The marks of time

In Kansas City for a little while...
While there is one major drawback (cute husband is missing), it's nice to be home.
These old books now live in my old bedroom and I couldn't help but snap a photo.  To think of all the hands that had to hold them, all the boxes that they traveled in and out of, all the fingers that lightly gripped an edge and turned a page.  It's magical.

I'll meet you back here next week for some more verbose posting.

In the meantime, here's some visual stimulation for the weekend, found in bridges (click through the slide show).  Some of these took my breath away.

And in the spirit of springtime, some flowers I spotted today.  While we don't want our prose to be purple and flowery, it's fine for our flowers to be so.  (Tee hee couldn't resist.)

{ Happy Spring! }

The Book Thief

I finished the wonderful and amazing book The Book Thief last night.  For me, it was one of those rare books that will probably stick with me through the years.  I know some of my readers have read it (it was on the recommendations of my mom and my father-in-law that I finally got to reading it), but for those of you who haven't yet, I really hope you'll pick it up one day soon.

Somewhere in the middle of the book's 550 pages, the characters became real to me--whether for their own sake or because many of them reminded me of people in my own life, it's the same difference.  At least to me, it was such an unbelievable story of the triumph of words.  And more specifically, the ultimate triumph of good words over bad: a reminder of the importance of telling one's own story in the face of tragedy.  Surely writing is one of the great human acts of renewal, one that I think rivals what others tell me of their religious or spiritual experiences--it's a way to clear a path through worry and pain and surprise yourself by finding the good in things you were so sure were completely bad.

Just wait'll you meet Liesel Meminger and Hans Hubermann, and sweet little Rudy Steiner, a boy with a pure heart.  And, as books about World War II go, I can't think of one that gave me a stronger sense of time and place, nor one that had such a strong hypothesis to the oft repeated (and unanswered) question of how Hitler and the Nazis could have done what they did.  Just as good words have real power to heal, so do bad ones have power to destroy...and I'll leave it at that for now.

In the same vein--because you know how you'll be thinking about one thing you've read and then you read something completely unrelated and yet somehow the two stick together in your mind for no other reason than their proximity to one another--here's an interesting article from The New York Times that I read late on Saturday night.  It's about a palliative care doctor who, when faced with her own form of terminal cancer, decided--again and again--against palliative care.  I found myself thinking of her story in terms of what it might offer the rest of us.  It's something I feel I could ruminate on all day: this idea of feeling one way your whole life, but when faced with a decision, acting in defiance of those feelings.  How frightening and exhilarating to think of ourselves in this way--so unpredictable, even to ourselves.

And here are a few photos of our weekend.  How was yours?

UPDATE: Some updated thoughts.  I've just been perusing the internet a bit looking for others' thoughts on The Book Thief, and the vast majority are highly favorable.  That said, some think it's overwrought and doesn't deserve, as the book jacket suggests, to be included in the same literary canon as Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl.  I've heard this same sort of criticism about the book Little Bee (haven't read it yet), which is not about WWII and the Holocaust, but which also claims to be an "important," "life-changing" book.  Similarly, cute husband, as most of you know, is a Bob Dylan freak and finds that many fans are hesitant to give Bob credit for his later work (namely, the sublime Love & Theft, released on 9/11/2001).  They claim that the legend has lost his touch, when in truth he's just changing.

I find this phenomenon fascinating and annoying.  There seems to be a fear of adding something new alongside the old, as though the two cannot co-exist without canceling out one another.  I think that the process of older works giving way to and having influence upon the newer works is the essence of what we think of as "Literature" (big L).

Any thoughts?

Take the heat

Since we're coming up on two years of living in Virginia, and I'm going through my second round of experiencing the seasons, I've come to understand that this state basically has no Spring.  Winter lasts only about six weeks (from mid-December to mid-February), then suddenly we're talking 70s.  Today, April 1st, we're cresting the 80 degree mark.  It's really quite depressing for someone like me who loves winter and often opens her closet door just to stare longingly at her sweaters hanging neatly in a row.  However, there is something kind of wonderful about the summertime lifestyle.  The swimsuit simply lives on the edge of the bathtub because it's always wet and needs to be dry by tomorrow so that the poolside (and here, beach side) activities can be repeated again.  There's lots of beer-drinking because everyone is so darn hot, and though we use the AC as much as we can, by the time the June electric bill arrives in the mail we make ourselves go old school in the evenings: windows and fans.  Long about July, you learn to just be content sweating as you read your book and sip your third margarita. (At least I do.  Cute husband absolutely cannot stand the heat, mostly due to his very pale skin--his idea of a perfect summer day is going to three movies in a row so he can revel in the always overpowering movie theater AC.  My mom also feels this way; she has pale skin too).

And oh the summer rains--the waiting inside for the sky to clear so you can go back to the pool because you know it will be hotter and muggier afterwards than it was before.  Or the few times when the rain does cool things off a bit and the breeze that follows the storm is like a new start on the day...

I just think it's so interesting how our moods and routines change just a little bit with each season.  Is this something we impose upon ourselves or something imposed upon us?  Nearly all of the bloggers I follow seem to want to document these season changes--there have been so many posts about the changing trees, the freakishly warm weather, the demands of changing one's wardrobe with the season. Awhile ago I wrote about how in winter it always seems like we are being led into hibernation--our god-given time to just ruminate a bit, stay inside, care for the ones we love for lack of anything better to do.  And so too does spring and the coming summer seem like instructions handed down from a higher place: go outside, be happy there, let the sun ease your worried mind. 

It's simplistic for sure, but most right answers are.

Staying awake

The wee hours of the morning are upon me now.  As I think I've mentioned to you before, this is when I come alive.  6pm is my 9am.  Around that time I feel like I finally start to wake up, think about what I'd like to accomplish, get a little excited for my day.  Except it's dinnertime and time to sit down and watch the college basketball tournament.  Round about midnight I get my midday burst of energy--tonight, since cute husband doesn't have class on Fridays, I convinced him to take a walk with me at 12:23am...and it's raining here.

As we were out walking I noticed lights on in a few windows and wondered if they were fellow night owls, or just up late seeing if K-State could pull it out over Xavier.  As we walked, a few cars pulled out of the parking lot and I wondered where they were going--to an overnight shift, or to Walgreen's for a kid with a late night ailment.

In college cute husband had to work an overnight shift one night a week.  At the time we were living far apart from one another and he would call me before he started his shift.  The eight hours of work that lay ahead of him always seemed so daunting because he had to endure them in the middle of the night.  There's something more terrible about doing your work in that kind of solitude.  I would wake up at 3am thinking, he only has five hours left, at 5 am, only three more hours, at 7:30, knowing he was watching the clock, doing the last few things before he could go home and sleep away the day.

When I was five or six, my brother (a baby at the time) had a god awful earache one night and I remember my dad going out at three in the morning to find something to ease the pain.  Even then I remember being worried at the thought of my dad driving all alone out on those dark quiet streets searching for the right medicine.  To six-year-old me, the whole scene was frightening and tragic, my baby brother's screams matched with my mom's worried face as she rocked him.  But in the morning he was fine again--for my parents it was just a mark along the timeline of their hectic lives, for me it had been a huge event, a spectacle that lives vividly in my memory even today.

I admit sometimes there is nothing more nourishing than a good night of rest.  The warmth--the familiar warmth--of your bed, the ability to close your eyes and think, despite every little hassle and tragedy of life, again, tomorrow.   But I have to say that staying awake a few times in your life almost always makes you a more interesting person.  It's a time to hear the strange creaks of your house, the ones that get lost in even the tiniest movements of daytime; a time to work tirelessly, alone with your thoughts, pushing through every urge to sleep.  And at 7am, as you hear the sounds of the world coming awake, you know that you have withstood the scary silence, and too the solitude, that masterful interrogator; you have lived time that others haven't.

In the mailbag

Ever heard of Powell's Books?  Well, I've never been there, but as a book/bookstore aficionado it's one of my "places to see before I die."  Others wish for the Scottish Highlands, India, Marrakesh...me, I just plan future trips to famous local bookstores.

Well, since I sometimes spend my evenings just browsing the Powell's website, I recently discovered that you can sell your old books to them online--send them to Powell's media mail for free--and get "virtual credit" added to your online account.  It was a no-brainer.  As much as I love reading, there are always a few that I don't like so much, and a few more that I know I'll never get around to reading, so I do occasionally part with some so that I can have a little cash to buy a few new ones.

My package from Powell's arrived today and I got three new books that I can't wait to dive into ("into which I can't wait to dive?"--the whole hanging preposition thing sometimes seems pretentious to me).  Plus I had an awkward few dollars left over so I decided to go for a Powell's pint glass to hold me over until I can actually go there and buy a tee shirt.

1. World in Half by Cristina Henriquez, 2. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Alan Bradley, 3. If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous

Also, the New Yorker illustrators are really wowing me this year with their designs--can't wait to dive into this one, as this week's fiction is by Joyce Carol Oates (that link is to read it online, if you like).  Squeel!

I love holding books and magazines in my hands, knowing there might be a great story contained therein.  I love opening the cover, the copyright page, the title page, the dedication page...eyes scan to find chapter one, and then, the first line.  Sometimes I have trouble getting into it, sometimes it starts off good but gets boring...and sometimes it's the beginning of something great.

Some inspiration

This blog post broke my heart and reminded me that sometimes you just have to pick up and go, and that doing so takes the biggest kind of courage.

This business left me in awe.  To me, the best work out there simply captures some important feeling--nothing fancy, just precisely right.  (Click through the videos on the right side of the site, numbered 1-6).  (Found via honey living.)

And I loved this photo, and the Steinbeck quote that acts as the caption.  Perfect.


P.S. You'll notice that the blog is a little bit WIDER today.  I actually went in and rewrote some HTML.  There may be hope for me yet...

No you are not hallucinating

Well you know it's bad when your little brother--who is swamped with schoolwork and other related college duties and really doesn't have a whole lot of time to peruse the blogosphere--looks at you aghast over drinks one evening and says (and I do mean in all caps), "YOU HAVEN'T POSTED SINCE FEBRUARY 17TH." We were sitting at a table with my parents and cute husband and we were having the "Alison, what are you doing with your life?" conversation. When one of them asked me, "So, what's next?" and I responded with a noncommittal shrug, it was my brother Alex who said, "Well for starters you could update your blog."

As is usually the case, the kid was right.

The main thing keeping me from writing was that I've failed in all of my promises for this blog--the story, the application to an MFA program, and on, and on. During the first couple of months of the year, when I was spending each day in front of my computer screen crying and pulling out strands of hair, I just became completely annoyed with myself for only posting about "the struggle of writing." Ugh, I was boring myself. And furthermore, as I was sitting down to write each day--trying to turn what started, with this blog, as a "regimen" into a "day job"--I got an overall sour taste in my mouth about writing in general. While avoiding writing, I would web surf and find articles about how an MFA gets you nothing in this world, and how most writers with one are about as destitute as the writers without one. And long about the end of February, when the MFA app was about to come due, I realized that writing stops becoming an outlet and starts becoming torture when you begin to think about it in terms of proving your wares to people (e.g. getting published, getting into an MFA program, so you can tell all your friends and so your parents can finally tell all their friends that your life is not a total waste).

Cute husband thinks the answer is in putting myself out there as much as possible, turning this blog into a business where I attempt to interact with other writers, and build up a sort of community that helps one another out in times of writerly stress. I'm pondering this...

My dad thinks I should go to law school because both my husband and soon my brother are doing so, and he has visions of a family business. (And he thinks I'm smarter than I actually am.)

Mom just keeps cheering maniacally from the sidelines--the woman is incapable of giving up on me, which I find really endearing, considering what a flake I can be.

Cute husband's parents (cute parents), too, seem to be indelibly in my corner and send sweet emails on a regular basis saying how whatever I decide will be good.

Yeah, the people in my life are way too nice.

But for my part, I want to just come back to this blog as a place to write about my thoughts, whether they have to do with writing, books, someone that puzzled me out on the street, and other categories that fit into a larger sub-title of "random musings." I feel like I'm at my best and most confident when I'm writing little essays about things, so that, in general, is what I'm going to do. I know I've written here before, saying, I'm back!, only to NOT come back. But my hope is that in letting Promise to Write just BE, with me as your humble author and you as a few nice people who check in every now and again to hear my thoughts, this can work again, and maybe something new and exciting can grow here after all.