Thursday, August 27, 2009

3 things

1. As many of you know, I changed my e-mail address TWICE yesterday. It's a wonder I don't have an ulcer. Some of you, when you heard that I was switching from yahoo to g-mail, wrote to tell me I would like gmail so much more, and I have to say that already I believe you. I look forward to getting more used to it. I'm glad to not be losing e-mail anymore. But here's the crazy thing: google won't let me change my blog account name to be the same as my gmail mailbox. And since you can't have two google accounts open at once, I can never have e-mail and blogger open at the same time! I have to sign out of my e-mail in order to sign into my blog! Stupid!

2. I was thinking today about kind people. There's a lady who lives in Pocatello who periodically sends or brings my husband a little bag of nylon dish-scrubbies that she crochets herself just because she thinks he's a great eye doctor. It amazes me that there are people like that, who would think to give gifts to their eye doctor because they appreciate him. (The dish scrubbies are really nice, too. I use and like them.) I wouldn't ever think to do something like that. It makes me wonder what other things I never think to do. And, while we're on the subject, can I just say how cool it is to be married to someone who is good at what he does? I mean, he's not just adequate, which I could live with, but he is GOOD. It's so nice to never have to worry about what kind of experience my friends or ward-members or acquaintances will have if they try him out as an eye doctor. It's weird because he might just as easily have turned out to be lousy or mediocre--who can know ahead of time how good they'll be at something? I would, of course, still love him if he were (lousy, I mean). But it's so NICE not to have to worry about that! I love being proud of him.

3. Speaking of being kind, here's my present for you. Believe me, it's ambrosia.

Peaches and Cream Cake

Ingredients:
3/4 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/8 t. salt
1 pkg. cheesecake or vanilla instant pudding mix (3.4 ounce)
3 tbsp. butter, softened
1 egg
1/2 c. milk
1 lg (about 28 ounces) can sliced peaches, drained
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon mixed with 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

Preparation:Mix together dry ingredients. Mix in butter, egg and milk. Spread in lightly greased (deep) pie plate or casserole (I used a square glass baking pan). Arrange peaches over batter. Beat the cream cheese, sugar and 3 tablespoons peach juice for about 2 minutes. Spread over peaches, leaving a 1-inch border. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over cream cheese mixture. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes in 350 degree preheated oven. Cool and refrigerate.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Book Report

Well, it's been a while since I've reported on my reading. So, if you're interested, here's a long list. I'll mark my recommendations with asterisks:


Adult Fiction:
The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken. This came highly recommended to me but I found it very plodding. It's about a young man who is oversized. Just couldn't see its charm.


Run by Anne Patchett. I like Patchett and read this shortly after hearing her speak. This one was gripping but I didn't enjoy it as much as Bel Canto.


Final Theory by Mark Alpert. This was my cruise reading. A very quick read, sort of Grisham-esque in the pacing and mystery and danger the main character is avoiding, mixed up with some scientific speculation. I found it somewhat flawed and I was in a hurry to finish it.


Lavinia by Ursula LeGuin. About Aeneas's wife. I couldn't get past the first third. I guess I just have no interest in that setting or those people. I find some of LeGuin fantastic and others boring.


*Still Alice by Lisa Genova. This was another of my favorites this year. It's a meticulous account of a woman with early-onset alzheimer's. Fascinating and well-done.


I Claudius by Robert Graves. I never would have picked this up if it hadn't been for a book group. It took some work to get all the way through it, but I suppose it's one of those that people should read. Full of violence and lust, the society it describes is sort of mind-blowing. The big question is, of course, how much of it is historical.


Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner. I love Stegner. Alas, this wasn't one of my favorites. It's highly autobiographical, full of excruciating scenes of his difficult childhood. He's a genius, but this one was more downer than anything.


Recapitulation by Wallace Stegner, sequal to Big Rock Candy Mountain. It really was just more of the same. The whole story was told in retrospect, with a loose frame enabling the narrator to tell more growing up stories. I felt it lacked a good story arc.


Old Men and Dogs by Robert Inman. A nice, fat, sweet little story that was pretty good but nothing exciting. About an old woman looking back on her life and trying to solve some racial tension in her town.


Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear. This was another Maisy Dobbs mystery. I really enjoy these for a light break occasionally. I love how Maisy uses knowledge about bodies and how people carry tension and problems in their bodies to help her understand people.


Wide Sargasso Sea by Rhys. OK, I'm stupid, but I didn't realize the connection with Jayne Eyre until I was nearly done with the book! I found the entire book underwhelming--lacking in cohesive structure. It just seemed like stuff happening. I was disappointed to miss out on Maralise's book group discussion of it, which probably would have helped me gain some appreciation.


Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. I'm told that Ford is LDS, although this book is not. It's a sweet little story about two young friends, Chinese and Japanese, during the war in the Pacific.


Mr. Darcy's Diary by Amanda Grange. Just exactly what it says it is. It didn't add anything to the story for me (what was I expecting?) and is probably best enjoyed by people who just love the time period.


Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I just love Tyler's characters. That's all.

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx. Yuck. Couldn't find anything redeeming here.




Young Adult or Children's:
Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech. This was a sequal to Love That Dog, which was really fun to read. This one was basically more of the same. Same kid, same poetic form. The first one was better, but this was fun, too.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. This was a cute book about a kid who is forced by his teacher to read Shakespeare. It was a little disjointed but a fun read.



*My Name is Sus5an Smith; the 5 is Silent by Louise Plummer. This was a re-read for my BYU conference but I loved it just as much. Plummer is so good at what she does, especially in creating the "writing scene" that each of her books has, when you can't bear to read on or to stop reading because of the trouble the main character gets into. Delightful, as usual.

Everything is Fine by Ann Dee Ellis. Although this was pretty good, and I love Ann Dee's prose style (so very good at sounding like an adolescent!), I felt that this book was "more of the same." Like her first book, it was the story of something terrible that had happened or was going to happen that is a mystery that unfolds very slowly. I would like to see her try something very different.

The Way He Lived by Emily Wing Smith. This was very unconventional in structure; it was made up of several narrators telling different, but connected stories. (And even the word "stories" is used very loosely.) I'm fascinated by seeing things from different points of view, but I felt this book was just a little too loose and disconnected. I would have liked to see it after another revision or two. I liked how the characters were LDS in various ways and am curious about the publisher's feelings about that.

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt. I hesitate to criticize this one because it is so many people's favorite book and I had heard it praised so highly. But I found the ending unbelievable and extremely disappointing. It is the opposite of romance, to me, when people are so destined for each other that they seem to have no choice in the matter. I found some of the problems that the main character had to solve to be unjustifiable or lacking in the weight given them (why was she so hung up on lemons? it just seemed silly). Still, it was a very interesting premise. Mostly, I'm just not in the audience for these kinds of books (the one with the almost mythical-sounding prose--all the dragon ones, for example).

*Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Couldn't put it down--great fascination.




Nonfiction:
Through the Window of Life by Suzanne Freeman. This is an LDS lady who has had visions and near-death experiences that have convinced her about what the breakdown of society is going to be like prior to the Second Coming. Like most of these books, it was poorly written and edited and cheaply produced. Some of it was pretty unbelievable to me, but some of it was very thought-provoking. I'm glad I read it because it gave me a new angle to think about how things could unfold.

Road Map to Holland by Jennifer Graf Groneberg. This was a memoir about Groneberg's experience having a child with down syndrome. I couldn't help being disappointed because I was comparing it to Kathy's book, which was much more interesting. But I have to point out that Groneberg's was a different TYPE of book, with a different purpose. Her title of "roadmap" describes it well. Reading it felt like reading a guidebook to the experience of having a child with DS, not so much a journey into the mind and heart of Groneberg herself. A good read if you are navigating this situation yourself--otherwise rather flat and boring.

*An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison. This is a memoir of someone who struggles with bi-polar disorder, and I found it fascinating--honest and well-written. One of the best books I've read this year.

*The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. This was a highly-recommended memoir of a woman who grew up in poverty. I was reluctant to read it because I hate downers--but this one wasn't! In that way, it reminded me of Frank McCourt. You feel the pathos, but you laugh and enjoy it as well. Amazing story; I can't believe that this woman is able to have a normal life now. She's got to be more screwed up than she lets on.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. This is a memoir about losing a spouse. Some argue that the book is too full of navel-gazing, but I found it fascinating.

*Healing and the Mind by Bill Moyers. Can't deny that this one came from my fascination with health and how my life changed because of my illness. I really enjoyed this book. It's made up of essays and interviews from a wide variety of healty practictioners, most of them "alternate," such as those who advocate meditation, tai chi, etc. I'd recommend it to anyone dealing with serious or chronic illness.

The Poet's Companion by Addonizio and Laux. This was a great poet's workbook with ideas and prompts and just general over-all information on being a poet. I would like to read it again when I have time to work through it.

Creative Writing MFA Handbook: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students by Kealy et al. Very helpful.

Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman. OK, I confess, this took me more than a year to finish, and I ended up skimming the last third. I found that paying close attention to the first half was very informative and I'm glad I read it, but this is not easy or quick reading. I was fascinated with how Bushman explains the evolution of Joseph's magical worldview. Probably everyone should read it but I doubt many can get through it.

*The Bonds that Make Us Free by C. Terry Warner. This was a re-read and just as good as ever. I think I should read it every few years, and I think everyone else should too. I'm trying to decide whether giving it as a gift to family members would make them think I am saying they need help--? Anyway, just an amazing book about interpersonal relations.

*A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle. This is probably the most new-agey book I've ever read, and it got a little draggy in the last third or so, but the ideas in it were very helpful for me. I think there is a lot of room in the gospel for more of these concepts (non-judgment, non-resistance, non-attachment).

*The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas. These were fascinating essays on science, language, anthropology, etc. I'd love to read more of his work.

Found by Davy Rothbart. Being a window-peeker, I was fascinated by this chance to peek into people's lives written by another one like me. Some of it was pretty hairy but overall it was fascinating and enjoyable.



Science Fiction/Fantasy:
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. This is a "Thursday Next" mystery, which takes place in some futuristic society and involves time travel. This would be a really fun book--for someone else. It was all just silly to me.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett. This was a great disappointment to me. Someone recommended it as Austen meets Jonahan Morrell and Mr. Strange, and I guess I can see that, but I found it plodding.



Poetry:
One Secret Thing by Sharon Olds. Yikes! That one would put hair on my chest! This woman flinches at nothing. But she's good--very good.

Eyes of a Flounder by Laura Hamblin. Hamblin is a former member of the Church and her best poetry, to me, is about her struggles with it. (I wrote about this in my blog, if you recall, and ruffled some feathers).

Late Wife by Claudie Emerson. One of my favorites I discovered this year! This collection is very much about relationships, one of my favorite subjects in poetry.

Man With a Camel by Mark Strand. About half of these poems I could never get any kind of grip on. The others were good.

*Say Uncle by Kay Ryan. Ryan is my hands-down favorite poet I discovered this year. Her poems are tiny but dense and delightful. I think I'll write my paper on her.

Dark Familiar by Aleda Shirley. Just OK. I can't even remember it.

Loving a Woman in Two Worlds by Robert Bly. I can't figure out whether I just picked up the wrong book or whether Bly just doesn't do a thing for me. He's very into the dream-state.

A Working Girl Can't Win by Deborah Garrison. Some pretty light things that were interesting because I liked her subject--modern society, being a working woman.

*Strong is Your Hold by Galway Kinnel. Loved this one so much I asked for it for my birthday. Amazing use of language. He has one long poem about September 11 that blew my socks off. But most of his do--even one about a rotting gopher carcass! Amazing stuff.

Ordinary Words by Ruth Stone. OK. Can't remember it much.

On the Bus with Rosa Parks by Rita Dove. I couldn't help feeling that I have seen this same type of thing done better by others. It just seemed to fall a little short of knocking me off my feet.

Dog Language by Chase Twitchell. I found some of these very good, particularly her dog poems.

Everything Preserved by Landis Everson. Yuck.

St. Nobody by Amy Lemmon. I felt her poems about her child with Down Syndrome were her strongest.


*****
It's strange for me to see that the majority of books I REALLY liked were non-fiction. That surprises me. I consider myself a fiction person. I guess my heart is in fiction, but I'm very demanding with my fiction.

Whew! If anyone made it that far, you are a diehard reader and true friend! I'd sure love to hear what your favorites were this year.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

SAHM

I was given an opportunity, in a roundabout sort of way, to participate in a Sunstone Symposium panel about Stay-at-Home-Mothers. While I chose not to participate, I’ve been thinking ever since about what I would say, if given a chance, about my decision to be a Stay-Home Mom (SAHM). So, lucky you, I will treat you readers to my thoughts.

I have a close acquaintance who, after being raised very LDS, has left the church. She once tried to describe to me how awkward it is for her to hang around us still-active people. “I can’t shake the feeling of disapproval from you,” she said. “Not because of anything you do or say, but because of what I know about how you think and what you believe. I know that by the very nature of what you so obviously still believe, you think that I have ‘fallen away’ and am making a bad decision.” “Ah, yes,” I responded, “but you forget that it goes both ways. When you are with me, I always know that by the nature of the choice you’ve made, you consider me to be deluded and less advanced than you, because I haven’t yet progressed beyond my upbringing.” She hadn’t thought of that before.

I feel the same way when I talk about my decision to be an SAHM with other women who did not make the same choice. I am afraid of offending; I am afraid of being thought shallow; I am potentially offended, and so are they. Nevertheless, here we go.

When I really analyze how I made this decision, I realize that I didn’t really make this decision in isolation. I made it as a logical progression from another, bigger decision, and that was the decision to marry at all.

I was a rather boy-crazy teenager and I went away to BYU hoping to catch a man as quick as I could. I got engaged rather young and only escaped marrying that (very wrong) guy by the skin of my teeth and after making a fool of myself. By the time I had become mature enough to make a good choice of whom to marry, I wasn’t sure I wanted to marry at all. I loved my independent life. I loved my education; I could imagine myself continuing in academia forever after, probably as the beloved high-school English teacher and favorite aunt who travelled a lot and had very interesting book groups, etc. It sounded pretty good to me.

But I still knew that the church taught that the greatest happiness was to be achieved in a family, raising children. And people I trusted believed that, too. People told me that marriage and family were good things, and brought great joy. It was kind of like jumping off of a diving board for the first time—I couldn’t know what it was like until I did it, but people who had done it said that it was worthwhile. Mine was the choice, then, to believe them—or not.

Once I made the decision to commit to the family lifestyle, the choice to stay home with my kids was very easy. Logically, it made no sense to me to invite children into my home and then pay others to raise them. What was the point? If I was going to have children, they would be mine—influenced by me more than anyone else.

One thing that helped was that I did not enjoy my work at all. It was easy to quit when my first baby was born. I had great fantasies of the joyous time my children and I would have together at home. But I hadn’t counted on post-partum depression, which blindsided me. I was stuck in a basement apartment with no car in the dark winter. My child was colicky and wouldn’t stop crying, ever. My mother was dead and I felt like I had no help. Each day my husband left to go to school, and I was filled with envy, remembering so clearly and romantically how much I had loved school. Why did he get to go pursue his dreams just because he was male and I was stuck at home with this maddening screaming and boredom because I was female?Again, I wouldn’t have considered passing him off to a child-care center. My fantasies involved my HUSBAND staying home instead of me. Perhaps I would have considered letting my mother or mother-in-law babysit while I worked a few hours each day “for sanity” had they been available. But nor more than that, if at all. At this point, though, I needed extra help in remaining firm in my commitment to stay at home, and this firmness came from one thing: I believe in a prophet. I had been taught that I should stay home if I could, and that was enough.

Sometimes I followed the prophet because I believed that doing so eventually leads to the most joy. Other times I did it simply out of a sense of duty. Either way, I did it out of testimony that following the prophet was what was best for me. It was excruciatingly hard a lot of the time.

Which is why I flinch and seethe when I hear women say, “You stay home with your kids? I wish I could do that, but I just can’t. I would go CRAZY.” Or, its corollary, “I’m a better mother because I work.” I flinch because the emotion behind these statements is very familiar to me. When I can get away for an outing, I come home so refreshed and happy to be with my kids. I really understand why women think they are better mothers when they work. (Although I wonder if their children would agree.)

But I’m also offended because behind this statement seems to be an implication sometimes that I am somehow less intellectual, more shallow or simplistic (easily entertained?) than the sophisticated woman who needs her work to feel satisfied. It ignores the possibility that I might also prefer the company of adults and enjoy the challenge of a profession to the challenge of filling the long afternoons with children.

It would be better if being home with my kids were my passion—it really would. And I’m so envious of the women who feel this way (and I don’t look down on them at all, though I often feel they look down on me for not feeling similarly). But it’s not. But I do it anyway because I believe I should.

I grant that there’s a little bit (too much) of a martyr thing going on here, but I don’t think it’s a small thing that I have sacrificed for this. But, as with the true definition of sacrifice, I can’t deny that it has brought its rewards. I would hate having to hear about my child’s first steps or first lost tooth from a care provider. I like being primary in my children’s lives. And though it was very hard, often boring, rarely satisfying in a day-to-day kind of way while my kids were very small, it’s much more enjoyable now, both because they are older and more interesting to me, and because I am getting full-night’s sleeps and many opportunities to be without them, either physically or even just mentally while we’re in the same room.

I believe that my kids are much better off because of the decision I made. I believe that I am better off because of it as well. If someone asked me my advice for them, I would say, “Do it, but make sure that you have a supportive husband who will see to it that you get a little time to yourself every day, and a big chunk of time to yourself at least once a week. Then dive in. Things get much better the older they get.”

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Flannery O'Connor

Well, I have a couple of thousand quotes from the letters of Flannery O'Connor that I would like to share with you. Don't worry! I'll do it a little at a time! I enjoy reading her because she cares so passionately about writing and about her religion, and muses often about the intersection of the two. Here's a quote from her about orthodoxy, which has been on my mind since I attended a couple of sessions of the Sunstone Symposium for the first (and probably last) time yesterday. (I'll give you more about that in another post.)

Anyway, F O'C talks to her friend about orthodoxy, "which I remember you said was a ceiling you had come through. I take it that what you have come through is some expression of orthodoxy. I have come through several of those myself, always with a deepened sense of mystery and always several degrees more orthodoxy."

This is interesting to me because I like to ponder the ways that I change in my faith and practice as I move through life. One of the women I heard yesterday postulated that people, as they mature, move away from specific religions and more towards general religiosity. (I guess she would say that people break through orthodoxy--or, as Dutcher would put it, reach the other side of their river in their little boat and then abandon it for another.) I don't necessarily agree with her--at least, not with her generalization. Some people become more dedicated to their specific religion as they age (she would say, I suppose, that they are simply aging and not maturing). Others of us (and I hope I'm one) don't necessarily move beyond specific religion or more tightly into the specifics of our religion, but rather broaden our definition of the things that we believe our religion encompasses. What do you think?

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Sorry, so sorry

Dear blog, if there is anyone still out there,

Once again, I apologize for neglecting you. If it helps, I have a plan for regular updates now. You see, I’ve been in a transition period. Since we last talked, my baby has gone off to first grade, and I have come to a new phase in my life.

I’ve been working out a routine, and sort of feeling my way through the days to see what I really want to commit to and what I want to let slide. I know myself—if I don’t commit to certain things and get them into a routine, I won’t do them. And I’m ready to commit to blogging once a week or so. Maybe more—we’ll see.

I’m curious if anyone is even out there anymore. If you are, thank you for your loyalty.

So, this new phase is nice. As I had predicted, I do like it. But some things have surprised me. Here is a list of things that haven’t surprised me about being home alone without kids all day:

1. I didn’t cry when the little pickle went off for his first day. I’m aware that some would think I’m a heartless mom for not being sad at this point. But he was ready, I was ready, what was there to cry about? I did not feel nostalgic or miss him or worry at missed opportunities. We just finished a year of hanging together for most of the day (except for when he was at kindergarten) and we had a good time. I have no regrets.

2. I find plenty to do. (I knew I would.) The trick is fitting it all in! The big thing right now is studying for the GRE. After I take it, I will write a few papers and complete my application. Then I will try to squeeze in another independent study class before May so I can renew my teacher’s license.

And then there are all the little things. Weeding the yard. Pulling up the bathroom linoleum and picking new paint. Choir. Spanish class. Errands. Visiting Teaching. Teaching ESL. Preparing den meetings. And (this is really a last, last priority) maybe even cleaning the house.

3. The days go by too fast. Really.

Things that surprised me:

1. I feel nervous, checking around me regularly—aren’t I supposed to be doing something, checking on someone?

This makes me restless and want to call people to meet me for lunch. I’m not lonely, just a little uncomfortable not checking in with people.

2. It’s hard to get used to. I get out of the shower and have to remind myself several times that I don’t need to rush to get dressed and open the door to stop the fight that has begun while I was unavailable.

3. I still feel guilty taking a nap.

So that’s my life these days. Oooh, one of the side benefits is that I have been finally catching up on some reading. I’ll do a book report sometime soon.