May reading roundup #1

We’re a week into May, and I’ve been racing through good books. Here’s what I have been reading:

Begin Again, Emma Lord
Andie Rose is an A+ planner – but when she transfers to the competitive state school where her parents met, her plans to ace her college experience fall apart. Instead, she finds friendships with her roommate and her stats tutor; shifts at the off-campus bagel place; a slot on the school’s pirate radio station, founded by her mom; and a will-they-won’t-they connection with her RA, Milo. I love Lord’s sweet, witty YA novels and this one was so much fun.

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle, Jennifer Ryan
I flew through this charming WWII novel about a group of women in Kent banding together to mend and lend wedding dresses to each other amid fabric rationing. Fashion designer Cressida, shy vicar’s daughter Grace, aristocratic Violet and their friends were wonderful characters. Serious Home Fires feel-good vibes.

Pages & Co.: The Bookwanderers, Anna James
Tilly Pages loves spending time in her grandparents’ London bookshop. When Anne Shirley and Alice (of Wonderland) turn up in the shop, and Tilly discovers she can wander into books, her grandparents – and a secret sect of librarians – have a lot of explaining to do. A cute, bookish middle-grade story; I wanted to love it more than I did, but it was fun. Found at All She Wrote Books.

Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer, Julia Cameron
I’ve loved Cameron’s work since I received The Sound of Paper as a college graduation gift. This is a six-week practical guide to getting in a writing rhythm, using her classic tools (Morning Pages, walks, Artist Dates). Helpful and engaging, though not much new info if you’re already a Cameron reader.

Love from A to Z, S. K. Ali
Zayneb has HAD it with her racist teacher targeting Muslims – but when she speaks out, she gets suspended. She heads to Doha to visit an aunt, where she meets Adam – Chinese-Canadian, also Muslim and recently diagnosed with MS. This lovely YA novel alternates between their perspectives, and deals with both difficult topics and the sweet headiness of first love. Thoughtful and fun. Found at the Bryn Mawr Bookstore in Cambridge.

Stateless, Elizabeth Wein
England, 1937: Stella North is determined to prove herself in an international race against 11 other young pilots from across Europe, to promote peace. But one contestant disappears, and Stella suspects sabotage. She works with a few other pilots to figure out who was responsible, and why. I love Wein’s fast-paced historical YA novels; this one has great flight details, fascinating characters, and a growing sense of unease as Europe heads toward war.

My Contrary Mary, Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand & Jodi Meadows
This sequel-of-sorts to My Lady Jane (which I loved) picks up with Mary, Queen of Scots, at the French court. She’s supposed to marry Prince Francis, but she’s ambivalent – meanwhile, Francis’ mother and Mary’s uncles are both scheming to gain power, and Mary’s mother is in faraway Scotland. With the help of her ladies-in-waiting (all of whom, like Mary, can change into animals) and Nostradamus’ daughter Ari, Mary learns to navigate both politics and love. I raced through this one on a flight; so much fun.

Off the Map, Trish Doller
Carla Black has always preferred traveling to putting down roots; she spent summers road-tripping with her father, Biggie, after her mom left. But when she goes to Ireland for her best friend’s wedding, she meets a man (the groom’s brother) who might make her want to stay. I like Doller’s smart modern-day romances; this one was pretty steamy for me. But I liked Carla and the honest way she was forced to deal with her issues.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

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Poetry Friday: Rainer Maria Rilke

Early Spring

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows’ wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.

I saw this poem on Nicole’s Instagram back in March, and it seemed absolutely perfect for the “beautiful, capricious, reluctant” springs we often get here in New England.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry on Fridays this month, as I do every year. 

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Spring, in fits and starts

This morning, on the way to work, I walked down clear sidewalks: some recent rain and mild temperatures had washed them nearly clean of last week’s snow and sleet. I’ve been snapping photos of crocuses and snowdrops, stepping around the occasional clump of hardened snow. There’s rain and wintry mix in the forecast for next week: although we’re technically in meteorological spring, March is still winter in Boston. And this winter has been a strange one.

During the decade I’ve lived in New England, we’ve set records for snow totals in both directions: the notorious winter of 2014-15, when it would not stop snowing, remains the high mark for snow in Boston at around 110 inches. Until recently, this winter (which also boasted the cloudiest January on record) was the least snowy winter in Boston’s history. We’ve had at least one record-breaking cold snap, but many more oddly mild(ish), dry days. 

Of course, it’s not over yet, and as we all know, “averages” are made up of both dramatic extremes and quieter middles. But it’s been a season of fits and starts: temps in the 60s over Presidents’ Day weekend, after lows that dipped below zero earlier in the month. A few storms that have dumped several inches of snow and sent everyone scrambling to dig out their shovels and ice scrapers, interspersed with days of cold rain or lowering skies. We’ve had very few of the bright blue days I love, where I inhale the cold, crisp air as I run along the harbor under the morning sun. It hasn’t felt quite normal–though “normal,” as we all know, is highly variable. 

Despite the fitful weather and the lack of snow, some signs of the season are showing up right on time. Those snowdrops have been popping up for weeks now, recently joined by crocuses and early daffodils. The maple buds are turning red; the magnolia branches look fuzzier, or maybe that’s just me anticipating the time when they’ll burst open into pink and white. And the light–this I know for sure–is lingering just a bit longer every day. 

It’s been a strange, fitful life season, too: a reentry from a pandemic that isn’t quite over, no matter how weary we are of anything COVID-related. Some of us are still relearning how to be in society, after nearly two years spent isolating whenever possible. I’ve written before about needing more time to recover after trips and activities, no matter how much I enjoy them. And of course there are the usual existential questions about life and career and relationships, magnified by the last three profoundly strange years: Am I where I’m supposed to be? Am I doing the work that’s meant for me, and am I loving my people well? How do I know?

How do I know, indeed?

We’re so addicted to forward motion, as a culture: linear progress, productivity, the checking off of tasks on the to-do list. I count up the number of pages I write, tally the runs and yoga classes I get to in a week, make and remake lists in my planner. I long to find some momentum on a longer writing project: a book of essays, maybe, or a memoir in vignettes. I want to accomplish, to check off, to have the sense that all this effort, all these quietly lived days, are counting for something. 

As we approach the third anniversary of the pandemic, that strange, disorienting Friday when the world shut down, I’m wondering: what if linear isn’t the thing at all? What if progress is just a name we slap onto weeks of fits and starts, the shiny veneer we paste over a winding path, the story we tell ourselves because we’ve come to believe that cyclical or slower growth doesn’t matter?

I think about those crocuses: quietly gathering their strength underground for months before peeking their heads above the ground, seeking the light. I think about the seasons, how the angle of the sun shifts gradually each day, despite our labels of equinox and solstice. I think about my own growth, how I can attempt a yoga pose or wrestle a knotty emotional problem for days or weeks –and then suddenly, in a split-second epiphany or a quieter moment, understanding can dawn, seemingly out of nowhere.

Along with the crocuses, I am trying (always trying) to open myself up to the beauty that is right here, rather than forcing my own expectations onto reality. It’s hard sometimes: I’d rather have a plan and a list and a road map for how to get there. But it’s worthwhile and life-giving work: to slow down a bit, to notice what’s really here, and to delight in it – even if it’s not what I expected.

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#mondaydelights: the first crocus.

It has been a strange winter: we’ve had (knock on wood) hardly any snow, at least by normal Boston standards. We had the cloudiest January on record and a bitter cold snap in early February (which, thankfully, I missed because I was in California).

It’s felt a bit odd not to step around piles of slush, and I’m getting a little worried about what this unusual winter might mean for the rest of this year. I struggle with snow and cold and ice, but I know the plants and the ground need it to give us the other beautiful New England seasons I love.

But. I spotted the first purple crocus in our community garden the other day, pushing up through mulch and sticks and a few bits of discarded litter. And it gave me the same heart-leap of joy and hope as every year: no matter what, no matter the grey skies and existential crises and chilly nights with or without snow, spring will still come. It’s a relief and a blessing to know that the promise is kept: that underground, where we can’t yet see it, growth is happening. Color and joy, and new life, are on their way.

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January reading roundup #2

As the snow swirls down outside, I’ve been plowing (ha) through books – poetry, fiction, memoir and strong women, as usual. Here’s what I have been reading:

Swan, Mary Oliver
I adored this Oliver collection, unsurprisingly – especially the first poem, and several others. She writes so well about nature, the interior life, seasons and paying attention. Perfect morning reading.

Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women, Alissa Wilkinson
I’ve known Alissa online for years, and loved her book of essays on smart, strong, bold women – Hannah Arendt, Edna Lewis, Maya Angelou, Laurie Colwin and others – who had interesting things to say about food, gathering, womanhood and community. If that sounds dry, it isn’t; Alissa’s writing sparkles, and each chapter ends with a delectable-sounding recipe. Found at the lovely new Seven and One Books in Abilene.

Running, Lindsey A. Freeman
As a longtime runner, a queer woman and a scholar, Freeman explores various aspects of running through brief essays – part memoir, part meditation, part academic inquiry. I enjoyed this tour of her experience as a runner, and the ways she writes about how running shapes us. To review for Shelf Awareness (out March 14).

Beyond That, the Sea, Laura Spence-Ash
During World War II, Beatrix Thompson’s parents send her to the U.S. to escape the bombings in London. Bea lands with a well-off family, the Gregorys, and her bond with them – deep and complicated – endures over the following years and decades. A gorgeous, elegiac, thoughtful novel about love and loss and complex relationships. To review for Shelf Awareness (out March 21).

Winterhouse, Ben Guterson
Elizabeth Somers, an orphan who lives with her curmudgeonly relatives, spends a surprise Christmas vacation at Winterhouse, an old hotel full of delights. She makes a friend, uncovers a dastardly plot, makes some mistakes and discovers family secrets. I liked Elizabeth, but I really wanted this to be better than it was.

The Belle of Belgrave Square, Mimi Matthews
Julia Wychwood would rather read than go to a ball – but the only way to placate her hypochondriac parents is to plead illness. She’s rather miserable when Captain Jasper Blunt, a brooding ex-soldier in need of a fortune, arrives in London and begins pursuing her. A fun romance that plays with some classic tropes; I loved Julia (a fellow bookworm!) and her relationship with Jasper. I also loved The Siren of Sussex; this is a sequel of sorts.

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, Michelle Obama
Michelle needs no introduction from me; this book discusses some of the tools she uses to steady her during challenging times, such as knitting, exercise, friendship and keeping her perspective straight. I loved the insights into her marriage and her relationship with her mom, and her practical, wise voice. So good.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

P.S. The fourth issue of my newsletter, For the Noticers, came out last week. Sign up here to get on the list for next time!

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Wakanda Forever, and Advent

Last week, I went to see Wakanda Forever with my guy. I’m still a Marvel novice (he’s an avid, longtime fan), and I’d avoided spoilers, wanting to come in with fresh eyes. It was gorgeous and impressive: the fight scenes alone were visually amazing. But the plot – although I knew it began with grief – was way heavier than I expected.

There was a lot of death and vengeance, I said to a friend afterward, debriefing the movie (and my reaction to it) while trying not to give the plot away.

Nothing says Advent like death and vengeance! she joked. Taxes, Herod, etc. And though I laughed, her words kept coming back to me all week.

The Marvel universe is, of course, not explicitly Christian: it has dozens of deities, who often out-human the humans in their capricious plotting and scheming. But both narratives – Black Panther and Advent – are, on some level, about what happens when humans pursue power at the cost of oppressing others. There is chaos and darkness, and a lot of yearning for things to be made new, in both Wakanda’s world and ours.

The villains wear different faces, perhaps. Herod is a shadowy figure to most of us, though he was infamous in his day for cruelty and paranoia (and, of course, taxation). The villains in Wakanda Forever are the colonizers: white Europeans who, in that world and this, have seized land and resources for themselves, with little thought to the impacts on native peoples, or any claim those same peoples might have to the land they have inhabited for centuries.

I admit it is uncomfortable – and necessary – to watch movies where people who look like me are the antagonists. It also makes me think, every time, of what Galadriel says at the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring film: she’s talking about the rings designed for the kings of men, “who, above all else, desire power.”

If power (often via control of valuable resources) is the goal, then governments and rulers will stop at nothing to secure it. Even for those who primarily want to protect their people and homeland, power can be a seductive – and blinding – distraction. Several of the characters in Wakanda Forever get sidetracked by its lure, nearly launching the entire world into a blistering full-scale war.

There is (isn’t there always?) another way, which is the message of Advent: the quiet, messy, upside-down approach of mercy, the confounding way that hope and scrappy underdogs often sneak in to save the day. There is a way, even among warring nations, to choose peace and justice over iron-fist control, even when that justice comes at a heavy price. In Wakanda Forever, we watch several characters grapple with this choice – even as the consequences of others’ choices bring heavy losses and deep pain.

Neither narrative wraps up neatly: the movie ends, of course, and Christmas does come, but neither erases the pain that came before it. Neither ending can entirely negate the realities of oppression and power-seeking, and the losses that cannot be recovered. Death and darkness are real, and sometimes they threaten to overwhelm the light.

And yet: we wouldn’t keep watching superhero movies, or observing Advent, if we didn’t believe the light would triumph somehow. We would turn away from these stories altogether if we didn’t believe – or hope – the light could break through.

We keep telling these stories, trying to make sense of our pain, trying to turn toward mercy and justice and new life, even when the grief is a heavy weight, even when the darkness covers the earth. We believe, somehow, that the light is coming, that redemption is possible, that death and darkness are not the end.

In this season of deep darkness and stubborn light, I’ll keep clinging to that belief – whether via the essays in my Advent book or, unexpectedly, on a journey to Wakanda.

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Reclaiming Julia

Julia Roberts. Julia Child. Julia Cameron. A writer friend with whom I’ve recently reconnected. My yoga instructor, for a few months on Saturday mornings. And the name of my ex-husband’s new partner – indeed, the only name I knew her by, for a long time.

It’s not an uncommon name, Julia – especially here in the U.S., over the past century or so. I can think of other actresses (Stiles, Ormond, Louis-Dreyfus) and I’m sure I’ve met other women with that name, over the course of my life. For months after my marriage fell apart, the name hit me in the chest every time I heard it, whether or not it was referring to the woman whose last name I still didn’t know. (I didn’t ask for a lot of details; I figured – still figure – that for me it’s better not to know too much.)

I wondered, at the time: will I hate this name for the rest of my life? Would it make my heart clench every time I heard it? The name Julie, so similar but different, inspires nothing but warm feelings in me: since high school I’ve had at least one friend named Julie, women of courage and grace and great kindness, one or two of whom are still in my life. But I knew I didn’t want to recoil from every person I met named Julia. It’s a small detail of divorce I didn’t expect, this quiet reckoning with and reclaiming of a name that took something from me.

The reclaiming has been gradual, and it’s still in progress: it began with those Saturday morning yoga classes, a dark-haired nurse named Julia standing at the front desk, greeting all of us with a smile, learning my name. She moved to Florida a month or two ago, and I never told her – couldn’t figure out how to tell her – about this role she played in my life. In addition to sun salutations and child’s poses and deep warrior lunges, she brought a pleasant association with a name that had brought me sadness and grief.

Julia is also the name of a childhood friend’s daughter. Born a preemie, she’s now preschool age, spunky and slight, always on the go, if her mom’s Facebook photos are any indication. I haven’t met this wee Julia in person yet, but she and her brothers light up my feed when they appear, as does the joy of their parents and grandparents. We were all once afraid she might not make it this far, and now I think her folks worry more about keeping up – a joyous problem to have.

There’s no neat and tidy conclusion to this process, no total redemption (at least not yet) of this name and its difficult part in my story. But I’m learning to layer the good memories on top of the hard ones, not to hide them but to remind myself it all exists; it all belongs. These women I know, or have met, or whose work has influenced me, are part of the story of that name in my life, as much as the woman whose invisible presence hurt me so much. Tiny Julia; writer-from-Maine Julia; yoga instructor Julia; the redheaded actress whose cackling laugh I adore. The chef played so fabulously by Meryl Streep in a movie I love. And the writing teacher whose books have shaped my life so powerfully – thanks, in part, to that same ex-husband, whose presence in my life will never wholly disappear.

They all are part of the story of this name. I’m grateful that now, most days, it is a story of joy – even if the pain still stings once in a while.

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Poetry Friday: Naomi Shihab Nye

Loving Working

“We clean to give space for Art.”
        Micaela Miranda, Freedom Theatre, Palestine

Work was a shining refuge when wind sank its tooth
into my mind. Everything we love is going away,
drifting – but you could sweep this stretch of floor,
this patio or porch, gather white stones in a bucket,
rake the patch for future planting, mop the counter
with a rag. Lovely wet gray rag, squeeze it hard
it does so much. Clear the yard of blowing bits of plastic.
The glory in the doing. The breath of the doing.
Sometimes the simplest move kept fear from
fragmenting into no energy at all, or sorrow from
multiplying, or sorrow from being the only person
living in the house.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry – with an emphasis on women of color – here on Fridays this month, as I do every year. 

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Poetry Friday: Danusha Lameris

Insha’Allah

I don’t know when it slipped into my speech
that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”
Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.
The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.

So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled
easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.

Every language must have a word for this. A word
our grandmothers uttered under their breath
as they pinned the whites, soaked in lemon,
hung them to dry in the sun, or peeled potatoes,
dropping the discarded skins into a bowl.

Our sons will return next month, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this war will end, soon. Insha’Allah
the rice will be enough to last through winter.

How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand. And still we carry it
the way a mother would, carefully,
from one day to the next.

I discovered Danusha Laméris via her poem “Small Kindnesses,” included in the collection How to Love the World. This poem came to me via social media, I think; I am so grateful to the Poetry Foundation for holding and sharing so many wonderful poems.

April is National Poetry Month, and I will be sharing poetry here on Fridays this month, as I do every year. 

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Poetry Friday: James Crews

Darkest Before Dawn

Three days into the new year,
and despite the lack of adequate light,
our white phalaenopsis orchid
has eased open a third delicate bloom.
Perhaps coaxed by the warmth
of the woodstove a few feet away,
the orchid thrives in its tiny pot
shaped like the shell of a nautilus,
sending out new stems and glossy leaves,
its aerial roots—green at the tips—
reaching upward like tentacles
to sip the morning air. These blooms
stir something too long asleep in me,
proving with stillness and slow growth
what I haven’t wanted to believe
these past few months—that hope
and grace still reign in certain sectors
of the living world, that there are laws
which can never be overturned
by hateful words or the wishes
of power-hungry men. Be patient,
this orchid seems to say, and reveal
your deepest self even in the middle
of winter, even in the darkness
before the coming dawn.

I found this poem last winter in How to Love the World, a lovely, hopeful anthology edited by Crews. I have been thinking of it again in these cold January days: sometimes keen and blue and bright, sometimes grey and damp and dark.

While I am not growing orchids, my last paperwhite bulb – which sat on the kitchen windowsill for over a week with no signs of growth at all – has started to uncurl its green stem, perhaps in response to the blinding winter sunshine. I am taking it as a sign of hope, and thought it was apt to share this poem with you.

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