Just Checking In

I want to shout from the rooftops that IT'S ALMOST SPRING!!! And I am determined not to miss it. Each day as I drive by several parks collecting kids from school I look at the blades of grass on the ground -- tufts of green amid the golden, matted grass of fall. I've examined the ends of the branches of trees in our yard -- buds are in place, ready to split open with new growth. I can hardly wait.

I like spring and I like fall. Winter and summer are fine when observed from a climate controlled car or home, but spring and fall are glorious inside and out.

Book Review: MISTER PIP by Lloyd Jones

 

At long last, I have finished reading the novel, Mister Pip, written by Lloyd Jones. My copy of this novel was published in 2008. I've probably been reading it for three or four years!!! And it's only 256 pages long. My aunt recommended it to me years ago.

It's the first person narrative of a young woman named Matilda living on an island that is under siege as a small pawn in a multi-island war. She is a young teenager when the book begins and often at odds with her mother, who seems proud, dogmatic and unreasonable. The mother, of course, is worried about the war, her absent husband and her daughter's salvation and physical safety - but from the girl's perspective (and the reader's as well) the mother is simply difficult. We don't discover her super-human strength until late in the book, when it becomes impossible not to admire her, despite her obvious flaws. I will never forget the mother's heroism in her final act of defiance.

With war ravaging the island, they ask Mr. Watts, the island's only white resident, if he will teach school since all of their real teachers have fled. He agrees to do so, but he is not a teacher, so he spends much of every class period reading aloud from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. The children are entranced by the story of Pip, which takes them away from their war-torn island to 19th century England, providing a much-needed escape. The children return to their huts at night and share story developments with their parents, who have no other source of entertainment. The entire island is caught up in the book, until the book disappears. The children and Mr. Watts then try to re-create the book in fragments from memory. Mathilda, our narrator, remembers it best and is Mr. Watts' favorite pupil.

When evil soldiers arrive to destroy all of their possessions and terrorize the residents of the village, Mr. Watts tells them his name is Mr. Pip. He regales them with mostly true but sometimes made-up tales of his life, hoping to escape the island on a boat at the end of the seven-night story.

I won't tell you how it ends, but it is shocking and disturbing -- man's inhumanity to man (and woman), man's (and woman's) humanity and bravery, young woman's instinct to survive and, later, thrive, despite the devastations of war.

These things happen. We go on. We remember. We will never forget.
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Here are some fragments from the book:

* "I want this to be a place of light," he said, "no matter what happens." He paused for us to digest this....For the first time we were hearing that the future was uncertain.

* When Mr. Watts read to us we fell quiet. It was a new sound in the world. He read slowly so we heard the shape of each word.

* in a book -- no one had told us kids to look there for a friend.

* Stories have a job to do. They can't just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.

* I discovered the value of four walls and a roof. Something about containment that at the same time offers escape. .... What they had kept safe was more than our possessions; our houses had concealed our selves that no one else ever saw.

* A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe.

*Dreams are nervy things. All it takes is for one stern word to be spoken in their direction and they shrivel up and die.

* I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you.

Only 8 Posts in 2012?

I received a scam email this morning -- a comment trying to post to my blog. In fact, I didn't realize it was a scam until just now, hours later, looking at it again. Anyway, it got me looking at my blog again and realizing I have only posted 8 times this year! I have the sense that blogs have become passe, but I miss writing here and will try to write more consistently, whether or not anyone is reading my posts.

It's like leaving my diary open on a public park bench, but I am a little more guarded than that. In fact, other than universal emotions, I don't reveal a whole lot of personal information on this blog or on Facebook or in any other public place. That is intentional, of course.

But I am so glad for the scam email because it took me to other comments waiting to post and I was thrilled to see that someone else, Dianna Lord, is trying to find Mrs. Sanders, my/our all-time favorite teacher. [I've had many great teachers, but she was truly unique.] Dianna had her a year or two earlier than me in a different school, I think. I will email her now and find out what she has found out in the quest to find Mrs. Barbara Ann Sanders, teacher extraordinaire.

Don't know why...What happened?

I can't believe I am writing on my blog again. When Blogger made changes to their site, I couldn't figure it out and quickly gave up. Today I had to look at the blog to check something and there it was, as plain as could be, as easy (almost) as it used to be.

I'm BAAAAACK!

And it feels good. Missed my internet outlet.

What has happened since I last wrote? A lot, and yet not much. Instead of looking backward to catch up, I will look forward, or better yet, live in the ever-ephemeral NOW.


So it is late. Thanks a late afternoon nap I am the only person awake in the house, with the possible exception of my daughter Abby who bought a new, much anticipated  book this evening at Barnes & Noble. She is probably lying awake directly above me reading in her bed.

I had two pieces of taco pizza tonight while writing under deadline to enter an essay contest. I wanted more than two pieces but couldn't pause to eat.

New wrinkles appeared on my forehead this week. They are faintly etched but nonetheless noticeable lines. I am considering bangs.

Battle lines are being drawn in the civil war known as presidential politics. I am, of course, still smitten with Mitt, but I have friends and relatives on Facebook who are equally (if that is possible?) passionate about Obama. They are too cynical to believe that things can be better, so they are determined to re-elect the current president. They think Romney cannot possibly understand them because he has been relatively wealthy all of his life, as though the amount of money in one's bank account is directly proportionate with one's levels of empathy and integrity. The fact that Barack Obama will garner millions of votes in November boggles the mind. Truly, 'boggles' is the right word. I am boggled. But I don't spend a lot of time trying to convince anyone about politics, probably because I have never successfully persuaded anyone. I am beginning to suspect that there is a genetic component to one's political tendancies. I'm not smart enough to figure this one out.

I've probably mentioned this on the blog before, but in high school and college I was a debater. I could debate anything with anyone from any angle, and sometimes I would win whole tournaments. It was exhilerating! But somewhere along the way I figured out that there are very few things worth arguing about. Peace is so much better than contention! And people are entitled their own opinions, just as I am entitled to mine. I will even allow for the possibility that an opinion different from my own may be right.

There are some things worth fighting about, but those are mostly matters of life and death, including spiritual life and death. I will fight for someone's life or soul, but for very little else.

Original Photo: Bowls of Fruit in Evening Light

I noticed the light was landing on these bowls of fruit just beautifully one evening, so I grabbed my camera. This picture reminds me of a famous painting I have seen, but I don't know the artist or title. If you know, please tell me!

Interesting Thought on Self-Discipline and Self-Respect

From Smithsonian magazine:

"Imagine for a moment that you are Henry Morton Stanley early one morning in 1887, long after his first journey into Africa as a journalist, when he'd become famous by finding the Scottish missionary Dr. Livingstone. You emerge from your tent in the Ituri Rain Forest in Africa. It's dark. It's been dark for months. Your stomach, long since ruined by parasites, recurrent diseases and massive doses of quinine and other medicines, is in even worse shape than usual. You and your men have been reduced to eating berries, roots, fungi, grubs, caterpillars, ants and slugs - when you're lucky enough to find them. Dozens of people were so crippled - from hunger, disease, injuries and festering sores - that they had to be left behind at a spot in the Forest grimly referred to as Starvation Camp. You've taken the healthier ones ahead to look for food, but they've been dropping dead along the way, and there's still no food to be found. But as of this morning, you're still not dead. Now that you've arisen, what do you do?

For Stanley, this was an easy decision: shave. As his wife, Dorothy Tennant, whom he married in 1890, would later recall: "He had often told me that, on his various expeditions, he had made it a rule, always to shave carefully. In the Great Forest, in 'Starvation Camp,' on the mornings of battle, he had never neglected this custom, however great the difficulty." Stanley himself once said, "I always presented as decent an appearance as possible, both for self-discipline and for self-respect."

Original Photography: Scenes from San Francisco