August book/life report – checking in

There’s so much noise in the world, right now, yes? So much division in our country. It all contributes to feeling unsettled and anxious and I vacillate between trying to help bring forward good things and hoping to tune it out and invite calm. We have put together homeless food packs, made beaded keychains for a community organization that provides housing for people in transition from homelessness, and we are sending postcards as part of a civic engagement campaign to contact low-propensity voters of color to help them register and vote. It has been good to involve my daughter and to at least do something good. We also closed our Girl Scouts bank account and donated the money to our food bank because there are so many families who are food insecure in our community right now.

Hate crimes and anti-Semitism are rising exponentially in the U.S. and I am extremely concerned. Racist rhetoric that stems from the very highest office in the land about minorities and immigrants, combined with unemployment, COVID, etc, are an indicator of the weakening of civil society and democracy. So much rests on the upcoming election and I hope you will do everything you can to cast your vote and to help/encourage others to as well. I think that if things do not change, it will be seen as an open invitation to unleash much more hatred and violence.

I strongly believe (and hope) that we are undergoing an enormous shift globally for the positive. Unfortunately, the present tense isn’t so awesome. I am working on trusting the ultimate goal of equality and cooperation.

I have done 4 diamond paintings so far and I love it. I got custom frames from Art To Frames and really like how they look. Now I am working on a HUGE one that’s a picture from my Israel trip.

We had a “fun” hurricane evacuation party with my parents and sister and her family. We had not seen them since February when this all began, but we’d decided beforehand that if they needed to leave their homes on the coast, we’d have them come to our house. The two that are doctors had just tested negative and had not been in contact with any Covid patients, so we assumed we were safe. It was so nice to spend time together again! Even better, the storm did not come our way.

My weight loss continues. I’m eating 1200 calories most days and exercising in some way, either walking or swimming.

We spent a day on Lake Conroe, which is about an hour north of us. We rented a boat for a couple of hours and loved being on the lake.

We are gearing up for virtual school to begin on Tuesday. Middle school! As I type, SG is having a practice run-through where she joins each class for 15 minutes, just to meet the teachers and work through logistics.

OK on to the book report!

I wanted to share this article I found on When to Quit a Book because… so many books, so little time!

Also, 47 Books to Read When You’re in Need of Hope

The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett

Twin light-skinned Black sisters run away from a small southern community take divergent paths; one eventually returns home and the other passes as white in a completely different life.

“Sometimes being a twin had felt like living with another version of yourself. That person existed for everyone, probably, an alternative self that lived only in the mind. But hers was real. Stella rolled over in bed each morning and looked into her eyes. Other times it felt like living with a foreigner. Why are you not more like me? she’d think, glancing over at Desiree. How did I become me and you become you?”

Here’s a bookclub discussion for this book from Read It Forward.

When We Turned Within: Reflections on COVID-19 edited by Menachem Creditor and Sarah Tuttle-Singer

“This moment also calls us to form a united camp: not only the Jewish people, but all humanity coming together in the only kind of cosmopolitan universalism that counts: an affirmation of life, of caring, and of hope.“

This is a very thoughtful and positive collection of reflections, prayers, and poems from a diverse group of 165 Jewish leaders and lay leaders. I’ve been reading a few a day because they are short (just a few pages each) and heartwarming.

Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler

“What happens when we misplace the plot of our lives? When we get sidetracked by one of the mishaps, foul-ups, or reversals of fortune that appear with uncomfortable frequency these days?” This book is about how we reimagine our personal narratives after disruptions and hardships to live a fulfilling life. We are going through transitions much more quickly these days than ever before (a huge disruptor every 12-18 months!), but our coping skills are not keeping up!

“A hallmark of our time is that life is not predictable. It does not unfold in passages, stages, phases, or cycles. It is nonlinear—and getting more so every day. It’s also more manageable, more forgiving of missteps, and more open to personalization, if you know how to navigate the new outbreak of twists and turns.”

Gretchen Rubin recommended this one via BookBub, saying it “has profound implications for how we view and handle the transitions—voluntary and involuntary—that increasingly disrupt our lives.”

The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win by Maria Konnikova

“More often than not, it’s not the best hand that wins. It’s the best player.”

Chance is everywhere, but we usually only notice it when it’s not on our side. How much of life is luck and how much is skill? Does the perception of being in control have anything to do with our decision-making? Konnikova is a researcher and writer who spends a year immersed in the world of no limit Texas Holdem Poker. She journeys from amateur to pro and the reader gets a seat right next to her for the whole transformation.

“Real life is based on making the best decisions you can from information that can never be complete: you never know someone else’s mind, just like you can never know any poker hand but your own. Real life is not just about modeling the mathematically optimal decisions. It’s about discerning the hidden, the uniquely human. It’s about realizing that no amount of formal modeling will ever be able to capture the vagaries and surprises of human nature.”

Poker mirrors life – a combination of chance and control. Konnikova reads books, watches pros, and finds a coach in Erik Seidel. They want to see if her understanding of psychology can merge with a knowledge of the math and skill of the game. She talks gender stereotypes, intimidation, mental framing and perception, streamlined decision-making, and the limits of control. Fascinating stuff!

“… hardly ever do we have a chance to learn an entirely new skill, to immerse ourselves in novicedom, not only with the guidance of the best expert in the world but in an area, where the skill-chance continuum is so balanced, so redolent of life, as poker.”

“From managing emotion, to reading other people, to cutting your losses and maximizing your gains, to psyching yourself up into the best version of yourself so that you can not only catch the bluffs of others but bluff successfully yourself, poker is endlessly applicable and revelatory. The mixture of chance and skill at the table is a mirror to that same mixture in our daily lives—and a way of learning to play within those parameters in superior fashion. Poker teaches you how and when you can take true control—and how you can deal with the elements of pure luck—in a way no other environment I’ve encountered has quite been able to do.”

Highly recommend!

Caste (Oprah’s Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

WOW.

“Caste is more than rank, it is a state of mind that holds everyone captive, the dominant imprisoned in an illusion of their own entitlement, the subordinate trapped in the purgatory of someone else’s definition of who they are and who they should be.”

Wilkerson is a Pulitzer winner and here, she looks at the unspoken caste system of race in America. It is amazing, compelling, revolting, and eye-opening.

I have 69 highlighted passages in Goodreads that illuminate many of the themes in the book: how we got to where we are in this country; parallels, overlaps, and contrasts between the caste systems of Nazi Germany, India, and the U.S.; the changes required to become mutually invested in each other’s well-being.

“We cannot fully understand the current upheavals or most any turning point in American history, without accounting for the human pyramid encrypted into us all. The caste system, and the attempts to defend, uphold, or abolish the hierarchy, underlay the American Civil War and the civil rights movement a century later and pervade the politics of twenty-first-century America. Just as DNA is the code of instructions for cell development, caste is the operating system for economic, political, and social interaction in the United States from the time of its gestation.”

SUCH an amazing and necessary book!

This article explains more about why Oprah selected this for her latest book club pick.

What books are you reading that you recommend? Thanks in advance!