I think there was a collective groan yesterday among all my neighbors, because we woke up to a Sunday morning that looked like this:

Even for a girl like me, who loves snow, it is starting to feel like it's time to be finished with winter. It's been such a cold spring. But, as always, I am sincerely grateful for any snow we receive. Groaning aside, I know this fact: we still live in a desert, and we are still in our tenth year of drought. Besides, it wouldn't be spring in Utah without a spring snowstorm.

So, when I woke to the storm (which sifted snow down on us, off and on, all day), and my kids started to grumble (can't blame them, really), I had this thought: how long will it be before I watch it snow again? This will probably be our last snow until the fall. So, I decided to celebrate it a little bit. I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and drank it in my comfy chair by my front window, watching the snow fall. Then I decided I needed a few photos, too. The birds flocked in my flowerbeds, eating something, but scattered at the sound of my camera. Here are my pink hyacinths:

Today, it's still cold. My driveway was a sheet of solid ice this morning, and I nearly fell later in the day, running errands with Kaleb (he did fall, although the only damage was to his jeans. "I all wet, Momma!" he said, five or six times on the way home). It's not supposed to warm up any time soon, either, so I'm not sure my flowers will snap back. I hope so.

I kept repeating this bit of poem by Robert Frost all morning. One of the hazards of being Englishly-geeky is fragments of memorized poems that repeat and repeat until you write about them, just to get them to be quiet:

from "Two Tramps in Mudtime"

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

Maybe Frost is telling us why April is the cruelest month?

Today has been A DAY. You know...when I lost my temper too much, coped with reality by crying and/or taking a nap, apologized with donuts, and couldn't deal with going to the gym. But, oddly enough (or, maybe based on the sugar, courtesy of chocolate chip cookies---nay, make that the sugar, fat, and chocolate endorphins---coursing through my blood stream), I am feeling a little bit perkier tonight. Plus, I am feeling like my blog has been a sort of downer lately. So, in an effort to build on my slightly-chipper upswing, a fun little meme I stole from Chris's blog. But, first, a million thank yous to everyone who commented on my last few downer posts. I am still to unfocused to actually finish replying but I am grateful to every single one of you, and I will get focused and caught up with replies this weekend! Now, the meme rules:

1. put your music player on shuffle
2. press forward with each question
3. use the song title as the answer to the question - EVEN if it doesn't make any sense whatsoever - NO CHEATING!
4. (this isn't actually a rule. It is just the reality of Amy blogging: add a few lyrics and/or commentary to why each song works or doesn't work for the question.)

I used my "no ghosts" play list for this one...mostly fairly recent songs with no trailing, wispy memories attached.

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Every Day is a Winding Road" by Sheryl Crow. OK...strange. "Winding road" is a good description for today. Add in a whole bunch of uphill struggles to that road, and a few breezy downhills. Yeah.

WHAT'S YOUR OUTLOOK ON LIFE?
"Building a Mystery" by Sarah McLachlan. (the live version!) I love Sarah M, even though always feel like I'm spelling her last name wrong. Again, fairly good answer, because I've been thinking a lot lately: what's my next step?

WHAT DOES YOUR FAMILY THINK OF YOU?
"Love Song" by Sara Barellies. After how often I lost my temper today? They might think I don't want to write them a love song. Tomorrow will be better lyrics.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Dressed in Black" by Depeche Mode. (OK, I did say "mostly" fairly new songs.) Yeah, I can see that. "Oh geez. There's Amy. And "sheeeee's dressed in black again." lol. Even in spring I still wear lots of black. A habit I can't break.

WHAT DO STRANGERS THINK OF YOU?
"1234" by Feist. Hmmm. Not sure how this one applies, but I still love the line that says "sweet heart, bitter heart, now I can tell you apart." Gorgeous!.

WHAT DO YOUR EXES THINK OF YOU?
(I'm about 95% certain that 75% of my exes don't really think anything at all about me, but I am 100% certain that 25% of my exes---meaning one out of four past boyfriends---do think of me) "Jezebel" by 10,000 Maniacs. Again, the live version, because the VH1 Storytellers album is THE best 10,000 Maniacs album. Actually, "I'm straining too hard for feeling I ought to find easily" might have been something 3 out of 4 boyfriends probably thought once or twice during our relationships.

HOW IS YOUR LOVE LIFE?
"When Did Your Heart Go Missing?" by Rooney. LOL. Sometimes this might be true. Marriage is hard. But, "I have you and you have me," so probably it'll all work out in the end, right?

HOW WILL YOUR LOVE LIFE BE IN THE FUTURE?
"Seven Wonders" by Fleetwood Mac. (OK...another old song. Maybe I lied about my list.) Seems I have some thrilling experiences to look forward to! Or, at least seven of them. Wheeeeeee!

WILL YOU GET MARRIED?
"Rise" by P.I.L.. "I could be wrong, I could be right." Whatever. I'm already married. Although, I think "rise" should be the next cool slang word. Like "phat." Rise, dude. Rise.

WILL YOU HAVE KIDS?
(Why, yes I think I will!) "Meant to Life" by Switchfoot. My children do add meaning to my life, so this is fairly apropos, I think. The song is about trying to be hopeful in the face of opposition, which is a good thing to teach one's children, yes?

ARE YOU GOOD AT SCHOOL?
(Sometimes I did very, very bad things at school, so I could honestly say I wasn't always good at school. Good at learning? Absolutely, if you leave out chemistry or geometry, which give me hives.) "I Guess That's Why They Call it The Blues" by Elton John. I'm embarrassed to confess to having this song on my play list. What's worse is that I listen to it almost every day lately. I downloaded it after some American Idol contestant sang it.  What's wrong with me? Is this the choice of a girl who is good at learning??? Maybe I need some music education.

WILL YOU BE SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE?
"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. "We'll do it all, everything." That's fairly auspicious.

WHAT SONGS SHOULD THEY PLAY ON YOUR BIRTHDAY?
("They" who?) "Omaha" by Counting Crows. I love C Crows and am itching to get their new CD. Anyone listened to it yet? I love this line: "you don't wanna walk on water, cause you're only going to walk all over me." Adam Duritz is a guy I'd like to hang out and talk to. Someone get that for me for my birthday! ;)

WHAT SONG SHOULD THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Answer" by Sarah M. This might be ironic because I'm sure I've ever been anyone's answer. I was hoping "Hold On" by Sarah M. would come up.

THE SOUNDTRACK OF YOUR LIFE
"Satellite" by Guster. I like the imagery in this song...the stay true to the space conceit. Soundtrack of my life? In a way. A satellite just hangs around the really important thing. And it looks like a star but really isn't (unfulfilled possibilities?). I think I'm getting punchy. It's late!

YOU AND YOUR BEST FRIEND ARE . . .
"She Says" by Howie Day. My best friend has said things that have helped me immensely. She's wise like that. But I don't think the sentiment in this song really applies to a friendship. Love it anyway.

HAPPY TIMES?
"Ireland" by Tori Amos. "Driving in my Saab, on my way to Ireland." That would be a great happy time!

SAD TIMES?
"I Just Want Your Kiss" by Prince. Another ironic one, as the older I get the less inclined towards physical affection I become. "I Just Want a Back Rub" might be more appropriate. Or "I Just Want To Be Left Alone in The Bathtub With a Bowl of Ice Cream" would be good, too.

EVERYDAY?
"Over You" by Daughtry. Is this a cosmic message?

FOR TOMORROW?
"Best I Ever Had" by Vertical Horizon. Tomorrow will be a better day! Whooo Hooo!

FOR YOU?
"Song 2" by Blur. I totally dig the beat and rhythm on this song. And, yes, I might need to get my head done. Or re-done, as the case might be, as I did have it done when I was young. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.

WHAT DOES NEXT YEAR HAVE IN STORE FOR ME?
(Please, ye Gods of Next Year: I don't need a lot of money, a new house, or even a perfect body. Just enough to keep us afloat, a relatively-clean kitchen, and a little bit more healthy me. Let's see what Windows Player has to say.) "Precious Things" by Tori Amos. OK, that's good, as "precious" is a relative term.

WHAT DO I SAY WHEN LIFE GETS HARD?
"Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks. Love this song, and Haley loves it too. A song we can agree on is a rare thing these days. But, I really do say this: "No matter what you say about life, I learn every time I bleed." Well, not in those words, but the same sentiment. PS: I always think she is going to say "I can't waste time so gimme the money." lol.

WHAT SONG WILL I DANCE TO AT MY WEDDING?
(There was no dancing at my wedding. Are you kidding? Just shaking hands gave me hives.) "I Melt With You" by Modern English. Which would be a good song to dance to at my wedding.

WHAT DO YOU WANT AS A CAREER?
"Hey, Jupiter" by Tori Amos. Astronaut might be OK, except I'd miss my kids while I was on the moon. Love this line: "I thought I wouldn't have to be, with you, something new." Also "found your writing on my wall."

YOUR FAVORITE SAYING?
"Big Yellow Taxi," the Counting Crows version. "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone" is a good saying. Maybe not my favorite, but a wise one.

THE SONG THAT YOU WILL PUT AS YOUR SUBJECT?
"Real Bad News" by Aimee Mann. OK, that totally ruins my "perky, upbeat, cheerful" thing. So I'm cheating and going to the next song. "Shut Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol. Did I ever blog about crying on my way home from the gynecologist's office after he told me that my ovaries were "shrunken like a pair of grapes" and this song was strangely comforting to me? No? OK. Still not cheery, let's try again. "All Good Things Come to an End" by Nelly Furtado. Almost. "Left of Center" by Suzanne Vega. Would have worked well for my theme song, but not quite the title. "Your Winter" by Sister Hazel. Come ON! Where's the cheer? Where's the perky? "Grey Street" by Dave Matthews. Nope. "Closer to Fine" by Indigo Girls. There we go. That works. 

I'm not sure what my deal is. I keep starting blog posts, then hating them and never publishing. (So if this one sees the light of day, it'll be a miracle.) I get photos developed, full of that anticipatory tingle over creating a new scrapbook page, and then I don't ever make it. I am a little bit obsessed with finding the perfect piece of pink flannel---a tonal print, preferable paisley, but not a baby flannel---for a black-and-pink quilt I want to make for myself, but I know I'll never get around to. I start books---The Gathering, to fulfill my "read the Pulitzer- and Booker-prize-winning novels each year" goal, The Jane Austen Book Club for my book exchange club, and half a dozen library books, with bookmarks stuck into the first three or four pages---but never finish them. I write just half an entry in my journal, then click over to the internet for some mindless surfing. My garden plans? Brilliantly plotted out, but I've not yet crossed the threshold of the greenhouse door. And my house? Well, every single room is in some sort of almost-clean limbo, not quite finished. I can't seem to settle down and get anything done. What's wrong with me?

Part of it, I think, has to do with some recent family drama. Some things are happening with one of my nieces that are disturbing me, but I've been told in very specific language that we are not talking about it. I think this is raising my ire because I usually go along with this unspoken family edict we have, each of us full of opinions but never sharing them with the person who needs to hear them. I was so ready, this time, to go against the edict, to open my mouth and say "listen to me," or to share something that I learned so that maybe this person wouldn't also have to learn it the hard way. Then to be told that keeping the peace is the plan? It leaves me feeling...superfluous. Like my presence in my family is just a placeholder, a cliched character in a story: the moody aunt who takes too many pictures and always brings dessert.

Maybe my jumpiness is caused by this strangeness I feel in myself after these recent familial transactions. I can understand the world in general not caring about my opinion. But my family? Really? The group of people I came from, share blood and a history with? Suddenly I feel like questioning everything that makes me who I am, and as I question each thing I find it lacking. Empty and pointless. Who am I REALLY? I find myself saying, over and over again in my head. What is it I want to do with my life? I can't settle down and simply think.

One of my favorite snapshots of Haley is a photo I took of her on the first day of spring, 1998, when she was just a month away from turning three.  She's kneeling down in front of a bunch of daffodils in our front yard, her nose buried in the frothy yellow blossoms. I love it because it is evocative of so many things to me: the way she loved flowers when she was little (loved flowers but hated gardening---still does!), loved wearing pony tails, loved her new blue strappy shoes, loved being outside again, and the way it felt to be her mother at that moment in life, both just loving her and how I felt, certain of things in a way I am not, anymore. But it also reminds me of one of the biggest factors of Haley-as-a-little-girl: she loved dresses. I took that picture of her specifically because she asked me to, that morning when she put on that new springy dress, a little plaid jumper in lavender hues, with the requisite spinny skirt. I still remember her spinning in it and saying "Mom, you have to take a picture of my new dress, I love it so much."

In fact, if you flip through scrapbooks about the first six or seven years of Haley's life, you'd notice she had a definite penchant for the dress. Even when she was little---18 months or so---she was very clear about her preference: no pants. Especially not jeans. But dresses, dresses, and more dresses. Specifically, those with spinny or twirly skirts. She loved to spin and have her dress flare out around her legs. I loved this about her and didn't fight it. Instead, as each season began, I'd buy her a few new dresses to wear. My favorite time to buy dresses was in the spring. All those bright or fresh pastel colors, the floral patterns and delicate trimmings! Buying spring dresses was one of the pleasures of having a little girl.

Once Haley got into kindergarten, she had all these examples of girls who didn't wear dresses all the time, and slowly started giving up her dress preference. To me, that was the start of her leaving "little girl" behind. But, here's a confession: I kept nearly every single one of Haley's dresses, wrapped in tissue paper and boxed into Rubbermaid containers in the basement. I stored them for several reasons: one, because I couldn't bear to give them away, because they felt like little scraps of her. And two, because one of those things I was so certain of was that I'd have another daughter. I could picture the three of us: Haley, a little older, holding the hand of that fantasy girl who wiggled with excitement as we riffled through the box of dresses. Haley would hold one up and remember wearing it, and then her sister would try it on. And then she'd spin, too.

So here it is, spring again, and I find myself missing the days when I could buy five or six new spring dresses for an excited little girl. I wonder if I will ever get over feeling sad that she never came to me, that other daughter. Haley's sister. I love my boys and wouldn't trade them in, of course, but I still have this ache in me, wanting her. I know it is sort of silly, to have this sorrow for a person who never existed anywhere but my imagination. But, then again, that's just it: she didn't exist. There's no place for the sadness to go, nowhere it means anything. And it's not a sadness that really could have any solution. Even if we could afford to have another baby, there's no guarantee it would be her, anyway.

So I've resigned myself to this bit of spring sadness each year. I try to stay away from the mall, or when I must go there, I walk like a horse with blinders on past any little dress. I help Haley pick out a few new spring things, and find some colorful T-shirts for the boys, and I keep my sadness close to me. I'll always miss little spring dresses.

A poem I love, which is not so much about Easter as it is about the way time bends, and sometimes seems to bend upon itself; about the slow, gentle ache of loss that time never seems to heal and how it can flare up, tender to tortured, at certain experiences. Also about how one moment can become, looked back upon, as the ending of something. I hope you have a fabulous Easter.

"Easter Sunday, 1955"

        ~Elizabeth Spires

Why should anything go wrong in our bodies? Why should we not be all beautiful? Why should there be decay?—why death?—and, oh, why damnation?    ~Anthony Trollope, in a letter

What were we? What have we become?
Light fills the picture, the rising sun,
the three of us advancing, dreamlike,
up the steps of my grandparents' house on Oak Street.
My mother and father, still young, swing me
lightly up the steps, as if I weighed nothing.
From the shadows, my brother and sister watch,
wanting their turn, years away from being born.
Now my aunts and uncles and cousins
gather on the shaded porch of generation,
big enough for everyone. No one has died yet.
No vows have been broken. No words spoken
that can never be taken back, never forgotten.
I have a basket of eggs my mother and I dyed yesterday.
I ask my grandmother to choose one, just one,
and she takes me up---O hold me close!---
Her cancer not yet diagnosed. I bury my face
in soft flesh, the soft folds of her Easter dress,
breathing her in, wanting to stay forever where I am.
Her death will be long and slow, she will beg
to be let go, and I will find myself, too quickly,
in the here-and-now moment of her fortieth year.
It's spring again. Easter. Now my daughter steps
into the light, her basket of eggs bright, so bright.
One, choose one, I hear her say, her face upturned
to mine, innocent of outcome. Beautiful child,
how thoughtlessly we enter the world!
How free we are, how bound, put here in love's name
---death's, too---to be happy if we can.

My title is sort of apropos of nothing. It's a line from a poem that Haley wrote for her English class---they're learning about figurative language---and I think it is a lovely simile. They're also learning to discuss poetry, and this has been a stretch for her.  As she worked on her homework on Thursday night, she asked for my help. "Tell me what this poem has to do with this quote," she asked, and then read the poem (William Carlos Williams' "Poem," which is the one about the cat in the jamcloset) and the quote (about how poetry creates silences around things). I didn't just want to tell her what I thought; I wanted to guide her to her own thoughts. At first she kept thinking too literally---what does this poem have to do with silence? And is it even a poem? So we talked around the problem, and eventually she came to her own idea of how the two concepts connected.

As I discussed things like imagery and poets' intentions, being observant of the world and finding (and backing up!) your own interpretations, I kept thinking of the night before, when I'd gone with some of the young women at church to the Museum of Art at BYU. We went with the intention of viewing the Minerva Teichert exhibition, but ended up wandering through the entire museum, looking at photographs of the Geneva Steel Mill (which produced steel here in Utah County from the 1940's until it was dismantled last year, and which had an enormous effect on both our local economy and my family, as my dad worked there until the first major layoffs in 1984), some Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite (my favorite art movement) paintings, and some American artwork as well. I'm not sure my young women enjoyed themselves, but I was in bliss.

Later, after the museum, we walked around the campus for a bit---right in front of the building most of my English classes were in, through the little statuary garden outside of the museum, on top of the now-underground library, and of course up and down the spiral walkways over the busy streets. (I thought, to myself, about the night I was 17 and kissed a boy on those very walkways.) We took the girls to a little college hang out for cookies, then drove around the campus for a bit. I couldn't help remembering my two years at BYU and how much I enjoyed being a student there, even though I didn't ever feel like I fit in. When I started at BYU, I was married, owned a home, and had a daughter. By the time I finished, I'd had one son and was pregnant (although I didn't know it yet!) with another. I didn't get to do the typical college things like hanging out at small. unique, crowded and cheap dives, or doing things with friends, or being bugged by a room mate. Of course, these things were my fault, the things I didn't think I'd mind giving up when I got married at 19. (Or, as I prefer to think of it, almost twenty.) This is something I hope to teach my children and those young women I am trying to influence: to not be in a hurry, to experience a little bit of life on your own and to figure out who you are before you are married.

Driving home, I had an intense longing to go back to school. If I could manage it, I'd be a student forever. Even just talking poems with Haley made me miss being in school. Of course, no one gets to have a career being a student---the next closest thing is teaching. I love the atmosphere at universities and, looking back, I wish I had managed my life differently so I could have done what I really wanted to do, which was become an English professor. Not that I would want to give up being a mother, but I think that had I planned it better, I could have managed both. I'm not really sure how to accomplish it now, with four kids and with a ever-tightening family budget. Once you become a parent, it seems your time to focus on your desires passes away. Rather than learning (or teaching) at a university, I'm learning from the school of life instead. Things like how your decisions have such long-lasting repercussions, and I look at my daughter and at the young women from church I am trying to teach, and I wish I could really teach them something that I know and spare them the heartache of learning the hard way.

However difficult school is---and I won't ever forget how hard it was, knowing I had two essays due the next morning as well as laundry and housework and dinner and, oh yeah, just loving my kids---it's a different kind of hard than the things you learn from your experiences. I'd rather learn more about those paintings I saw at the museum than yet another "you've failed at motherhood again" lesson. I wish I could figure out a way to balance both. But, like that ballerina's fluttering ribbon, my life has been unpredictable, following a waving path that sometimes hasn't made any sense to me. I think, in the end, this will be what I continue learning all my life: how to keep moving forward, shedding dreams as I go.

I am having a day. One of those days when everything just bugs me. So, feel free to skip this post, as it is mainly Amy Complaining. The wish, though, is that by writing it down I will expunge myself of my annoyance. So, without further ado, what's bugging me today:

1. TV. Specifically, that stupid show "The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom." I've not even watched it but the commercials BUG. No---the title bugs. I HATE the term "soccer mom." It offends my feminist outlook on motherhood. Ditto the term "dance mom" or any other sport+mom combination that suggests a mother's definition is wrapped up in her child's sport of choice. My kids play soccer but I will never call myself a soccer mom because my world as a mother is more than my children's activities. (In fact, if I am honest with myself, I'm slightly dreading the beginning of soccer season, simply for the fact of all that laundry and the rallying cry of "where are my soccer socks?")
2. Walmart. And not even because when I went last the check-out lines were literally EIGHT or NINE people deep. I lucked into a shorter line somehow, and then had a good chat with the beleaguered cashier who had been recruited from shoes to deal with all the people in line and was even closer to outright Walmart Meltdown than I was, and that made me feel better, as horrible as that sounds. No---that's not my rant. Instead, I'm peeved at Walmart for their Easter commercial. The one that goes something like "our stuff is so cheap, you can stuff even more stuff into your kids' Easter baskets!" The one that Nathan heard. The one that made him declare "well, that just proves that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist." And then the wheels started turning and you could literally see him making all the connections, see the childish beliefs of S. Clause and the tooth fairy falling away. WHAT was that marketing executive thinking? I'm so mad I could spit.
3. The Girl at The Gym. Listen, I understand arriving late to the Pilates class. I've done it myself sometimes. But, your lateness doesn't give you permission to crowd into my space. I really don't enjoy bumping into you with my exercise ball each time I try to move, not to mention having your bum in my face every time I look up. Two words for you, fellow Pilates student: SCOOT OVER.
4. Myself. I set a goal that I will NOT eat all the Easter candy before Easter Sunday, thus avoiding the need to re-buy all the candy. I did that last year and it was truly the start of my slide into current fatness. So, I didn't buy any until last weekend, and it is tucked away into my super-secret hiding space that no one knows about but me. I managed NOT to eat any so far, but I felt like a junkie talking herself down from a heroin hit all afternoon. I even went and stood in front of the hiding space. I totally would have given in and cracked open the caramel-filled chocolate eggs (my favorite) if my sister hadn't called. Why is this so hard for me? And why am I so weak?

OK. All typed up, it's not too bad. At least there's only four things annoying me today. Maybe I should flee outside into the gorgeous afternoon and do some yard work or something to distract myself from my constant buzzing desire for SUGAR? At any rate, I hope the rest of you aren't as annoyed as I am today. If you are, I give you permission to blog about it!

A few months ago---November, to be precise---one of my friends started talking to me about the movie The Golden Compass and an article she'd read in the newspaper. "After reading that article," she told me, "I have decided that that movie, and the book its based on, and its author, are all evil. You cannot ever see that movie, right?" She went on to tell me about what the article had claimed, that the trilogy is about killing God, and how there was an email being circulated that proved the whole thing.

Well, I was a little bit stunned, to put it mildly. I'd read about half of The Golden Compass a few months ago, and not found it to be particularly anti-religious---well, maybe a little bit, but certainly not to the extent she was describing. But what bothered me the most about this discussion was her telling me that I could not read this book. Because of a newspaper article and an email? That cinched it---rebellious Amy took over and bought the omnibus edition of His Dark Materials.

I returned to that original conversation many times in my mind as I read these novels. How ironic is it that there's an email going around telling you what to think about a book that argues for thinking for yourself? For me, the controversy over these books comes down to this question: do you read only to have your personal beliefs confirmed and reconfirmed? Or do you read because you want to think? Honestly, a book that is challenging to a person's beliefs can, if you let it, actually strengthen your beliefs, because you want to prove the author wrong. And, in my mind, a spiritual belief that is swayed on the basis of a novel might not have been the strongest belief in the first place.

Because here's the deal: part of that circulating email is correct. Pullman's basic conceit for the novels is the idea that God and religion are the reasons for evil in this world, and thus must be destroyed. The characters in the novels wage a war against God and the angels; ministers in the churches are aware of this war and do everything dastardly to put a stop to it. That is the trilogy's basic theme, but filling out the details is a strong, well-conceived and very living main character, Lyra Belaqua. And then, in the second novel, you meet another strong character, Will. The first novel, especially, is stunning, a thoroughly creative fantasy. (And by "thoroughly creative" I mean "not derivative of Tolkein" as so many fantasies are.) You meet original characters---I love, love the armored bear, Lee and his daemon Hester, and the ex-nun Mary---and fantastic landscapes. Original thought and creativity.

The other conceit in the novel is the idea that there are thousands and thousands of different worlds in other universes---places you could never get to by space travel, completely outside of our existence. Some of them are very similar to our world---the world Lyra lives in, for example---and some are completely foreign, peopled by strange creatures. But all the worlds in all the universes are experiencing the same destruction, a sort of withering of humanity. Part of the story is figuring out why this is happening and how they are able to stop it.

Honestly, it's hard to write about 933 pages in one blog entry. So I'm going to stick with my largest impressions. First off, this is a novel about making choices, and how choices determine everything---even if there is such a thing as fate, in our minds we still have to make a choice. In a way, I think all those multiple universes exist because of choices---as if there were just the original choice, at the very beginning of everything, and the choice created something alternate, the world that would exist if a different choice were made. But we still have to live in the reality we create with our choices or, as Will says, "When you choose on way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed. At the moment all Will's choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all."

Of course, due to Pullman's original intent, only the protagonists realize this about choice. Well, protagonist might not be the right word---in this novel, the tension lies between those who think religion is bad and those who think it is good. Which really is an interesting dichotomy, no matter your beliefs. One of the witches in the novel says that there are "cruelties and horrors all committed in the name of the Authority [God], all designed to destroy the joys and the truthfulness of life." And honestly: plenty of horrible things are done in the name of religion. The argument I had, though, with Pullman's viewpoint, is that it is all so black and white. All the good characters think religion needs to be destroyed, and all the evil characters hide behind religion as a shield that allows them to do evil. And the God he presents is not the Heavenly Father I know. He is Satan-like, wanting only to control humanity, not to let them grow and discover and learn things. I don't think God is like this at all.

Of course, that might be my mind not-thinking, controlled by my religion. And in the end, the novel's main point is that religion limits you from making choices and thinking for yourself. But this is an ancient argument: all those rules that religion presents only limit your freedom. In my reality---the one I have created with my own choices---the "rules" actually give you freedom, because they help you avoid what is prisoning and captive-making in this world.  If God were really trying to take away our free agency, as Pullman suggests, then He would bind our hands and make it impossible for us to make decisions.  Instead, He tells us what to avoid and suggests what the consequences will be. And it is only by thinking for ourselves that we discover who we are.

Of course, the ultimate question about this novel: would I let my kids read it? Before that original discussion way back in November, Haley actually picked up my library copy of The Golden Compass, but she didn't keep reading it because it was too difficult. She's a strong reader, so that says something---these really aren't easy books anyway, and just because the characters in them are children doesn't make them necessarily children's novels, no matter where they are shelved. Still, if they wanted to read them, I would let them. I think that parents need to pay attention and know what their kids are reading (not simply hand them The Valley of the Horses when they're 15 and highly impressionable, for example!). I think it would spark incredible discussions about our faith and beliefs and the nature of God.

But I also think you shouldn't just take my word for it, or the newspaper's or some random email. If Pullman's work has done anything for me, it has strengthened my belief in the need for everyone  to think for themselves.

I know: two posts in one day! Who knew I could do that? But honestly...I am two days late and sixty cents short on these books, so I need to fulfill my write-about-everything-I-read goal so I can return them!

Chris Bohjalian's The Double Bind is, to me, a novel about how we continue on---a novel about aftermath. Everyone has their life's Big Events, the ones that change entirely how we think about the world, or what path we are taking in our lives, or how we perceive the world. Or, sometimes, they're small things that somehow cause big changes, because "life is filled with small moments that seem prosaic until one has the distance to look back and see the chain of large moments they unleashed." Quite often, the Big Events are painful and difficult. What do we do in order to keep moving forward, keep breathing and living, when our emotional landscape has completely changed? This novel details one possibility.

Before the novel really begins, the protagonist, Laurel Estabrook, survives a brutal attack. (The telling of this attack, while very straightforward an non-emotional, is also fairly detailed in its description of brutality, so if that bothers you, this might not be your book.) But the novel isn't really about the attack; it's not a rape story. It's about things that happen to her years after the attack. She's a social worker, working at a homeless shelter, and is given the task of researching some photographs found with one of their homeless men. This task turns into an obsession for her, leading her down a path towards a sort of explanation of that original, violent, Big Event.

The text is woven with the novel The Great Gatsby, illustrating the aftermath of Daisy and Tom Buchanan's Big Events. What might happen to their children, for example, and the society they lived in? Honestly, when I got to the first Gatsby thread, I got a little bit nervous, because I've not read that novel in years and my memory of it is sketchy at best. But as I went along, I found it didn't matter. The impact this weaving of two stories left was how characters from a novel---people who never existed in a flesh-and-blood medium---impact our lives without ever drawing breath.

And then there's photography, too, another thread in the narrative. The photos Laurel becomes obsessed with aren't just snapshots, but real photographs, the kind that capture honest emotion. Something I sometimes strive to do with my pictures (and quite often find myself lacking at), to make something that is more than just an image on paper, an image that is evocative of something else entirely---a sort of visual metaphor. Stacked up against each other (as this homeless man's work was), what might our real photographs say about our lives? Can they be a sort of map to who we really are? This novel suggests they can.

Ultimately, I loved this novel because I wanted to discuss it with someone else. It's the sort of novel you could write essays on for a literature class, or discuss over cake with your book club friends. It forces you to think: how do I know what is really real? How do I know my memory of events is the true one? How can I capture my own identity and keep it squarely rooted in reality? How have my Big Events altered my view of the world? I'm being a little vague, I know, because the novel's ending is a surprise I don't want to spoil. It might change how you think about the world---just a little.

I'm not sure how the rest of the world goes about finding books to read, but one of my main methods is following links on Amazon. I'm completely aware that the site's personalized, just-for-me "Top Picks for You" section is simply a marketing tool, but since I am really trying to limit my spending on books---only buying those I know I will want to write in and reread---it's not as successful as they might think. Anyway, a few months ago, a little book called Girlhearts popped up in my "top picks," and it looked interesting, so I followed the link and discovered it was the sequel to another novel, this one called Silver. And when I clicked over to my link to the library and discovered that they were both actually available---my library tends to disappoint met quite often---voila! an easy book choice.

These novels are firmly in the adolescent lit genre. They were fast reads for me---I finished them each in a day. (Which is good, as they were both due on Tuesday!) They tell the story of Sarabeth Silver and her mom, two hardworking but very poor people. One novel deals with the conflict of poor versus wealthy and the issue of sexual abuse, while the other deals with personal tragedy and reunion. These novels are character-based, though; the protagonist is very well-drawn and understandable, funny and sarcastic and vulnerable all at once. The reunion story at the end of the second novel caught me by surprise, but have I ever told you: I love reunion stories, someone long-lost or not-well-known returning to your life. I think what I appreciated most, though, was Mazer's ability to write about difficult and potentially sappy topics without getting...well, sappy. You know I dread sap. Instead, the conflicts feel real and the solutions life-like.

Bottom line? These are two well-written novels that I think most teenage girls would enjoy. In theory, I read them so I could pass them down to Haley, but since I took so long getting to them, she'll have to wait. After re-reading the 12th of October (also by Mazer), I have added her to my list of adolescent writers who are simply good. I've been thinking about something Lucy said in one of her book reviews: I feel there is something lacking when an adult reads young adult literature. Innocence, perhaps. It's too simple. The protagonists don't fit inside the story. They are almost always ahead of their times and privy to understanding that their peers don't seem to have access to. (Lucy, I swear I'm not stalking you!) Mazer manages to create adolescent characters who aren't like this. Instead, they feel "normal," discovering things as they go, and the lack of preternatural knowledge lends an edge of enjoyable realism. Definitely try this author if you've got younger teenage girls!