Born in the 60's

 I turn 50 this year.  Lot's of things were born in 1969.  Sesame Street, Woodstock, the Stonewall Riots, men walking on the moon, Belikan Beer (Hey Belize!  I see your Go Slow selves out there!).  So many things turn 50 this year.  Including me.   Any time there is a season of momentous change and innovation, inevitably, the times preceding it are rife with unrest and disequilibrium.  I give you, 1968.

My friend Jennifer is a super-smart writer and she contributed to my current read: 1968: Today's Authors Explore a Year of Rebellion, Revolution, and Change. 

It is an anthology of non-fiction stories revolving around the climate of rebellion and unrest and revolution and, ultimately, change that made up 1968.  I'm eager to read her work.  I'm eager to read all the work.  Am I eager to turn 50?  Well, I suppose that is yet to be seen.  I might be up for some rebellion, some revolution, and certainly some change.

Nothing New Under the Sun

I've just finished Daddy-Long Legs by Jean Webster, who, interestingly enough was the Great Niece of Mark Twain.  I guess it has always paid to know the right people in the world of publishing.  In any case, when I started reading this book, I was taken with how sweet and innocent it was.  The adorable story told in a series of letters, of a young orphaned girl sent to college by an anonymous benefactor.  Now that I'm done, honestly, I'm a little creeped out.  No spoilers here, but reading this through a modern lens gave me pause and reminded me how entrenched we are in predatory behavior masquerading as saviourism, especially on the part of wealthy, white men.  We've been conditioned to see it as romance, especially through this whole schoolgirl romance genre so popular in pre-WWI America, continuing well into the present day.  Pretty Woman anyone?  Hello, creepy predator played by Richard Gere. All we have to do is read the headline news see that not a whole lot has changed. 

I've made this deal with myself that for the rest of the year, the bulk of my books would come from the discard box at the used bookstore where I spend one day a week.   This may or may not be a decision that I am thrilled with but it will be an interesting experiment nonetheless.  Needless to say, I'm reading absolutely nothing that any of my people are reading or even have read in the past decade or so.  This month alone I've read: Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen, a mystery/suspense novel set in the Florida Everglades,  Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith, the story of a young couple's first year of marriage, taking place in a 1920's Midwestern college town, and I am now knee-deep in Jean Webster's classic Daddy-Long Legs written in 1912 about a young, orphaned girl who is sent to college at the behest of an anonymous benefactor.  I'm pretty sure I haven't read this last book since I was in junior high.   I'm also relatively confident that no one in my world is reading it, although, it's pretty darn sweet and I wish I could think of someone else who would want to read it too. 

The thing is, I have such a deep sadness to see good books ignored and forgotten.  I'm like the lady with 15 cats.  I want to rescue them all.

Bipolar kayak ecotours, Seminole identity raising, telemarketers, private investigators and assault by crabs.  This book has it all. 

I'm only part way through this book.  I have nothing to say as of yet, except, it is so darn sweet and exactly what I wanted to read when I was in 4th and 5th grade.  The only difference now is that I'm almost 50.  I still want to read the same sorts of things, well-written books.

Loosely based on the author's own first year of marriage, this book is full of Americana that we so frequently and conveniently forget.  Also, Betty Smith wrote one of my all-time favorite novels, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. So there's that.

Used Bookstores

I'm volunteering in a used bookstore once a week.  It's a small place with lots of stacks of unshelved books and my big ol' behind knocked over one of those stacks a while back while shopping.  Feeling horrible about adding to the mess, I felt like an appropriate penance was to come in once a week, unpaid, to shelve and organize books.  What I didn't know was that I would LOVE THIS SO MUCH!  Seriously, this might be the only job-type thing I have ever done that I have felt so good at.  Usually, when I have a job, I feel like a complete and utter loser.  I'm not very good at anything compensable, and, thus, felt like I was under the executioner's blade most every time I walked through the office door, no matter what office I was in.  

In the Bookery, however, all of those feelings have gone away.  It's the most confident I have ever felt in a work environment, even though it's not really my job and I am not getting paid and I really cannot get fired as I was never hired in the first place.  Nevertheless, it's awesome and I am extraordinarily happy to go every week.

As it is a small shop and people are Marie Kondo-ing the shit out of their bookshelves right now, we have more books than we have space.  Because of that, I am culling out books that are not being sought out by, well, anyone.  I take boxes of those books to a local community library to seed their collection and for their book sale.  They can get away with selling books for a quarter.  

As I was unloading a box one week, I decided that I was going to read some of those "unloved" books, hoping to find a hidden gem.  Kinds of Love by May Sarton is not that gem.  I am having such a very, very, VERY hard time getting into it and if you've read several posts back, giving up is not an option.  Sigh.  

I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie

I'm heading out on vacation with my family at the end of this week.  Several legs of plane travel, lots of sitting in beach chair time, not a whole lot of suitcase room.  Here is my dilemma: do I, at the risk of shoulder injury, pack one really big book in my carry on or, sacrifice suitcase space and have several books at the ready?  Kindle isn't an option because I don't want to read books on a screen.  I've tried it and I don't like it.  I don't like how I physically feel slightly dizzy when I use an e-reader.  The tactile experience of rubbing the corner of a page before I turn it is comforting.  A nice thought, but not for me at this point in my life.

I'm leaning toward the former.  I came home from the Bookery with a copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.  It's a huge book with SO MANY PAGES.  That sounds like a lovely beach read, don't you think?  I'll keep you posted.

One Way to Solve an Odd Little Problem

I have an unusual problem.  Once I start to read a book I feel compelled to finish it, no matter how dreadful or dull it might be.  I can count on one hand (plus maybe an extra finger or two) the number of books that I have abandoned.  It just doesn't happen.

Having that odd little problem means that I have had to develop several coping mechanisms in order to not get forever stuck in that one book that is JUST SO BORING or so poorly written (I'm looking at you Christian Romance novels.  Blunt, unblinking stare right at you).  My go-to solution is to pick up another book to get the juices flowing again, to distract me from how much the former book was killing my love of reading.

I have found myself in that very situation this week.  The book I am reading is not keeping my interest in the slightest, although I have hope it will pick up soon.  In the meantime, I have started Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.  A friend of mine handed this to me during trivia night at our local brewery and promised me that I would love it.  She's not wrong.

High Heels and Big Words

People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal but they love the idea of being superior.

                                                                 James Baldwin
                                                                "Letter from a Region of My Mind" 

There was a person in my life who I had very hard feelings about.  Being around this person shot my anxiety through the top of my head and made me feel as though my heart and lungs were going to explode.  I felt nauseated at the mere thought of being around them and every minute I was, all I could think about was getting away.  Sadly, there was no way around seeing this person and trying to explain my feelings to anyone just felt, and sounded like, whiny complaining.  I was trapped and could not shake the physical reactions I was having every time I had to be in the same place as this person.  I was also deep in the throes of depression and grief and was years away from finding a therapist who would help me.  So I did what came naturally to someone like me.  I was petty.  Petty like a middle school girl, petty.  Find the weakest spot and dig right in there, petty.  Not kind, not attractive, not recommended behavior in the least.

This person was very short.  I am tall.  Every time I had the opportunity, I wore the highest heels that I possibly could and stood tall with my shoulders back and my head held high.  A demented power pose of sorts.   It did nothing and I am sure no one knew what I was doing, but in a sick way, it did make me feel superior and powerful and that I wasn't going to let them win.

An odd quirk of mine is that I have a larger vocabulary than most of the folks in my circles, with a few notable exceptions.  Even so, I tend to keep my daily usage relatively common.  Being teased for my big words for most of my life by people just as petty as I was certainly made an impression.  Also, my mouth moves a whole lot faster than my brain does, and more often than not, the words I know do not seem to make it all the way out.  Aging is a bitch.  All that aside, this person, while educated, spoke at the level of a high school student on social media.  Petty me, using the only weapons I could get ahold of at the time, used the biggest words I could get away with in conversations that this person was either a part of or even adjacent to.  I was so arrogant in my words.  When I was growing up my mother always said that my tongue was my sharpest sword.  She had no idea.  Again, I'm sure that no one knew what I was doing, but it was the only armor I had at the time to deflect the imaginary daggers I was sure this person was shooting at me.

I didn't want to be equal to this person.  I didn't want to make things right or build a relationship.  I was hurt and sad and in my own trifling mind, I only wanted to be superior.  Being equal would require humility and compromise on my part.  Being equal would ask me to give up some things that I held pretty closely for the sake of a relationship.  Being equal felt like too much work and that I would be getting the short end of the stick if I entered into the process.  So I went with superior. Superior meant keeping them small and reminding them, continually, of their smallness.

It made me feel better momentarily, but it didn't work.  I did not win.  No one even knew I was fighting the battle.  I only appeared as I was acting, petty and immature.

I still wear high heels and use big words, but not for the same reasons as before.  No longer superior, just fabulous.

 If you want to read the book