What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Trina McNeilly is a mom to a brood of four, a freelance writer and a self proclaimed style scout.  When she isn't wrangling or writing she dabbles in design and is always looking for the lovely.  Trina has been blogging for 4 years and writes daily at her lifestyle blog, la la Lovely where she shares her lovely finds.  She's learned that the most lovely things in life are not things at all, and well, she writes about that too.  In her, very few, spare minutes she is busy making her childhood home her now grown up home.  I love books, almost every kind possible actually.  I love the way books look, always adding soul to a home.  I love the way books feel, there is just something about turning each page that is rather comforting.  And most of all, I love what is on the inside of books . . . words.  Words that, on their own, might not mean much but strung together form a story; a story once lived sharing a life to learn from perhaps just a story to get completely lost in.  Truthfully, that is what I look for most in a book . . . a way to get lost, a way to loose myself.  And yet, almost every time, at some point in the story, I am found and find more of myself than I knew before.  And when I find that I have been found in a book, that particular story always seems to stay with me.  Sometimes it haunts me with its grasping tale when I see specks of the story in real life days.  And, sometimes it reminds me of a truth I’ve needed to know and am trying to live and other times it is a teacher that helps me to string my words into a story of their own.

My own reading habits vary (as life does with 4 littles) but my regular and most familiar pattern is to read a couple of books at a time.  I love to always have a story ready at hand to escape to and I always find the need to be reading a book to help better me as person (which can have vast range of topics from motherhood to business).

These are the books you would, most recently, find making their home on my nightstand:

The Flight of Gemma Hardy

By Margot Livesey

If you were to ask me my all time favorite book I would likely reply Jane Eyre.  No explanation needed.  Any retelling of that story sparks interest, but also skepticism.  While running through the airport last month, this title caught my attention and when I read that it was a new telling of Jane Eyre I was curious.  I continued on to read that Gemma was from Iceland and resides in Scotland on the somewhat mystical Orkney Islands and . . . I was sold.  I had never heard of the Orkney Islands but I had to know about it.

Although The Flight of Gemma Hardy, for the most part, followed the story line of the classic, Jane Eyre, I inevitably knew what was coming next, but I didn’t quite always know how, and I found myself looking for how the story varied and the differences and uniqueness of each story.

I found Gemma’s story, although very sad at times, to really be one of hope.  Hope that your story can end well.  That good can come of bad.  And that in the midst of trials, when you can’t seem to find your way, or even yourself, if you keep moving forward, choose to be brave in the everyday and pay attention to your thoughts, it is there that you will be found.  Gemma ran, only to ask herself “Why had I left if I was going to carry him with me every step of the way?”  Yet in the running she was found.  And she found the one thing she wanted so badly, “to be well regarded and well loved.”  And isn’t that what we all want?

The Gifts of Imperfection

by Brené Brown

This is the kind of book that ruins you in all of the right kind of ways.  But I should confess, I wanted to get ruined when I picked this book up.  The subtitle goes like this, “Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.  Your guide to a wholehearted life.”   The truth is, I have a lot of ideas of who I think I’m supposed to be, and who others want me be but I’m still working on accepting and then embracing who I really am.   Brown starts off this internal journey by saying that “owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”

It’s chapter after chapter of defining words that we effortlessly throw around in our daily lives without knowing the true meaning or implication of that word.  For example the original meaning of the word courage is, “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”  And to become more courageous you have to practice courageous acts, “you learn courage by couraging.”  The idea that it takes courage to share what you really want or need or who you are, actually makes complete sense as it something most of us hold back from doing in fear of not being accepted.

The Gifts of Imperfection is a book that I’m sure I’ll reference for a lifetime.  If you aspire to live an authentic wholehearted life than I think you will enjoy getting ruined as much as I am.

The Tales of the Seal People

Scottish Folk Tales

Duncan Williamson

I have a thing for fairy tales and folklore.  I’m always up for anything that is a little magicky and requires a heavy dose of make believing.

After reading The Flight of Gemma Hardy and doing a little research on the fascinating Orkney Islands, I read that The Tales of the Sea People was a book that Margot Livesey used as research when writing her book, The Flight of Gemma Hardy.   When I read that these were a collection of stories from Scotland that were somewhat guarded and scared to the fishermen and people that lived by the sea, I was instantly intrigued.  My great grandma was from Scotland and I wonder if she ever heard of, or maybe even told, any of these tales herself.  Although these are folk tales to some, somewhere down the line they were very real happenings to the originator of the story.

The Tales of the Seal People is a collection of short stories, which are simply written and read as if someone is actually speaking the story. All of the stories are centered around Silkies (Seal People) who were part human and part seal.  Each story is an intertwined tale of a person who lived by the sea and their encounters with the Silkies.  It’s interesting knowing that these are likely common stories told among Scottish children and up until this point I had never even heard of a Silkie.  I love reading these stories to my children and I even love reading them all on my own.  I find that after I read one, I always want to read another.  And I’ll surely never look at a seal the same way again.

It Takes a Village

For several months, the two of us have been rattling along—slowly and steadily at first, and then, all of a sudden, at lightning speed—toward our wedding day this past Sunday. There were a couple of brave souls who volunteered right away to stir up decor, to preside over refreshments, to fashion a cake. Then we all retreated to our respective workshops, pounding out the details one by one. Our own two-person workshop was a quiet but busy one. In the early mornings and late at night, we pooled our resources and put on our most creative thinking caps. Over simple lunches and steaming cups of coffee, we crafted our lists and spreadsheets, made our calculations and recalculations.

Everything changed this past weekend, when a small but mighty ensemble of joyful hearts and open arms descended upon us. From what seemed like the furthest corners of the earth, our loved ones swooped down and began to work magic in many forms. They read poetry and chopped cabbage. They lit candles and fireplaces. They held our hands and told us to breathe. They brought their singing voices and their dancing feet. They wrapped us in an embrace of busy and brilliant love.

By the time we woke the next day, it felt as if all the world were still. Our loved ones had packed up the debris of a wedding well-celebrated and returned to their vibrant and bustling lives. As we begin a new leg of our journey together, I know for sure that we are learning from the best. We are learning from those who love with their hands and with their feet, with their full hearts and with their comforting voices.

We often envision weddings as a celebration of the love of two people for one another. But I was delighted to witness this weekend what I already must have known: that our bright, little love is buoyed by our village of family and friends, near and far, who love us steadily, and then sometimes, all of a sudden.

Paying it Forward

Over the weekend I attended a family reunion of sorts.  First and second cousins, aunts and uncles gathered to celebrate two milestone birthdays.  I knew it would be legendary, our gatherings always are; last time a sticker fight of monumental proportions rocked my parents' house.  This time it was glow sticks and piggyback battles on my aunt and uncle’s front lawn. We’re pretty awesome like that. Over the weekend I chatted with relatives about what I’m doing with my life, listened to stories about my ancestors, gave hugs like they were going out of style, and ate more food than I will admit here.  But probably the highlight of my weekend was hanging out with my younger cousins, four of whom were in attendance.  You don’t know them, but trust me, these kids are awesome.  They are the children of my first cousins (all of whom are older than me) and are intelligent, inquisitive, and laugh-out-loud hilarious.

I snuck them dessert before dinner, demanded high fives and hugs in exchange for stickers, and lost count of piggy back rides.  I even took a turn at playing the villain and carried one of the girls off from the playhouse.  Of course the other cousins chased us down and my role shifted from captor to prisoner—on the way I earned the honor of having my name on a wanted poster or four.  I’m still quite proud of that.

My aunt and uncle live in my grandmother’s old house, so as we ran through the yards and surrounding hills and wooded paths, it was easy to remember the times, not so long ago, when I was the younger cousin—walking through the same mystical trails and creating entire plots with only my imagination.

At the end of the weekend, I said goodbye to my cohorts with more hugs and high-fives and demands of letters and pictures.  As I said goodbye to my playmates' parents—my first cousins, the ones who wrote me letters and sat still to listen to my stories or play never-ending games of war—I was thanked.  I’m still not sure for what.  Yes, I hung out with, entertained, and literally carried off my younger cousins.  Maybe I did ‘make their weekend’ but at the very least it was an even trade.  I came home talking just as much about them, telling stories of adventures, full of memories that are still making me chuckle, and with a new drawing for the fridge.

But besides all of that, for me, this is just what family is.  Of course I’m going to play games and go on scavenger hunts.  Obviously I’m down for some serious conversations about sequins, nail polish, and the latest book for 12 year olds.  That’s why I’m here. That’s what being an older cousin is all about. I know because I have older cousins.

Twenty years ago my cousins made me feel special simply by taking an interest in my life and listening to what I had to say.  They wrote me letters, told jokes, and provided themselves as amazing role models. To think that I would try for any less is nonsensical.  I may not make it, but if I can be half of all that they were to this new generation, I will consider that a job well done.  That’s what family does—we pay it forward to the new generation.  To be a part of the chain is a privilege, and I require no thanks.

Do More With Less

By Ashely Hogge Do more with less. I try to live this mantra every day. Luckily, I prefer less. Less technology, less clutter, less shiny, less expensive. For me, I find more in the experience. The things that aren't quite things but rather untouchables. I'm attracted to places that offer and encourage outdoor activities like skiing, biking, and hiking. Even Portland Oregon, where I currently live, is close to both the mountains and the ocean. I have such peace of mind knowing I can escape the city at any moment. And quite often, I do. I keep it easy---a day hike in the Gorge with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, Goldfish (yes, I love kid food) and chocolate. With my camera in tow, I am most content on the trail. In this setting, hikers are stripped of those day to day annoyances. Signals are lost. Perspectives quickly shift. Most of the time, the literal and figurative weight will lift. Tension and anxiety will dissolve. It seems almost primal to be so out of touch and yet, you can do so much more. More thinking, listening, meditating. It's easy to let the mind wander. I become inspired by possibility and tend to dream up vacations, travel plans, or a simple meal for dinner.

It's outings like these that keep me grounded for weeks to follow. How do you maintain such a mind-set with the many distractions out there? I focus on quality not quantity. One hot cup of coffee, a good book recommended by a friend, a restaurant I've always wanted to try, or maybe it's as simple as a walk around the block. I can't help but quote Gus McRae, a character from one of my all time favorite movies, Lonesome Dove:

Lorie darling, life in San Francisco, you see, is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it's likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to like everyday things, like a good sip of whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, or a glass of buttermilk.

To piggy back along with what Gus said, life is still life no matter where you are. I believe that experiences, conversations and a genuine hello to a fellow hiker can make our days valuable. We can be happier with less and most definitely do more to better ourselves and those around us.

Lessons from Gone with the Wind...

Dear Clara, I just returned from a few days in Atlanta last week.  I don’t think there is ever any possibility of going to that city without thinking of green velvet drapes and feisty tempers.  Margaret Mitchell’s penned classic and Vivien Leigh’s spirited interpretation of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind will remain always one and the same with that city for me.  It might be an old story by the time you’re my age, but it will still be a true classic.  Here is what I’ll always remember from it:

• You can lose everything: At almost any moment.  Scarlett definitely knows a thing or two about loss, but in any story that spans a generation, I’m always taken by how privilege at the start doesn’t necessarily mean so at the end, and vice versa. We’re born what we’re born with, and some of us got it a little luckier, but that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed.  Anyone’s fortunes could change either by circumstance or by their own foolishness---be prepared to mitigate against both.
• Sometimes you have to create from what you have, not from what you want: Scarlett’s dress that she fashioned from her drapes is probably the best example in this story, but you’ll find that she does this over and over again.  Sometimes, if not most times, we won’t have as much as we want . . . as new as we want . . . as different as we want . . . at the time that we want it.  But people who are most resilient and most successful look at what they have, and make it fit what they need, not what they want.
• Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect: When I read Gone with the Wind, I think I must have dog eared at least twenty pages of quotes and words to remember, if not more.  I was a great collector of quotes back in the day, and I think this particular one captures how much we have to be careful about expectations since then we are often disappointed. The one I remember most though, were Rhett’s words about mending what’s broken:  “I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken---and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live.”  That quote did, and still does, make me nearly cry because I happen believe the opposite.  I think there is room for mending, and room for forgiveness, and I don’t believe that there are things such as permanently broken---but I think Rhett is just expressing the way that many people truly feel.  And you’ll come across people who believe in that strongly sometimes, and you’ll have to know when to keep fixing, and when to let it go because they will never see past the mend.  It's always best not to break in the first place, but we make mistakes, and not everyone will forgive us.
• People always come back: There is something uncanny about the way characters unfold in Gone with the Wind, and it mirrors life very much this way.  Even though the protagonists go through all sorts of changes and life takes them on many paths, they always seem to run together at different points in life.  Always appreciate people as though you’ll never see them again, because chances are, you will.  When you do, you will be glad that you left on good terms to pick up from; when you don’t, you’ll be reassured that you left with your best foot forward.

All my love,

Mom

On Compulsory Singing

My son is fifteen months old, and for the last six months has been attending a weekly music class. Initially, I wasn’t able to go with him and my wife because of a work-related conflict, but since the summer, all three of us have gone each week. It’s the sort of music class that is prevalent in the US these days---it’s for students aged five and under, and the music is cheery, non-denominational yet diverse, folky stuff. The teacher of our class is a woman a little bit older than I am who is preternaturally cheery and, frankly, charming. There are several rules at music class, however. One is that once class has started, there should be no talking, only singing. This feels incredibly odd when you need to communicate to your co-parent “where is his sippy cup?” or “do you have the tissues?” When banal sentiments are conveyed in song, it inherently makes the singer simultaneously seem and feel ludicrous. I try to pretend that I’m just a character in a new musical about thirty-something parents (penned by Sondheim, of course), and that talking would only jolt the imaginary audience watching my exploits out of the moment.

The second rule of import is that we aren’t allowed to help our children make any of the gestures or do any of the choreographed movements. That’s impeding on their own rate of learning and stifling their inherent creativity. I totally get this! It makes sense---have you ever seen a grown woman try to make a toddler mimic having hands full of bumblebees? It’s farcical. Nonetheless, the need to conform is strong, and I often remind myself not to “help” my son do the motions of songs. Even when I see other kids doing the motions just right, I try to chill out and be cool. It makes me feel like I am one step away from Toddlers and Tiaras.

I am very much not fond of singing in public. I save my singing for the car or when I am alone in the house (What’s my favorite song to belt alone? Thanks for asking, it’s “Stay” by Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories). I was in the chorus in middle school but quit in sixth grade. I went to church camp for years in the summer and never, ever was enthusiastic about all of the singing (trust me, if you have never been to church camp---I’m pretty sure it is 80% singing). At the school where I teach, there are occasional moments of compulsory group singing, and I just fade into myself.

But then I started going to music class. Parents and loved ones of the children are encouraged to sing. Given that this is a rare setting where I am a student and not the teacher in the room, I found myself to be an incredibly compliant student. You want me to sing? About being sad that there’s no more pie? No problem. I am going to when in Rome the heck out of this opportunity. I want my son to try new things! So, I sing. And I make motions. And I leap and sway and use rhythm instruments and sometimes even twirl a scarf. And, truth be told, I love it.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Joy Netanya Thompson is a freelance writer based in Pasadena, California. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she holds a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies and recently finished her master’s degree in theology and the arts at Fuller Theological Seminary. Joy loves to travel, and spent extended amounts of time in Australia, Mexico, Norway, and Germany. Besides daydreaming about her next travel destination, Joy also spends much of her time relishing novels now that her graduate studies are complete, learning how to cook a meal in under an hour, and riding bikes with her husband Robert. She writes at her hopefully-soon-to-be-revived blog, Eeper (www.netanya.wordpress.com). Joy Netanya Thompson

The Gift of Asher Lev

by Chaim Potok

My husband and I have been devouring Chaim Potok’s books for the past few months. Our first exposure to him was about a year ago when I read My Name is Asher Lev for a class. The Gift of Asher Lev is the sequel, and focuses on the title character, a world-famous artist who started out as a child prodigy in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. In both books, Asher struggles with his two identities—the Hasidic Jew who is loyal to his faith, family, and community, and the world-class artist who must create or die. Potok’s style is utterly mesmerizing—his are the type of books in which you become totally absorbed—and his stories are haunting, the kind you think about for days after finishing them. Reading his books, I not only feel more connected to my Jewish roots, but also to my own humanity. Over the past few months I also read The Chosen and Old Men at Midnight. They are all worth the read!

A Room Called Remember

by Frederick Buechner

I was introduced to Buechner last year through his novel Godric, which I also highly recommend. A Room Called Remember is nonfiction, a book of his uncollected pieces. It’s a hodgepodge of essays and articles, a few sermons and a few speeches. My favorites include “All’s Lost—All’s Found,” “A Room Called Remember,” and “Love.” Each piece in the collection is written in his lyrical style that sometimes includes seemingly endless sentences with all the words toppling over each other—but in the best kind of way. His insight into the human condition, and especially human spirituality, is piercingly beautiful. He is a truth teller and a wordsmith, an utterly powerful combination. I also just finished his novel Son of Laughter in which he fleshes out the story of Jacob in Genesis, with all of its scandal and betrayal and humanity; it’s also a fine work.

Becky Still, Managing Editor and Senior Writer at Fuller Theological Seminary

How It All Began

by Penelope Lively

I liked this a lot; the writing is excellent. The book follows a chain of people whose lives are all affected (some of them significantly) because one older woman, Charlotte, is mugged. Her daughter Rose must rush to her aid, which ends up setting off a chain of events for the man Rose works for, and on and on. There is interesting commentary by Charlotte about growing old and the nature of one’s individual history, how it defines us. The whole book illustrates, in a delightful way, how interconnected we are.

Stone Diaries

by Carol Shields

This book is from the early 1990s—I randomly picked it up at the library and ended up liking it quite a bit. Again, great writing. It is the fictional “autobiography” of a woman named Daisy Stone Goodwill, tracing her life from birth (1905) to death in the 1990s, through diary entries written both by her and by various people in her life. Diary entries written by different people about the same event show how much we see things through the lens of our own experience.

Grace Farag, Writer

The Way Through Doors

by Jesse Ball

My "author crush" on Jesse Ball began when I read his novella "The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp, and Carr" in the Winter 2007 issue of the Paris Review. The quirky strangeness of the plot, an odd formality of style, and lightly yet sensitively drawn characters hooked me right in—and at the (haunting) end of the story, I was simply, wildly jealous that I had not been given the privilege of writing it. After that I set out to read more of his work…and that's how I eventually got acquainted with his novel The Way Through Doors, which has become one of my favorite works of fiction of the past few years. I love the interwoven narratives that blend in and out of each other, and how you never know when and where one is going to begin or the other end. I love the underlying romantic sensibility of the story. I love the title. I love the poetry of Ball's prose, the musical rhythms of his sentences. (It was no surprise to me to learn that Ball is also a poet.) I love that he has a character who is a "guess artist." I love that I never quite knew where Ball was going, but that there was so much pleasure in the getting there. I just plain love this book! But I won't lie--not everyone will. And that's OK. That's the beauty of literature, of any art. So many doors, so many ways through them. Here's to the unexpected journey…

Celebrating the Everyday

A co-worker once told me about a trip she took with a girlfriend. I don’t remember where they went or when or even if there was a specific reason for the journey. What I remember about the story is that they didn’t have a camera (this was before the age of iphones).  As they stopped at noteworthy places or scenic views, they’d take a moment, pose, and say ‘Click! Took a Mental Picture!’ This story has stuck with me for several years, maybe because when I travel, I make it a point to put down the camera and soak in the place and moment as much as I can.  Of course then I pick up the camera again and take 150 pictures of really-cool-old-stuff (not even a slight exaggeration), but I make sure I see things outside of a viewfinder and imprint the memory to my brain and not just my SD card, I take a mental picture.

Surprisingly, as much as I strive to put down my beloved lenses while traveling, I’m becoming a total shutterbug at home.  The ease of having a camera on my cell phone means I can snap a shot at the grocery store or in my backyard. I can document a particularly awesome hair day or my current shade of nail polish.  My shoes are regularly photographed as one of my favorite subjects.  All show up on my instagram account. At first I thought it might be silly, I’m not a photo-journalist or an artist. I’m not taking pictures of Big-Important-Things; just snaps of my everyday life. But now I realize that’s the great thing.  These quick snaps are a celebration of the everyday.

Every day is fantastic.  Every day there is something beautiful or interesting to see.  Every day is a new journey and a new discovery. And that should be celebrated.  The collection of ice cream scoops that caught my eye thanks to the bright colors----the sunset over the cornfield---my current favorite pair of shoes---These things make up who I am. Like little happy puzzle pieces, these square snapshots build a bigger picture.

The great thing about instagram is my everyday isn’t the only one I get to experience.  I follow friends and relatives, and even a couple of folks I’ve never met in real life (like some of the wonderful contributors to Equals Record!).  I get to catch glimpses of other everydays without stepping outside of my own.  Roxanne’s views of Boston remind me that fall is on the way, I can’t wait to see the leaves change and snap some of my own autumnal photos. My cousin Andy’s photos almost always come with a thought provoking caption or interesting story and encourage me to think about the world outside of myself.

Equal parts inspiring and instigating, that’s what I love about the every day.[gallery link="file"]

Lessons from a weekend at home...

Dear Clara,

Aren’t weekends the very best part of the week? If you think that now, just wait until you start working!  Half of our weekends are usually on the go, discovering something new, but I always savor a weekend at home too.  Here’s what help make ours special:

• Start the weekend with something active: A quick run, a brisk walk . . . on one of the days, usually Saturday, I have been trying to get some physical activity out of the way right from the start in the morning.  It usually gives me a bit of time to myself to think and relax from the week, and I feel like it gives me a pass to enjoy the rest of the weekend without guilt.
• Try something new . . . : Sometimes when you live in a place, you take all of its gifts and treasures for granted.  When I find myself at home for the weekend, I try to always make a point of seeing or doing or trying something new, almost as if I would be visiting for the first time.  It might be a museum or a park or a restaurant or a farmer’s market.  Everyone always has a list of things they’ve been meaning to do or see in their own town, so pull from that list and rediscover where you live all over again.
• . . . but balance with something old: At the same time, try to have little weekend routines that you can attach to.  There’s something comfortable and familiar about coming back to a place or schedule that makes home feel more like home, especially for us since our home changes so often.  We have a “Sunday Routine” that involves going to our favorite neighborhood, going to church, taking a walk and then having brunch in one of a few restaurants in that neighborhood.  Having that comfort of Sunday morning helps us to feel grounded and rooted---with so much else that’s changing, the familiar routine is like a big hug that at once is the end of a week and the start of a new one.
• Enjoy a lazy morning: People say that when you have children you no longer have lazy mornings.  I disagree---for sure, mornings are different.  But we still pick one to lounge around a little longer to savor the sunshine through the window, to read a book, watch a cartoon, have a good laugh over tickles.  We have breakfast at the table, and linger over coffee . . . just little things that make mornings mornings, and that we don’t have the time to all do together during the business of the work week.
• Make time to reflect and be grateful: I use our time at church for this, and while I hope you find that same space and comfort there, I realize that one day you might choose to do things differently.  Whatever that space might be for you, set aside some quiet space for yourself to truly appreciate the gifts of the prior week, even on the hard ones.  Think about what you have done for others and what you could have done for others, so that you reset for the new week with that mindfulness.  Make some room in your heart for gratitude---we are blessed with so much, even when we think we are lacking. Remember, no matter how much more we might think we need, there are always people who have much less, and I mean more than just material things---it might be love, it might be forgiveness, it might be family. See if there is anywhere where you can share a little more, and expect a little less.
• Go to bed early on Sunday:  Pick a cut-off time for yourself and just make that last part of the weekend a little bit about relaxing.  Watch a show or read a favorite book but then lights off . . . the week ahead is so much better if you’re actually well rested.  Get at least 8 hours of sleep, and then call me to thank me on Monday morning.

All my love,

Mom

A Pumpkin for Your Thoughts

Last week I baked a small orange pumpkin stuffed with breadcrumbs, cheese, herbs, and bacon. I cut a jagged hole in the top of the pumpkin and scraped loose the stringy flesh, which I then gathered up in my hands and lifted out onto the counter. As I clawed at the slimy insides I felt clumsy and childish. The pulp slipped through my fingers again and again, and suddenly I was visited by images of my childhood. I thought of my favorite Halloween costume and the similar clumsy feeling it stirred up in me: A bright green caterpillar costume with a series of stuffed arms, each strung to the next with fishing line so they moved all as one. I remember lagging behind while trick-or-treating with my sister, stumbling across lawns and tripping into bushes. Nostalgia and fall are like those connected caterpillar arms to me. If I’m feeling nostalgic, I think of fall. If I think of fall, I feel nostalgic. Lift one arm and up go the rest. But that's problematic sometimes, because when I think of the words “Fall" and "pumpkin” my mind calls up generic images like those from commercials. I don’t want my feeling of fall to be summed up by the little drawings of leaves on the chalkboard at Starbucks. I want the real deal. I want my fall back, not a fallback.

What I’m longing for, I think, is to have a keen awareness of the present moment.  I also want to be specific about the past, and I want to observe how my impression of a memory shifts over time. When I was preparing the pumpkin, for example, I realized I could glide along the surface of a general fall feeling. But the alternative was that I could focus on the more particular aspects of the feeling and encourage it to become animated by my imagination, and in doing so allow it to occupy my consciousness for a while. I had to think really hard to let my frustration melt away and into those scenes from childhood. For the first time I felt like cooking was a meditative practice, a medium for a wandering mind.

But maybe it isn't about a wandering mind after all? Maybe it's about a mind being led down a carefully marked path, a path marked by a menu and a task. That pumpkin dinner showed me I could time travel but stay grounded in the moment, too. I was stunned by the fact that I could experience a complete break from the present moment while still operating within it. That split between the past and present, I think, was possible because of the constant thread of physical feeling---that lack of coordination and efficiency which reminded me of the time when I so horribly navigated sidewalks, curbs, and front porch steps in that caterpillar costume. (It was like running in a sleeping bag, really.) A whole string of very specific memories came rushing back to me after that, to the point where I clearly could hear my dad’s voice saying “I’m testing it to make sure it isn’t poisonous” while eating my hard-won candy. I laughed and flailed my many arms in protest. The memories were more honest and clear when I saw them through the lens of my pumpkin and my hands, rather than through the soft focus of my typical "general fall feeling."

I realized that my love of food and my interest in the way memories work don’t have to be colored by nostalgia to be interesting. I found a lot of pleasure in thinking about these memories without yearning for them to return. I felt grounded by my gourd, yet I was still sensing a very specific and vivid memory of a distant fall that I hadn’t thought of in years. That simple rustic dinner became a strange experience in thinking about thoughts. That’s what I like about the play between the seasons, food, and memories:  Our perception of each can expand or condense our awareness and our focus on the moment. My dinner, the pumpkin, the Fall---invitations to think back, but also to think on.

The F Words: Ally Kirkpatrick

We have an exciting treat today in F Words land, folks. One of The Equals Project's newest contributors, the ridiculously overtalented and supercool Ally Kirkpatrick, is here to talk about being a lady and an eater (and an emerging cook). Her blog, The Green Cabin Year, is a chronicle of her life in a teeny little house in rural Virginia. She didn't always live the bucolic life, though---she just recently moved from Brooklyn, where she worked as a barista while writing the nights away. I have to say that I am seriously psyched about her joining our family here at Equals, and I think you will be, too. Tell us a bit about your day job. For the last ten years I’ve pretty much been a professional dishwasher. You could also say I was a barista, too, since I made cappuccinos and espressos part of the time. Dishwashing was half the work, so I got pretty good at that, too. It’s a useful skill, I think, to be able to bang out a huge bus tub of dirty dishes really quickly and effectively. Every coffee shop or cafe I ever worked at (eight different places between Boston, DC and New York), washing dishes was an important part of the job. City cafes get really slammed. Coworkers will like you if you can wash the hell out of some pint glasses, and the customers like seeing you hustle because you get them their iced latte faster.

Sometimes it was good. Sometimes I really hated it. Like when I worked at this one place in the East Village that had terribly steep stairs that would get wet and slippery with each load brought up and down to the sanitizer. I totally busted my ass one time, falling down the steps one at a time like “duh dunk, duh dunk, duh dunk.” I just sat at the bottom for a minute absorbing the reality of what had just happened, thinking “So, this is my life, I guess. This was the most exciting part of me week . . .” then I got up and washed a bunch of lipstick-stained demitasses.

But I’m making it sound worse than it was . . . It was mostly, like 98% of the time, an absolutely wonderful job. Every cafe I worked at had fantastic staff members and regular customers. People I’ve met through washing dishes and pulling shots have become my closest friends. Some of my regulars from the coffee shop came to my wedding a few years ago. Some of my best friends I met over sudsy dishwater.

That said, I’m glad I don’t work full time in a coffee shop anymore. I’m still washing dishes, but now it’s as a kitchen assistant for food writer Cathy Barrow. It’s the best job ever. During the cooking classes Cathy teaches I wash dishes and listen in as she gives instruction. It’s a much more interesting situation than when I was working in coffee shops. Now as I’m washing dishes I get to learn all about cooking, canning, pasta making, etc. I’m learning a lot. Before I would just binge on muffins in the mop closet waiting for the dishes to come out of the sanitizer. I kinda used food to cope with not loving my job. Or maybe it’s that I loved my job, but just wanted more out of life. I wanted to be a writer, and no shameful mop closet muffing inhaling can address that void. I’m still cleaning the hell out some dishes. But I get to learn new things and I have much more time to write. I also get to take home lots of delicious food.

How did you learn to cook? I really don’t know how to cook. I know how to follow a recipe. I know some basic techniques. But as far as actual cooking, as far as being a real home cook, I’m not there yet. I’m trying to learn how to make one big meal instead of all these disconnected spazzy little meals. Does that make sense? “One big meal?" For example, I made scones yesterday. It took me two hours. Then all I ate all day was scones. I felt like crap, obviously, and I never want to make scones again. Maybe what I’m trying to say is that I’m trying to learn how to eat. Cooking is the easy part. I know how to season and taste and adjust. What I’m figuring out now is how to do that in my mind, working towards following my wants and hungers and then interpreting those feelings, translating them into plans for a meal.

Do you prefer to cook alone, or with friends or family? I love cooking with my husband Jake. He cooks like he’s dancing, except he doesn’t dance. If he were a dancer his cooking would be like ballet. He’s very graceful in the kitchen, but has a lot of energy and expression. I like working with him because of this. I stay out of the way a bit and just watch, follow his lead, help with one specific thing (chop this, stir that.) It’s always best when one person is in directing the meal, I think, that way you know who’s calling the shots, who’s choreography you’re minding.

With my mom, I love being in the kitchen with her, too. My husband makes things up as he goes, depending on what he has in the fridge that day. My mom, on the other hand, is a big fan of cookbooks and follows recipes more closely. This means that it’s better for us to work on separate tasks if we’re in the kitchen together. She’s knows where she is in her process, I know where I am... with her it’s more like a line dance. We’re in step with each other but on different planes.

Then there’s Cathy. Working in Cathy’s kitchen is just amazing. It’s different than cooking with anyone else I’ve ever cooked with because there’s this childlike wonder that washes over me every time she brings up a favorite dish she makes, or every time she sends me to the pantry for some special jar of something.

I should also really enjoy cooking by myself. I put on Beyoncé or Robin and gyrate around the kitchen like a moron and my dog just looks at me like he’s concerned for my life.

What's your favorite thing to make? Coffee. My favorite thing to make is, and will forever be, coffee. Espressos, cappuccinos, macchiatos, cortados, pour-overs. All of it. I love coffee the way people love wine. I love the story of each coffee: where it came from, how it was processed and roasted, how it tastes in different preparations. Maybe I’ll grow to love making food one day, but for now I suck at it too badly to find peace and enjoyment out of the process. I think because I’ve been making coffee for so long and competing in barista competitions and such that I get a lot of pleasure out of the ritual and the process of brewing coffee.

If you had to choose one cuisine to eat for the rest of your life, which would it be? What cuisine would you say belongs to Deborah Madison? I want to eat Deborah Madison Cuisine.

What recipe, cuisine or technique scares the crap out of you? Anything involving shellfish, because I’m very allergic. Also, recipes that call for hot peppers. Not because I don’t like eating them, but because I always worry I’m going to rub my eyes by accident while prepping them and end up with stinging, watery eyes for the rest of the afternoon.

How do you think your relationships with your family have affected your relationship to food and cooking? Most recently my relationship with my family has made me more interested in foraging. Pawpaws, morel mushrooms, black walnuts, fiddle heads. These are all things my husband and I have been finding on my parents property in Virginia. We just moved here in this past spring and I found myself obsessed with foraged foods. It’s trendy right now, I guess, but I got into it because of my dad, who is possibly the least trendy person in the universe (don’t worry, he won’t read this.) He spends a lot of time in the woods as a hunter and told me about all these hot spots for morel mushrooms up in the hills. I also learned to butcher my first deer this year because of him. That was a relationship to my food I hadn’t experienced before. My husband and I were in the driveway of my parent’s suburban home with this deer my dad had shot that morning laid out on a card table. We had this beautiful deer before us, and we didn’t know what to do with it. So we used my dad’s ipad and learned how to process it step by step from YouTube. It was an exhausting experience, both physically and emotionally, but it was an interesting connection to food – seeing the whole deer-to-venison process – and it made me more mindful about my meat consumption. I still eat meat, but I’m edging further and further away from animal products. You can’t butcher a deer and not feel awe and respect for the animal. I felt a lot of sadness, too, so I think I need to figure out how that needs to impact my eating and cooking habits.

Even today, home cooking is strongly associated with women's traditional place in the family and society. How do you reconcile your own love of the kitchen with your outlook on gender roles? There was an article on Propeller that I read recently by Mary Rechner that addressed this issue in a way that was really meaningful to me. I want to write fiction. If I worry about food all the time then there may not be space for writing fiction in my life. On a personal level I reconcile my love of the kitchen by having a fiercer love for private writing time in my studio. Let me mention that I don’t actually have a writing studio… but you get the idea. My kitchen and my (imaginary) studio are two places I make sure I spend a certain amount of time each day. I want to think about writing and ideas two thirds of the time. One third of the time I want to be canning some jam or stuffing my face with scones.

But on a larger level I’m completely perplexed and can’t reconcile it at all and I feel very worried about it. I’m totally confused on this issue and don’t know what to think. In the meantime I’m reading Propeller polemics and Emily Matchar’s blog New Domesticity [Meg: Me, too!] and thinking “Right on! Fuck canning and baking pretty tarts! It’s pointless domestic posturing!” but then at the same time as I say that I’m canning and baking pretty tarts and not working at all on a short story.

Tell us a bit about the recipe you're sharing. When did you first make it, and why? What do you love about it? The recipe I’m sharing is for fresh Sriracha from Food52. I made it for the first time this summer and I love it because it tastes good on everything. Wear gloves and don’t rub your eyes!

Fresh Sriracha By edamame2003, republished with permission from Food52 1/2 pound red Fresno chiles, coarsely chopped 4 garlic cloves 1 tsp. kosher salt 1 cup distilled white vinegar 2 tbs. palm sugar

Visit Food52 for the full (delicious and surprisingly simple) recipe.

Looking Forward: Hello, Neighbor.

It was a Friday night. My friend Ben was visiting from out of town, and we’d made plans to go out to eat in my neighborhood. As we walked, I listed dinner options---Thai, Korean, Italian, Japanese---but it wasn’t long before I realized I’d lost my audience. Half a block behind me, a wide-eyed Ben stood transfixed in front of the window of a neighborhood barbershop, one I’d passed many times before but to which I’d never paid much attention. “Let’s go here,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, incredulous.

“Here,” he said. “Let’s go here. They’re watching the Pacquiao fight. Let’s join them.” Then, in response to my blank stare: “Pacquiao’s a boxer.”

Still several yards down the street, I proceeded to list the thousand-and-one reasons I thought this was a crazy idea. It would be rude, I insisted, to assume that this group wanted guests---judging from the music and the laughter that was coming from the shop, they seemed to be having a wonderful time as it was, without us. We weren’t invited, we’d never met---therefore we’d be intruding. And, I huffed, it was getting late. I was starving.

“We can do whatever you want after the fight, I promise,” Ben said. “Please can we do this? It’ll be fun. These people are your neighbors.” He paused. “Afterward, it’s your call, I swear. Anything you want. We can eat ice cream and watch ‘Father of the Bride’ if that’s what sounds good to you.”

Ten minutes later, I found myself seated on a bench in the front of the barbershop, in the center of a flurry of activity. Men placed bets in Spanish, swiveling in leather barber chairs. Couples salsa-danced to music on an old boombox in the back corner. Beer bottles were opened with cans of hairspray. Ben had joined some sort of raucous conversation with a cluster of Pacquiao fans; meanwhile, an old man pacing the front of the shop graciously attempted to explain to me the complexities of boxing. A girl in the corner about my age offered me a shy smile, a gesture of camaraderie.

“I told you this would be fun,” said Ben.

He was right. It was.

That was almost a year ago. I’ve passed the shop many times since then and have peeked in on occasion, but the barbers’ backs are often turned, or they’re too focused on their work to notice passersby in the street. Last week, however, I ran into the owner on the sidewalk outside a local bodega two blocks from my apartment.

I gave a cautious wave, thinking he might not recognize me; instead, I was met with a giant hug and an ear-to-ear smile. Despite our language barrier, we exchanged pleasantries: we were doing well, enjoying life, working hard as usual. Before saying goodbye, I told him I’d stop by again soon to watch another fight, punching the air awkwardly in a poor attempt to mime boxing. “Yes, yes,” he replied, holding me at arm’s length. Then he did something I’ll never forget.

“Look at you,” he said, beaming, “You’re wonderful.”

All my life, the cities I’ve lived in have felt like temporary homes. Growing up, my family moved back and forth between Los Angeles and Honolulu, and I knew that Santa Cruz, where I lived for four years in college, wasn’t a city I’d remain in after graduation. Now, though, for the first time, I’m beginning to get a sense of what it might feel like to be a part of a community. To settle in. To make a place my own.

And I’m realizing I don’t just want to exist as part of my neighborhood---I want to know it. More importantly, I want to know the people I share it with---and not just the ones whose lives look like mine. It makes me so happy to be able to say hello every day to the man across the street who feeds the pigeons every morning, to the bearded bartender next door, to the crew of barbers down the street, and the dreadlocked tattoo artist around the corner.

Two years ago, when I lived deep in a hipster-dominated pocket of Bushwick, someone plastered a sign over a chainlink fence that read, you are not your neighborhood.

Perhaps not. But aren’t neighborhoods largely a reflection of the men and women and children---the barbers, bartenders, artists, hippies, hipsters, and everything in between---who populate them?

We may only know each other well enough to smile and wave and say hello, but this makes us more than strangers.

This makes us neighbors. And together, we are our neighborhood.

VII. Provence

My host mother in Aix is a frustratingly loquacious woman named Agnès. She has never left the country and spends most of her time pattering around the apartment in her slippers, fussing over pillows and arranging stacks of magazines. Her social interactions outside of her son seem limited to a few men she used to be in relationships with and now come over every once in a while and sit in the kitchen while she prepares meals for them. She has a heavy torso and thin, spindly legs. At the beginning of my stay, I feel sorry for her.

Though the French dinner is typically a more family-oriented affair, ours consist of Agnès and I sitting at her small dinner table watching the news. She provides a running commentary while I nod and say mm-hmm at intervals. Sometimes I wonder if this is why she offered to host students---so someone is obliged to listen to her.

But one warm evening the television is off, and Agnès tells me a French joke over red, ripe tomatoes and mozzarella.

God, she says, is looking at the earth after its creation. He notices that France is the most beautiful of all the nations---mountains, lakes, beaches, oceans, plains, forests. Every part of the landscape is diverse and breathtaking. And so, to make it a bit more even for the rest of the world, he creates the French people.

I laugh a little too hard.

Four Feet

I signed up for my first race in the spring of 2008---a half-marathon, in Rochester, to be held in early fall. Never having run more than five miles consecutively, I spent my summer training, hydrating, and icing my aching knees. I slept at my parents' house the night before the race. The next morning, my mom was up with me before the sun rose, making coffee and puttering around, while I obsessed over my pre-run meal, my running outfit, and oh my god, why don’t we have enough safety pins to hold my bib in place? As I crossed the finish line hours later, after a grueling 13.1 miles on what turned out to be an unseasonably warm and humid September day, after witnessing more than one runner collapse on the course around me, and after looking for an exit route on the course for 8 miles, I declared that I was done with running. Finished. The End. Two weeks later, I started looking for my next race. And so began my short stint as a distance runner. With several half-marathons under my belt, I decided it was time to try my hand at the real thing, and set my sights on the New York City marathon.  Now, marathon running requires a certain level of commitment, even at the amateur level. Your entire world revolves around running, carb-loading, and hydrating properly. My husband endured months of early nights and pasta dinners;  my friends, I’m sure, grew tired of hearing me ramble on about my upcoming long runs; and my mom, well, she supported me in the only way she knew how: by telling me I was crazy. Unsurprisingly, she had a saying about marathon running. If God wanted you to run that far, he would have given you four feet! Lacking a competitive bone in her body, she also casually asked me, as I agonized over IT band pain for weeks before the race, if I couldn’t run as planned---or if I couldn’t finish---would it really be that big of a deal?

Nonetheless, my mom arrived in New York the day before the marathon, my sisters and brother-in-law in tow, to cheer me on every step of the 26.2 miles. As my sisters and I leisurely strolled around my Brooklyn neighborhood that afternoon, my mom started on a pot of sauce for dinner. We returned home to a feast, my mom doling out pasta and homemade meatballs in my tiny kitchen. My alarm clock went off at five the next morning, and while the rest of my family rolled over for a few more hours of sleep, my mom, once again, was up with me before dawn. We sat and drank coffee, and discussed, one last time, the four points in Brooklyn and Manhattan where they planned to cheer me on.  This would require a bit of hustle out of the group, and my mom, at a strapping 5 feet tall, was not to be outdone by her younger (and taller) counterparts. Not one to wear sneakers even in her backyard, she gamely came prepared with a loaner pair from my sister, ready to take on the streets of New York.

I saw my family first at mile six. With my body and mind already failing me, I found myself choking back tears at the sight of them. They were there for me again and again as planned --- my mom’s head barely visible over the crowd, my sisters and brother-in-law screaming my name, my husband looking on with pride --- as I hobbled forward to finish out the race. I learned later that as I was running, my cheering section ran into their own set of problems. My mom, in a pretty white sweater, was the unlucky target of a low-flying bird, and spent the rest of the day trying to camouflage the obvious stain. My sister, innocently using the bathroom at a McDonalds along the course, with my mom standing guard outside the door, found herself face-to-face with an overly aggressive patron who couldn’t wait his turn. By the time I finished, bruised and battered, we shared more than a few good laughs over a post-run meal.

My mom passed away three years later. We spent the last two weeks of her life in the hospital, sitting vigil by her side, pacing the hallways, hoping for a miracle. When she died, I was left with a hole in heart, and strangely enough, a sharp pain in my right calf. A wrong step left me gasping in pain for months afterward, and running was all but impossible. The hows and whys of this injury were unclear, and quite honestly, probably nothing more than a random coincidence. And yet, maybe it wasn't.

In those weeks leading up to her death, I realized in a panic that I had no idea who I was---or would be---without my mom. People assured me, repeatedly, that she will always be with me: in everything I do, and really, in everything I am. I scoffed at this initially; after all, it requires an astonishing amount of faith to believe such a thought, at a time when my faith has suffered a serious blow. But, as I limped home after each attempted run, I thought of my mom. As I stretched my calf in yoga class, I thought of my mom. And as I laughed at the irony of it all, I thought of my mom. As it turns out, she's with me every step of the way---whether I'm on two feet or four.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Molly Bradley is US-born but France-grown, having lived in Paris from the age of six. Her reintroduction to her native country was through Oberlin College in Ohio. She's fairly certain that aside from having changed homes, schools, or countries every three or four years, juxtapositions like the one between France and Ohio are what have lent her an eye for cultural curiosities and a taste for travel. Over the past four years she has obtained degrees in English literature and creative writing, spent a semester in Senegal, worked as a pastry and line cook at a French restaurant in the Berkshires, learned Russian, handmade a lot of pasta, and become vegan (mostly). She has just moved to Portland to pursue a travel-writing internship, work at a food cart making waffles, and write, write, write.

I read as much for writing itself as for story. Not that that’s unusual, but I’ve come to realize that the writing makes all the difference. I am perfectly willing to read a story that is anywhere from unimpressive to downright unpleasant, in terms of plot---as long as the writing enthralls. It doesn’t have to be beautiful, necessarily, though that can help.

Proof that most readers can be bewitched this way: Lolita. That’s the novel that, for me, triggered this realization. You can describe it briefly as a book about an old geezer with pedophiliac tendencies, and thusly dismiss it---or you can say it’s about a man with yearnings toward his past, unfulfilled sexual desires, an undeniable draw toward the most innocent form of beauty he knows, and a girl too young to know what it means to even pretend to fulfill all that. You might also mention that, while reading---though you are aware of the boundaries and where they should not be crossed – you do not, and cannot, villainize him. And that is entirely the doing of Nabokov’s words.

Lolita is not a particularly recent read for me, but it has guided many of my subsequent choices in reading (and writing). Here are a few things I read this summer that, if not astounded me, at least tickled me: both as a human being with emotions to be strummed, and as a writer with tools to be sharpened.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera If you have ever traveled---especially often or long enough to feel out-of-place in any given place---this is something you should read. I can’t promise it will solve any of your existential crises on the road (play-on-words sort of intended---see third book down this list), but it will be a companion of sorts. That’s largely due to the delight of Kundera’s style: it is always accessible, inviting, and impossibly intimate.

He writes the novel in two ‘modes’: in one, he tells the story of Tomas, Teresa, Sabina, and Franz. In the other, he talks directly to us: about distance, love, desire, responsibility---even about the unique consciousness of animals. In these sections, I found myself stopping after almost every paragraph. Every musing made me want to tell someone in particular, or tell someone anonymous, or at least write it down to tell myself, again and again. Or to write it back to Kundera in a letter.

He also deals delicately (and accurately, it feels) with the subject of unbalanced relationships, or unequal loves. If you’ve ever experienced this, the novel will be at once heart-breaking and -healing.

Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard This one gets a little technical, but as an English and creative writing major, it was right up my alley. Even if you don’t think you’d like a book about the nitty-gritty of technique and form in writing, what fascinates is how Dillard gives fiction a tangible place in the real world. Too often fiction is dismissed as no more than escape or fancy or, at best, a noble yet disconnected and isolated art. It may be somewhat isolated, but Dillard not only places writers beside all other kinds of artists, but places all of those artists in a room with the rest of the world. She answers the questions that most professors, students, and critics alike only have vague answers to: questions about the whether fiction can interpret the world, and how it can allow you to better understand reality. If you write, her answers may make you feel, suddenly, that you have taken far too much responsibility on your shoulders---but shoulder it you should. Someone’s got to.

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac There’s nothing like reading Kerouac to make your speech and writing both relax. That is, assuming you aren’t being too hard on yourself for not being able to achieve that casual tone while still spinning out spectacularly singular turns of phrase and cadence.

As  much as I love the classic On the Road, what I love about The Dharma Bums is that it wasn’t On the Road. Kerouac, as Ray Smith, is at once more and less focused on himself, and at once more and less perfectly embodies the way he thinks it best to live. In Dharma Bums, he is very earnestly trying to live a simpler and more spiritual life, largely fired and inspired by his friend Japhy. The greatest part is that while he does a lot better than most of us could, he still screws up sometimes just like anyone would. It’s a hopeful and reassuring thing to see someone mess up and achieve, in equal measure and equal beauty.

At one point, Ray feels he has achieved some kind of enlightenment in the woods near his home. His first thought upon achieving enlightenment is to tell Japhy; he can’t wait to put it into words for someone who is something of a mentor to him. But when he tries, Japhy dismisses him promptly, saying that to appreciate such an experience is not to blab on about it. Ray is subdued, but it remains unclear who’s really closer to enlightenment.

Back to his style: its simplicity is deceptive. One the one hand, it’s reminiscent of those plain, easy pleasures that make you think you could live a far humbler life than you do. It reminds me of my dad talking about the brown bread, mustard, and sardine sandwiches of his youth: those three things were all he required to feel nourished.

Particularly in Dharma Bums, the great thing about Kerouac is that his easy style works to describe his vagabond’s meals of cans of beans just as well as it does to talk about becoming a Buddha, and other more complex matters of the soul.

Souls, sardines, Sabina. They’re all sort of related, and they’re all equally worth reading (and writing) about. It’s all the way you phrase it.

A Traditional Marriage

This weekend I will be traveling to New England to attend the wedding of two dear friends.  Naturally, I love weddings---the pageantry, the ritual, the attention to detail---and I know this one will be memorable.  Part of the fun with weddings is evaluating each of the selections the couple has made.  One of my favorite activities is getting into bed after an event such as this and breaking it all down piece-by-piece with my husband.  We like to do the full debrief, including, but not limited to: fashion, ceremony elements, weird family dynamics, food and decor.  Clearly, I will be inspecting the floral design with a critical eye---it is a brave soul that invites a wedding professional to the Big Day. This wedding will be much the same in that I know how deliberate and painstaking this whole process has been and I can't wait to see how the couple will be reflected in their choices.  Additionally, I have been made aware that the guest list is rich with characters and we are to be seated at a table with some of the more dynamic friends of the couple.  As usual, my husband and I will immerse ourselves in all the action and take mental notes along the way for fruitful discussion later.  Although we are always delighted to participate in bearing witness to a public commitment to love, something that distinguishes this wedding from the many others we have attended is that the people getting married are two men.

The grooms-to-be in question, are, in actual fact, already married.  They ran right out and got married here in New York on the very first day it was legal.  It was that significant a step in their relationship---they didn't want to wait a single day more than they had to before making it "official."  Anyone who has ever doubted how critically important, how equalizing and normalizing a right it is to be able to get married, should really watch any footage or read any story from the day it became legal for gay people to wed in the few states where that dream has been realized.  New York was no exception when this happened in July 2011.  Appropriately, there was a collective sigh of relief in our community followed by raucous festivities---much like a wedding.

Certainly there is so much to celebrate here.  The idea that we have progressed to the place where there is majority (sometimes overwhelming) support for gay marriage in various corners of the nation is, in itself, staggering.  Although it is easy to wring hands over many social policy and civil rights issues these days, states legalizing gay marriage and our nation's president endorsing gay marriage are heartening signs.

When I think about the relationship that I am traveling to exult and sanction, I am struck by the fact that theirs is a marriage quite similar to and also much more “traditional” than my own.  Both men are working professionals with advanced degrees.  One of them is self-employed and owns a business.  They are both public servants in some capacity.  They value social justice and give to charity.  They share the aspiration of having children and are expecting a baby in the coming months.  They sit down to dinner together each night to a meal they have often actually cooked (!!), candles lit, and discuss the long day behind them.  Their home is warm, comfortable and impeccably decorated.  Most important, they are demonstrably in love and I have only ever seen them speak to one another with kindness.  I already look up to them as parents and their baby has yet to come.

When I consider the controversy around gay marriage, I absolutely cannot understand it from an entirely practical standpoint.  No question, I recoil at the notion that two men or two women couldn’t or shouldn’t love each other as much as a heterosexual couple or that they wouldn’t have the same legal rights and social empowerment.  But this couple bears out my experience that gay people who want to marry thrive in such a way as often puts most straight couples to shame.  They are doing “us” better.  Perhaps it is all the years of being “other” and observing relationships from the outside that has honed their skills within the partnership?  Maybe it is that being with somebody of the same sex has distinct advantages and allows for smoother communication?    The bottom line is that who is anybody to say that they shouldn’t have the right to kick our ass at marriage and/or bomb miserably at it?  I say, WELCOME.  Come on in, the water is fine.

So the next few days will be a whirlwind tour and I am so honored that we made the short list for this one.  These are selective people and not just any person scored an invite.  We are gearing up for a life event that will look a lot like so many that have come before it in terms of the customs.  But, the magnitude of the occasion might just mean slightly more.  I say this both because of what these two men marrying represents and who they inarguably are as individuals and as a couple.

The Crystal Punch Bowl That Wasn't

My grandmother turned 90 last month.  She lived through the depression on a small farm in rural Missouri, married a soldier during World War Two and raised three children.  So when she told me she was interested in recording her ‘life story’ I jumped at the chance to hear anything she wanted to tell me.  I anticipated being enraptured by her tales of living in Alaska and Germany in the sixties, looked forward to hearing stories about my dad growing up, back when everyone called him Butch, and of course stories about the farm, before electricity and indoor plumbing.  I didn’t expect to be sidetracked by a plastic punch bowl. We were looking through the teak buffet table that has sat in the living room as long as I can remember.  My grandmother was telling me about the silver they had engraved and the Rosenthal plates she and my grandfather brought back from Germany.  In the back corner, was something I couldn’t quite make out, so I asked. "Oh that," she said, "that’s a plastic punchbowl I bought for your cousin’s bridal shower."  Not a remarkable piece to be sure, but it’s what she said next that has stayed with me for months.  My grandmother told me that when she was a young military wife, in the forties, she thought she needed to have a crystal punchbowl.  This wasn’t said with any sort of entitlement, if you knew my Granny you’d know she’s not one for thinking she ‘deserved’ this or that.  No, she and my grandfather entertained at times, and he was an officer in the Army; it was something she thought they should have, like wine glasses or nice china.

A crystal punch bowl.  When my grandmother was married, roughly 70 years before my own wedding, she thought a crystal punch bowl was a vital part of her kitchen.  As it turns out, she never did get her crystal punch bowl, and in fact never needed a punch bowl of any sort until a few years ago when we hosted a bridal shower with a dozen guests; and then she went out to her local big box store and bought a plastic one.

The first thought that occurs to me is how different my life is than my grandmother’s.  When I registered for wedding gifts 6 years ago, I didn’t even list any fancy china; I knew I wouldn’t use it.  If someone had even mentioned a punch bowl to me I would have laughed.  But then I got to thinking, maybe I have a punch bowl of my own.

Of the items I registered for years ago, aren’t there some that do little more than collect dust?  Or even today, that purchase I was thinking of making, the current must-have; will it cause a fit of chuckles in a 20-something a few decades from now?  Or will it become a cherished heirloom?  Maybe it’s impossible to predict.  I don’t know.

But I can’t stop thinking about punch bowls . . .

VI. Savoie

In Chambéry, I have rented a room on the upper floor of a house owned by an old couple who sometimes invites me down for crepes and tea. Another girl lives with me, a French student at the local university named Marie. She is a bit younger than me, but, in a stereotypical French way, turns out to be super kinky and progressive when it comes to sexual relationships. She is involved in a love triangle with an older married man and his wife. The situation is never fully explained to me, but becomes painfully obvious when they come over and have weird, loud group sex in Marie’s room. Nowhere to escape to from my room on the other side of the small apartment, I turn up my miniature TV as loud as it goes and scribble away furiously on my vocabulary lists, copying down word after word that I don’t know.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Carrie Allen Tipton writes and lectures about classical music, American popular music, religion, and Southern culture. Her work has appeared in many publications and is upcoming in Texas Heritage Magazine, Black Grooves, and the Oxford American. Tipton has presented extensively at conferences and has lectured for the Eroica Trio and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; in 2013 she will speak at the Houston Bach Society. Her research has been featured on KUHF radio (NPR in Houston, Texas), in the Houston Chronicle, and in The One: The Life and Music of James Brown (R.J. Smith, Gotham: 2012). Following a Ph.D. in Musicology and a stint as a professor, she flew the coop of academia to write and edit more extensively. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband where they wait impatiently for the arrival of their first baby in December. She hopes their child will one day heed the profound wisdom of the television show Reading Rainbow and “take a look—it’s in a book!” More about Tipton can be found at www.carrieallentipton.com. When I was three, my mother enrolled me in group piano lessons. For the first month, I sat next to her on my tiny bench, hands covering my eyes. When she cautiously attempted to remove my little paws, I dug in, explaining that I “was not ready yet.” The thought of new paths may conjure thrilling visions of adventure to some, but to me they signify the peculiar torture of leaving the known and familiar, now just as they did then. But the month of piano lessons did pass. Eventually I took my hands off my eyes and put them on the keys. I kept them there long enough to complete a masters degree in piano performance. Turns out that change can be scary and good all at the same time.

Three decades later, I once again face bends in my own path. Where to turn for nourishment, for the reassurance that others too have set out on unknown roads and have found them to be good? To books, of course. Much of my reading this summer has explored themes of personal and communal exploration of unmapped territories. Here are a few that, in capturing the ambiguity of the gains and losses that come with change, may help you in your own journeys to new places.

Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald At the micro level, Wald writes of the personal exodus from the Mississippi Delta of bluesman Robert Johnson in the 1930s and his efforts to forge a career in the tough early years of the commercial recording industry. Wald simultaneously charts a broader unmapped path as he smashes his way through standard historical narratives. He takes issue with common notions in written blues history: that the genre represented a primal cry welling up from neo-African roots in the Mississippi Delta, isolated from contemporary pop music; that its early practitioners were unsophisticated musicians; that 1930s Black audiences heard the blues as a pure folk art rather than as commercialized pop music. Wald reminds readers that it is blues historians, not Johnson’s contemporaries, who elevated him to demigod status after his death. Using archival evidence for his assertions, Wald manages to scold blues revisionists and celebrate Johnson’s admirable output all at the same time. A new path indeed.

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann I learned of this book through an NPR interview with the author, immediately intrigued by his improbable ability to make agricultural history sound fascinating. The book does not disappoint in this regard, arguing that Columbus inaugurated the collision of previously-separate ecosystems and unwittingly launched globalization. Mann demonstrates this through quirky tales of staples such as the lowly potato, vastly entertaining as they meander clumsily through complex geopolitical contexts. Despite Mann’s fairly snappy and occasionally humorous prose, however, I often glazed over at the wealth of detail, guiltily skimming for the next cool anecdote. Additionally, Mann’s neutral stance on the ethics of globalization formed an interesting and uncomfortable undercurrent. I am more accustomed to hearing globalization roundly denounced, but appreciated the author’s encouragement to think about its positive aspects. If you’ve ever wondered how shiploads of bird guano helped reconfigure human civilization, this is the book for you.

The German Settlement of the Texas Hill Country by Jefferson Morgenthaler My point in mentioning this admittedly obscure book isn’t to imply that you should rush out and order it, but to make you wonder how your town or city or region Came To Be. My husband’s mother was born into one of the German communities that began forming in central Texas in the 1840s, and after a trip there we became curious about how and why these folks wound up on the other side of the world. Morgenthaler answered our questions many times over, relating how fallout from the French Revolution drove German nobles to finance the migration of underclass persons to, of all places, the republic of Texas. The book details the often-woeful and sometimes-humorous journeys of the Germans as they pushed forward in the Texas wilderness, surviving on bear meat and negotiating treaties with Comanches. Morgenthaler’s meticulously-researched book reminded me that the tale of new beginnings in unfamiliar places is the story of how all of us came to occupy our present plot of earth.

Mama Ph.D.: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life by Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant, editors Particularly germane to my own life circumstances recently was this collection of essays. By turns frustrating, funny, and affirming, it features the voices of female academics across a spectrum of disciplines, degree programs, and academic ranks. Some discuss remaining in the academy while raising children; others explore leaving to start a family. The book was sobering in its repeated structural critiques of academia’s inadequate maternity provisions. The writing of women who chose to leave university life upon having children deals honestly with the grief and deep embarrassment that often accompanied their decisions, but also points the way towards alternative career paths and new modes of satisfaction outside the academy for those with Ph.D.s. The book assured me I was not alone in my questions, struggles, and frustrations.

Among the Mad (A Maisie Dobbs Novel) by Jacqueline Winspear I hope you have already met Maisie Dobbs, a relatively new yet already much-beloved female sleuth. In my mind her only peer among fictional detectives is Harriet Vane, created by the great writer Dorothy Sayers, for complexity of character and full-bodied realness. Like Sayers’ Vane, Dobbs works in the interwar period in England. The books, and Dobbs herself, are shot through with shadows and scars of the first World War, and a major thread in the series is how Dobbs’ own wartime pain slowly and haltingly gives way to new beginnings in her personal and professional life, though never in a pat or easy way. In this book, as with all books in the series, Dobbs works her way through a new mystery related to the war that gripped Europe fifteen years earlier (the book is set in 1931). She also forges new inroads into her personal relationships, an ongoing theme for Dobbs’ character after the life-altering tragedies she experienced as a nurse during the war.

Time is on my side

While my daughter is still an infant, I am trying to adhere to a schedule of spending at least two solid weekdays alone with her, despite the fact that I own and run a business.  “Alone,” in our household, means that my husband (who also works for himself) might tag along and spend some portion of the day with us, as well.  This is quite obviously living the dream and I mean that in all sincerity.  Like so many people, all I ever wanted in life was to create a family and to have one in which the adults prefer palling around together to any other activity.  The addition of the portly, charming baby (who, I might add, has been impressing even total strangers of late with her glittering, two tooth-bud smile, full-body laugh and enthusiastic hand-clapping) is just the definitive bonus.  We have these epic moments, often only the two of us, where we find ourselves sitting on a blanket in the park in the middle of the day, staring up at the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.  We are saturated in, practically oozing happiness.  But lest you think we are busy having it all (wait for it, Schadenfreudes) you should know that organizationally, domestically, we exist in a state of utter chaos---a ceaseless game of whack-a-mole. There are, as they say, absolutely not enough hours in the day and it is my perpetual struggle to prioritize appropriately.  On the days when I am solely focused on the baby, I make an effort to really and truly be present during her waking hours.  I have the great privilege of a somewhat flexible schedule and the even greater privilege of being her mother.  It is in this spirit that I strive to keep work emails and tasks tucked away in my pocket or purse.  I look at the mounting pile of laundry or the creeping clutter in the apartment and decide that it can wait.  I shrug off the light sense of despair over the two primed walls that we were supposed to paint last winter.  I tell myself that she will never be exactly this age again and that I will look back on this first year and know I didn’t miss a thing.

I am acutely aware that most women (or men, for that matter) do not even have the option to do this and I feel almost a sense of responsibility to parents everywhere to take full advantage.  Of course, this means I have to work harder and smarter when I am on the clock.  It also means that I am on the clock longer and at odd hours.  Ultimately, it means that we sort of live in a college dorm and have to run to the bodega at 7:30 PM to buy an $8 roll of toilet paper because we ran out and nobody had the chance to get more.

Meanwhile, as is my wont, I am plagued by the notion that everyone else must be doing it better---they have to be, right?  During a recent trip to the playground this was confirmed, as I zeroed in on a few other mothers and observed their whole set-up.  Each one seemed to have the diaper bag completely dialed in, down to the perfectly portioned organic snack foods in an eco-friendly/non-petroleum/possibly Swedish baggie.  Their strollers were tidy and their children even had on accessories.  They had brought galvanized tins of French sidewalk chalk and appeared to have organized play-dates.  When I arrived on the scene, my daughter was assiduously chewing on the rubber case from my iPhone (almost certainly made in China).  My stroller was pandemonium---it included incongruous items like dog poop bags, my diluted vitamin water bottle and a calcified, half-gummed whole wheat dinner roll from a restaurant adventure the day before.  I plunked my daughter on the padded playground surface and watched as she crunched fall leaves between her fingers and attempted to stuff them in her mouth.  She was not wearing shoes or a bow in her hair but she seemed pretty thrilled.  We did not have an adorable German tube of bubbles (why is everything good European?) and I hadn’t even remembered my nursing cover.  We embarrassed the family with an awkward lean-to situation using a cotton drape, which she repeatedly tore away with a whipping motion, exposing my breasts to the most populous borough in the city.

So, I am coming around to the idea that I actually only have so much bandwidth.  The letting go of certain practical elements of daily life in favor of more time for human relating seems a fairly obvious choice to me.  While I aspire to be a person who deftly balances her infant on one hip while folding fitted sheets or doing the taxes, it turns out that I only can/am willing to (?) do one thing at a time.  Most tasks, therefore, are sort of shined on or phoned in until they have the good fortune to be in the pole position.  I keep the goals small, so then when we have a fully stocked fridge or I send out a birthday gift, I feel like I have summitted Everest or passed the California bar.

Although I mostly feel good about the way I am partitioning my time for now, like every working mother I grapple with needing and/or wanting to be in two places at once.  Who knows how this will all change as she gets older and as my business evolves?  It is a little disheartening to realize that I did seem to need the “excuse” of a baby to finally feel justified in prioritizing enjoyment.  Why didn’t I do this before?  And why do I still feel like I’m “admitting to something” when I tell you I spend entire days, in the middle of the week, not just being with my baby, but actively trying to do little else?

Needless to say, I want my daughter to be proud of her mother as a role model and an entrepreneur.  But I am hoping she doesn’t have to feel this from a remote place.  I want her to experience that I am as available to her as I am to my work.  She will doubtless have a wide array of things to discuss with her therapist about her home and family.  I figure I won’t just hand her the line that her mother always had too many things on her plate.  I want her to work a little harder for her gripes.