Favorite books of 2021

It was a good reading year.  I read a lot of plot, too, and recently discovered James Patterson (I have a well-documented love for Linda Fairstein, David Baldacci, Michael Connelley, and John Grisham, and Patterson joins this pantheon).  But thought it was interesting to reflect on some of my favorite reads from this year.  I’m interested in what you loved, too!

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr – without question my #1, by a mile.  I adored this book.  Adored, adored, adored.  As I said on Instagram, “This is a simply extraordinary tale, which does that most exalted thing books can do: touches on what it means to be a thinking, feeling human being in the world.”

No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) – Kate Bowler – I loved Bowler’s first book and this one even more.  It’s a gorgeous exploration of what you learn and think about when you suddenly contemplate dying in your 30s.  I underlined so many passages.  This is a beautiful book.

Great Circle – Maggie Shipstead – This was my #1 of the year until I read the Doerr this fall.  Shipstead’s book is a soaring story of strength, resilence, and pursuing a dream, and the arc of a flight over the world echoes in the narrative.  Just glorious.

A Children’s Bible – Lydia Millet – This slender dystopian novel packs a powerful punch.  I’m still thinking about it 6 months later.  Completely haunting.

Monogamy – Sue Miller – I loved this story about long marriage and midlife, and particularly loved that it’s set not just in my home town but in my actual neighborhood.  Even more thrilling is that Dani Shapiro is writing the film adapatation!  I can’t wait!

The Paper Palace – Miranda Cowley Heller – I found this book profoundly evocative of my childhood summers near Cape Cod, and I also think the central question, of the one who got away in the context of a happy and contented marriage, is very interesting and not frequently explored.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted – Suleika Jaouad – I found this book inspiring and gloriously written, and it made me look around my ordinary life with (even) more awareness than usual.

Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell – I absolutely loved this book’s exploration of Hamlet from another angle, and the observations O’Farrell makes on marriage and the ways that grief and memory echo through our lives.

What were your favorite books this year?  

Disclosure: these are Amazon links

Always turning

I miss writing here.  A year has flown by, full of change and turmoil and so much love, too.  We are six days away from turning back to the light: some people find it surprising that I feel the winter solstice is a far more optimistic day than the summer solstice, but I do.  I’ve written at length of my family’s long-time love for and celebration of the solstice.  It’s Adrienne Rich’s words I feel most keenly at this time of year:

… we are moving towards the solstice, and there is still so much here I do not understand.

I have loved those words since I wrote my senior thesis in college on Adrienne Rich, and every year they continue to speak to me.  They say something a little different each year.  They always remind me of another quote (Adrienne Rich and Don Henley are funny paragraph-mates, I think every time) that I think of often:

… the more I know, the less I understand.

And yes.  I understand so little.  As I move deeper into midlife, there is so much of this world that I’ve seen, and still so much unseen.  I’ve always been fascinated by why certain words and memories rise in our minds when they do, and today the quotes and words that are surfacing are all about that we can see and that we can’t, about loving this world even when we don’t understand it, about how much surpasses our ability to fully grok (one of my favorite words) it.

The closing of each year offers a moment to reflect, and I think everyone should take it.  When I look at our lives, so much is the same as it was a year ago, but that belies the work and change that happened as well.  We are still in the same house, we are still a family of four with two much-loved grandmothers and a small tribe of nieces, nephews, brothers, and sisters.  We have the same two jobs, which we are fortunate to like (Matt) and to truly, deeply love (me).  And we are still, blessedly, healthy and safe.  And we are still reading about rising covid cases and unsure what the future holds.  That’s one constant, right: the uncertainty of tomorrow.  A parent’s sudden death will remind you of that, I can speak confidently here: nothing is promised.  Say what you want to say since who knows if you’ll have another chance.  Say I love you.  Hug.

And so much is different, too.  Whit drives now.  Grace graduated from high school and is in both college and the last year of her teens.  We have a dog that we all adore.  We almost moved to the suburbs in 2021 but decided ultimately to stay where we are and to renovate our small city home.  My mother moved out of the large home she and my father shared for 30 years to a smaller one-bedroom condo around the corner, which entailed a lot of pruning, cleaning, sorting, and giving away.  I’m so happy she made the move, but it was no small feat.  Hilary and I spent a lot of time together this spring, laughing a lot and crying a little as we unearthed memory upon memory.

As always, the border between light and dark fascinates me.  I have long been drawn to the edges of things, to the liminal.  I think it’s not an accident that I’m a mid-August baby, born right as summer quietly begins to turn to fall.  Next week, right at the moment of the deepest dark, we turn back to the light. I know better than to say 2022 is going to be “our year” or to really focus on any kind of specific hope (hope has always been troublesome to me as a concept, because it’s so quickly attached to a singular outcome, which can be so problematic).  What I want at the close of 2021 is to honor all the changes, transitions, and joys of this singular year, even as we acknowledge what the year lacked (much travel, seeing a lot of people, Dad).

Grace sent me a photo last week of something she’d seen in DC that said “this too shall pass.”  Said it reminded her of me.  And it reminds me of my father.  He always said that, and he was right.  The good and the bad.  It’s all transient, always changing, always turning.  Life itself.  All we can do is pay attention to the swirl around us.  And give thanks for the opportunity to be here.

Thank you.  Happy holidays. I hope to write more in 2022.

 

Things I Love Lately

Wow … it’s been a minute!  I’m eager to hear what you are reading, thinking about, and loving lately.

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr’s latest is my favorite book of many years. This is a simply extraordinary tale, which does that most exalted thing books can do: touches on what it means to be a thinking, feeling human being in the world. I loved All the Light but I ADORED Cloud Cuckoo Land. This book is about books, about language, about the power of story to inspire, protect, and keep us. Run don’t walk. Absolutely remarkable.

Andrew Garfield on grief – Wow.  Just wow.  This is an extraordinary video that made me weep and made me nod and made me feel grateful to be in this world.  Perhaps because of the point below I am feeling particularly porous this week but I think everyone should watch this (and if you know me you know how resistant I am to watching video on the computer). Thank you to my friend of many years Meghan Jarvis for pointing me to it.

Thanksgiving – The sunset above was from the other night, no filter, from my office window.  I shared it with these words on Instagram: This will always be an emotional week for me. Four years ago Thanksgiving was the last time I saw my father. On 11/26/17 he died suddenly of a suspected heart attack. Thanksgiving was already our family’s big holiday – for decades we celebrated at my parents’ house in Marion with between 25 and 40 people, two turkey, ties, toasts, and an after dinner walk to the yacht club. And in 2017 it was especially sentimental because we had just lost Matt’s dad. On thanksgiving day I posted lines from one of my favorite poems, by Merwin: “and we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is.” It was about to get a lot darker. And I kept waving and saying thank you. Still am. I remember my last conversation with Dad, which was about books. Thanksgiving looks different now – this year we will host, and it’s going to be a lot smaller. But the themes of family and tradition and loyalty and love remain. And for that I’m so, so grateful.

Grace is home!  Grace surprised us on Friday night and is home for a whole week which is heaven.  I love having both Whit and Grace at home.

 

Nineteen

Dear Grace,

Today you’re nineteen.  It’s not an exaggeration to say that I love being your mother more every year.  This year was full of transition and more than a few challenges.  You weathered a strange senior year with a lot of covid restrictions (“jail” is an analogy I heard a lot).  You spent several days quarantining alone an hour away from home when you had covid and it was during those days that you hear from most of the colleges you’d applied to.  You showed grit I’ve never seen before and it made me so very proud.

Over the summer you worked two jobs and it was probably more than you’d have chosen but you did it.  Then, the start of college was tough when you were randomly placed on the secondary campus which is a 15 minute drive away.  But you figured out a way to advocate for yourself and after Dad found a senior housing dean you took it upon yourself to meet with him and to make your case.  You got moved to the main campus.

It is a sheer joy to watch you fly, Grace.  You have maturity and poise and a very good sense of what matters.  You call your grandmothers every couple of weeks.  You write thank you notes. You look people in the eye. You are organized and hard working and your executive function is off the charts.  You’re still figuring out what your one guiding passion is and our conversations about this remind me of mine with my father when I was your age.

My amazing Grace – thank you for making me a mother all those years ago.  I adore you and I couldn’t possibly be prouder of you.  I’m so glad I can spend today with you.

Happy 19, GBP.

Cross-country metaphors

My Google Photo memories are full of xc  photos in the autumn.  Grace ran starting in 6th grade and varsity starting in 8th.  I have a lot of photographs and I miss watching cross-country meets.  I maintain it is one of the purest of the sports.  I always loved that it was also one in which you cannot buy an advantage.  Unlike so many other sports, there are precious few clubs for middle and high schoolers.  Being from privilege doesn’t help you at all.  You lace up.  And you go.  All you have is your mettle, your commitment, your legs, and your heart.

It’s also a sport full of metaphors.  I wrote about these metaphors over the years: how to handle the races that don’t go according to plan, the importance of who you run with and pace yourself by, managing the anxiety before a race and learning that the worst part is the minutes before the gun goes off, and the grit required to just keep going, no matter what.

And cross-country also offers my favorite parenting metaphor: you start out up close.  You cheer from right beside your child as they take off.  You watch closely.  Then they go into the woods and you lose sight of them.  And you keep cheering.  You trust they’ll emerge from the woods.  And you’re still there, cheering, watching, waiting.

I don’t know a better analogy for parenting a teenager, I really don’t.

Google reminded me of this photo today, and I feel nostalgic for the running days.  And grateful that I was there for so many of them.