My Brain On Books XXXVIII
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
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| My new folding camper rocker which will be an integral part of thons from now on. |
It is supposed to rain off and on the whole thon but unless it is below 50 degrees and/or the rain is being driven in under the porch awning I will try to spend some daylight time out here. Other times I have the beanbag chair, the rocker and the couch/bed. Also the mini-tramp if listening to audio.
I never got to sit outside. It rained all day and was also windy and thus chilly with occasional blasts of rain under the awning.
1:44 AM - Time to eat again
And therefore time to listen to another disc of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein. See below at update 5am.
12:22 AM - oops! my Kindle Fire shut down in the middle of a sentence
I was 11 screens from the end of the chapter I'd been reading for over an hour when my screen blinked black and powered off. Ugh. I hate when that happens.
I don't typically spend over an hour with a NF (except memoirs and biographies and books about writing craft or creativity. Well maybe true crime and some investigative journalism that has a throughline as compelling as a novel) but this one was slow reading as it is so dense with quotes and references to other texts--and dates! Not to mention detailed presentations of the various arguments made by the early theologians of Christianity between Jesus and Constantine, including the influence made on them by Judaism and the Hellenistic philosophers. Lots of things to keep straight.
I wouldn't have persevered if the book wasn't due tomorrow (well today now) probably before I wake from my post thon stupor. I did not want Libby to snatch it from me before I'd finished that chapter or I'd probably have to reread it on my next turn. It was over 80 screens long!
This is the latest book on my currently reading shelf related to my obsessive decades long study of Comparative Cosmology which is the overarching concept that includes: Theology, History of Christianity (and other world religions and spiritual paths), Sacred Texts, Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology, Quantum Physics and Mythology.
7:44 PM - Back to Reading!
But first food! So back to the audio of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein while i fix and eat. See below at 5am.
5:00 PM - Into the mystic
Subtitled: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
I've been reading this one for several months and am still only about 15% in. In this sitting I reached the point where she was 'discovered' at age 20 after submitting a remarkably mature poem to a national contest in 1912. It was her poem Renascence and after many pages of a play by play of that year in which lines from what she considered her first mature poem had been teased throughout the narration, the entire poem was presented in full.
I was blown away. I also got a lesson in how to read a poem. Or maybe a reminder. I tend to try to speed read but poems are not meant to be read that way. Rather they need to be read mindfully, savoringly, and with careful attention to grammar, punctuation, image and metaphor. I had to keep backtracking to pick up the thread again because I kept missing the signals (mostly punctuation) that indicated what phrase or image was referencing which previous phrase or image in order to complete a thought, an action, a comprehension...
Missing these signals changes the meaning or throws the mind into confusion like being lost in a maze. But once it all clicks into place... WOW.
I'm not proficient at reading poetry. I'm too impatient maybe. But on the random occasions when I manage to connect to one it always changes me. This is no exception. As i finally finished after nearly an hour on the poem alone, I exclaimed in my head: OMG she's a modern mystic. How did I not know that?
Go find a copy and read it. Better yet get this book and read also about her childhood and the influences on her writing of her experiences and her relationships with her parents and sisters and journals. Yes, journals. She named them and spoke to them as if in conversation with a person. Not just a person but a beloved.
I have a feeling I won't be dilly-dallying my way through the rest of this book.
I will also be looking for a collection of her poetry very soon.
How did I not know she was a mystic? I became drawn to mysticism in the mid to late 90s during my explorations into Comparative Cosmology. Milly is the most modern one I've encountered so far. Unless I missed the signals when I did encounter them, which is quite possible especially if I encountered them before my exposure to the Medieval Mystics during my Comparative Cosmology studies.
Oh my! I think I need to return to the poets I discovered in my late teens and twenties two decades before my comparative studies and encounter with the concept of mysticism. Emily Dickenson, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman...
There were others. Mostly women writing in the 1900s and several publishing in the decades before and after my high school graduation. I can't remember any other names in this moment but I'm raring to go seek them out somehow.
So poetry is apparently a form of mindfulness!
Just had that thought as something in me made the connection with something I read hours early in The True Secret of Writing.
Something in me wants to apologize for getting off track but then I rebel against that because this is how I encounters with words and story and ideas affects me. This is my brain on books!
2:00 PM - Sit Walk Write
And therefore time to listen to another disc of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein. See below at update 5am.
12:22 AM - oops! my Kindle Fire shut down in the middle of a sentence
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| The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman |
I was 11 screens from the end of the chapter I'd been reading for over an hour when my screen blinked black and powered off. Ugh. I hate when that happens.
I don't typically spend over an hour with a NF (except memoirs and biographies and books about writing craft or creativity. Well maybe true crime and some investigative journalism that has a throughline as compelling as a novel) but this one was slow reading as it is so dense with quotes and references to other texts--and dates! Not to mention detailed presentations of the various arguments made by the early theologians of Christianity between Jesus and Constantine, including the influence made on them by Judaism and the Hellenistic philosophers. Lots of things to keep straight.
I wouldn't have persevered if the book wasn't due tomorrow (well today now) probably before I wake from my post thon stupor. I did not want Libby to snatch it from me before I'd finished that chapter or I'd probably have to reread it on my next turn. It was over 80 screens long!
This is the latest book on my currently reading shelf related to my obsessive decades long study of Comparative Cosmology which is the overarching concept that includes: Theology, History of Christianity (and other world religions and spiritual paths), Sacred Texts, Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology, Quantum Physics and Mythology.
7:44 PM - Back to Reading!
But first food! So back to the audio of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein while i fix and eat. See below at 5am.
5:00 PM - Into the mystic
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| Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford |
Subtitled: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
I've been reading this one for several months and am still only about 15% in. In this sitting I reached the point where she was 'discovered' at age 20 after submitting a remarkably mature poem to a national contest in 1912. It was her poem Renascence and after many pages of a play by play of that year in which lines from what she considered her first mature poem had been teased throughout the narration, the entire poem was presented in full.
I was blown away. I also got a lesson in how to read a poem. Or maybe a reminder. I tend to try to speed read but poems are not meant to be read that way. Rather they need to be read mindfully, savoringly, and with careful attention to grammar, punctuation, image and metaphor. I had to keep backtracking to pick up the thread again because I kept missing the signals (mostly punctuation) that indicated what phrase or image was referencing which previous phrase or image in order to complete a thought, an action, a comprehension...
Missing these signals changes the meaning or throws the mind into confusion like being lost in a maze. But once it all clicks into place... WOW.
I'm not proficient at reading poetry. I'm too impatient maybe. But on the random occasions when I manage to connect to one it always changes me. This is no exception. As i finally finished after nearly an hour on the poem alone, I exclaimed in my head: OMG she's a modern mystic. How did I not know that?
Go find a copy and read it. Better yet get this book and read also about her childhood and the influences on her writing of her experiences and her relationships with her parents and sisters and journals. Yes, journals. She named them and spoke to them as if in conversation with a person. Not just a person but a beloved.
I have a feeling I won't be dilly-dallying my way through the rest of this book.
I will also be looking for a collection of her poetry very soon.
How did I not know she was a mystic? I became drawn to mysticism in the mid to late 90s during my explorations into Comparative Cosmology. Milly is the most modern one I've encountered so far. Unless I missed the signals when I did encounter them, which is quite possible especially if I encountered them before my exposure to the Medieval Mystics during my Comparative Cosmology studies.
Oh my! I think I need to return to the poets I discovered in my late teens and twenties two decades before my comparative studies and encounter with the concept of mysticism. Emily Dickenson, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman...
There were others. Mostly women writing in the 1900s and several publishing in the decades before and after my high school graduation. I can't remember any other names in this moment but I'm raring to go seek them out somehow.
So poetry is apparently a form of mindfulness!
Just had that thought as something in me made the connection with something I read hours early in The True Secret of Writing.
Something in me wants to apologize for getting off track but then I rebel against that because this is how I encounters with words and story and ideas affects me. This is my brain on books!
2:00 PM - Sit Walk Write
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| The True Secret of Writing by Natalie Goldberg |
- Mindfulness
- Non-Judgement
- Practice (Sit Walk Write)
12:00 PM - Next...
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If it Bleeds by Stephen King |
I moved on from the Stein audio at 7AM.
Usually I would spend the next several hours after being immersed in a novel reading NF, spending 15-30 minutes in each of several. But because of what happened this morning when I accidently opened a Stephen King book on my cell phone while preparing to sleep, I was eager to return to the novella that kept me awake until an hour before the official start of the thon. Sigh.
I returned to the last novella in the collection, Rat, which was another of Kings exploration of a writer's mind and the bargains they are willing to make to succeed.
Since I'd finished my first coffee and my breakfast of yoghurt, cottage cheese and blueberries I moved from the rocking chair where I'd listened to the A Sudden Light for two hours over to the beanbag where I immersed in Rat for forty or so minutes before I started struggling to keep my eyes open. So I moved back to the rocker for another half hour or so until yet again the drowse began to take me. I developed a stitch in my side, a crick in my neck and twinges in my hip from the way I was slouching in my chair. So I moved to the couch which is also my bed but I was sitting on it like a couch until at some point I wasn't. I didn't notice the time I surrendered to a nap but it was probably after 9:30 and possibly after 10:30. I woke at 11:11 when my cell alarm went off. It is one that goes off every day to remind me to check in with myself and ask certain questions, like:
Usually I would spend the next several hours after being immersed in a novel reading NF, spending 15-30 minutes in each of several. But because of what happened this morning when I accidently opened a Stephen King book on my cell phone while preparing to sleep, I was eager to return to the novella that kept me awake until an hour before the official start of the thon. Sigh.
I returned to the last novella in the collection, Rat, which was another of Kings exploration of a writer's mind and the bargains they are willing to make to succeed.
Since I'd finished my first coffee and my breakfast of yoghurt, cottage cheese and blueberries I moved from the rocking chair where I'd listened to the A Sudden Light for two hours over to the beanbag where I immersed in Rat for forty or so minutes before I started struggling to keep my eyes open. So I moved back to the rocker for another half hour or so until yet again the drowse began to take me. I developed a stitch in my side, a crick in my neck and twinges in my hip from the way I was slouching in my chair. So I moved to the couch which is also my bed but I was sitting on it like a couch until at some point I wasn't. I didn't notice the time I surrendered to a nap but it was probably after 9:30 and possibly after 10:30. I woke at 11:11 when my cell alarm went off. It is one that goes off every day to remind me to check in with myself and ask certain questions, like:
- have you hydrated in the last two hours?
- have you taken your meds and/or supplements?
- Is it past time to have something to eat?
- Is it past time to get up and move about?
i got up and fixed a second coffee and sat in the rocker reading Rat off my cell for at least another hour. I'm used to reading a King novella in one sitting so it was very frustrating to have it broken up like that. It makes it difficult to hold it in my mind like the faceted gem it usually is.
5:00 PM - Starting with:
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| A Sudden Light by Garth Stein |
I read The Art of Racing in the Rain after seeing the movie last spring and fell in love with both. Like that one, this one is set in the Seattle area of Washington state which I visited many times in my childhood. But that is only one of the draws. Both books also have elements of mysticism and/or magical realism. This one might be a ghost story unless those elements are related to the use of gaslighting techniques by one or more characters on the rest. The POV narrator is a 14 year old boy forced to join his father on a cross country trip to meet his grandfather whom his father has been estranged from for 23 years. The dynamics of these two father/son relationships (both dysfunctional) interact. The boy begins to understand that the grandfather has Alzheimer's and his father and his aunt who he's also never met and who is the grandfather's caregiver are on a mission to gain power of attorney so they can sell the mansion and acres of forest it sits on so they can afford to put their father in a nursing home and still have a significant inheritance. He hears them speaking about 'developing' the land. Also about a curse on the property and family because the family riches had been gained by exploiting the land during the era of the timber barons.
This is first because it is an audio book on CD and for the first hour I'm awake my eyes are gluey and I'm at risk of falling back to sleep if I don't stay active. So I will turn it on and listen while I make coffee and while I continue to prepare my beanbag chair for occupancy. It became a fiber collector the last few weeks--from clothes to bedding to yarn and fiber WIP. I was going to finish that project before I slept but ran out of time if I was going to get a solid sleep before 5.
Yeah, right. Fat chance! Good intentions and all that. Instead of clearing off the beanbag I sat on the edge of the bed and organized my ebook library on my cell. It was suppose to be calming and make me sleepy. I was suppose to be moving to the top several shelves the dozen or so books I was most interested in encountering in the next 24 hours. At some point I accidently opened a Stephen King. It was the If it Bleeds anthology. I had left off some months ago with one novella left to read and of course I started reading. Next thing I knew I had one hour left for sleep. I turned off the cell and the light and settled in to try to catch a nap at least. But all I did was lay there anticipating the alarm. Ugh. It could be a long day. Coffee will be my friend. Would it be wrong to take an extra Adderall? Probably. Maybe I'll just use coffee until around the 12 hour mark. Sometime between 4 and 6 this afternoon and then take he one Adderall. Ah well. Times wasting...
4:44 AM - Intro Meme
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 between January 2013 and late July 2021. I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021. This post was a photo essay of my new space.
So this is my 10th thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023 & 2024.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Non-Fiction: Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford (a biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Fiction: A Cautious Traveler's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Savory: Jalapeno Poppers
Sweet: Coconut Bites (with Goji, Cranberry, Chia seeds and Chocolate
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
- My Mother died Thursday evening. If there are any family events taking place over the next 24 hours I will have to set aside thon activities but for whatever hours of this 24 that I'm alone I will read and update. The grief is still fresh but reading is one of the ways I process strong emotion and sitting and stewing won't help. I may return to one of the books that helped me through the loss of my husband 4 years ago last month.
- Widowed September 2020 It still smarts at unexpected moments. But at least it is usually only once or twice a month now instead of constantly.
- Began living alone for the first time ever three years ago July. Sometime in the last few months it began to feel like home.
- Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision. Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye. The rest is shadows and shimmers.
- Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression and insomnia since grade school
- Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015. In my 50s!
- Have a caregiver who comes in four days 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.
- I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.
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?
This is my 38th thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried.
Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore. Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving.
Because of my vision issues I have always considered that the only metric on which I could compete as I'm now such a slow reader. But I've discovered that I can rack up an impressive number of books dipped into in 24 hours. I like to read a chapter each in 4 to 6 NF in an hour and then spend an hour immersed in a novel.
Because of my vision issues I have always considered that the only metric on which I could compete as I'm now such a slow reader. But I've discovered that I can rack up an impressive number of books dipped into in 24 hours. I like to read a chapter each in 4 to 6 NF in an hour and then spend an hour immersed in a novel.
Ah but the ONE thing that I could do different that could make a lot of difference in the quality of the experience is to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated. But nearly equal to that in impact would be to get briefly active at least once every two hours. But this isn't the first time I've set that intention. Let's hope I do a better job at it this time.
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Ode to Dewey by Joy Renee We Miss You Dewey |
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