mad about this one. His pedantic vocabulary was irritating, and his constant overuse of “paler nation” and “darker nation” to delineate the races was just condescending. I think his characters are complex, even remarkable, with multiple motivations and searing internal conflicts. However, he told us in the first chapter that Julia feels like her white neighbors are always watching her because they’re concerned about the “colored people” in their neighborhood (his words, not mine – are we even allowed to say that these days?) so I feel like his constant descriptions of her in interaction with them as “the black woman” kind of ridiculous. Carter, we haven’t forgotten her race in the last two pages. Give it a rest already.

Okay. I’ll stop with my criticisms. I really did enjoy the book, even if it could have used a strong editor. I’m just not sure how his extreme obsession with race really moved the book or characters forward.

K1, P2 January 6, 2010

Some knitting thoughts and pictures for the new year here.

your heart opens. January 2, 2010

2009 is over. I know. It’s crazy. So, even though I have failed at my 100 books in a year challenge, again. Dun dun duuun. In fact,  as of right now, I have done worse than 2008, reaching only 87 books. A lot of that was the book slump that occupied most of October and November, which put me about 12 books behind.

Still, eighty-seven is enough for us to do a highs and lows, right?
Let’s do the lows first, shall we? Get them out of the way.

1. The Broken Shore, by Peter Temple. I bought this with a Christmas gift card from last year, but I didn’t read it until July. Well, I tried, more than once, but it took a four-hour plane ride with nothing else to read to finish it. I wasn’t impressed. It was violent and confusing and had very little satisfaction in the conclusion. Read more here.

2. Bel Canto, by Patchett. I really wanted to like it, but I didn’t. Perhaps because I know that my brother has seen horrible things over his last year of deployment in Afghanistan, and I felt like the hostage situation that seemed more like a garden party just felt insulting. Read more here.

3. Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn. It was incredibly well-written, it was just also horrible. Every single character was broken, pulverized, missing a soul. Read more here.

4. Saving Fish From Drowning, by Amy Tan. This wasn’t a terrible book, it just seemed overpopulated and full of cliches. Read more here.

5. The Edible Woman, by Margaret Atwood. This was the most disappointing of her’s I’ve read. She can be a little over-the-top angry feminist, and this book was a little too much to handle. Read more here.

Then the top…

1. Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout. This book is excellent, showing an honest and touching portrait of humanity. Read more here.

2. Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Yes. Just yes. Read more here.

3. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins. I know this seems a little random, allowing a book and its sequel to both be on the top five, but…it just isn’t often that a book’s sequel is complex and satisfying like this one. Read more here.

2. The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. In a different vein, this is the third of four books (well, the third of three and the fourth is due out soon) and while I recommend all three, Turner’s work gets better and better, and this was the best. Turner is good at telling a story with a twist, telling us a story that pulls our eyes in one direction while working out details in a completely different one. Read more here.

5. Glass of Time, by Michael Cox. This one was the best gothic novel of the year. Satisfying, not as tragic as its first, The Meaning of Night. Read more here.

And the bonus – the best re-reads of the year.

1. Up A Road Slowly, by Irene Hunt.

2. The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley.

3. The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood.

4. Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede.

5. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte.

Now…what to read first in 2010? I’m not making any promises about 100 books this year, since it promises to  be a busy year, and I’m knitting a lot these days. You know, the usual things.

the only resolution, the only joy December 22, 2009

The only resolution and the only joy,
Is the faint spark of forgiveness in your eyes.

Buffy, my iron sharpening friend (Proverbs 27:17) and I had an interesting email exchange the other day.

I was struck in this conversation by how much forgiveness and grief have in common.  A lot of Christian grieving is the process of believing again after loss. Believing in the Lord and His plan and His love after being torn apart. For me, this started with 2 or 3 seconds at a time when the pain was at its worst, believing that He still loved me.  Then a little longer, maybe 10 seconds at a time, until you can believe in His goodness almost continually again.

Forgiveness is not a once and done deal. As I told Buffy, in my experience it’s more of an early and often situation. You forgive and forgive and forgive. Sometimes I think that when Jesus talked about forgiving seventy times seven, maybe he didn’t just mean that we need to forgive our friends’ four-hundred and ninetieth sins, but that sometimes, it can take a huge number of repetitions of consciously forgiving someone to heal wounds caused by sin, to rebuild the trust broken.

As Buffy pointed out, this is a time when the evangelical Christian way of looking at things breaks down, that once you forgive someone everything is wiped from your memory and emotions and everyone just loves Jesus.  It’s infinitely more complicated. We are told in 1 John that “perfect love casts out fear,” but that’s in the context of our confidence in our Saviour’s redeeming work, not in the context of our broken human relationships, imperfect human love. Forgiveness is about letting imperfect love cast out fear. How much and how soon do we allow that?

And yet, the verse in 1 John is applicable to human relationships, because, as another friend of mine pointed out, it tells us that redemption is possible. For everyone.

This week, I feel like I have seen that, and I am blessed.

my fingertips are holding. December 15, 2009

Addendum: Goodreads informs me that there’s a fourth book in the works, from the point of view of Sophos, the heir to the throne of Sounis. A Conspiracy of Kings is due in May of 2010. Delicious.

So last week, I read The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner. I had recently visited my friend Abby and her sisters, and when I got home, I remembered that I had borrowed her copy of this book. I went looking for it, because I needed to return it (after a year and a half, yes?) and couldn’t find it anywhere. So I stopped at my trusty used bookstore and picked up two copies for under $2 each, one for her, and one for me. (I have “your” book, Abs.)

Anyway. I started The Thief, and the beginning was a bit slow. I was puzzled by Turner’s strange anachronistic land that was a strange mix of Greece and Macedonia and Rome.  I was puzzled by the characters, by the strange cocky Thief, by the rulers without first names. I hit the halfway point, and I read the end in bed with my booklight, like I used to do when I was a kid. The end was good, but not completely satisfying.

The next day, I went to the library and picked up The Queen of Attolia, the second book in the series. Like The Thief, this book starts out in the middle of things, and snowballs into a huge, disturbing development in the first quarter of the book. While the rest of the book gets a little bogged down with wars and armies and troop movements, the last third of the book is a race to the finish, a satisfying romantic pursuit and a contented conclusion. Once again reached by reading with my book light, late in the evening.

I started the final book, The King of Attolia, almost immediately. Focused on Costis, a squad leader in the Queen’s Guard, instead of directly on the Queen’s Thief. (I’m trying here, really hard, not to ruin anything.) While I enjoyed the last two books, they have pulled me out of my book slump and I am grateful, they were nothing like this one, definitely the defining work of the series. I have read this one at a breathless pace, with almost as much obsession as the bamboo silk shrug I cast on last night. (I actually reached out while half asleep just to touch the softiness.) So. Good.

So I’m recommending them all, to early to mid teens, and even if the first one doesn’t stop you in your tracks, keep reading. It will be worth your time.

In the meantime, I’m going to head to my day of meetings, without my bamboo shrug, in an attempt to finish some of my easier on the mind Christmas knitting while previewing billing development. Wildly exciting. Maybe tonight, I’ll post some pictures of the recent work on the knitting blog – nakiruknits.wordpress.com.