My Brain On Books XXIX
I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004. I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love. I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids.
This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two. Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..
Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post
5:05 PM Saturday - Wrapup
I stuck with Saturday Night Widows for the duration. Why. Why did it take me so long to engage with this book? Because finally I'm finding one of the things--maybe the one thing--I've missed in my own widowhood experience: validation for a grief over the loss of someone some have judged as less worthy than others. In Becky Aikman's support group there is one loss to suicide and one loss to alcoholism. Yet the group rallied around these two without hesitation or judgment. No implying that their grief must be easier or must be over sooner or suffered in silence and secret like a guilty vice since after all their loved one was begging for it, was making poor choices, was not a good person, did not treat you right, maybe deserved it and isn't it a relief really aren't you glad to be free of all that? Nope none of that. Those two women and their grief are embraced by the group with equal compassion and their loss given equal consideration.
3:03 PM Saturday - Now I'm going to run out the clock on the novel I mentioned in the opening meme:
Saturday Night Widows
The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives
by Becky Aikman
Six marriages, six heartbreaks, one shared beginning.In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world. In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas. Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.
Hmm. Somehow along the way I either missed that this was a memoir not a novel or forgot. Well, it is just as well as I already have too many novels in the works. So I'm still going to spend at least an hour with this and then decide whether I want to move on to one of those novels-in-progress to close out the thon.
2:44 PM Saturday - Started reading soon as coffee in hand 9:30ish haven't stopped to update or explore the thon activity
I have several items in my Libby library on my Nexus 7 that are coming up due and/or very close to finished and that is where I put my focus this morning:
Rage by Bob Woodward
It's OK That You're Not OK by Megan Devine (about grief)
27 Essential Principles of Story by Daniel Joshua Rubin
Conversations With the Divine by Caroline Myss
I finished Rage. Finally after starting it 42 weeks ago. But I just read at least half in one sitting. The last half of course.
The Essential T.S. Eliot by T.S. Eliot
2:44 AM Saturday - Can't keep my eyes open.
Not surprising since I began the thon with nine hours awake behind me. I spent the last six hours browsing in the ebooks in my Libby, leaving comments on the Dewey thon hour posts and on some reader blogs. My eyes are rebelling big time. I must sleep as I've been rereading the same sentences over and over for the last thirty minutes.
11:11 PM - Here's the biblio scoop on the audio I spent the last hour or so with:
The Essential T.S. Eliot by T.S. Eliot
A selection of the most significant and enduring poems from one of the twentieth century's major writers, chosen and introduced by Vijay Seshadri, performed by T.S. Eliot, Vijay Seshadri, Daniel Halpern, Willem Dafoe, Natasha Trethewey, Meghan O'Rourke, Natalie Diaz, Frank Bidart, Joy Harjo, Rosanna Warren, Emily Jungmin Yoon, Tracy K. Smith, Nicole Sealey, Jorie Graham, Kevin Young, Louise Glück, Eileen Myles, Carol Muske-Dukes, Campbell McGrath, Robert Hass, and Monica Youn.
This audio book was supplied by Libby via my local library. It's about 4 hours long and I just listened to the second hour.
9:33PM - Going to fix a snack and return to my beanbag chair
I think I will give my eyes a break with some audio. Probably a T. S. Elliot collection I've got checked out from Libby in which the selections are being read by renowned poets of our era. I'll add the correct bib info later.
8:55 PM - First Finish
Just finished Odyssey of Ashes by Cheryl Krauter. What a raw and intimate story of loss and grief, of letting go of what must move on while holding on to the essential self and discovering a resilience rooted in vulnerability. Reading this memoir of widowhood as a recent widow myself my emotions are still riding the turbulent currents of her story as I try to sort out the mix and mingle of my own emotions from hers.
She answered one of my burning questions tho. How long? Forever. Grieving is not a task that has a definitive end like making a meal or writing a book. It is as much a lifetime commitment as the marriage itself was. Grief is transformative and as it transforms you and your life the experience of it itself will transform. Grief is like the weather and rivers--wind and water rushing over landscapes at times turbulent and stormy and other times placid but always a part of the landscape of your soul.
4:44 PM - Intro Meme I'm setting this to go live at 4:44 PM but it may be well into hour 1 before I check in again. I'll be reading my first pick sitting in my beanbag chair.
1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Kelso Washington USA. Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother since 2013. I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit less than a month ago. The last several posts have been about the move. This will be my first read-a-thon in my new place. This is also the first time I've ever lived alone. Takes some getting used to.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Non-Fiction: Odyssey of Ashes by Cheryl Krauter #OdysseyofAshes #NetGalley. An ARC I'm reading for a blog tour for which my review and interview day is September 3.
It is the memoir of a widow whose husband won a coveted Montana rivers fly fishing trip nearly a year after he died. She decided to go on the trip in his place and spread his ashes in the places he loved. The account is a meditation on grief and loss and starting anew.
It's been five years since I participated in a blog tour. As a recent widow myself I could not pass this one up.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Watermelon
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision
Diagnosed with high functioning autism six years ago this month
Have a caregiver who comes in twice a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone.
I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
The fact that I'm living alone in my own place for the first time in my life has already been covered. So I'll add that I'll be spending the majority of reading time for books that need eyes on my new beanbag chair atop my new mini-tramp. When I have to be up and about doing unavoidable tasks or I want to exercise on the mini-tramp I'll switch to audio.
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Ode to Dewey by Joy Renee We Miss You Dewey |
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