Keeping Calm When Change Is All Around

"Possibility" - Mixed Media:
-acrylic paint, magazine scraps and jell pen.

It's been one week since I received some life changing news - due to budget cuts and seniority issues my teaching position for next year is no longer mine.  Now what I am asking myself? I have a job until June, but what comes next? Do I want to stay in public education? Do I want to go in an entirely new direction?

One thing is for certain, I have turned to reading for solace and finding it in Bernadette Murphy's Zen and the Art of Knitting: Exploring the links between knitting, spirituality, and creativity. I began reading Murphy's book even before the bad news came as I was drawn to the title because of my own fondness for knitting. Like Murphy herself and the knitters she interviewed, I find peace when knitting. She writes about the calm that comes over one when she's knitting that is like the experience others have when engaging in focusing on the breath or a mantra while meditating.

So how does this tie in with the loss of my job? I found the some words of wisdom on page 126, spoken by a former film producer turned professional artist who stated that when she finally decided to pursue the creative life there were no rules to follow so she had to forge her own path. "I just did what I had to do. And you know what? .... The world will let you do it."

There you go - words to live by. I don't know what the path ahead of me will be, but I can take comfort in knowing that I will be following in the footsteps of others who have gone bravely into that uncharted territory, and I too will learn to follow my own passions in order to fashion the next phase of my life.

Bread and the food of life

Art Journal Pages - "Charmed Life"

It's the simple things in life that can either bring the most joy or be our biggest challenge. Take food for example, we need it to live but too much of it and then it becomes a health issue. I have struggled all my life with my weight. I certainly know what healthy eating looks like, but for me food is more than energy, it can soothe my weary soul.

Reading can do that for me as well. When my brain is overflowing with thoughts, picking up a book can help me to escape the vortex that is building up inside. Sourdough or, Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan turned out to be a book that nourished my soul on a day that I needed comfort.

Lois a young programmer for a robotics company lives a very sheltered life in the bustling city of San Francisco. She follows the lead of several of her co-workers who are meeting their nutritional needs by drinking a product they refer to as Slurry. Lois begins to consume (because eating would be the wrong word here) it three times a day. On her doorstep she finds a flyer for a little takeout place offering spicy soup and bread. She orders. She gets hooked. But when the work visas for the operators of the business expire they must leave the country but not without giving her a parting gift - a crock of sourdough starter. Now her adventures really begin.

I've found myself reading a lot of stories in this same vein - character is living an unsatisfying life, event happens to upend the status quo, change happens leading to the discovery of a new way of living. I guess it is a sign that my life is not going the way I want it to. I read Sloan's book in the course of a day off from work. I needed to leave my life behind while I went with my mother into Boston for a visit with her oncologist. A day of tests and lots of waiting. A day filled with the unspoken worry "has the cancer come back?" The answer - no. Thank God.

Getting a medical diagnosis is one of those events that turns your world upside down. The worrying can consume you and you need to find a way to deal with it, or at least avoid it for a little while. Reading for me helps at times like these. I want to thank the authors who have helped me during the difficult times of life - you made it possible for me to survive them.

Learning from The World's Strongest Librarian

Unbeliever's Prayer - John Gunther, Jr.
Art Journal Piece

The third Nor'easter in twelve days means another snow day on which to be able to finish up reading the current title on my bedside table - The World's Strongest Librarian: A book lover's adventures by Josh Hanagarne.  How could I not be drawn to a title like this one, for aren't I a book lover too? From the earliest age, even still in the womb, Josh's mother took him to the public library where he fell in love with books and reading. Reading would become a key coping skill as he dealt with his Tourette Syndrome diagnosis. It was fascinating to learn first hand what life is like for someone with this disorder and how Josh strove to calm the tics. It wasn't easy. He struggled to get through school, his Mormon mission experience, and through the work day.

It was his passion for books that finally led him to find his life's work as a librarian, "saving lives and worlds isn't in my purview....Saving minds, however ... perhaps it's not as farfetched. (p. 208)" He goes on to talk about the power of a mind that continues always to think, to question, to search: "The mind that asks and experiments and evaluates will die one day, but will provide a richer life for its owner. The mind that does nothing but rest inside the brain doesn't sidestep the puddle. It's sitting in it. (p. 208)" How powerful is that! That is my worst fear in life - losing my mind. Not only do we struggle to keep our bodies under control, and Hanagarne knows more than most of us that battle, but to work to keep our minds intact is something we must all work at. There are days as a teacher that I encounter a student who has stopped asking why, who has no desire to keep learning, who wants the right answer without working to find it for themselves, who is afraid of being creative, who fails to take the risk - and my heart breaks. And I ask myself - what kind of life is that?

Another part of Hanagarne's story is his travels down the road along the journey of faith. He was raised in the Mormon church, but when he hit his early twenties began to doubt and question. I could sympathize with him for as someone raised in the Roman Catholic tradition I too have had to question mainly the difference between belief in God and belief in a religion. Like Hanagarne who by the end of the book implies he's still trying to figure it out, so am I. In reading Will Schwalbe's Books for Living, I came across his quotation of "The Unbeliever's Prayer" written by John Gunther, Jr in May of 1946. John was a teenager dying of a brain tumor and himself struggling with the issue of faith. (His story is told by his father John Gunther in the memoir Death Be Not Proud) I created the piece above in my art journal, finding the words of this prayer to have deep meaning.

Being a book lover allows me, Schwalbe, and Hanagarne to go on adventures into countless worlds real or imaginary. Those books teach us lessons that allow us to grow and evolve into the people we are and will be. I am where I am today because of the books I've read. Where will I be in five years? Who knows but I will be a different person then because of the experiences I will have lived through and the books I have read.

Digging in, staying put, and blooming

Living the dream - a collection of
magazine clippings 

In need of something different to read, I turned once more to memoir. On the library shelf was Jerusalem Jackson Greer's At Home in this Life. Intrigued by reading the back cover blurb something resonated with me, so home the book went with me.

Greer opens with describing  a "terrible year" that she had lived through. I knew exactly what that consisted for I had lived through about four years in a row of what I would describe as terrible years - Dad died, Mom went through cancer treatment, Memere passed at the age of 100, my mother-in-law passed, and my father-in-law's health deteriorated at such a rate that he had to be moved into assisted living. One thing after another. Now that's not to say that things weren't without joy - both my children graduated from high school and went on to college, Mom is approaching her third year cancer free, I found a new job, and there were countless glimpses of peace and serenity even on the darkest days.

Jerusalem, a loving wife and mother, wanted more for her family and dreamed of upping stakes and moving to a farm. It just wasn't meant to be - well not yet. She had some lessons to learn first, the most important being to learn to live well with what and where she already was. Her focus for this memoir is a passage from Jeremiah 29:4-14, which she elegantly summarized as "Be Here Now. Be content and invested in the life you have, instead of wishing for a different life (p.89)." No truer words touched me while reading. Here we are growing older, dreaming of retirement yet there is so much to do in the here and now right where we are now. Before we could ever downsize the house will need a list of projects completed. Now that we are done paying for college, funds can be funneled into a new furnace, roof, and siding for the house. Carpets need replacing and wood floors resurfaced. Plus there is plenty of stuff to purge - stuff we no longer need or would desire to pack up and move to a smaller place.

Art journal piece - found poetry, collage, and zentangle

It was comforting once again to know that I am not alone in the daily struggles of life, that there is someone out there going through the same thing. That's one of the benefits of reading memoirs - coming to see that our lives aren't all that unique and perhaps someone has a small bit of advice that will help us get through. Greer's advice was to learn to live simply, pray for guidance, focus on family, and to serve the greater community when possible. Simple doesn't always mean easy, but when given the chance this type of lifestyle can bring many riches.

I was inspired by her work to create these two pieces that illustrate the many themes discussed in the book. Greer loves to collect, decorate and feather her nest. I love to do the same. The first piece features the display of beautiful dish ware, a passion of mine. The second piece centers on building that safe space that is home.

A book about book club - the book that matters most

Read - Collage of magazine and
vintage book scraps

I do have a thing about books that feature books or bookstores as a central theme (Bookstores, dreams of owning a bookstore, and more bookstores with a mysterious twist) so of course I would be drawn to a book with the title the book that matters most written by Ann Hood. This novel explores the benefit of belonging to a book club. There are many reasons to join a book club (I'm a member of two currently); social, emotional, intellectual needs that can be met by sitting down with others to discuss books (have some yummy snacks and maybe even a glass of wine or a cup of tea). If anything I find that I've been stretched in my reading - taken out of my comfort zone to read titles that I normally might not have chosen.

The book club in Hope's novel is organized by having each member choose a book based on an annual theme. When Ava joins the group, the new theme is "the book that means the most to you." She instantly thinks of a book given to her shortly after her mother's suicide that followed only a year after her younger sister's accidental death. This book helped Ava to get through her grief, but unfortunately she was never able to give up the misguided sense of responsibility for her sister's death.

Ava's got other baggage to deal with - a husband who has left her for a former girlfriend and a daughter who struggles with drug addiction. With the wide spread opioid abuse issues plaguing our country, Hope's description of this young woman's experience is scary.

Each month as the members discuss the various titles we learn about a time in their lives when their particular book mattered the most. "The idea of the book that matters most,' Kiki said. 'Because I think it's like impossible to pick such a book. When you read a book, and who you are when you read it, makes it matter or not." (266) Is it possible to choose one book that matters the most? I think Kiki hit the nail on the head by saying that often the book we are currently reading matters the most. We are transformed by every book that we read somehow even if we don't realize it. The mindfulness of reading - being in the present moment with the content - not looking back to a previous title or thinking about some future book.

Reading has always been a comfort, a source of escape when life gets too hard, or a way of finding enjoyment when things have become to stressful. I think about Tolstoy and the Purple Chair (see post) and the power that reading has to help restore the soul. Ann Hope's book is another one to add to the collection of books that mean something special to me.

Struggling with Predictability

Starry Night -
Mixed Media

For the last week or so I've been having trouble settling down to a "good" book. I got half way through one when I realized that I had "read" it before. Yup, I knew how this story would end because it was taking the predictable story arc of the genre. I did what I think is the unspeakable - I flip through the book and read the end and sure enough there it was the predictable end. Frustration.

With my time not being taken up with reading, I turned my focus to working on my mixed media art. There too I found myself struggling. Being new to the art form, I'm seeking to learn from others and that leads to reading some magazines that focus on providing photo spreads accompanied by how-to tricks. The only way to learn something new is to try it for yourself, but I don't want my work to end up looking like anyone else's. Perhaps one individual magazine issue will have a diverse grouping of work, but buy the next issue and it looks incredibly similar to the previous one.

I realize that being creative is a struggle and if it was easy everyone would be doing it, but I also want to be unique. I'm tired of being one of the pack. I've spent my whole life trying to blend in so as not to ruffle feathers and frankly I'm tired of it. I don't want to be predictable because I've discovered in my predictability others have found a way to take advantage of me and that's got to stop. Recently in my life I had the opportunity to reinvent myself, but I've suddenly realized that I went with my predictable don't make waves style of behavior and I might have lost the chance. But all is not lost. Now that I see it for what it is, I've got the chance to change and to go in a new direction.

The piece of work above didn't come out the way that I wanted it to, but there too I needed to remind myself that I was dabbling - learning to use new techniques. There are several things I do like about the work and just like a book there are good points even if the overall work is disappointing.

In this first miniature of the piece above, I was working with layering a page from a vintage children's book about stars. I'd placed a light gesso wash and wanted to make sure that some of the words showed through the gesso and the paint that I applied above. What I do like here are the some of the brush strokes and the boxing of words to create found poetry.

 In the second close up you can see some of the text showing through. I'm really pleased with the colors that I used. I splattered paint of different colors to get the stippled effect on the paper, but also to get the look of stars in the night sky.
Again in this last photo, you can see some of the paint splatter that works well, but what really pleased me here was the brushstrokes of color. When I first started I had an underpainting of yellow, medium blue, and a bit of aqua. Then I began to add a deeper blue followed by black as I was trying to capture the color of the night when the edge of the western sky still has that last bit of twilight as the eastern sky has darkened enough to allow you to see the stars. But there was something not quite right - I needed another color. I could see that in some places the blue and black had begun to mix to form a purple-pink shade. That was it! I added a couple of elements of pink to the piece and it popped in places.

In the end, I will admit that it is hard to create a perfect finished piece and I must beware of the beast of perfectionism. I will battle to create work that is unique and I pray to stay away from the predictable.

Clearing the Slate - The Rules of Love & Grammar

Rules for Love and Grammar -
Mixed Media Collage

"You've got to have a clean slate before you can put something back together" (p.243) is the advice that Grace Hammond receives in Mary Simses's The Rules of Love & Grammar. The advice was given regarding the restoration of an old bike that had once belonged to her sister, but Grace finally realizes that it can be applied to her life.

For Grace, her slate need to be cleared of grief. Grace has been running away (a common theme in books - see my previous post) from the grief over her sister's death as a result of a misplaced sense of responsibility in the events that lead up to her sister's fatal car accident. The truth of the matter is that after her sister's death, Grace and her parents never spoke openly resulting in the formation of deadly family secrets. In Grace's mind she thought her sister was her parents' favorite and that she could never measure up. What her parents never shared with her was that their oldest daughter had a drug/alcohol addiction and mental health issues including a suicide attempt. As a result, years were wasted. Grace's grief hampered her from finding her true place in the world. She struggled with forming lasting loving relationships and pursuing her passions utilizing her innate skills.

If you follow my blog you already know that my family's secret included the suicidal deaths of two family members. I know that grief that goes unspoken. I've lived the stunted life that comes from never properly letting go of the grief. Lesson finally learned from all of this - speak the truth! Others need to hear it for they too may be suffering and to know they are not alone.

My new found interest in mixed media is one result of letting go of old grief that had held me bound. I have wiped the slate and started again. Each piece of artwork is like that - a clean piece of paper or canvas. It can be scary, oh so scary - what if I don't get it right? That's the second battle - overcoming perfectionism. My advice to you - just do it. There are parts of the piece above that I love and parts of it that don't quite work, but I did it and I will keep on doing it.

If you love Vermont - The City Baker's Guide to Country Living

Sweet Life in the Kingdom -
Collage

The husband and I have begun the search for where we might like to spend our golden years, or a least take extended stays in quaint New England towns with awesome inns, restaurants, shops (especially bookshops!), easy hiking trails, waterways for kayaking, and the list goes on. Living centrally located in Massachusetts allows us to go venturing in all directions, but one of the more traveled routes lately has been to Vermont, which has a special place in my heart as my great-grandparents had a dairy farm in Stowe.

Lousie Miller has set her novel, The City Baker's Guide to Country Living, in the northeast portion of the state colloquially known as the Kingdom. Olivia Rawlings, award winning, magazine-featured, pastry chef based in Boston has just had her life take one of those turns and instead of facing the fallout she skedaddles up to her best friend Hannah's place to hide out. But she has debts to pay and a living to make and before she knows it Hannah has arranged a job interview for her at the Maple Leaf Inn.

She gets the job and a lot more than she bargains for. Her boss Margaret is exacting and old fashion, the kitchen is not high tech, the living accommodation doesn't have indoor plumbing, and like many little towns everybody wants to know her business. In time she settles in and even falls in love, but once again when her world gets turned around she runs.

There is the old adage about the things you don't like in someone else are most likely the traits that you don't like in yourself. Olivia has a brashness about her, which is clearly her defense mechanism for dealing with life. Her childhood wasn't the easiest and she had to look out for herself so she doesn't want anyone telling her what to do even if they have her best interests at heart. Unfortunately she also learned to run when things got tough.  Eventually Olivia needs to make some hard decisions - what's most important to her? Who's most important to her? And most importantly - can she stop running away?

Now I might not physically run away when things get tough but I certainly find ways to avoid the situations I find myself in. When I was growing up I thought I understood the pathway I should follow. I did a great job doing just that, but then there came a day when I realized that perhaps it was a path that didn't always make me happy so I would strike out on a new path usually without giving it much thought as to whether or not it was the right one. I've been successful on many of these paths even if I wasn't always happy. Now I've discovered that I really want to follow a creative pathway. It's a scary path because I doubt it will make me rich or famous, but what it does is make me happy. In fact, I think it has been the pathway that I've been avoiding taking for so many years. There is the struggle with my perfectionism and my fears, but I think it's worth starting to stick around and do the hard things. SPOILER - Olivia figures this out for herself as well.

If you're looking for great places to visit in Vermont we found the following inns through Select Registry and Distinctive Inns of New England : The Barrows House and sister property The Dorset Inn  and The Grafton Inn

History Lessons - The Perfume Garden

Perfume Garden - collage
Old letter and other scraps

There are many novels written today using multiple points of view to tell the narrative. In historical fiction it is quite common to have one voice be from the past and one from the present and along the story arc the two lines eventually connect and The Perfume Garden by Kate Lord Brown is one such novel. To be honest as a reader I'm getting a little tired of the format.

At the opening of the novel, dated September 11, 2001, we meet Emma Temple successful perfumer, head of a multinational business and pregnant. Unfortunately Emma has been hit with a triple whammy - the father of her child has just left her for another woman who is also a partner in the business, these two are negotiating to sell the company for big bucks, and her mother has succumbed to her battle with cancer leaving Emma with an unusual inheritance in the form of a wooden box of letters and the deed to a house in Spain.

 It doesn't take much to realize where all this is heading. Her former lover is in New York to finalize the sale of the company at a breakfast meeting to be held at Windows on the World when she finally tells him the news of her pregnancy. By the end of the day he will be among the missing. Emma needs to get away from it all and decides to take up residence in the house in Spain and that's where the setting of the story turns its focus. The house holds secrets that stretch back to the days of Spain's Civil War and many in the town think it is haunted.

Stop and Smell the Flowers -
collage and zentangle

What I do like about historical fiction is learning a bit of history that I didn't know much about. I can honestly admit that as a student I learned very little about the Spanish Civil War, but it is the central event of this novel. Many American and British men and women were compelled to go fight, provide medical assistance or report on the events (think of Hemingway). Emma's grandmother and great-uncle were two such people.

Emma begins to read her mother's letters while restoring the house, which reveals some of its secrets. Emma goes in search of people who will help her to untangle the mystery. I'll let you read the book for yourself to find the answer to Emma's quest.

One of her mother's letters included the following lines - "Make perfumes that remind people how wonderful it is to be alive. Because it is, Em, to be alive is glorious, and people need to remember that, and to stop and smell the flowers." (p.87) This is significant in so many ways. Here is a dying woman reminding her child of the beauty of life even when you are in the midst of death. This novel had death surrounding the characters in the form of war, yet each strove to live fully - to risk and to love. We need to remember daily to find the joy in life and yes it is there even on the darkest of days - you just have to look. You have to look at the small things because it is in those things that we see and feel the most joy, but they are the things that most of us take for granted and pass over. Keep your eyes open!

Christmas Vacation Reading I - The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star

Bollywood inspired - collage, zentangle and
colored pencil. 

The best part of Christmas vacation is the opportunity to read more. Of course I read all the time, but on vacation you have hours of down time, plenty of hot coffee or tea, and a comfy spot in front of the sparkly tree wrapped in the blanket that you knitted while listening to audiobooks. Ah bliss can be found on the darkest (the solstice has just past) and coldest (temps this week are averaging below zero for the lows and single digits for the highs) days of the season.

Earlier this fall I started a new job, which resulted in a longer commute - great I thought I can get more reading done while I drive. No, I am not a menace to society, I keep both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road, but both ears are tuned into the audiobook that is playing from my car's sound system.

Always looking for something new to try, I downloaded a title by Vaseem Khan from my public library - The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown. I was charmed to meet Inspector Ashwin Chopra (Retd) of the Mumbai police force, his wife Poppy, and the many characters that fill their lives. So I was happy to place an order for a Christmas present to me - Khan's newest title in the series The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star.

Once again I was transported from my New England town around the world to another city and culture. Parts of the story are light hearted, but there are several important issues presented in this book. While filming song and dance filled movies in the Bollywood tradition is occurring, Chopra is dealing with the kidnapping of a young rising star. There are insinuations that organized crime and money lenders may be responsible. Chopra's assistant, Sub-Inspector Rangwalla (who was forced out of the police by a corrupt superior) has gone undercover to solve a mystery dealing with a group of India's struggling citizens - the eunuchs. I had a basic understanding of India's caste system, but didn't realize the difficulties these people face. The struggle of transgendered people is widespread throughout many cultures, but Khan's message is that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and have the opportunity to have a successful life and career. One book can't solve such large societal problems, but it can help to raise our awareness and encourage discussion and change. But in the end Inspector Chopra, Sub-Inspector Rangwalla, Poppy, and Chopra's ward - a little elephant named Ganesha, go the extra mile to successfully solve the cases that come to their little detective agency seeking justice for their clients.

Books that remind you of places you've visited

Whimsical Work - art journal page spread
collage and zentangle

Very often I've read a book because of its setting in a far off place - think Paris, Tuscany, London, Thailand, etc - hoping one day that I may get to travel there myself.  I've also read books because of places I've been like Mystic, CT the setting for Mystic Summer. But I chose Shelley Noble's the beach at painter's cove  because it reminded me of a place I once visited - the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT.

Noble has set her characters in a fictitious coastal Connecticut town, inhabiting a mansion called Muses by the Sea, which during its well-known history had served as an artists' haven. With just this description on the back cover of the book I was instantly reminded of the visit my husband and I made to Old Lyme. Just before the turn of the twentieth century, Henry Ward Ranger, a New York artist, having just returned from Europe filled with new ideas, ventured out on the train and found himself in Old Lyme. Taken with the town, he booked lodgings at Florence Griswold's boarding house. Of course he told all his friends about the place and before Florence knew it, her house was filled to the brim with artists. Then again the whole town was soon filled with artists who were pursuing Ranger's "tonal" landscape school of painting or Childe Hassam's new American Impressionism. No matter which style you favored you may be found working "en plein air" rather than in the studio. At night there were rich discussions over drinks, card games, or sing alongs around the boarding house's piano.

Noble's Muses by the Sea was another cauldron for creativity. There not only artists were welcomed but also writers and actors. It was most certainly a different atmosphere during the sixties and seventies when New Yorkers came to party it up with the hint of scandalous shenanigans. But like all things life moved on and the Muses fell into disrepair when the artists left. Now the Whitaker family must find a way to save their home and the artwork that it contains. You can begin to see the parallels between fact and fiction that sparked Noble's imagination and my own while I read. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions as to how the story will end.

The Gift of Anger

Five Pillars of Nonviolence -
art journal collage

As a child I loved visiting with my grandparents. It wasn't until I had children of my own that in watching my parents grandparent that I saw a different side of them. Our grandparents are in a different position to teach us things that our parents cannot, perhaps we are just more open to them.

Arun Gandhi had the rare opportunity to spend two years of his early adolescence at the ashram run by his famous grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi. In his memoir, The Gift of Anger, he recounts the many lessons he learned from his dear Bapuji. Through telling his story, Gandhi helps us today to see how his grandfather's belief in non-violent actions could bring about the change that we want to see in our world - to bring about peace.

The vital lessons about life were codified in these principles: respect, understanding, acceptance, appreciation, and compassion. Arun's grandfather stressed the need to live life simply and to try to be better than the day before. He wasn't saying that we have to be perfect but to live our lives with out squandering any part of our day. We spend so much time trying to obtain status or wealth that we lose sight of those things that are most precious - those we love. As parents we get very wrapped up in the day to day challenges of earning a living, doing the housework, commuting, paying the bills, etc. that we can be worn out with little left for our children. And that is the beauty of grandparents - they have that time to spend with their grandchildren. No matter how busy Mahatma Gandhi was with the affairs of state, he would put those things aside when Arun required his attention. We all must remember to do that for whoever seeks to connect with us whether it is our children, our spouses, our parents, our friends for we never know how much time we will have with them. Sadly, shortly after Arun left the ashram to return to his home, his grandfather was assassinated. It is a blessing for us all that his lessons live on to help us all to be more mindful as we strive to live our lives to the best of our abilities.

Agatha Christie meets Stand-up Comedy - Ten Dead Comedians

Drawn to Fred Van Lente's Ten Dead Comedians by the book flap's nod to the homage paid to Agatha Christie's (one of my all time favorite authors) And Then There Were None, I gladly checked it out of the library. It was a quick fun read, but when I sat down this morning to think about the messages within Van Lente's and Christie's work, I was struck by the very dark under tones in each.

Like much of her work, Christie focused on justice and whether or not it may be attained within the legal system of the time. In her novel, she focuses on ten characters who have managed to get away with murder. Playing to either their vanity or needs, the executioner of justice has lured them to a secluded island where they are systematically executed according to the manner of death laid out in a nursery rhyme about either ten little indians or ten little soldiers (see printing dates and countries). Those who have committed the graver crimes have longer to live, but suffer the greater amount of psychological terror as they await their turn.

Contrast that with Van Lente's book where the ten characters, who are stand-up comedians, are collected because of their crimes against comedy when in reality (SPOILER ALERT) they are crimes against one particular comedian - their supposed host. Instead of seeking justice the killer wants revenge for being made the butt of their jokes.

And that's where my thoughts changed from fun mystery read to dark everyday reality. It is not uncommon for comedians and other celebrities to stand up in front of an audience or members of the media and put down others in their industry. Is that the price celebrities pay to be in the spot light? Are they all capable of taking the words they hear and brushing them off with no harm to their souls? They're grownups after all aren't they?

When is a joke bullying? Think about how often you or someone else has followed up a remark with "I was just kidding." Once those words are out it's to late to follow them up with a disclaimer that we didn't really mean it? If we didn't mean it, why'd we say it in the first place? We are all guilty of this crime.

Bear with me here as I make a big leap. As a school teacher, I have heard the remarks of students against other students and their back pedaling when they are called out by teachers or others. How is Van Lente's killer any different than those bullied students who take their revenge out by committing a school shooting? The comedian's crimes were verbal slights, but can be nothing compared to the physical, emotional, and psychological damage that happens to children in our schools and on social media sites. Everyday in my classroom I need to be vigilant for the signs of bullying - the withdrawal, the decline in grades, the failure to maintain personal hygiene, the loss or gain of weight, the use of alcohol or drugs, and the unthinkable - signs of self harm. Some bullied students lash out against their bullies, but more often they turn their rage internally and decide to make the bullying stop by committing suicide.

Let's all remember to take a moment to think about our joke telling - is it really a joke or will somebody end up hurting?

Reawaken, repair, and renew - Rise and Shine Benedict Stone

Awakening Stones - art journal page
collage

Sometimes we find ourselves weighted down by the burdens of life, or even the secrets that we hold within our hearts. Our hearts themselves may feel like they have been turned to stone. Benedict Stone, the title character of Phaedra Patrick's newest novel, is such a man. Benedict is a man who is currently separated from his wife, scarcely eking out a living with his small jewelry shop having lost his creative spark years ago, when the sixteen year old daughter of his estranged brother shows up on his doorstep. 

Gemma has secrets and burdens of her own. Like all teenagers, she is struggling to finding her own place and passion within the world. She has traveled to England from the US in search of answers. Her hope is to learn more about the bag of gemstones her father received from his dead parents, and why he hasn't invited her uncle to be a part of their lives. 

It's Gemma that spurs Benedict to face his past, beginning with opening the trunk in the attic containing his parents' gemstone journal, tools, designs, and some of his own early work. Together they read the journal passages, written by Gemma's grandfather, about gemstone properties, "Peridot - A rich green stone, sometimes called chrysolite, peridot is widely known as the birthstone for August. It can be found in volcanic landscapes. It was used in ancient times to ward off evil spirits. It can assist us to recognize negative patterns in our lives, override unwanted thought patterns, help let go of the past and ease fear and anxiety. It can lessen stress, anger, and jealousy in relationships, and also help us to find what is lost.." (p.76-77) Before long they are dispensing gemstones to the members of the village based on their needs. Benedict finds himself inspired to work on new designs which renews his creativity and even gives him the confidence to fight for his marriage. But those hidden secrets come back to bite them in the butt. I'll let you read the outcome. 

Family secrets are painful and soul destroying. What we hide from our spouses, our children, our parents, or our siblings breeds distrust and fear and nothing good can come of it. There are even our failed attempts to hide our own secrets from ourselves allowing our souls to slowly wither, ruining our relationships, stymying our creativity, and preventing us from living our lives fully. 

I chose the peridot quote above since it is my birthstone, but also because of the properties that Patrick ascribed to it (see her author's note). Right now in my life I am working to overcome the old negative thought patterns, based on old family issues, that I have allowed to hold me back. We can find ourselves trapped in negative or fearful thought patterns and it seems we can't out run them. I now know that there is a way out. It takes courage and hard work to make changes that bring you to a new place in life. After ten years at a very stressful job, I prayed for a solution and it came in the form of a new job. Now I'm battling the anxiety that comes with starting all over, but it's been a good thing and I am so grateful to be able to renew my life, find ways to express my own creativity, and to repair the damage to my soul. This whole summer has been about finding my voice and using it. 

St. Anthony - The Keeper of Lost Things

Lost Things made into a lapel pin
Auction item

Recently, I experienced something new - bidding on items at an auction. My mother and several of her friends visit the weekly auctions held at Weston's Antiques, a company that specializes in Estate liquidations, looking for items to add to their collections. They prep for the Tuesday sales by visiting the company's website where they can view samples of items as early as Sunday, and then attend the preview on Monday. There they look at items, read makers marks, look for damage, and plan their strategies. Tuesday begins by checking in with the auction house and obtaining a bidding card with a number and finding a good seat.

On the day I attended the sale, I perused the room looking for things I might like to take home to use in decorating my home. The pin featured in this photo was one among the many items of costume jewelry in a cardboard box. Its appearance definitely fits the bill for today's novel  - The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. 

Anthony Peardew lost the one thing his fiancé placed lovingly in his care; worst still he lost it on the very day she died. For the rest of his life while looking for this special item, he would pick up other lost things taking them home carefully cataloging them with date and location found. It was always his intention to work to return the items to their rightful owners, but found it hard to let the items go. Upon Anthony's death, his home and all the lost items are left to his assistant/housekeeper, Laura, with the one proviso that she take on his unfinished task.

Life hasn't always gone smoothly for Laura and this task seems overwhelming, but her best friend Sarah has some great advice for her and for the rest of us as well, "Laura, you have to let go of the past. You deserve to be happy, but you have to make it happen yourself. It's down to you....Don't keep punishing yourself for things you did then, but don't use them as an excuse either. You have a chance now to make a really good life. Grab it by the balls and get on with it." (p. 140).  And that's what Laura does. Ably assisted by Sunshine, a young woman with Down's syndrome, and Freddy the gardner, the team develops a website for displaying the items along with a brief description. Making use of social and mainstream media, Laura gets the word out about the website and items begin to be reclaimed.

Silver Plated Tea Set bought at auction
above it is a Wallace Nutting photograph
purchased at an antiques shop. 

Part of this interesting novel are the stories that Anthony wrote about the items he found, and like Anthony I began to wonder about the items that were being auction off in front of me. I purchased the silver plated tea service pictured here. Who owned it last? Was it a gift - wedding, anniversary or birthday? Who did they serve tea to? What was discussed while they enjoyed their cup? Who made it? You can imagine the questions might be endless, and I could easily begin to write a dozen different stories that feature this tea set in it.

Over the past few years, I have been drawn to collecting pre-owned items. They have such character and history. Plus there is a bit of an environmental aspect to it - recycling and reducing. When I visit an antique or thrift shop I think of all the stuff there and where will all the stuff that we keep making end up? What do we do with things we've lost - buy a new one to replace it if we can't find it. Is that the best solution? Without making and buying of stuff our economies wouldn't work, so can there be an easy solution for us?

Recurring themes - Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

I am drawn to stories that feature bookstores, most likely because it is my secret desire to own one of my own. Not all stories about bookstores are happy, but all of them have an important message within them. My most recent bookstore read is Matthew Sullivan's Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, which centers around Lydia Smith one of the employees. Lydia we learn is a survivor of a horrific crime one that has changed her and how she relates to the world. To compound to her sorrows, she is the first to discover the body of a customer who has committed suicide in the store. He has left her a clue - a photograph of herself at her tenth birthday party surrounded by her two best friends.

The story continues to unfold as we learn about Lydia's past and how she begins to unravel the unusual suicide notes left behind by Joey. Joey has cleverly paired books that he owns with books still in stock at the store, his books have windows cut out from them which when overlaid the corresponding pages in the store's books reveal a message. Lydia is forced to find the truth about how her past and Joey's are intertwined.  

What through me for a loop (SPOILER ALERT) was that central to this story is the search for a birth parent. This is the second book this month that I've read that featured this theme at its heart (see post on Celine). Of course this may simply be another case of Baader-Meinhof (see post) that I am experiencing. Either way, both of these novels reveal the heartbreak of families when they are separated from one another. 

Transplanting - The Little French Bistro

Transplanting - Art journal
mixed media

If you are a gardner like me, you know that every once in a while you must pull up a plant and move it. Early in my gardening career I needed to learn how to pair a plant with its sun needs. Sure the nursery is kind enough to give you a plant stake in the pot to help with placement but what do they really mean by part sun/part shade or full sun. Is that spot in your yard which gets some shade really partial shade or not? It is only by getting to know your yard do you discover how to nurture your garden. Kind of like your own soul.

But things change, nothing stays the same and that is true of your garden and soul. Trees grow and cast new patterns of shade. Soil needs to be amended. Plants grow larger and need to be pruned and moved about. The same happens to us, we change, we grow, we stagnate, we allow fear to overwhelm us, and the next thing - if we are lucky enough - we find ourselves desperate for change, and that's where Marianne of Nina George's The Little French Bistro finds herself.

Marianne is a sixty year old, German woman who finds herself in Paris the famous place of light, love, art, food and she is desperate to rid herself of her husband and her old way of life - desperate enough to throw herself off a bridge and into the Seine hoping to end her misery. She is furious when a homeless man witnesses her suicide attempt and jumps in to save her. A night in a psychiatric hospital, one counseling session with a doctor, finds Marianne stealing a painted tile from a nurse's desk, on which is depicted a scene of a French port where she has decided to travel in order to end her life. SPOILER ALERT - She doesn't succeed.

Marianne, however, does succeed in finding herself. The lesson here is that we can begin the search for our inner beauty, for our passion in life through work that brings joy, we can make like minded friends, we can find love and sexuality, at any time whether it be our twenties, forties, or sixties. It's never too late. Better yet it is important to start sooner rather than later. The pull of our old ways of thinking, that miserable stinking thinking, is strong. Even Marianne is fooled and trapped by it when her husband comes to find her. Luckily her internal sense that her soul is dying in this man's presence and that she doesn't want to experience that for a day longer sends her fleeing from him once more.

What is it in my life that makes me feel dead inside? For that is a clear sign that life needs changing. And like a plant or a Marianne (I spell my name with a y by the way - coincidence? I wonder.), I can be transplanted. Dig one's self up out of the soil carefully not to damage roots, shake free those roots so that they will be free to absorb water and nutrients from its new location. Perhaps there is some pruning to be done to encourage new growth. Maybe some extra babying with frequent waterings and a shot of good fertilizer. Then that plant or person can stretch out their roots and become a new member of the garden community, playing a key role that can only be filled by them.

Not your typical detective - Celine

Celine - art journal page

For the second time this summer, I found myself reading a story that involved a teenaged girl from a wealthy American family who finds herself pregnant during the years following World War II. Unlike Charlie St. Claire in Kate Quinn's The Alice Network (see my post) who is 19 and decides to keep her baby, Celine Watkins, of Peter Heller's novel Celine, is only 15 and her baby is given up for adoption. Both young women had difficult decisions to make regarding their pregnancy. Celine's decision would help to determine the course of the rest of her life.

After delivering her baby Celine returned to her private boarding school to complete her studies, went off to college, married and had a son. She was the unconventional member of her family by becoming a private detective and not your typical one at that. Celine only takes cases involving missing family members; often clients are looking for birth parents or children. On her travels, Celine continues to search the faces of women who would be the right age to be the daughter that she gave up all those years ago. As the novel unfolds, we learn about who Celine is and her family history. She is now in her sixties, remarried to Pete, suffering from emphysema, artist, master of acting, and a crack shot. We meet her adult son, Hank, who has learned his mother's secret from his dying aunt. Unknown to Celine, Hank in his early twenties went looking for his missing sister, and he might just have found her.

Celine's current case is  brought to her by Gabriella who is searching for her father a famous photographer who was presumed dead, eaten by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park. But there are way to many loose threads to the case when Celine picks up the trail. Celine and Pete have arrived in Jackson Hole to begin their hunt for Gabriella's father and she comments about this town as being only in existence as a location for fun which is very tiring, "Pursuing fun is exhausting. Having fun is just fun. Much more relaxing just to do your work, don't you think? I mean if you enjoy it. (p.138)" What a statement about the American way of life - we work really hard in order to have the time to chase our happiness. In fact Pete responds to her with this, "It's why I always felt coming back to the States after traveling was a bit stressful. I mean our job as citizens, apparently, is the pursuit of happiness. Something I always have to gird myself for. I'd much rather just be happy, or not. (p. 139)"

Being happy has been a topic of mine in earlier posts (Hector and the Search for Happiness, The Happiness Project, and Happiness on the Mind), and I think Pete's quote above hits the nail on the head - happiness is a decision to be or not to be. We can't find happiness by pursuing it (see how i became stupid) rather it is something that comes from within. I believe that we can pursue fun, excitement gained by doing activities,  spending time with other people, or engaging in hobbies. But too many of us work very hard to get those things we think will bring us happiness - a thinner body, a bigger bank account, a house in a better neighborhood, the promotion at work, a new spouse, and the list goes on. What we lose is the precious time to just be. I attended the funeral of a wonderful woman this week, and I know that when she came to her last moments it wasn't her bank account she was thinking about, but the precious time that she had spent being herself for that was her greatest accomplishment and didn't everyone at her funeral say so. This woman was authentic, she used her big booming voice and she wasn't afraid to tell you just how it was. That's the lesson for all of us to take away - to be happy, to be ourselves, to go out there and do life. Thanks Patricia B. for the lesson.

Little Free Libraries - There's a Cozy Mystery for That

Little Free Library - mixed media
acrylic, magazine scraps, ink stamps, pen

Several years ago now, over dinner my son explained something new he had learned at school (yes sometimes children do have an answer to the "What did you do at school today?" question) something called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. What is that you might ask? Well, the phrase originally came from a West German militant group that formed in the 1970s that included two members with the names Baader and Meinhof, but in the 1990s was used to describe that thing that happens to us when we see or hear something and then it continues to crop up. True to form, shortly after my son explained Baader-Meinhof to me I read it in a book and then encountered it somewhere else. Too strange.

How does this relate to today's post you might ask, well remember about two or three posts back I mentioned my librarian friend's Little Free Library that she has in her yard? I had taken a book (how i became stupid) which I read and reviewed here. Meanwhile, I needed a new audiobook title to listen to and searched on new additions (see post on The Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness) and found A Most Curious Murder by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli. This cozy mystery opens with the destruction of a Little Library built by the narrator's deceased father, and maintained by her mother. In a Michigan town with no library of its own, this Little Library served the community and its loss is seen as an outrage. Soon after, the man suspected of committing the vandalism is found murdered. Obviously, there is more to the story of just a vandal at work.

In the course of my reading life I have come across many a cozy mystery story. If you have an interest or a passion for something there is a cozy mystery out there for you. Do you like cooking or baking? There is Diane Mott Davidson's catering series or Joanna Fluke's bakery series. Need something to drink with those yummy treats? Try a tea shop mystery by Laura Childs or a coffee house mystery by Cleo Coyle. Do you knit, quilt, do needlepoint? There's Maggie Sefton, Earlene Fowler, and Monica Ferris.  Maybe you're into gardening, or vintage cookware, antiques, fixer-uppers, Bed and Breakfasts, libraries, I could go on all day, but the point is there is a cozy mystery out there to match any and all of your interests. Just think about it for a while and our old friend Baader-Meinhof will make sure you come across just what you need.

The Butterfly Effect - How It All Began

ButterflyTangle - art journal piece:
acrylic, zentangle, fabric and vintage book scraps

Penelope Lively opens her novel How It All Began with a quote from James Gleick regarding the Butterfly Effect, how the flapping of a butterfly's wings in one place can impact the weather somewhere half way around the world. It was Edward Lorenz of MIT, who in 1961, while trying to come up with a way to model weather patterns using computers, discovered that it would be almost impossible to generate longterm forecasts because we are unable to measure precisely enough the factors that we input into the model.

But how does weather modeling come into Lively's story? It doesn't. What does is the opening event - the mugging of an elderly woman named Charlotte. That event creates a cascade through the small group of Lively's characters who don't even know that they are connected to one another. You know it's like meeting someone who it turns out knows so-and-so and before you know it they are your neighbor's third cousin twice removed.

Charlotte is a former Literature teacher and in retirement a literacy volunteer. The mugging has resulted not only in the loss of her purse, but an injury: a broken hip. While convalescing, she finds it hard to focus on the one thing that has always sustained her - reading. "Forever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. She has read not just for distraction, sustenance, to pass the time, but she has read in a state of primal innocence, reading for enlightenment, for instruction, even (p. 34)." How frustrating it must have been to her during this time not to have the solace that comes from reading. When my father was in the hospital and we were waiting a diagnosis, I knew that he was truly ill because after a lifetime of watching him reading, he didn't. He wasn't tempted by the daily paper, magazines or a book. When the diagnosis did come, Stage IV lung cancer, it was a swift five weeks to his passing.  I would not see him read again.

Like Charlotte, I read to learn about other cultures, what it is like to be a different age, have more or less money, how to overcome a broken heart, to be a brilliant scientist, an intrepid explorer, and the list goes on and on. "She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way in which she has lived; she is like millions of others built by books, for whom books are an essential foodstuff, who could starve without (p. 35)." How beautifully put, of course I am who I am because of what I've experienced but also what I have read. The thoughts of others, whether I've encountered them in person or through a book, and like the beating of a butterfly's wings, have had some effect on me. In return we may never know how our lives and words may effect someone else somewhere half way around the world from us.