I don’t know how the month went by so quickly! Our March was very full with cookie booths, house meetings, after-school activities, Spring Break, and some mother/daughter baking. I am frustrated to report that not much happened at the house this month. An update is coming soon, as soon as we get some sheetrock up.
Nearly every book has the same architecture — cover, spine, pages — but you open them onto worlds and gifts far beyond what paper and ink are, and on the inside they are every shape and power. – Rebecca Solnit –
I listened to Maureen Corrigan interview pediatrician Thomas Boyce on NPR’s Fresh Air and was intrigued. In his new book, Boyce gives some reassurance and advice on how to parent “orchid children.” Boyce explores the “dandelion” child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the “orchid” child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile), who, given the right support, can thrive as much as, if not more than, other children. Truly, the same conditions that may be good for one child won’t be ideal for another.
Interestingly, he writes of the stress response on the Central Nervous System, exactly what led me to read The Out-of-Sync Child. Stressful experiences have a profound physical effect, which of course affects the mental state. There were many similarities in the science behind SPD and “orchid” children.
Orchid kids are characterized by: 1) their sensitivity to the new and unexpected and their reliance on routine; 2) their special need of parental affection and time; 3) their perceptive read of acceptance and affirmation of the child’s true, tenderhearted, and creative self.
Then there is the dichotomy that is frequently discussed at my house: “The families of orchid children must also seek and achieve a well-tempered balance between measured protection and emboldened exposure. On the one hand, because orchid kids are prone to an easily triggered physiological reactivity, a certain level of parental insulation from the world’s abundant challenges is often a needed and helpful protection.
“On the other hand, the parenting of an orchid child must never be solely about protection and sheltering; parents must also know when to push, when to nudge, when to encourage a child’s venturing into unknown and even uncomfortable psychological or physical territory. For it is the successes in such terra incognita that will foster the child’s growth, revealing her capacity for mastering situations that seem at first impossible to abide. All parents of orchid children walk this fine, constantly shifting line between sheltering and provoking.”
Is that not a blog post in itself???
Boyce writes from personal and professional experience on child developmental differences in such a way that I hope will cause others to become more sensitive to the needs of the orchid child. Boyce encourages the reader to focus on an orchid’s hidden strengths and uncommon sensibilities, thus helping them to blossom into their own resilience and possibilities.“
“Orchids are not broken dandelions but a different, more subtle kind of flower. Within the struggles and frailties of orchids lies an unimagined strength and redemptive beauty.”
Sweet Girl has some sensory issues and this book helped explain exactly where the behaviors come from, how to seek out help, and includes support and other resources.
“SPD can cause a bewildering variety of symptoms. When their central nervous systems are ineffective in processing sensory information, children have a hard time functioning in daily life. They may look fine and have superior intelligence, but may be awkward and clumsy, fearful and withdrawn, or hostile and aggressive. SPD can affect not only how they move and learn, but also how they behave, how they play and make friends, and especially how they feel about themselves.”
This is a truth-telling memoir about poverty and how frustrating it can be to rise out of it, especially as a single mother. Land is a great writer, evoking much of the helplessness of her situation, and her resolute fight to improve her circumstances. She writes to tell her story and to fight stereotypes about food stamps, subsidies, and welfare.
I became a witness. Even odder was my invisibility and anonymity, though I spent several hours a month in their homes. My job was to wipe away dust and dirt and make lines in carpets, to remain invisible. I almost felt like I had the opportunity to get to know my clients better than any of their relatives did. I’d learn what they ate for breakfast, what shows they watched, if they’d been sick and for how long. I’d see them, even if they weren’t home, by the imprints left in their beds and tissues on the nightstand. I’d know them in a way few people did, or maybe ever would.
The floor had dropped out from under me too many times already, and I still walked carefully on it, knowing one upset could bring me tumbling back to where we began, in a homeless shelter. I had to keep it together. Above all else, despite uncertainties in things I couldn’t control, I should remain calm. Dependable. I’d go to work and do the job that needed to be done. “You must not let yourself fall apart!” I repeated to myself. It became my mantra that I repeated in my mind, sometimes even saying it out loud.
“This book is full of reflections from individual women that also reveal and revel in the universal. From women of myriad backgrounds, a chorus rings true: the forties are a decade of reckoning and awareness, of gratitude and loss, and they are limned with emotions as divergent and powerful as the individual voices that speak to them. These women, in their forties and beyond, are in the prime of their lives. These are not reflections on the dying of the light, but rather a full-throated celebration of what it means to be an adult woman at this moment in history.” ~ Lindsey Mead
I follow Lindsey’s blog and have long enjoyed her reflections on family life. In publishing this collection, she has fulfilled one of her goals of putting a new book out into the world, and I’m so thrilled for her that the collection is so diverse and on point.
“When you are, say, twenty-five, the adult world is a simple binary construct divided between the young and the old. The young is anyone under forty. The old is anyone over sixty. There is no in-between. The forties and fifties don’t exist. The forties and fifties are just a couple of lost decades in which the only goal is to try to maintain whatever operation (child rearing, career building) you got started in your twenties and thirties. And because maintenance is so easily overlooked, so unsexy, so perennially under the radar, it is entirely possible for a twenty-five-year-old graduate student to look at her forty-seven-year-old instructor and unconsciously assume her to be a senior citizen.” Meghan Daum
“Time flies, races, or crawls depending on our emotional state. The more charged our feelings, the more our perception of time slows, and when these emotionally charged moments are happening with a person we care about or can identify with, time slows even further.” Jessica Lahey
“The horizon line simply rearranges itself as we approach.” Lee Woodruff
“You should only care about getting older if you aren’t moving every day toward the maximal expression of the life you were hoping for. So take a minute. Forty is a rest stop in which you can pause to hold something in your hand and examine it from all sides, but just as quickly, because it’s all suddenly moving so fast, you let it go. Which is a good thing, because the modern woman, at least the kind who is reading a book of essays about turning forty, is faced with a conundrum at forty: How can you be this dissatisfied when you have so much? How can you be this satisfied when you have so little? Ask yourself this, and then know you won’t find an answer. Decide that it is okay to not have an answer. It is also okay to forget the question.” Taffy Brodesser-Akner
This is the first book from Sarah Jessica Parker’s new imprint about a Muslim Indian American family caught between cultures. Mirza’s characters easily become people we care deeply about… somehow her writing reaches places that most books simply do not. I was stunned by the powerful way this novel grabbed me.
We learn, along with the characters themselves, that our perspective matters the most in our lives, that we can shift our experience just in how we look at things, and that those we think we know best we might not know at all. It’s about belonging, growing up and knowing ourself, regret, and trying to maintain old beliefs and cultures. Thought-provoking, beautiful, nostalgic, and very real… I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
“If only he could remember now what the hurt was about… Maybe just that everyone is good except for him, everyone has a lock in them that they have found a key to, and he is all shut up and closed with no key so he looks to each of them when they are listening intently… thinking either there is no key or that he was created without one. And maybe he does not really believe in angels but maybe the ones on his shoulders look at each other and they shake their heads and shrug, saying, well, we don’t know what to do with this one, even if God were to show him signs he would not listen because that is the way it is with some kids, when their hearts are just stained black.”
It’s been a while since I had to ration pages because I did not want the book to end, but that’s exactly what happened with this engrossing “rock and roll” adventure. This novel reads like a transcript of a rockumentary. The way Taylor Jenkins Reid allows the story and complex characters to unfold just works on so many levels. They are so real, truly authentic versions of what I’d guess to be the enigmatic musicians in most bands. I am impressed with how she touched on so many topics in such a swiftly told piece. It’s raw and real and human.
“I used to think soul mates were two of the same… I don’t believe in soul mates anymore and I’m not looking for anything. But if I did believe in them, I’d believe your soul mate was somebody who had all the things you didn’t, that needed all the things you had. Not somebody who’s suffering from the same stuff you are.”
I loved following along as a fly on the wall of the song-writing process. The way words or verses come forward and Billy and Daisy work off each other was brilliant. I can hardly believe these characters don’t actually exist. I think Daisy and Billy and the band are supposed to evoke Fleetwood Mac. Female strength, tender love, addiction, family and friendship, fame,
“Loving somebody isn’t perfection and good times and laughing and making love. Love is forgiveness and patience and faith and every once in a while, it’s a gut punch. That’s why it’s a dangerous thing, when you go loving the wrong person. When you love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else’s. It’s sacred.”
Now I’m going to have to go read all the other Taylor Jenkins Reid books out there…
“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody.” – Surprisingly similar to the character Lee Miller’s voice in…
This is sort of a historical novel about photographer Lee Miller during her Paris years, some of which she spent with Surrealist Man Ray. I found it engaging for two reasons: 1) I love reading about photography and so the descriptions of Lee viewing complex compositions in her mind and capturing them with her new camera, as well as the many experiences and discoveries in the darkroom, truly conjures a true giddiness in me; 2) I usually enjoy watching a character evolve and come into her own identity and this story puts the reader directly into Lee’s thoughts. OK 3 reasons: I also love reading about Paris in the 30s!
“When Man is silent, sometimes Lee thinks about nothing, or just lets her mind wander. Other times, if she lies there long enough, she starts to think about her life as one long string, all the things she’s done interconnected and stretched out from the past into the future. She finally feels she is here at the prow of herself.”
A relationship between 2 artists is bound to be complicated, and Miller’s romance with Man Ray seems to disintegrate as Lee begins to find her own voice. I imagine that it’s relatively rare for a woman of that time to show such tenacity. As comfortable as her life with Man is, Lee finds that she’d rather not share her discoveries, her talent, or so much of herself.
Scharer’s writing flows with descriptive elegance: “Lee approaches her. ‘Kiki?’ she asks. With a feeling of elation, Lee starts dialing the settings into her camera. But as the woman looks up, her face dissolute, her makeup blurry, Lee realizes it’s not Kiki. Of course not. Up close this woman looks nothing like her. As the woman puts her hand out to stop Lee from taking her picture, Lee puts the camera to her eye and releases the shutter. When she sees what Lee is doing, the woman starts yelling, a stream of French invectives. After she gets the shot, Lee leaves quickly, looking back only once to make sure the woman isn’t following her. As she turns the corner, Lee feels a rush of clarity and power. The photo – Lee does not need to develop the film to know what she has gotten – will show the woman with her mouth twisted into an angry circle, her hand outstretched like a beggar, the fabric of her dress straining as she leans forward. There will be in it a feeling of surprise, of unexpected juxtaposition, as if in taking the picture at the exact moment when the woman’s anger flared, Lee has shown her honestly, both supplicant and whore.”
There was a time long ago when I would have loved this book. Alas, that time has passed. I had to skim through the last 100 pages. It was just… predictable.
Cozy Minimalism is a mindset where you find your own style with the fewest possible possessions. Smith harkens the Danish idea of Hygge, where you create a warm, inviting home using candles, blankets, etc. This is a step-by-step guide with many tools for how to make decisions in line with your priorities, budget, and style. Practical, fun, and full of great ideas. See my full review here.
I saw this book on display at New York City’s Strand Bookstore and was intrigued. Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of seventeen books about environment, landscape, community, art, politics, hope, and memory. She is also a contributing editor to Harper’s.
This is a series of essays that explore trust, loss, and desire, in a volume that focuses on a central theme of losing oneself in the pleasures of experience.
“How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” ~ Meno
“Lost… was mostly a state of mind, and this applies as much to all the metaphysical and metaphorical states of being lost as to blundering around in the backcountry. The question then is how to get lost. Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, and somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery.”
“We always have time for what matters to us” is the message of this sweet little parable. The main character is racing as fast as she possibly can to keep up with an out-of-control life that she doesn’t even really want. It was surprisingly engaging and I was sorry for it to come to an end.
This is a guide for envisioning a life that is personally meaningful and purposeful and making the everyday choices to get you there. The exercises in the guide afterwards will help you think about how you spend your time, and how you’d like to spend your time.
“My definition of minimalism is ‘the intentional promotion of things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from them.’ As I sometimes like to say, minimizing is actually optimizing—reducing the number of your possessions until you get to the best possible level for you and your family.”
First, Becker states, is to set goals for your home; then set goals for your life. The book seems to be a guide for our homes, but is truly also about what we can accomplish with our life. Minimalism is not the end goal, but a path toward a life of passion and purpose to pursue the things that matter most.
“Minimizing forces questions of values, meaning, and mission in life. Some initial de-owning and de-cluttering decisions are easy to make, but before long we realize that we’re not sure what we want to keep until we know what we want to be doing with our time.”
For each object, we should ask “do I need this? Does this align with my purposes?” We have to overcome the endowment effect: just because we own it doesn’t mean it’s important! It’s fairly easy to just let it stay because it’s already there. We have to deliberately move it if it’s not needed or adding value, which can be difficult.
THE CLOSET (as an example)
Becker discusses how fashion trends come and go, but we each tend to have those few outfits we always wear. What if we cleaned out everything but those? Getting dressed would be a relief, not having to sift through so many options. He encourages us to be comfortable with our own iconic style.
I’m trying this and so far, I agree that it’s a huge relief to not see so much visual clutter. I feel most comfortable in jeans and a tshirt. If I need to look nicer, I have a few slacks and tops or dresses I like. The rest is either from my office days or the wrong size.
Space!
VALUES
“We, as a society, waste so much time and energy and money accumulating material possessions that we don’t even realize how much good we could accomplish if we freed up those resources for better things. With our homes minimized, our lives are packed with potential to a far greater degree than we could ever predict.”
I especially love how Becker relates each project to a larger strength, like family time (living room), cleanliness (kitchen), gratitude (play room), living with intentionality, etc. He is not promoting sparseness at all. We should keep whatever we need because those items represent the crux of our life.
“If you’re monitoring your weight on a scale or taking vitamin supplements kept in your bathroom, you’re pursuing the value of health. If you’re storing medical supplies that you can grab when a child wakes up sick in the night, you’re prepared to bring relief. If you’re bathing an infant, or perhaps a disabled spouse or elderly parent, you’re giving comfort while serving a basic human need. If you’re teaching and modeling a simple approach to health and beauty for your kids, you’re helping to start them out well in life. If you’re going through the routine of washing your family’s clothes week in and week out, they may not thank you but they owe you. Let me say it: thank you for caring and thank you for making the most of these spaces in your house by keeping them tidy and uncluttered.”
Inspired, I sat down one Sunday with more scrapbooks than I knew we had. I started with the ones I made after high school or college trips. So many of my photos were of landscapes, with the mountain in Wales indistinguishable from the mountain in Israel. I kept some pictures of people, taking them out of the album and putting them in an envelope, and let the others go. Many of our very old family albums had one or two pictures on each page, so that was easy to compress with my envelope technique. What began as a stack about 4 feet high ended up the size of one shoebox.
“Most of our stuff we could get along just fine without if we had to. Even the sorts of things we often put in storage—collections, keepsakes, and mementos—aren’t terribly important when weighed against relationships and intangibles such as faith, hope, and love. We don’t need a catastrophe to prove this to us. We can give ourselves that same freedom by eliminating the excess from our homes—all the way to the back wall of our storage space. And then we can use that freedom to cultivate things that really are worth giving our lives to.”
“In a society that consistently paints more and more accumulation as the basis for happiness, owning less requires intentionality, courage, and perseverance. You have to overcome your own inertia, make challenging choices, and establish new habits to minimize and stay minimized.”
“Becoming minimalist modeled for my children the beliefs that personal belongings are not the key to happiness, that security is found in character, and that the pursuit of happiness runs on a different road than the pursuit of possessions.”
I hope I’m showing SG the same beliefs.
HOBBIES
It can be possible to spend more time handling our stuff than actually working on our hobby! For many reasons, I have not been creating art lately. I realized that the room is so cluttered that it does not actually inspire me to get to work. Most of the time, I ignore the mess. I got to work on that, shelving paints and tools so I know where things belong. There is now at least space to work on projects.
There are anecdotes between book chapters by fans of minimalism who write about how this way of living has brought about unforeseen benefits. One person started spending more effort on interpersonal relationships; one expanded her creativity. The benefits of moving beyond “stuff” and focusing on what we could do with our time is very motivating.
One of my favorite sections is about how to get children to help with decluttering their rooms and toys. Becker also has a guide for how long to keep paper records and how to move through some of the emotion of going through sentimental items. Y
Becker closes the book with a list of how to Maximize the Rest of Your Life. “See your Potential,” “Allocate Resources,” “Look for Greater Purpose,” and “Get Moving” are some of his steps here.
If headlines like “7 Ways to Organize Your Cleaning Supplies” or “8 Storage Tricks for Any Bathroom” stop you in your tracks, you’ll love this special issue magazine. I absolutely love this issue! I might have purchased it at Lowe’s but honestly I can’t remember. It’s set up so that you can do one project a day for 30 days, all of which are fairly simple. They go room by room, dividing it up by section, and show lovely photos and give a few simple tips for each. One project, for example, is just about the top of your dresser. That’s doable, right? I think the entire issue is pretty to look at and rather motivating.
Get Organized in 30 Days or Less is arranged in these sections:
A couple of the inspiring photos in the magazine:
Below are a few key ideas I liked:
Make a list of everything you want to declutter, prioritize the areas, and then itemize each area into smaller segments. You’ll get a sense of accomplishment if you tackle one small project at a time.
So sorry to be a nerd, but I plan to color code my moving boxes by room, so I started assigning the colors here. Eye roll please. I may have to have a spreadsheet too. I know, I know.
Make arrangements to get things out [of your house] as soon as you collect them so you aren’t creating more clutter. Mr. B sent me this hilarious article in the WSJ about how donation sites are overwhelmed because of Marie Kondo.
Before and After – kitchen spices
This is how I tackled my spice cabinet, and even then, it took about a week to finish (and I’m not totally done). You can see that I went from cabinet to drawer. My spices were years old, so it was a no brainer to get new and smaller containers.
Use hooks, pockets, and racks on cabinet doors… Mount a paper towel holder inside the under-sink cabinet… Use a tension rod under the sink to hang spray bottles … Magnetic strips… lazy susans…
Swap mismatched plastic hangers with huggable hangers. They keep items from slipping off and don’t take up much space.
Get rid of clothing that is too big, too small, from long-ago career days, or you haven’t worn in 1 year.
Done!
Roll slippery garments like pajamas, silk, scarves, and camisoles and place them in a row.
My favorite section covered clever uses for objects that you most likely have at home already. Keep earrings and their backs together in a spare button. Use a binder clip to keep gift wrap rolls closed, a wine rack to store bath towels, or a pot lid rack in your closet for handbags, wallets, etc.
All in all, a handy little magazine!
I can’t remember… did I show you my pantry? Here are a few snapshots of how it’s looking so far:
“Creating a home you love is simply about deciding what to focus on and then giving yourself permission to stop worrying about the rest. This book is all about helping you make house decisions using the filter of cozy minimalism. When you have clarity and purpose, you find motivation and confidence.”
So begins Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff by Myquillyn Smith. Smith guides her readers through her room design process, going from being a “stuff manager” to thinking of yourself as “Chief Home Curator.” Her main point: “less stuff not only simplifies my home but also simplifies my life.” Having space in the house translates into having space in your life. “Breathing room on my walls, on my floors, and on my surfaces gave me breathing room in my life.” Then we can concentrate on what matters… family, friends, quiet time.
And who doesn’t know this feeling? “When home feels out of control, no matter what the reason, unsettledness and anxiety can seep in, and then the chaos becomes internal as well as external. Our home influences us both positively and negatively.”
A “Chief Home Curator” is the protector of what comes in and what goes out of your home. A curator always keeps in mind the overall goal and purpose of a space as well as the interests of her family.
Smith wants our home to be FABS: FUNCTIONAL, ABUNDANT, BEAUTIFUL, AND SIMPLE.
BTW, her writing style is casual, as if she’s speaking to a best friend: “Listen, I know you want to redo every room starting right now or else you might just burn it all down. Maybe you are so motivated and ready to get it done, you are committed to going without sleep until it’s finished. I love that about you. Or it could also be that you are beginning to wonder if this book is for you because you don’t consider yourself creative or you don’t “decorate.” Do you think I wrote this book for people who already know how to do this? No, I wrote it for you… You get to decide how you want to use each space in your home. You’re already good at that!” How can we not respond to such encouragement?
Her process has an exact order. She uses her living room as a guide so that she is working through the process along with the reader, who is working on whatever one room she chooses. (I don’t have ANY rooms to work on yet…) Steps in the first phase: Gather your inspiration, create your sane space, pick a room, warn the family, consider the purpose of your space, and identify solutions (a Cozy Minimalist embraces imperfect solutions).
As Cozy Minimalists, we want to get the most style out of the least amount of stuff. Quieting the space is the first step to decluttering, where you take out all but the main pieces of furniture. This is “a great way to trick yourself into getting rid of stuff, because you’re gonna love your space so much you won’t want it junked up anymore!”
Rugs and Drapes and Lighting, Oh My!
“The order in which you place things in a room is absolutely crucial. When you incorporate larger, more impactful items like rugs, drapes, and lighting first, your room gets filled with style and coziness without using up much actual space. Making good design decisions is less about knowing the trends and more about knowing the order to add things we truly need and use in a home.”
When the rug, drapes, and lighting follow your well-placed seating and surfaces, your room will be 75 percent done.
The last step is to create little vignettes, being mindful of scale, shape, mass, and texture. Each vignette has a focal piece, a container, a plant, and decorative objects.
“You know your home serves you best when it’s somewhere in the center of that tension between peaceful simplicity and cozy abundance.”
Smith sums up her process: “START with super-comfy primary seating, ideally in a style that has a name. ADD some secondary seating that’s comfy enough. SPRINKLE around surfaces and storage. LAYER with a large rug. COMBINE floor-to-ceiling drapes. INCORPORATE lighting and lamps with presence. SURROUND with just enough large wall art. ADD a pinch of accessorized vignettes. FILL with people; add love.”
After finishing this book, I felt motivated to part with things we will not need in our new home and that I don’t have a plan for. I’ve been slowly sorting through some boxes we have stored in our attic.
My main take-aways of this delightful book were:
unique style always trumps trends
be watchful about what comes into your home
empty space is as important as filled space
furniture, rug, drapes, and lighting are most of the design
It has been increasingly more difficult to choose books for Sweet Girl. More times than ever before, I come home from the library with a stack of books for her and she rejects them all. I can’t seem to figure out what criteria to use! This month, we are reading The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. I found this 4-book series by Googling 10-y-o girl chapter books.
Four kids, each of whom has a unique gift (athleticism, intuition, logic, and a photographic memory) test into a special school and work together to solve mysteries.
I requested this one accidentally from the library, looking instead to read The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English by Lynne Murphy. Still, I loved Abley’s exploration of how the world’s languages have been transformed and will continue to be as a result of global trade, immigration, and the Internet, as well as how language changes people. Abley covers blogging, novels, dictionary makers, web-speak, and talks about what the future holds for each. My graduate program was in intercultural linguistics and this was right up my alley. Though the book is primarily about English as a shifting and influential global language (and, most interestingly, how it is incorporated into other vocabularies around the world), I learned so many fascinating facts about other languages and how we perceive other cultures as well as what we might expect in the future. Definitely worth a read.
“All sorts of borders are collapsing now: social, economic, artistic, linguistic. They can’t keep up with the speed of our listening, of our speaking, of our singing, of our traveling. Borders could hardly be less relevant on teen-happy websites… Languages are merging.”
“The combined influences of global business, media, politics, Hollywood and the Internet have an awesome linguistic power. They entail instant communication and instant comprehension a requirement that may prove strong enough to pull English back from the brink of schism. The Roman Empire did not have CNN or Microsoft at its disposal. For the moment, a rough balance appears to exist between the forces working to pull English apart and those laboring to keep it united. The language’s long-term future depends on which tendency… proves stronger.”
A woman saves her child’s life by making a vow to never die. When the story opens, she’s been alive for 2000 years. There are so many reasons to love this book! First, I have liked everything Horn has written. Second, I thought the parenting themes of unconditional love, disappointment, and sacrifice that ran throughout the story must have been true for every generation back to the beginning of time. Also, Horn’s characters are just so real. I would have loved to know more about the many lifetimes this woman has lived. Finally, but definitely not the end of my love list, the way each life intersects with another is captivating. I thoroughly enjoyed the messages the story conveys abut the meaning of life.
“She hesitated. She had never tried to say it before, to give words to the bottomless darkness surrounding her, a shard of a girl caught in the world’s throat. ‘I just can’t bear it anymore,’ she said slowly. ‘Being alive. Losing everything again and again. Every year, every day, I still expect it to get easier. But it doesn’t It never does. Instead it just changes. Constantly changing, constantly in motion. Everyone else thinks they’re moving toward something. But you and I are the only ones who know we’ll never get there, that nothing is ever over. I feel like I’m always falling. I’ve been falling without landing for two thousand years.'”
Having read her Life-Changing Magic book a few years ago, and since Kondo is on everyone’s tongue these days, it seemed like a good idea to read through this book too. It is full of reminders and tips about how to sort kitchen tools, cleaning supplies, hobby things, and photos on your computer. Despite some of her odd ideas, I like Kondo and have benefited from her process. See my more extensive review, Kon-Mari-ing my Space.
“Tidying up is far more than deciding what to keep and what to discard. Rather, it’s a priceless opportunity for learning, one that allows you to reassess and fine-tune your relationship with your possessions and to create the lifestyle that brings you the most joy.”
Out of curiosity, I checked this out at the library and read it in 2 nights. Nick takes Rachel home to Singapore for the summer after dating for 2 years, yet she doesn’t know that he is one of the few ultra rich families whose wealth goes back generations. With that comes certain expectations and ways of behaving, which doesn’t include marrying just anyone. I realize there are not a large collection of countries that encourage marrying for love alone, but still, I expected the racism and stereotypes in the book so that wasn’t interesting, nor surprising. Kwan definitely draws his characters with loads of detail. I don’t particularly care for all the fashion/name dropping, and I didn’t like the footnotes. I’m glad I read it but won’t read the others he’s written. I doubt I’d see the movie.
There are certain books that one just has to read right away. I put down all my others and read this in two sittings. We have seen a recent normalization of open expressions of hatred and this book is an answer to the uncertainty we all have. Organized as a series of letters, the book dives into current examples of antisemitism and white nationalist violent demonstrations happening in the U.S. and Europe. Lipstadt addresses current incidents and historical events through a series of letters, which I thought made it reader-friendly with short, specific chapters. She also adds her personal viewpoints, which I liked.
Lipstadt dives into Trump, anti-Zionism, social media, Holocaust denial, BDS, racism, separatism, violence, hatred of Muslims, opposition to immigrants, and antisemitism that is fundamental to these movements. normalizing open expressions of hatred, the normalization or mainstreaming of white supremacy and its panoply of attendant prejudices.
Here’s a recent NPR interview in which Lipstadt discusses the resurgence of antisemitism globally, how people can criticize Israeli policies without being antisemitic, and how she maintains a sense of joy studying such darkness.
“It seemed that every day a new development—the murder of a Holocaust survivor in Paris, elections in Hungary in which the winning side relied on overtly antisemitic tropes, a Polish law rewriting the history of the Holocaust, white power demonstrations in the United States, campus anti-Israel campaigns that easily morphed into expressions of antisemitism, Labour Party antisemitism in the United Kingdom, the growing resiliency of white supremacist groups, and so much more—demanded analysis and inclusion in this work.”
Welcome and thank you for visiting! I’m Naomi – a mother, writer, creative soul, and avid reader. I aim to share my thoughts and ideas to inspire positive change that will help you live an authentic and caring life.
Poetic Aperture is for me and for you. I often write just to process the swirling activity inside, but I also hope to inspire COMPASSION, COURAGE, and WONDER in you and support you on your journey of elevating the everyday.
I am a rabbinical student at the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York. I am fortunate to have an amazing 15-year-old daughter and a supportive husband of 22 years.
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… reading in bed, candles, diving into a new project, learning something new, crisp crunchy leaves underfoot, hearing my daughter laugh, starting a new book, finishing a book, organizing, floating on my back in the pool and staring at the sky, writing, craft supplies, photography, poetry, a good massage, knowing smiles, singing along to the radio, getting things done, comfy bedding, hot chocolate, paying attention to the details, libraries and bookstores, campfires, astronomy, finding beauty in the everyday, impromptu road trips, quiet, journaling, learning about myself, waking up and reading in bed (preferably with coffee), home, interesting flowers, affection, Sleepytime tea, capturing a moment in time with my camera, true laughter, soft rain.
“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.” ~ Michael Nolan
