I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in art. My paternal grandfather, Arthur Curtis, owned a windshield-repair shop but in his spare time he was an artist; I have one of his landscapes hanging in my basement. He wasn’t well-known, but his art has always been a point of pride for me. I am not an artist, but I feel a deep connection to art anyway, and I think “my grandfather was a painter” is a fact that influences my desire to be a writer. As if that need to live a creative life is a trait I inherited and can carry on into the future, even if in a different form.

I also can’t remember when I started loving the post-impressionists: Cezanne, Gaugin, Seurat, Rousseau, van Gogh. Van Gogh especially. In my twenties I read a battered old copy of his Letters that I got at a used-book store (and I am currently drooling over this Folio edition); I had cheap poster copies of a few of his paintings hanging in my classroom when I was teaching. I love his art, and I think my affection has been influenced by my fascination by European culture. Plus, by now you know I am drawn to the stories of people who grapple with depression, and van Gogh is no exception. It is a struggle for many of us, and for me, reading about people in history who also struggled with it has been helpful to my own wrangling. Plus there’s the fact that a century later, the whole world knows who he is, even though he was relatively unknown in his lifetime.

When Haley and I went to Europe in 2016, one of the places I wanted to go most was the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I had it on the schedule, and I had other art I was looking forward to seeing before we got to Amsterdam—“The Fall of Icarus” at the Musee de Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Elgin sculptures at the British Museum. I also had the National Portrait Gallery on our itinerary; it was the second museum we went to on our first day in London. I imagined it to be in an old home with dusty carpets with paintings of a bunch of British people I never heard of lining the walls. It was a sort of time filler while we waited for Haley’s traveling friend to arrive.

Of course, it was nothing like what I imagined and turned out to be one of my favorite spots on our trip. It is in an old building, but not the dilapidated one I had imagined, but the beautiful one built in the 1890s. There were portraits of Anne Boleyn, Richard the III, Queen Elizabeth, and William Shakespeare that I had seen in books but never imagined I’d see in real life. (Also portraits of Virginia Woolf, Harold Pinter, and James Joyce that I was happy to discover.) It was just perfect to me; we just wandered, looking and pointing out familiar images to each other, reading about paintings that caught our eye which we didn’t know much about.

My first thrill in the National Portrait Gallery came when I was walking through a room in the museum. “A room,” like it is just a place, but a place with paintings by Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Cezanne, Renior, and then there, right in front of me? A Klimt. A KLIMT! Not “The Kiss,” which I know is a cliché to love but which I nevertheless adore, but “Portrait of Hermine Gallia,” a painting of a tall woman in a frothy white dress. I stood in front of that painting for several minutes, admiring it. That was the first time I really experienced seeing paintings I’ve loved via art books in real life, and there was something magical and moving about it that I wasn’t yet ready to put into words. I was so entranced by the Klimt, by Monet’s “Irises” and Cezanne’s “Bathers” and “Lake Keitele” by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (a painting by an artist I knew nothing about but that nevertheless expressed a feeling I have had when standing in nature; I don’t have words for that feeling, but he put it into a painting) that I totally ignored the sounds of a large, loud crowd gathered around a painting in the next room.

My admiration of Klimt et al done, I wandered into the next room, past the big group to the painting after it. I looked…and then I looked again. And I literally started crying, right there in the National Portrait Gallery, because completely unexpectedly, I found myself standing in front of a van Gogh painting. Not “Sunflowers,” which the crowd was gathered around, but “A Wheatfield, with Cypresses.”

They weren’t my first tears of the day (those happened in the Egyptian room at the British Museum), but they were the ones that changed me the most. I think because my first experience with a Van Gogh was unexpected—I didn’t imagine I’d see one until we were in Amsterdam—it was even more magical. A little bit like finding the door in the back of the wardrobe. I’ve read about van Gogh’s life, I’ve looked at his paintings in books, I’ve wandered through his landscapes in my cheap classroom posters. But to stand in front of the actual painting. To be so close as to see the actual brush strokes. To see not the reproduced colors but the colors themselves.

Art is many things, of course. Even to different individuals it means different things. While I stood in front of van Gogh’s painting, I thought about the sadness of his life, his despair and loneliness and his sad, untimely ending. This painting, framed in a museum, still exists more than 100 years after he painted it. This act of painting was, I imagine, a refuge, a way of escaping what was painful. That such beauty can come from such darkness—that is one of the reasons I love art. It is a medium not just of oil or watercolor or ink, but of emotion. That I could witness it so many years later, after his death, his darkness turned to light—it gave me a sense of hope. That some voices can linger long past death, maybe; that beauty is, in some ways, all ye need to know, especially in the face of the world’s ugliness. But the world is beautiful, too, and some creative people are able to capture that beauty through the lens of their perception, and then we get to see it again through our own lens. I’m certain that that van Gogh on that day in that place, with my daughter in the room somewhere behind me: that experience was unique, even if a hundred thousand other museum-goers saw that painting that day. It is something about the colors, the turquoise of the sky, the lavender cloud shadows, the purple mountains, those tiny pink flowers. And about the shapes, the way you can almost feel the breeze and the heat, the way the cypress flame up, nearly like green fire—can’t you almost smell them?—the movement in the golden wheat. It is the world speaking to the artist and then the artist speaking back to the world and, in turn, to me.

I will never be a renowned artist. I will never be like my grandfather, renowned as an artist only among his descendants. I will likely never be a well-known poet or writer. But I will still keep working, and that moment in front of the cypress trees is one reason why. Making art (in whatever form) is a way of leaving a piece of yourself behind. My pieces are small, but perhaps they will matter to someone.

A few weeks ago in the scrapbooking Facebook group I belong to, we were talking about style and how it evolves. (That discussion sparked this post.) The discussion made me think about a lot of things, not just my style but also what has influenced it.

I’ve been scrapbooking for a long time—since 1996. I started because I had a baby, and all of my friends were scrapbooking, and several of them were also selling Creative Memories supplies. I resisted Creative Memories because it seemed both slightly bossy (all those rules about acid free!) and entirely too expensive (which makes me laugh now, as I confess: I’ve spent a bit of money on scrapbooking supplies in the past two decades). Eventually I succumbed and started using Creative Memories albums, but they always felt restrictive to me. My next switch was to Close to My Heart albums, which I even sold for a while.

(Kendell was horrified that I'd post this photo with my room so messy. I say a messy scrappy space is the sign of a scrapbooker who actually makes scrapbook layouts! Also: in that MOMA bag are 300 half-square triangles for a quilt I'm making, and you can just see the corner of the desk I just set up with my laptop.)

In more than two decades of scrapbooking, I’ve witnessed just about every single trend and style that’s happened. The glory days of Creating Keepsakes, Simple Scrapbooks, Scrapbooks Etc, and a few more I’ve likely forgotten—getting a new magazine in my mailbox was cause for celebration. Two Peas in a Bucket, DMarie, and many other websites where scrapbookers gathered to “talk” about scrapbooking. I remember when the only line of scrapbooking paper was Paper Patch and how revolutionary KMA seemed because the background of the pattern was off-white instead of white. The drama of the Scrapooking Hall of Fame contests (I applied twice); the way I pined to be noticed by CK (and never was) and the absolute thrill of writing for Simple (O, how I miss those days).

And that’s just the industry stuff—if I stop to think about all of the trends in supplies and techniques it’s almost overwhelming.

As I thought about this history, I started to understand why it is difficult for people to become scrapbookers. You have to have a sort of dedication to your craft, the type that infiltrates most parts of your life. I literally can’t imagine how people enjoy life without scrapbooking. It brings me so much happiness to put stories together with pictures and a few little scrappy bits. But I also can see how this hobby isn’t for everyone, and how finding your way in might seem a little bit too intense.

But I’m glad I found scrapbooking and grateful I’ve stuck with it. The very first layout I ever made was done at a scrapbook crop at Pebbles in My Pocket. I put the photos down, and found some cute puppy stickers to match, and stuck those down, and then the crop leader told me I needed to write something about the pictures. “Write” is always a magic word (it might’ve been that exact moment that I fell in love with scrapbooking), so this seemed pretty miraculous to me. Not just putting my photos somewhere other than a box, but writing about them? I asked her if it would be OK if I wrote about the photos when I got home, because I didn’t love my handwriting and I knew I had a lot to say. I wanted to print the journaling, and she said “well, I’ve never heard of someone doing that, but I guess you could.”

That’s been my approach ever since: write big stories.

But just like the industry has changed in multiple ways as different people have influenced it, my style changed, too. It took me a long, long time to understand that what I want to do with my layouts might not be what everyone else thinks should be done, and that that is OK. There really isn’t any scrapbooking police, and I can do what I want.

One of the things that helped me figure that out was this book by Becky Higgins, Scrapbooking Secrets. There’s a clear line in my albums: pre- and post-Secrets. The book helped me to understand design in a way that I hadn’t before, and taught me that my simpler approach was ok (even though my style is not very much like Becky Higgins’s style). I talked at length on the Scrap Gals podcast recently about just how it changed me, and you can listen to that podcast HERE. The experience of re-reading the book, almost twenty years later, was just that: an experience that changed me. It reminded me of just how many layouts I have made, and how many stories I’ve told. It showed me how my confidence has grown and how freeing it has been to let go of wanting to be noticed as An Important Scrapbooker and just being the scrapbooker that I am. And how glad I am that while I was influenced by the changing trends, I stayed committed to telling stories.

A few days after I re-read Becky’s book, I decided to look through my older albums. I ended up spending more than two hours flipping through pages. I’m not sure, as scrapbookers, we can experience scrapbooks like “normal” people do, because we’re always going to notice the scrapbooking itself. Some of those older layouts are visually painful to look at, but I still loved seeing the pictures, reading what I’d written, and remembering making the layouts. (Metascrapbooking at its finest!) I don’t know if these albums will matter to anyone else when I’m gone (I hope they do), but that time looking through layouts reminded me of just how much they matter to me.

And my memory was right: there is a pretty clear divide in my style. Here’s an idea what I mean by how Scrapbooking Secrets changed my approach. Two layouts about spring, made about a year apart, the first one pre-Secrets, the second one post.

(Not the best photo of a layout because A--it's a CM album and B--I didn't want to take the sheet protectors off as I always tear them when I do that and I don't have any more replacements.)

(A baffling thing to me about this layout: Why didn't I put the date anywhere? I know it's from spring 2002...but I almost always date my layouts. Not sure why I didn't on this one!)

It’s not that the first layout is bad, really. It’s just so busy. It feels cluttered to me. (But I still want to gush at those photos. Little Jakey! O my gosh, he was so sweet and cute!) The second one is the opposite of cluttered; I might’ve taken “simple” to the extreme here. (Also need to gush at those photos of little Nafe. Why must they grow up???) The first one is more about the process of scrapbooking—it’s hard to imagine fussy cutting all of those bumble bees, but I did it! The second one is only about the photos and the story (which I wrote as a poem, in couplets because he was two, get it?).

Yesterday I finished another scrapbook layout. All of this looking back I’ve been doing made me stop and think, while I made my newest layout: what matters? Why am I doing this? Does it even matter at all? And I think it does. Yes, you can lose your focus in all of the pretty stuff, you can prioritize the making of the layout over the layout itself (not that there’s anything wrong with that), you can spend hours painting or embossing or fussy cutting tiny bumble bees. Or you can just stick down some photos with some journaling. Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that these items exist. The photos are out of boxes; they’re paired with stories. They exist as objects in this world (as opposed to something digital on your phone or computer hard drive) and therefore they can be looked at, read, admired or mocked, touched, flipped through.

They are memories made tangible.

In January of 2018, I read four books and listened to one on audio. I didn’t LOVE everything I read but I enjoyed all of my reading experiences.

I’m not sure what happened, though, because in February I finished exactly zero books. I couldn’t even begin to tell you the last time that happened. Or if it’s ever happened since I learned how to read. I’m a person who is always reading something. And while I guess it’s true that I tried to read several things, I wasn’t able to finish a single one of them.

I don’t think it had much to do with the books I chose. They were each well-reviewed, with interesting stories and a literary style I could appreciate. I just didn’t finish any of them.

This experience—and here it is, by the way, almost the end of March, and I’ve only finished two books, one of them a slim poetry book that I checked out in February—has caused me to consider my approach to what I read, and I’ve had some flashes of understanding that have brought me to some solutions that will, I desperately hope, help me to start reading like normal again (ie: start a book, finish a book, write a blog post about the book, move on to something else).

First off, I’m kind of a promiscuous book lover. There’s a difference between reading a book and reading about a book. Because of the nature of my work as a librarian, I am always reading about books. I read about something, I think “Oh, that is perfect for me, I must read it!” and then I either put myself on the hold list for it (if the library already has it) or request the library to purchase it. Or I just buy myself my own copy if it’s something that I think I won’t just love but really, really love. I probably fall in love with five or six books every single day. More on days when I’m at the library.

So then I have piles of books everywhere. Literal piles: books I’ve checked out, books I’ve recently purchased, books I purchased weeks or months or even years ago but still haven’t gotten around to reading. Also figurative piles: the books on my hold list on my library account (I’ve sometimes had more than fifty books on my hold list), the “I want to read this” list on my One Note app, the little snips of paper with titles written on them. The blog posts about books I want to read.

I think part of my problem is that I tend to fall in love with books that aren’t necessarily bestsellers. I could care less about the next John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Michael Connelly, Jodi Picoult, or Danielle Steel novel. The vast majority of the books I want to read might be known around the literary blogosphere and maybe even reviewed by the New York Times, but they don’t have long hold lists. The books I love (and let me be honest here: if I am a book slut, I am also a book snob, in the sense that I really don’t read the most popular fiction) have beautiful writing and complex characters, tell stories about situations that push me to think about my own experiences in different ways, avoid simple answers and stereotypical figures. I want to be challenged when I spend time with a novel; I want to feel like I am engaging not just with a story but with a dilemma. I don’t read to escape but to experience. But I also know that this is not what many (most, even) readers want from their reading experiences. That is fine—there is a book for everyone. I just want everyone to love the things I love, because I love them and think they deserve more love than they get. So I almost feel an obligation: I want to reward the author (who I envy for actually finishing and publishing a novel!) by reading and loving and interacting with his or her book.

So I end up in this space which is crowded with books that are all crying for my attention. Read me, read me, read me! And though I try to manage it by spacing out my holds, I still fall victim to the tyranny of my hold list: it’s my turn for this book that I want to read and that is begging me to read it, except I also have 27 other books I want to read.

So instead of reading all of the books, I’ve been reading none of the books!

My moment of epiphany came when I was cleaning out my scrapbooking space. In my scrapbooking world, I am a brutal purger. I no longer hold on to any supply I “might” use one day. Or anything that feels dated or out of style, or is impractical for my current approach. Or even things that are beautiful but I just won’t ever use. I have learned that if I have too many supplies, they drain my creative energy. This is because each of the items I want to use holds a little bit of my creativity, and if I use the item that little bit gets fed back into the greater whole. But if I don’t use something, it just sits there, holding on to a piece of my spark. I can only get it back by using the item, or donating it and getting it out of my room. (Or not buying it in the first place, which is a whole other topic!)

I’ve also learned that if I am organized with my supplies, I can find my creative spark faster. It’s taken me a few years to really get my stuff organized in a way that works for me (I organize by color), but now that my set up is functional and lean, I both make more layouts and enjoy the process much more.

As I was putting a sheet of half-used stickers into my “donate” box, it hit me: I need to do a similar purge, but with books. No, not exactly books—although my personal collection could probably use a good weeding. What I need to purge is my reading desires. I need to not invest my reading energy into every single book I want to read, and I need to not have literal piles of books everywhere. But at the same time, both because I will always be a reader and because I am a librarian, I need a way to organize the things I want to read.

I did a little bit of soul searching, and a little bit of Internet searching too, and I think I have come up with a new process that will help me keep my reading desires from overwhelming me. Check back on Wednesday when I will share the details. But until then, tell me: How do you keep your reading desires in check?

When Haley was a teenager and we'd go shopping together, something magical (to me) would sometimes happen. Actually, it happened quite a lot: She'd come across a skirt, or a shirt, or a book cover, or a pretty dish, and she'd say "Mom! This looks exactly like you." She was almost always right; she could discern my style almost immediately. She could also do this with my mom's style, especially clothes. In fact, one day at the mall, we wandered through Macy's for a good half hour or so, just picking out clothes for her grandma.

(I should make a scrapbook layout about that story!)

In one of the latest Scrap Gals podcasts, the topic was style: how you develop your style, how you recognize it, how you use it as a place to start from and sometimes deviate away from; how know what your style is helps make buying supplies easier and certainly makes scrapbooking itself simpler. At least, once you embrace your style.

My scrappy style is fairly word intensive. My layouts always have a lot of journaling, and making the written story feel like a cohesive part of the design (instead of an added-on afterthought) is one of my major design goals. It took me a while to be comfortable with that aspect of my style, however, because in the Scrapbook World (TM), it's sort of an anomaly. The point of Scrapbook World is to sell product, and some of those products help you tell a story, but that isn't as important as using the product. I felt, for many years, like that essential part of my approach was somehow faulty because an emphasis on story wasn't something I saw very often.

Once I decided I didn't care what the Industry thought, I embraced that part of my process and never looked back.

Which made it much easier to buy scrapbook supplies, because if my focus (telling stories) wasn't problematic or weird (because I decided it wasn't), then my other scrappy quirks also didn't have to be problematic or weird.

So, in addition to my focus on stories, I realized I do have a style when it comes to the supplies I use. I'm not sure what to name this. An old scrapbooking friend once said my style is "Edwardian," which I am OK with, as long as there are flowers in the Edwardian world. And script fonts, but not the cutesty sort.

Anyway, whatever I might label my style, here are its elements:

• ​Clean-ish design elements. This might be summed up best by this statement: I am a fan of the fleur-de-lis. I love black and white designs, or one color + white. I am not afraid of flowers, but they have to have a certain feel—not too frou-frou. I like designs that seem elegant rather than fancy. And I sort of take a fairly active approach to avoiding elements that strike me as “cute.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with cute.)
• B sides of patterned paper. As far as patterns go, I almost always like the B side best. This is because the B side is usually smaller or simpler.
• Classic fonts. I can't tell you the last time I used a cute font. My favorite fonts are serifs; they might be sort of old-fashioned right now in the typography world, but for me they've never lost their appeal. I will use a sans serif font sometimes, too, but only a handful of them; it's hard to explain exactly why, but many sans serif fonts seem visually lazy to me. This goes for text; for titles, I actually really love a good, clean sans serif font. (But I won't argue with a good serif, either.)
• Script fonts. Here’s another ish part of my style: I love script fonts. I'm guessing they don't really fall in the "clean" category. And I'm fairly picky on what kind of script I want to use, too; it's got to be legible but still pretty. It can't feel too old and it also can't feel like a baseball font. Brush is OK if it's not too messy, except when I want something messy. Swoopy is also OK, but not too much of a swoop. It's complicated. But when I find a script font I love, whether in .TFF or sticker format, I'll use it quite a lot. (Yes...even boy pages can have a script font or two.) In fact, when I find a perfect script alphabet sticker sheet, I’ll usually buy four or five.
• Simple embellishments. Partly this is because I’m not really skilled at using a lot of embellishments on a layout. Partly it’s because once I’ve designed the title, I sort of feel done with using “stuff.” I tend to make one grouping of embellishments on a layout; I try to put it near the layout’s date. My favorite types of embellishments are words, hearts, generic shapes (dots, hexagons, tags), and small icons. I’ve recently fallen in love with camera images, and I have been a fan of the ampersand as an embellishment for a long time. If I had to only pick one, though, I’d always go for words. I love a cluster of words that match the layout’s theme.
• Mostly flat. I'm OK with puffy things, as long as they're squishy. But after scrapbooking for more than twenty years, one of the things I've learned is that stiff dimensional items always mar the opposite layout in a book. And scratch the sheet protector. Chipboard comes unstuck. Acrylic is beautiful but just too thick. So in my style I embrace flatness, unless the supply is flexible (literally…not metaphorically!).
• White-based color schemes. I don’t love grungy designs; if I have a choice I’ll always pick grey as an accent over brown. Except for fall layouts, and sometimes Christmas, I am drawn to supplies with a white (rather than cream or off-white) foundation. Recently, my favorite colors are those in the aqua/turquoise/ocean hues, but I also love purple (if it’s a clear tone), and pink when I can use it. I am always drawn to green supplies in the scrapbook store, but I almost never use them on my layouts—maybe because my photos tend to have a lot of green, so I want contrast? I love the recent trend of gold, but if I could choose I wish it all came in silver instead.

While I was thinking about my scrapbooking style and working on this post, I’ve also been deep into several sewing projects. (Five quilts at once, but who’s counting?) I realized that my design aesthetic for scrapbooking is really similar to my quilting aesthetic. Those five quilts? They each have several fleur-de-lis patterns, for example, and black-and-white florals, and some non frou-frou florals too. Which made me look around my house, and suddenly I was seeing my scrapbooking style expressed in several places.

I decided to challenge myself: I found a home item that reflects my design style and used it as an inspiration for a scrapbook layout. I picked this bowl, which I recently bought at Target because when I saw it I thought “if Haley were with me right now, she’s recognize that as something I would love.” I’ve been using it as a garbage can during my quilting process—I put all the little scraps in it as I’m cutting, so they’re not spread all over my cutting mat and counter. I might not ever use it for food…I think it will find a place in my scrappy space.

Anyway, here’s the layout I made that was inspired by that bowl:

And I think it’s a fairly true representation of my style. That aqua patterned paper on the bottom is exactly the type of thing that I love; there’s the cluster of words and a camera, puffy sans serif title stickers, and a good chunk of journaling. (The font is called Karu and it’s a recent addition; I think I will use it quite a bit.)

Maybe it’s the fact that I am smack in the middle of my 40s and I’m getting too old to care about what anyone else thinks. Maybe I am just growing more comfortable with myself. But I am glad I have a style that’s unique to me—and I’m glad I can find scrapbook products (and clothes, and fabrics, and pretty dishes) that reflect it.

Have you ever pondered on your scrapbooking or crafty style?

I had a goal this month to join Angie and Elizabeth on Project 18. I think it's a great project for capturing everyday moments and the little details that slip our memory so quickly.

Remember last month? When I took 9 out of 18 photos? My goal was to actually take 18 photos. But, alas, today I took exactly one photo, for a scrappy project I'm going to blog about tomorrow. Partly this is because I spaced what day it was, and because I had a headache, and because holy cow I am still fairly exhausted because Kendell's knee keeps us both up at night.

But here's the thing: I don't have to have photographs to capture today's little moments. There's a medium far older than photos, and that's words! So, here's a list of 18 photos I wish I would've taken today.

1. Kendell and me, asleep in our bed until 8:30. This is a minor miracle because his knee starts hurting, and then he eventually wakes me up, and by the time about 7:00 comes around I'm too frustrated to try to sleep. This morning? He slept until 8:30, and then I got up to refresh the ice in his ice machine...and went back to sleep until 10:00. So lovely.
2. Kaleb headed off to church. He is not loving church these days (actually, he hasn't loved church since he was four). Some Sundays I am willing to fight the good fight and go to church anyway. Some Sundays I just don't even try because the contention doesn't seem very spiritual. This Sunday, he was OK with going. Not excited...but OK. He has a purple striped tie and his size-11 shoes and he's just looking so grown up.
3. The three of us in church. We're sitting in the next-to-the-last row because that's where we always sit. There is a kind and very quiet-spoken couple giving the talk...Kendell's head is leaning one way, mine is leaning the other, and we're doing our best to keep our eyes open but it's not going so well. Kaleb is sitting next to me drawing pictures of soccer balls. At least we tried...
4. What would a photo of my headaches look like? I guess just my face grimacing, but what it feels like is metallic. Like liquid metal—silver, maybe, or whatever alloy the Terminator is made from—spreading into the crevices and atop the ridges of my brain. I don't get pounding headaches, I get sharp, stinging ones, and sometimes Excedrin will take care of them but usually Excedrin and sleep are both necessary. So the photo of my headache might be the three of us leaving church early.
5. Speaking of leaving church early, in this next imaginary photo, I'm sitting in the car while Kendell is helping Kaleb clean his church shoe off on the grass. Listen: I am entirely bothered by people who let their dogs poop at the park or on trails or pathways without picking it up, but at least it makes a little bit of sense. WHO lets their dog poop on the grass of a church and then just leaves it? Sigh. They still looked adorable, though, working together. They were even laughing, even though Kendell gets more annoyed at the inconsiderate recklessness of pooping dogs than I do.
6. When we got home from church, Kaleb said "Mom, I know you have a headache but would you mind making me a sandwich? The one you made me yesterday was perfect." (Another sign that Kaleb is Kendell's mini-me: he can eat the same foods over and over again without getting annoyed.) Who could resist? So here's a photo of me making Kaleb's perfect sandwich, which goes like this: grilled bread, light mayo on both pieces of bread, five slices of turkey that have also been heated on the grill until they are just a little bit crispy, one slice of Monterey-Jack cheese, and a tiny dollop of mustard. Kaleb is running up the stairs while I make it, his church clothes changed for his favorite blue t-shirt. 
7. Would two photos of me sleeping be too many? But that nap I took after church was exactly what my headache needed. (And the Excedrin. And the caffeinated beverage later.)
8. Headache managed, Kendell and I drove out to visit my mom. She has been moved to a rehab-style hospital, where she will hopefully get strong enough to finally be able to come home. (I am dreading the other possibility, which is that she won't ever be able to regain enough strength to live at home again.) While we were there I thought "I should just sit on her bed with her and have Kendell take our picture," but I didn't because...I'm not sure why I hesitated, except I wasn't sure if she would want a photo of herself in her condition. But we had a nice chat.
9. The mountains as we walked back to the car. A strong wind had sprung up, blowing clouds so that they were just starting to surround the foothills on the east side of the valley. On the west side, the sun was shining and the sky was blue; where we were standing in the wind, a sharp snow was falling. It was cold but so beautiful.
10. My quilt-covered kitchen table. Right now I am working on five different quilts. That's not a typo. Three baby quilts and then I'm determined to finish the quilt I want to have for soccer games (which start next Saturday!) and the pink and black quilt I've been working on forever. Two of the baby quilts are using scraps from the pink and black quilt (but no black, only grey) and one is made with scraps from the soccer quilt. I like how they are feeding and influencing each other. But there is fabric everywhere! I think I'll finish all but the pink and black one...I haven't decided yet how to arrange the half-square triangles.
11. What is a good life-right-now documentation without some images of food? For dinner tonight (the first food I actually ate, see #7), we had sweet pork burritos. Every time I make them I think "I should share my recipe" but I still haven't. I really should, as it is a delicious and fairly easy meal. 
12. Nathan and Kendell watching TV together in our bed. They have several shows they watch together, and I heard Kendell say "It will be weird to watch this by myself after you move out." SNIFF. No, seriously, SNIFF. This isn't a photo of my son and my husband watching TV together. This is a photo of the ending of things. I'm so not ready for Nathan to move out, even though I know HE is ready. He takes good care of me and I can't even explain how much I'll miss him.
13. Nathan and me sitting at the kitchen counter, using our new phones. I feel a little bit guilty getting a new phone, as I just upgraded this fall, but there was a deal (Kendell can't resist a good cell phone deal!) and for some reason, Kendell really, really wanted me to have the plus-sized Samsung instead of the regular one. Nathan also upgraded, and we're still figuring out the new stuff. He got a yellow case and I got a clear one because my phone is purple. Purple and enormous, but it still fits in the pockets of my running skirt so I'm good.
14. Me, Kendell, and Nathan watching TV together. We all piled into our bed because Kendell still is avoiding the stairs.
15. Kaleb working on building stuff with Lego. He's trying to watch less TV these days. Today he built a house with a bathroom and a kitchen. 
16. More food! Well...do chocolate chip cookies count as food? Nathan was craving some, and I can toss together a batch pretty quickly. So I did. One of the secrets to really delicious chocolate chip cookies? Different sizes and flavors of chocolate chips. Also butter!
17. Me massaging Kendell's leg. I stand on the side of the bed to do this for him. He swears that me touching it gently helps it heal. Might be complete B.S., but I can't do much else to help. 
18. I think the last photo should be of me, writing this blog post in the dark while everyone else is sleeping. I'm working on our PC, which I don't do much anymore—since Kendell works from home now, he uses the PC and I've set up a desk with my laptop in my scrapbook room. But I'd still rather write on this computer, as it feels like home. I've written a lot of blog posts on this machine!

I'd like to promise that next month on the 18th I'll manage 18 photos. We'll see. But I'm glad I wrote down these little details. 

Last weekend, I ran into a local burrito shop to grab some dinner. The TV mounted in the corner of the restaurant was turned to a sports channel; I barely glanced at it, and then I glanced again. It wasn't football or basketball like usual on the screen, but gymnastics: they had the Nastia Liukin Cup on. I watched several routines even though my food was ready after only a bar routine and two vaults.

Once it flipped to a commercial, I gathered up my food, went out to the car, and cried a little on my drive home.

My birthday this year is the 30th anniversary of my last gymnastics meet. That means it's been three decades since I last did a giant, landed my back handspring layout on the beam, twisted around twice in the air. I've been flightless for three decades, but I still miss that part of my life. I still wake up from dreams in which I nail all of my routines; I look down and see that strong, slim body I used to have and I am overwhelmed, even in dreams, with the feeling of at last, at last, feeling like myself in
my own skin. (I also, when I am anxious, have dreams in which I forget my beam routine, or I don't have my floor exercise music in my bag; my beam shoe is ripped, I'm missing a grip for bars, I still stand afraid at the end of my beam routine, terrified of the round-off dismount I never perfected.)

I really did used to be young, slim, and strong; I knew a hundred different ways to leave the ground.

There were many reasons I quit gymnastics after that meet on my 16th birthday. Partly it was my favorite coach leaving the gym; I didn't feel like any of the other coaches really had my back. Partly it was guilt over my parents having to spend such exorbitant amounts on me when they were struggling with my dad's unemployment. Partly I was tired: of being the token "poor girl" on the team, of the intense workout schedule, of not feeling like a normal teenager. Of being almost good enough to be really good, but not quite.

I wish I could've taken a break instead of quitting, but the truth is that all gymnastics careers have to come to an end, Oksana Chusovitina notwithstanding.  If I had made it like my mother hoped I would—if I had managed to earn a scholarship—I still would've arrived at this place, albeit without feeling like I failed: this flightless place. 

But although I quit gymnastics, I never really stopped being the person I was a gymnast. In fact, I am a runner because of this girl I used to be

I learned many things as a gymnast that I still use as a runner. How to not let something pesky like an ankle sprain stop you, for example.  How to finish strong despite multiple bleeding blisters. That the cure for sore abs, quads, calves, shoulders, lats, or any other muscle group isn't rest but more movement. Determination. The sheer pleasure of stretching warm muscles. Finishing what I started.  Injuries can be overcome and are simply part of sport. The cure for falling is trying again. Trusting that I can do difficult things with enough preparation.  The fact that having a goal is quite often motivation enough.

Never give up.

One might also argue that my affection for pretty running clothes is closely associated with my old affection for pretty leotards.

Plus, after years of running toward the vault and timing my steps perfectly, I can hop a high, tricky curb with grace.

I run for many reasons: it helps with my depression, I love being outside, I want to stay as fit as I can throughout my life. But I also run because I used to be a gymnast. Because as a gymnast I learned that I need​ to move, every day. It's part of my psyche. I’m not a natural athlete in the traditional sense; I’m pretty dismal at any sport involving balls. (I’m even really, really horrible at playing pool!) Gymnastics fit what my body needed, which was not only skill but expression. Because of gymnastics, I know how to listen to my body; I know that when I don’t respond to its kinesthetic needs, the physical starts swirling up the emotional, leading to a great big mess.

Gymnastics and running don’t really have a lot to do with each other. Running down the street is hardly an artistic expression the way, say, a toe pointed just so during a back flip is, or the arc of the spine in a back bend, the line of a strong arm as it leads the body in a swing around the bars. The only music is in my headphones, the only dance is in my memory.

But there is still something there. Some connection. There is still a skill to be achieved—running, and then running faster; a better form, a lighter footfall, a stronger arm pump. Running, like gymnastics, is a way of moving my body through the world, propelling it with just my own strength.

I can’t say I can fly anymore. My back is too stiff for back walkovers; instead of turning and twisting along a balance beam, I seek out sunbeams to run through. I can still turn a perfect cartwheel, though. When I am practicing consistently I can still hold a straight handstand. And I still hold her in my heart, the gymnast I used to be. She taught me that movement is a form of joy, and I honor her strength, determination, sacrifice, sadness, tiredness, exhilarated thrill of finally perfecting a move by continuing to move.

I am a runner to honor the gymnast I used to be.

Today is International Women’s Day. I’ve written several posts on my blog about women who’ve inspired and influenced me. Today I thought I’d get specific, as I woke up thinking about Audre Lorde (as yes, one does when one is a librarian and a poetry lover!). I read this excerpt from her letters yesterday and it’s left me thinking about how women writers—specifically, women poets—have inspired and influenced me.
There are several male poets I love, but if I am honest I feel more at home with a woman poet. They write about what I write about; the best ones are fearless in exploring all aspects of both humanity in general and the experience of being a woman in all its constructs in this contemporary world. They are brave, moving, and stunning creators.

So, to celebrate, here’s a list of women poets whose work has pulled me through, lifted me up, revealed a truth, helped me feel heard, given me a key, along with a favorite quote just for fun.

Audre Lorde, who I’m starting with because these stanzas from her poem “Stations” is inspiring me greatly at this point in my life. She was a black feminist activist poet and is having a sort of Moment right now, where people are quoting her and rediscovering her work. I first read her in 1993, when I was in between my community college Associate’s degree and finishing my bachelors, and I’d scour the library for books about feminism, writing, poetry. I wanted to understand who the important women writers were, and her work felt important to me—and moving, as well.

Some women wait for themselves
Around the next corner
And call the empty spot peace
But the opposite of living
Is only not living
And the stars do not care.

Some women wait for something
To change and nothing
Does change
So they change

Themselves.

 ***

Marge Piercy, who I researched mostly because I wanted to irritate one of my least-liked professors when I was at BYU. I had both a poetry writing and a contemporary poetry class with him; in the writing class he made sure to tell us that he didn’t like poetry about women’s periods and we’d better, if we were women, stay clear of that topic. (See why I loved him so much?) In the contemporary poetry class we had to pick a poet to research in depth and then present to the class. I chose Marge Piercy because her poems are frank and outspoken and even when they are not about women’s bodies they seem imbued with women’s bodies. It would be a long list if I listed every poem I love by her, so I’ll just stick to one that has reminded me what writing is about since I discovered it during that project, “For the Young Who Want To”:

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

 ***

Anne Stevenson, a British-American poet, is the first poet I ever shared on my blog. I think I read her poem “Himalayan Balsam” in The New Yorker and then I had to work fairly hard to find her work; some interlibrary loans were required, and finally I just started buying my own copies of her work. She writes so truly about motherhood that her poems became ways for me to understand what I was feeling as a mom to young children, and now as she writes poetry about aging I am finding her a guide again. And although it has been so many, many years since Haley was born, and our relationship has changed in such unexpected ways (or perhaps because of those changes), I continue to find in her poem “Poem for a Daughter” a sense of being understood in ways I didn’t, at first, know I needed understanding. I just re-read the whole thing again and it still gives me a lump in my throat.

A woman's life is her own
until it is taken away
by a first, particular cry.
Then she is not alone
but a part of the premises
of everything there is:
a time, a tribe, a war.
When we belong to the world
we become what we are.

*** 

Eavan Boland is a new favorite. I started reading her work (as in…more than just a few poems here and there in an anthology) after I started working as the collection developer for the poetry section at the library. She is an Irish poet and that is what drew me at first (Irish anything is almost irresistible to me), but what kept me interested was her actual poems. They are full of myth, history, experience; they explore feminism and do not apologize for how it connects to domesticity. I think if we could have a conversation she would understand my fascination with how history and landscape connect, how the stone in the garden has been there before us and won’t care when we’re gone. Again, hard to choose a favorite, but I love “Becoming Anne Bradstreet” because I also adore Anne Bradstreet and because it captures the way poetry makes connections.

We say home truths
Because her words can be at home anywhere—

At the source, at the end and whenever
The book lies open and I am again

An Irish poet watching an English woman
Become an American poet.

 ***

Susan Elizabeth Howe was my favorite professor at BYU. I suppose you could say she’s the least well-known of all this list…but to me, she’s had the most impact. Partly because her poems are reflective of my own landscape—many of them are set in Utah—but mostly because she is a real, live, walking, breathing poet. I’m sure she doesn’t remember me, but I have seen her a few times, at different readings and literary events, and I am always filled up with admiration for her—her work and her life. “Liberty Enlightening the World” means even more to me now that I’ve seen the Statue of Liberty in person:

My back and legs ache
And the book, suggesting more
Than it will ever give, weighs
A ton. I want to put it down,
Tell my visitors I know how
Their lives go. I never will.
I am huge, copper-weighted,
Supporting the status of icon.

I am limiting myself to five poets, even though there are more than fifty I could list. I know that not everyone loves poetry (and I wish more people did!) but for me, it is a necessary thing. A sort of magic, almost; someone somewhere writes a poem, somehow it gets shared with the world, somehow I find it, and then when I read it I am connected to the poet who wrote it as well as to the issues in my own life. The women poets whose work has influenced me are people I am deeply grateful for. I would be less, far less, without them.

In my Skirt Sports' ambassador group, we've been having fun with poems about skirts. THIS is the original poem (seriously...click on that link and watch the video, it is hilarious). Since you know I'm all about the poetry, AND I love my running skirts, you know I have been loving this! (If you want to run in a skirt, you can use my discount code, 843Sore for 15% off.)

I tried writing my own funny poem and...I totally don't do funny. I love funny, of course, but it's just not in my skill set as a writer. 

So here's my poem. I'm not sure it even qualifies anymore as a poem about Skirt Sports...even though it starts with a skirt. What I DO know is that it pushed me to actually finish a poem. Finish as in...work with it, write several drafts in my
notebook, polish it on my computer. It's pushed me to finish other poems, which I am currently in the process of schlepping around to a few poetry mags. Yay poetry! Yay writing! Yay being pushed out of my comfort zone! (Or was it a lazy zone? Probably.) And, clearly, I am delaying actually putting the poem here because maybe it's not very good. But: it's a start.

How I Run:

i.

in a skirt so color
flaps behind me, sometimes violet
the exact shade of morning
glories in morning light, sometimes pale
green like oak leaves
in spring on a tree in deep
canyon shade, sometimes the saturated pink
of a new scar. If I run in a skirt do I run
like a girl?

ii.

away. From any sound other than the mountain
jay in the oak ahead and my feet striking sonnets
in imperfect iambic pentameter, from every anguish
save exhausted quads, from my mother
whose voice reminds me that I am
looking heavy, from other voices, the rest
of them male: the coach who said
if you were five years younger and a whole lot
richer I could make you into a real
gymnast, the professor who assured me
statistically speaking you’ll never be a real
poet, the principal who sneered you’d look real
cute in one of those cheerleading skirts. Away
from anything that makes me unreal as isn’t
running away also running toward?

iii.

along streets with cars whose passengers
shout “keep on chugging, bitch!” and I wave
and do; across morning-glory meadows toward oak
trees; past a young girl
on a porch who cheers “you’re good
at running!”; next to a grey wood fence, a joyful
dog I've never seen running
on the other side with me; with
a sister, a friend, briefly a stranger; by myself
with my strong thighs, sore ankle, empty
belly; like a woman with history, wrinkles, scars,
old injuries, the ghosts of voices I will not allow
to silence my feet. What can stop me?

(I meant to post this last night; instead I helped Nathan study for a history test, hung up laundry, and then crashed! So, a Sunday thought on a Monday morning.)

Yesterday was my Sunday to teach gospel doctrine. When I started working on my lesson on Friday, I realized that the topic was going to be much more difficult for me than any other one might be (and I struggle quite a bit with many church topics, so that is saying quite a bit), as it was based on my most-detested bible stories: the narrative of Abraham binding his son Isaac and offering him as a sacrifice.

The last time I was in a church class that was about this story, I made a decision: I would not listen to it again. I would not listen to the admiring chorus of voices assenting that while, yes, Abraham must’ve struggled with the idea of offering his only son as a sacrifice because he felt prompted to do so, look at how obedient he was! Look at how strong his faith was! It took me some thought and a few months (or years even) to be able to put this reluctance, frustration, anger, and disgust into words, but here they are, despite seemingly all of Christianity believing otherwise:

I think Abraham made a mistake.

I believe in a God who allows horrible things to happen to humanity, not because he is a bad God but because horrible things must happen and because he values individual choice, even when it leads to humans doing horrible things. I think God grieves over these horrible things and wants us to be better; I believe that if we are Christlike we do whatever we can to not inflict horrible things on others. This is a difficult, painful knowledge, but true to me nevertheless.

But a God who asks a person not just to endure something horrible, but to enact something horrible? I don’t know how to understand that God.

Which leads me back to my belief that Abraham made a mistake.

I was more than a little bit anxious about teaching this class. One of my goals when I teach is to share insights without making the instruction about only my insights; I want my classes to be a space for people to ask questions, to think about topics in different ways, but I don’t necessarily need them to agree with me. I didn’t need anyone to agree with my thoughts about Abraham; I’m perfectly fine with everyone thinking I am wrong. But I also didn’t want to offend people, or cause them to think that I am a faithless person. I want to strike a balance: here is what I have learned about this gospel topic, but that is only my way of thinking about it; what do you think—what do you really think away from what others have told you to think? If I have an agenda in my lessons, it is not to convince anyone that my way of thinking is correct, but to convince them to ask themselves what they think.

Would it be better, I questioned myself as I wrestled with the material, to just go through the motions with this one? Just regurgitate all the old thinking?

I couldn’t do that, though. Partly because I re-read “Pro Femina” on Friday (“if wedded, kill guilt in its tracks when we stack up the dishes/And defect to the typewriter. And if mothers, believe in the luck of our children,/Whom we forbid to devour us, whom we shall not devour,/And the luck of our husbands and lovers, who keep free women.”)

Mostly because I promised myself, when I accepted the calling to teach the gospel doctrine class, that I would be true to myself and to my truths. I refuse to be Pretend Amy anymore, the one who puts on the gospel as if it were a coat. Instead, I want to explore how the coat is made, where its holes are, how it fits and how it doesn’t fit. Which often requires a bit of naked vulnerability on my part.

The lesson itself went far better than I expected, and afterward several people came to thank me for teaching it the way that I did. One comment especially affected me; an older woman in our congregation said “As you taught I kept thinking one thing: what did Sarah think about all of this?” That was my thought exactly, and honestly: I wish I could just skip most of this horrible story and explore Sarah’s reaction to it—but of course, she’s barely mentioned in the biblical text. I can make suppositions but only discussing Sarah would’ve required too much imagination.

What I didn’t have time to share fully is what I did find in the text (I read a bunch of different commentaries on it as well, so my insight is pieced together not just from my own reading but from what other people shared) and how it has influenced me. No matter how horrible this story is, or any story for that matter, there is something to be learned, and this is the insight that impacted me the hardest.

As Abraham and Isaac walk up the mountain, Isaac carrying the wood for his own execution, father and son talk to each other. We read his actual words. After the sacrifice attempt, we never hear his voice again. We read about Isaac, but don’t receive any of his words. After God intervenes with the ram in the bushes, the text says that Abraham walks back down the mountain—they do not go back down together. Throughout the rest of his life, Isaac is only a placeholder, an object rather than a person. Voiceless and silent. 

This lack of Isaac’s voice is another thing that makes me think that Abraham made a mistake; he didn’t understand what God wanted him to do. He made faith—or, more precisely, religion—more important than a living, breathing person. I think he acted blindly, receiving a thought that seemed like it came from God and then acting on it. It is not until he lifts up his eyes (or actually sees what he is doing) that he notices the ram—notices God giving him another option.

I know that Isaac carrying the wood is symbolic of Christ carrying His cross. But I also see it in another way: Isaac carrying his father’s burdens. We all bring a whole mess of baggage to our role as parents. I know that I did, and that my history as an adolescent especially affected my relationship with my children when they were adolescents. Haley the most, as she was the oldest, but also Jake. Just by the nature of the parent/child relationship, we share our baggage no matter how hard we might try not to. Isaac carried Abraham’s baggage up the mountain, and I think it is his devotion to God. Am I saying that being devoted to God is wrong? Of course not. But like anything, it can be taken too far. Abraham’s willingness to kill his son, without even arguing with God, can be interpreted in many ways. Some see it as him being so utterly faithful that he would do anything God asked.

I see it as Abraham creating an idol out of faith itself.

Isaac didn’t burn on the pyre. But something was sacrificed on that alter: the father/son relationship the two of them had. In the name of religion he betrayed another sacred relationship.

This realization forced me to ask myself: Have I ever done such a thing? Have I made my relationship with belief more important than my relationship with my children, husband, or other people I love?

And I think the answer is yes.

Not in the extreme way of Abraham. But most of my children have struggled with going to church, and like Abraham I just hauled them up the mountain with me, not giving them a choice. This is true especially of Jacob. I agonized through all of his teenage years, when he hated going to church for a bunch of different reasons, over what the right thing to do is. Keep insisting he go to church? Or let him choose? Letting him choose felt like…like weakness. Like I was giving up. Like God would look at me and say “you didn’t even try.”

Now it feels like I was also blind; I didn’t see all the rams in the thickets. I am certain there were many different solutions we could’ve found. I don’t know how that would’ve influenced his relationship with faith. But I do know that it would have influenced his relationship with me.

I still detest this story. But I’m so grateful I pushed through and taught it anyway, because I understand something of myself a little bit better. I can’t change the past. But I will move forward with a better understanding after this experience; I believe God wants me to be understanding, compassionate, and loving rather than so dedicated to religion that I am blind to everything else. I will question; I will lift up my eyes and search for better solutions.

Last night, I went to Kaleb’s junior high choir concert. I got there about ten minutes before the singing started, and I indulged in a little bit of people watching. Two women in the row I was sitting in were reading novels; I couldn’t see their titles (as a librarian I find it is a professional obligation to at least try to see what other people are reading) but they were both from my library. A man in front of me was using Overdrive to download Dark Tower 3: The Wastelands  to his cell phone. And two rows behind me, an older woman was reading a quilting magazine. It caught me by surprise, so many people reading; I tend to get discouraged about the lack of reading in the world. It was good to be reminded that I’m not the only person who loves reading.

Today, March 1, 2018, is World Book Day. I honestly don’t know the focus of this celebration—is it to discuss books from around the world? Is it observed in every nation? Who organized it? But the concept of World Book Day…if I had my way, it would be celebrated by the whole world shutting down. Just for the day, cancer treatments would pause, criminals would take a break, schools would be equipped with comfy chairs and quilts; you could still travel but you’d have to have a book in order to get through the security check. Nurses, doctors, teachers, accountants, bus drivers, computer programmers, farmers, parents: everyone could just pause for the entire day and just read. Never going to happen, of course, but wouldn’t that be lovely? In absence of such a thing, I am celebrating World Book Day  by writing about five reading experiences that have influenced me in life-changing ways. (I kept it to five not because I’ve only had five such reading experiences…but simply for the limits of brevity.) Because I don’t think that books are only about entertaining stories in one form or another. They are, or at least, they can be, experiences that make us into better people, offer a unexpected solution to a problem, provide solace for sadness, offer up truths.

Whether or not the entire world agrees with me, we’re still here, we readers. Reading whenever we have a spare moment!

Forgiving yourself: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver. Poems don't always come to us at the exact time we need them. Sometimes it is years after we read a poem that something happens to us and then we understand. This poem is about many things (I love Oliver's explanation in this blog post where you can also hear her read the poem), despair of course, and the way the world can bring a sense of peace. It is even almost saying the same thing as Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts"—suffering will happen no matter what we do. But recently, as my son Nathan has been experiencing some grown-up repercussions to decisions, I keep coming back to "Wild Geese." I think I finally really understand it, the limits of "good" and what that even means, how a person can embrace their difficult choices (I hesitate to even use the word "mistakes") as part of who they are instead of being too caught up in self-flagellation. "You do not have to walk on your knees/a hundred miles through the desert, repenting." I could write something similar about many, many poems, because out of all literature poetry is the form that brings me the most truth. But right now, “Wild Geese” is the poem that is filling my heart the most.

The influence and power of words: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. A dictator is made powerful with wealth, armies, and manipulation; words themselves bolster that power. There are many things I love about this young adult novel, but one of them is how it illustrates Hitler's skill with words and the influence his speech had on the populace. It is even more important, now that we have a president who uses words without skill and with blatant disregard for the effect they have, for our current populace to understand this power. Hitler used words to control an entire society; trump uses them like casually-twirled machetes. So we must be aware now even more of how WE as individuals use words. In the novel, Death (who is the narrator) says of Liesel (the protagonist) “The best word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.” The Book Thief taught me that there is power not just in the words of dictators but of individuals who use them bravely.

The grace of marriage: A Man Called Ove ​by Fredrik Backman. I don’t have a bad marriage, but I do have a difficult one (as I imagine most people do, if we are honest), and this is true because while we love each other, Kendell and I are so different. His red personality is like a hot, buffeting wind sometimes, and I am certain that my blue/white personality is like an opaque window to him. Plus, order and organization and tidiness are much more important to him than they are to me. Sometimes I feel like there is something wrong with me, some way that I should be a better woman, and if I didn't have that wrongness in me then our marriage would go easier. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't even try to see through the window, and that it's not really opaque glass but fog that separates us. Sometimes I am not sure he loves me because I'm not sure he understands or even sees me. When I read A Man Called Ove, when I was just twenty or so pages in, I sent a text to my sister-in-law about how she must read this book, because some guy in Sweden managed to entirely capture what it is like to be married to her brother. Seriously...Ove and Kendell are so similar it's crazy. There's a scene in the book when Ove, who does not understand people reading just for pleasure, builds a book case for his wife's novels. I read the scene when I was on an airplane flying home from New York, and I couldn't help it. I let out an audible gasp because suddenly I could see. I could look back through my marriage and see how Kendell DOES see me and does love ME. He doesn't, for example, understand my scrapbooking hobby. But he has (mostly) patiently dealt with me buying supplies and spending time making layouts and going to scrapbooking retreats. He has even built me a book case (or two) to house my scrapbooks. It's not that I didn't see this before, or even thank him for it; I did. But after reading A Man Called Ove, I could understand what it meant. It's crazy, but I am much happier in my marriage after reading Backman's novel.

Experiences never mean the same thing to different people: Atonement by Ian McEwan. (I think it is old enough that if you haven’t read it you probably aren’t going to, but here is a disclaimer: here lie spoilers!) I have written about this book a lot and I also find myself thinking about it at random times. I think it is partly because I was not, when I read it the first time, expecting the ending. I have since fallen in love with novels that do this, create a story for characters who actually died much earlier in the story, to let them keep living for the reader. (See Life after Life and especially its companion, A God in Ruins; also My Real Children.) It makes the work resonate on so many different levels: story, yes, but also the creation of story, and the realization that we have come to love people who don’t actually exist at all. But the way this book changed me is Briony’s experience. I think she is partly willful in her misunderstanding of Robbie and Cecilia. And the way that Lola deceives herself is definitely purposeful. This isn’t new knowledge, of course, but this novel changed my understanding of understanding itself. It reminds me to question what I think I know about a situation and to not let prejudice and fear restrict my attempts at understanding.

I exist right now and that is not to be trifled with: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I am fully aware of the cliché-ness of this…a gloomy, depressed high school girl falling in love with Sylvia Plath. Nevertheless, tis true: This is one of the first novels that literally changed my life. Perhaps even saved it. It is a book about depression and suicide, but there is a scene that was redemptive and light-bringing to me. Esther, the protagonist, is at a funeral, and she realizes that unlike the person they are mourning for, she is alive, right now. “I am, I am, I am,” is what her heart brags; it’s not a prideful brag, but one that acknowledges the truth. I remember the first time I read that, when of course I already knew all about Sylvia Plath, who was eventually successful in her suicide attempts. The person who wrote such a powerful work committed suicide. She was dead, even though at one point her heart was beating, bragging about being alive, but now that beat was silenced. Reading that was literally a turning point in my life. Whenever I find myself too deep in the dark, I say that line: I am, I am, I am. However painful, this life is real and it is right now and it matters, if only to me.

What reading experiences have changed you?