A Favorite New Year's Eve Poem

Thomas Hardy wrote this poem on New Year's Eve, 1899 as he awaited the dawn of a new century. At first blush it appears to be negative, but it is actually full of hope:

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Merry Christmas!

Just in case I have any regular blog readers out there (though I suspect that I do not) I thought I would pause from my preparations this Christmas Eve afternoon to wish you a Merry, Merry Christmas!

Why don't we use the word 'merry' more often throughout the year in any other context? It's a better word than most of its synonyms, implying joyous contentment and quiet laughter. Maybe it's because of the Christmas connotation, but the word makes me think of rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes. A person cannot be merry and angry at the same time, or merry and envious, or merry and dissatisfied.

So when I wish you a Merry Christmas, I am wishing you the absence of all of the negative sentiments as well as the presence of all of the good sentiments that should accompany the season.

Margaret Thatcher: REAL Leader

I recently came across these quotes by Margaret Tatcher, the former conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain. I thought they could serve to remind us what a REAL leader of either gender is like:

"Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. " MT

"I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end." MT

"Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy." MT

"We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the state is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the state." MT

"There is no such thing as Society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." MT

"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects." MT

"All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual." MT

"The desire to win is born in most of us. The will to win is a matter of training. The manner of winning is a matter of honour." MT

"I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air." MT

"We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend." MT

"Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus." MT

"Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd." MT

"Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true." MT

"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it. " MT

Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal columnist, related this story about Margaret Thatcher in a story printed in November:

In the early years of her prime ministership, Margaret Thatcher held a meeting with her aides and staff, all of whom were dominated by her, even awed. When it was over she invited her cabinet chiefs to join her at dinner in a nearby restaurant. They went, arrayed themselves around the table, jockeyed for her attention. A young waiter came and asked if they'd like to hear the specials. Mrs. Thatcher said, "I will have beef."
Yes, said the waiter. "And the vegetables?"
"They will have beef too."

Me, the Mother Hen

Thirteen years ago I was standing outside my home on a bright, beautiful Saturday in August when a little boy, barely two, wandered into the road between two cars parked along the curb. He was crossing the street to play at my neighbor’s house, where he had a two-year-old buddy, but he didn’t have parental permission, of course, or a hand to hold to cross safely. (Two year olds know no fear. He only wanted to play.) At the same moment I heard a truck barreling down the street behind me. I screamed…so loud that my throat was sore for several days afterward…hoping to scare Seth (that was the little boy’s name) into stopping before it would be too late. I wanted him to wonder, ‘What is that woman screaming about?’ and stop to look at me, but a second later I witnessed the child’s body bouncing beneath the truck’s axel. A few hours later, after dark had fallen and I had heard the song ‘Bring Him Home’ for the first time, Seth was officially pronounced dead at the hospital. Some of his organs and tissues live on in others, but his precious little spirit has gone on.

I had two small boys of my own at the time, and have since had two girls. I would have been classified as an overly protective mother even before Seth’s death, but I have become an overly protective mother-at-large since. In the years that followed the tragedy, I became a un-caped crusader, stopping lackadaisical parents everywhere to tell them the cautionary tale of Seth if it appeared that they were not properly restraining their children. On several occasions, I’ve parked my car in strange neighborhoods to walk toddlers home – children who were too young to be walking down the street alone. Some of them were lost, others were not old enough to talk, and one was wearing only a diaper. Some parents were defensive, others appreciative or embarrassed, but I tried not to concern myself with their reactions. Most of them are probably wonderful, caring parents – they have simply not witnessed the instantaneous tragic death of a child and probably cannot imagine it happening. They are blithely unaware of the potentially irreversible consequences of inattentiveness.

My own children bore the brunt of my anxiety. We held hands like clustered sky-divers in grocery store parking lots until they were tall enough to be seen over car bumpers. To this day, in order to reduce the risk of choking, I slice all hot dogs length-wise and dispose of small bouncy balls and disk-shaped hard candies immediately. I have never encouraged them to wander far from home or to ride their bikes to distant shopping centers like I did a child, even though I enjoyed those outings and gained confidence in myself by returning safely from them. There is value even in childhood in spending time alone, confronting fears and dangers, real and imagined, but my children have rarely had such experiences. They do remarkably well in the real world despite my overbrooding nature. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for them to spread their wings from inside the cocoon.

I know, I know – it’s impossible to prevent every eventuality. We can’t clothe our children in bubble wrap. Reasonable precautions can be taken, yes, but life itself is so precious that spending our lives preventing life from happening has a cost, too.

A few years ago my children and I were sitting ducks at an intersection, waiting for the left turn light, when a Dodge pickup truck slammed into the back of our mini van. We were dazed and confused with bumps and bruises and a few lacerations, but we emerged without serious injuries. Our mini van, however, was totaled independently at both ends. Every seat, including the car seat, was broken.

From that experience I learned that sometimes it’s simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We can be grateful for the pieces of our lives left intact, pick them up, literally, and go on.

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" at Our House

Close Encounters of the Finned, Feathered, and Furry Kind - or - The World Is My Zoo

Though I've never lived more than 30 minutes from the nearest Cineplex, I've always been fascinated with wildlife. We interact so little with these other creatures on Planet Earth that they may as well be alien species - beautiful, mysterious, and living in whole societies of their own of which I will never be a part.

This realization strikes me each morning as I drive my children to school past a large field at the commuter airport near our home. The periphery of the property is marked by a high fence and on the posts of the fence we often see hawks scanning the meadow for rodents. On one occasion while I sat in my car watching such a hawk, I experienced the thrill of the hunt vicariously when, all in one motion it seemed, he swooped down, caught a vole in his clenches, then soared into a high tree.

At least once a week in this same field we see a fox or a pair of foxes wandering in search of other unsuspecting rodents. In winter the foxes are easier to see because they are red dragging bushy tails behind them on the crust of the snow, but we see them in summertime, too, plodding along in search of food. I learned in elementary school picture books that foxes are sly and in high school ecology class that, though they are frequently city dwellers, people rarely see them. These foxes have an added level of security due to the airport fence, which seems to alleviate their concerns about human beings like me. They tolerate the paparazzi while they do what they have to do to survive.

On three occasions we've seen eagles in our neighborhood: one roosting on a post, one sitting in a pear tree that seemed only slightly larger than he was, and one soaring just above the rooftops. Hawks, eagles, and foxes, one very large rat and countless small mice - these are the wild animals who have visited our neighborhood.

But despite the fact that I am a city dweller (or, more specifically, a suburb dweller), I have had the random pleasure of seeing many creatures in their natural habitats (i.e., outside of zoos): a wolf, a handful of black bears, a smaller number of grizzly bears, several moose, herds of deer and elk, an occasional armadillo, porcupine, opossum, or raccoon, flocks of geese and pelicans, a pod of orca whales, a sea otter, and several sea lions. Seeing an animal in nature inspires wonder: What do they do when we aren't watching them? Where do they rest? How do they communicate with others of their kind? Ultimately, how do they survive?

Most wild animals are like unicorns: we hear they exist or have existed, but we do not expect to see them with our own eyes. In nature we listen and we look and sometimes our piqued senses are rewarded with a fleeting vision of something we have heard about only in stories or on Animal Planet -- There it is! It really does exist!

Outside of these unpredictable sightings, animals exist for most of us only in zoos and in fairytales.

Poetic Food for Thought

I came across this poem and enjoyed thinking about it, so I thought I'd share it on my blog. It was written in 1895 by Sam Walter Foss, who must have been a very interesting person. It reminds me of modern-day cowboy poetry, which I enjoy not necessarily for its poetic quality but for its sentiment. Anyway, I hope you like it.

The Calf-Path

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell—wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell—wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

Life Lessons

It occurred to me today that in life there are certain lessons we learn over and over again, and one of them is this: if you want something done, it is best to do it yourself. This is true no matter how wonderful your support system is (and mine is phenomenol), no matter how much people love you and wish they could help you...in the long run and in the short run, too, it's best to do it yourself.

For many reasons:
1) no waiting. Your priorities are your priorities and they do not have to be synchronized with anyone else's.
2) job satisfaction. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it...and all of those sentiments.
3) learning opportunity. Often we think we need someone else's expertise in something because we are avoiding learning what it will require to become experts ourselves. We don't want to do the homework, but if we don't do the homework we don't learn...and we will need the expert to help us again.
4) serendipity. When we try something new that takes us out of our comfort zone, we are likely to stumble upon dormant talents and new interests. Self-reliance excavates skills. We learn to live by our wits.
5) action is powerful. We seize power over our circumstances when we take action to alter them in any way, large or small. Action is a powerful tool we would not voluntarily relinquish if we understood the consequences of doing so.
6) empathy with our fellow man. If I am willing to care for myself as a human being, to do what is required to survive and thrive on this planet, I will automatically have things in common with my fellow man who is surviving and thriving in much the same way.

But all life lessons teach another lesson, too - balance. Self-reliance has its requisite opposite. We do depend upon one another - we simply must. More about that in another post...

Cartoon Identification

I identify very strongly with two cartoon characters -- Lucy van Pelt and Lisa Simpson.

For Lucy, happiness may be a warm puppy, but dog kisses clearly go too far. She is a practical person who likes to win, but she is romantic, too (Schroeder). She's competitive, and dispenses advice readily because she has the world all figured out. Ask Lucy a philosophical question and she will give you a concise, direct answer without pulling any punches. In fact, she might punch you at the same time, just to get your attention or to make an indelible impression.

Lisa Simpson is best known as the brains of the Simpson family. (Bart may be just as bright, even brighter, but he uses his intelligence diabolically, earning him the lion's share of the attention and admiration of their parents.) Lisa is an idealist, always searching for a cause. She takes ethical positions and stands her ground against all obstacles. Her talents are unappreciated, but she works at them anyway. The slightest hint of praise buoys her. She sees the big picture and tries to convey the view to those around her, who are focused instead on minutiae. She admires other talented, idealistic people freely. But Lisa isn't perfect. She loves Ren & Stimpy and Crusty the Clown as much as Bart does. She can be jealous of the new kid in school who's smarter than she is. It's precisely because she isn't perfect that she's so believable. Though crudely animated, she seems like a real human being with an unpredictable nature, occasional moodiness, and human yearning.

Though I relate to both of them, I am not exactly like Lucy or Lisa. While I sometimes wish I had more of Lucy's brash confidence, I would not want to be as heartless and cruel as she sometimes is. Lisa, though scheming and caustic at times, is almost always well-intentioned and kind.

Fear of Rejection and the Quest for Perfection

For a long time now I've avoided telling people about this blog and I've avoided posting anything to it -- both for the same reason: if I say I am a writer and I do not write perfectly or do not write about interesting things (i.e., if I am not perfect), then I will be rejected. I will be revealed as a fraud -- I might even be pitied, which for me is the ultimate insult. Just yesterday it occurred to me, as the cat slipped out of the bag and people began logging onto my blog after Thanksiving dinner, that I will write anyway, imperfectly, and about any subject without worrying about the approval of my audience. So as Flip Wilson (or his alter-ego, Geraldine) used to say in my childhood, What you see is what you get!

For some reason I never really felt like an adult until I turned 40, when I gave myself permission to be one, or finally recognized that I was one, regardless of my illusions to the contrary. Being in my 40s is liberating in the sense that I can make declarations about myself. I can embrace my personality and celebrate it, instead of looking for ways to bend it to another's liking. I am a finished product to the extent that one can ever really be 'finished,' which is not to imply that I never want to improve or grow or learn. I still want to do all of those things, but I am comfortable with who I am. I no longer need to qualify myself - I declare myself qualified.

Now about perfection. For a long time, I couldn't send a first draft of a written letter. If the handwriting slanted to one side or if a word had to be smudged out, even on the back side of a long letter, or if I thought of a cleverer way of saying something, I had to wad up that page and start over. Page after page after page. In college, I ducked into restrooms before every class to brush my hair and retouch my make-up. I've agonized over having a clean house (especially for houseguests), over striking just the right tone in my communications with people, over dotting all my i's and crossing all of my t's, and I have reaped rewards for all of these efforts: occasional recognition for my excellent penmanship, favorable relations with every living person I've ever known, excellent credit, a respectable GPA, etc. But I have paid a price, too, in terms of personal satisfaction. As a perfectionist, I could not, by definition, be satisfied with myself.

The odd thing is that I am not a critical person by nature. I forgive other people their mistakes quite easily. I even make excuses for their bad behavior and try earnestly to love them anyway and to reassure them of their worth. From time to time I catch myself earnestly admiring the imperfections of others, imagining how wonderful it would be to allow myself to be flawed with impunity. (I am flawed, of course, but I punish myself accordingly.)

My inner critic turns a blind eye to everyone but me, saying he is who he is, and she is who she is, but you cannot be who you are. You must be better than you are. You must improve.

I am going to work at accepting myself as readily as I accept others.

Fall in Millcreek Canyon, Utah

Sherpa at Home

Thanksgiving Preparations Underway...

This past week I set up a blog for my in-law family members to post pictures to, since we are spread out over a wide geographic area. At first, no one seemed to see the purpose for it, but I think everyone is catching on now that Grandpa understands it and can post to it. Everyone wants to communicate with him, naturally.

It's Thanksgiving this Thursday and we will be hosting the feast at our house. We expect to have 22 people in attendance and at least one turkey, with an array of side dishes, of course. Initially I balked at the idea of hosting, mostly due to the pre-party cleaning and prep, but then decided to go for it. I am going to celebrate the family and not worry as much about the little stuff, even the food, which would normally take center stage. Attitude is everything when it comes to family get-togethers (and most everything else in life).

Cleaning is slow-going for me right now. I don't know if I am being passive agressive, rebellious...Why is it so hard to see a cleaning project through to its completion? I do not understand. I remember when I would clean for comany and take the house from 0 to 60 in a day. I can't do that anymore. Tomorrow night we are having a guest sleepover, my son's college roommate en route to the airport early Wednesday morning...We (mostly I) will be cleaning between now and then, which will make Thanksgiving Day less of a bother.

Desparately Seeking an Agent

Each Friday for the past several weeks I have visited the local post office to send out my book proposal to one agent per week. (It's a non-fiction children's book that I've been working on for several years now...) To date I have received one official rejection - a form letter, nonetheless, from the second agency I sent to. (I neglected to send an SASE to the first agency, so I may never hear from them at all.) I wouldn't say that it's frustrating yet, but it would be very nice to have a nibble, a hint of interest from SOMEone in the publishing industry. In reality, I understand that first books are almost never published without some real effort. If the book is picked up (i.e., sold), I will throw myself into the remaining research and writing until it is complete and published. I'd love to see it happen because I really think it would be a wonderful book for families.

In other news, I am processing loads of laundry and dishes today. (Yes, more than one load of dishes! I made a special dinner last night for Scott's birthday and used every mixing bowl we own, multiple pots, baking dishes, etc. As an aside, I must admit that the lasagna was particularly delicious...)

Tom woke me up before my alarm went off this morning to kill a spider who was dangling from the light fixture in the hallway. He described it as bungee jumping, springing up and down as it spun its web, but when the spider saw me it dropped to the ground and disappeared into the chocolate chip carpet. I couldn't see it at all, couldn't even detect movement. (That's why we chose this carpet. Scott asked the salesperson to show us carpet that already looked dirty.) So I dragged the vacuum cleaner up two stories and vacuumed all over the place before the sun had even come up. I really needed a housework day like this anyway, I suppose.

I think I finally told my first potential reader the address for this blog last night -- my husband. I'm still not sure exactly what to do with it, but I suppose the real purpose fr this blog will reveal itself over time. Meanwhile, it's nice to have one.

A Day at the Utah Book Festival

I've just returned from spending the day at the Utah Book Festival at the City Library downtown. I thought I'd write the insights that struck me as I sat in several lectures, workshops, and discussion groups today among a throng of other booklovers.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "A Woman and a Cow" Lecture delivered Thursday on campus at the University of Utah:

Ms. Ulrich is a Pulitzer prize-winning professor of history at Harvard. She is also an amazing LDS woman and a feminist in the most complimentary sense of the word. She said that she enjoys the detective work of being a historian. (I could relate to that - I enjoy detective work, too...maybe I should dabble in history...still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.)

Karen Chamberlain, "Solitude and Community on a Utah Desert Ranch":

Author of the memoir 'Desert of the Heart' and a poet and screenwriter as well, Ms. Chamberlain struck me as a very sincere wordsmith. The book is about the largely solitary time she spent at the Horsethief Ranch in Southeastern Utah, a homestead built in 1928 that is 20 miles from the nearest building. She lived alone and worked the ranch because it gave her an opportunity to write and to experience life as a pioneer without telehone, technology, crowds of people, or even electricity. She said that she had enjoyed solitude even as a child, and solitude on the ranch became her teacher. She differentiated solitude from loneliness, which she said is a void, a yearning to be somewhere else or with someone else. She said that before going to the ranch her identity was tied up in what she did, but at the ranch she discovered that her core identity was much deeper and simpler.

Carol Lynn Pearson, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":

I first read Carol Lynn Pearson in the 1980s when Goodbye, I Love You was published, a memoir about caring for her gay husband as he died from AIDS. It was a powerful, beautiful book that made me proud of my faith. She's recently come out with a follow up book called No More Goodbyes, a book that tells the stories of LDS young men who commit suicide because they are homosexuals. She sees herself as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS, and she feels called to this work of impacting the lives and arousing the consciences of LDS people.

Christopher Kimball Bigelow, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":

This author uses humor as a bridge between the LDS and the non-LDS. He said that good literature of any genre portrays what it's like to be a human being. Mormon lit misses the mark when it is agenda-driven.

Emma Lou Thayne, Panel "Mormon Writing: Promised Land or No Man's Land?":

Ms. Thayne is an 83-year-old poet and the author of several hymns. She is a real treasure! Everyone knows who she is and she seems to know everyone else connected to words in the state. She said that good writing is all about sifting, sifting, sifting until you are left with the essentials only. Good writing is always a product of what is thought, felt, and believed. She facilitated the discussion and interjected periodically with very insightful comments and observations. What a delight to see her in action!

Book Club Panel:

I decided to go to this panel discussion because for some time now I've considered forming my own book club. The one I've been attending for several years now (and thoroughly enjoy as a women's discussion group) rarely selects quality books to read. I'd like a more serious book club for booklovers. Maybe we just need to modify the one we have and make it into what it could be...

Jane Hamilton, "Literary Confessions: The Worst Thing I Ever Did":

I can't say enough good things about this session! She was FANTASTIC! Ms. Hamilton is the writer of several bestsellers, including two Oprah Winfrey selections: The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World. I have never read any of her books, but I bought two tonight and will soon get started. She was hilariously funny and obviously brilliant...As a writer she said she starts with character, voice, trouble, and a setting and usually knows the last line of the book before she begins. She says she wrote initially out of rage because she had no time or space to write, no babysitter, and no money. Her first book was rejected about 30 times.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History":

The historian (see above) spoke about what history is: 1) what happened, 2) based upon surviving sources, 3) reconstructed by later generations who have some interest in it. She has explored how history was made by women, common, ordinary women for the most part, women who talked back or misbehaved, nudging world events along. She recounted another historian's observation that if women's libbers had been burning girdles instead of bras everyone would have been on board. (Huge laughter and applause!)

Now my head is aching from hanging on so many words. My face is tired from smiling. I have laundry to do, as always. They really should come up with a 4-letter word for laundry. As the great equalizer it deserves one.

Home Alone Watching "Old Joy"

It's Firday night and the entire family is gone to watch the local high school football game. I stayed behind to watch an 'art film', Old Joy - I haven't decided yet whether or ot to recommend it in a general way. (I would recommend it to a very particular audience.) But it has me thinking...

The most thought-provoking concept in the film for me was the statement: 'Sorrow is just warn-out joy.' If that is true, and I would say that in many cases it is, then it makes sorrow more bearable and even a bit beautiful. Maybe human beings can learn to see through sorrow to the joy that makes sorrow more exquisite.

The film is about old friends, both male, who have moved on with their lives but get back together for an overnight camping trip to a place called Bagby Hot Springs in Oregon. They seem to have little in common, except that they were roommates at one time in the past. The man who appears to have his life in order, with a job, a wife, and a baby on the way, is riddled with internalized questions, while the Rip-Van-Winkle, 21st century hippie beleves he understands everything at a metaphysical level. (He may understand reality, but he avoids it at the same time, using drugs and alcohol in virtually every scene.)

The movie poses the following questions: What is friendship? Why do we care about old friends who really have little place in our current lives? Can two people of the same gender touch without sexual meaning? Why is nature therapeutic, even healing?

I only stopped watching the movie an hour ago, and already it is growing on me. It's the kind of movie that feels like real time, like actual experience. I think that I would recommend it to people who like art films or people who are trying to figure out the nature of friendship and its role in our lives.

"Love in the Time of Cholera" from My Library

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to finish our home and added a library in an unfinished corner of the ground floor. It's a small room, a nook really, with a glass door, a large window, and floor to ceiling built-in maple bookcases. I am sitting in this room now and I have just finished re-organizing it. Our books primarily deal with the following topics: religion, home improvement, children's chapter books, children's picture books, health, science, history, academic review course materials, travel, arts and crafts, accounting and business, foreign language, atlases, coffee table books, yearbooks/scrapbooks, and literature, which is the largest collection by far.

Most likely because of my background as an English major, I always mark passages in the books I read. I started doing this originally so that I could recall significant events for tests and essays. Today I do it so that I can thumb through books I read and recall exactly why I liked them so much, how they affected me and why.

For this entry I will share some significant passages from "Love in the Time of Cholera," the first book I read by the author Gabriel Garcia-Marquez:

...she had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love. p.66

He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past....He had been an easy victim to the charitable deceptions of nostalgia. p. 106

...he allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. p.165

The only convincing document he could write was a love letter. p.171

She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children, but because of the friendship formed while raising them. p.207

She would visit with new friends or some old ones from school or the painting classes: an innocent substitute for infidelity. p.212

She had barely turned the corner into maturity, free at last of illusions, when she began to detect the disillusionment of never having been what she had dreamed of being when she was young....Instead, she was something she never dared admit even to herself: a deluxe servant. p.221

Men blossomed in a kind of autumnal youth, they seemed more dignified with their first gray hairs, they became witty and seductive, above all in the eyes of young women, while their withered wives had to clutch at their arms so as not to trip over their own shadows. A few years later, however, the husbands fell without warning down the precipice of a humiliating aging in body and soul, and then it was their wives who recovered and had to lead them by the arm as if they were blind men, whispering in their ear, as if not to wound their masculine pride, that they should be careful, that there were three steps, not two, that there was a puddle in the middle of the street...p.257

For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death. p.345

Movie Review: License to Wed

While most of my family members sat reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" this afternoon, I went to the movies to see License to Wed. Some of the comic elements were juvenile, yes, but I went in knowing that this was not going to be great cinema. It was exactly what it purported to be: an entertaining diversion and a chic flick.

John Krasinski and Mandy Moore play an engaged couple who are very much in love. This requires a chemistry that is difficult to project, but they made a convincingly adoreable couple. I was familiar with Krasinski's ability as an actor, but Mandy Moore was a pleasant surprise. Robin Williams, in his role as Father Frank, was typically over-the-top in his performance. He was somewhat unpredictable, nonetheless, which is always welcome in chic flicks. He looked older in this film than I had seen him before, and I liked his more mature appearance. He reminded me of an older Mickey Rooney.

Call me old-fashioned, but the only truly offensive aspect of the film to me was its repeated assumption that all couples engage in premarital sex. While the vast majority of couples may sleep together before marriage, there are thousands of couples who observe more traditional standards, and their numbers are on the rise again after decades of decline. I suppose in Hollywood it would have been considered grossly unrealistic to expect the couple to be in love without having sex -- they are probably not even aware that anyone in the real world ever waits. I was pleased that the film did at least point out that statistically couples who live together before marriage are much more likely to divorce. The film's oddly averse attitude toward divorce (one character's divorce was treated as a great moral failing) seemed at odds with its anti-abstinence position.

So if you are a) female, b) not expecting high drama, and c) not severely offended by the assumption that there is no such thing as wedding night consummation anymore, I can recommend this movie to you. *** (out of 5)

Starting Over at Hello

I am starting over at hello with this blog, because I just accidentally deleted it -- and I already had two whole entries. Oh, well. I am still learning. At least I was able to recoup my title before someone else claimed it.

I am titling this blog "Writer @ Home" because that is what I am or, rather, what I aspire to be: a productive, publishing writer working from home. I am currently blogging from my kitchen table, where I am staring into the screen of my laptop as words appear magically on a synthetic page. (A real page would not have deleted itself, so technology is not always preferable - that may become a recurring theme if I do not learn quickly how to avoid such mishaps.)

Now, why I am blogging?

a) to express myself. I may be an intellectual exhibitionist, though I had never thought of it in those terms before. (The intellectual part is also open for debate. I welcome your comments.) -

b) to have daily practice writing on a variety of topics.

c) to analyze myself, though in my case self-analysis often leads to paralysis.

d) to provide a forum for posting photographs, book reviews, etc.

e) to serve as a journal.

No one knows about this blog, its address, etc. but if you have stumbled upon it, or if I have invited you to read it, please know that you are welcome here. I must consider you a friend, so imagine yourself stopping by for a chat and make yourself at home. I'll make the cocoa.