Words for a New Year

The last really festive, on-the-town New Year's Eve I remember happened the year before my oldest son was born. And by festive I mean: party dresses in red and black silk, drinks in little bars all over Mt. Washington, dinner at a schmancy fancy restaurant overlooking the crisply-lit city, champagne toasts, noisemakers, and drunken kisses at midnight. I remember a heart-to-heart with my friend Elaine in the ladies' room just minutes after the clock struck 1983--heads together, we smiled at our reflections and the seductive promise of our pretty lives hovering in front of us like holograms.

The next year my son, Matty, was only two months old, so we stayed in, our little family wrapped up in the comfort of our tiny family room in the little Bethel Park colonial, and that night held new magic for us. We spent the next series of eves family style with friends, all of us balancing babies, toddlers, and paper cups. For a while, nothing seemed to change. Then, suddenly, we were on our own again, our children away or at parties, our friends opting to stay close to home, all of us on call just in case someone needed a ride home.

Tonight, finds me at home, still. High heels click on the bathroom floor above me; the shower switching on and off as my children get ready to meet the New Year. I will still have a kiss at midnight, but I'll probably be balancing a book along with my champagne flute.

If I can't be twenty-something, dressed in red silk, standing on the edge of my future, I'll be content to be this book-worm me, tome in hand, leaning against the love of my life, waiting for another year of our lives to begin.

Here's some of the books I read since the clock struck 2012. Just like the parts of my life, some will make you laugh, and some will make you cry. Cheers.

The Sandcastle Girls, Chris Bohjalian
      I just finished this beauty, a heart-wrenching love story set in Turkey during the 1915 Armenian
      Genocide, as discovered and revealed by the lovers' surburban American granddaughter. Details
      of box cars crammed with starving Armenian women forshadow the coming Holocaust, as
      German officials (then allies to Turkey) marvel at the inhumanity of the "situation." Against the
      bleak desert backdrop, the war's victimization of women is etched on the reader's mind.

The Middlesteins, Jami Attenberg
       A dysfunctional family is set spinning by a father's divorce from a brilliant, but
       domineering mother who won't stop eating--a searing portrait of family love and disgust, an
       examination of how we nourish or starve each other in relationships. As I
       read The Middlesteins, I couldn't help but think about a lesson hard learned in my life...once
       they're gone, they're gone.

Winter Sea, Susanna Kearsley
        A writerof historical fiction feels a strong pull to New Slains Castle at Cruden Bay in Scotland,
       where she is compelled to write (channels?) the story of an ancestor who was involved in a plot
       to reinstate King James.The plot parallels the two women's lives in modern day and 18th-century
       Scotland. As a writer, I enjoyed reading about Carrie's process, especially that "other-worldly"
       connection to information that somehow appears in my brain.

 

In Between Days, Andrew Porter        
     An incident at college involving a middle-class couple's youngest daughter, Chloe, rocks the
     entire family. This beautifully-written novel forces us to examine the power of white versus    
     Muslim in America, frightening us with the results of blanket prejudice and loss, leaving us to
     wonder about our own racism and what lengths we must go to to find hope.

The Hypnotist's Love Story, Liane Moriarty    
     Combine a well-meaning stalker, her ex and his young son, and a hypnotist for a sometimes
     funny, sometimes sadly revealing of human nature read. Moriarity balances her characters
     well, equitably revealing both warts and halos...even of the stalker, as she enters the hypnotist's
     kitchen to make her a batch of muffins. The question really raised here involves the
     consequences we must face when we casually move on, in effect, discarding a human being from
     our lives.

        
Heading Out to Wonderful, Robert Goodrick         
     Charlie Beale settles down in small town America after his return from WWII. All around
     good-guy, Charlie falls victim to greed and lust, becoming the town outcast--tragic chronicle
     of America's spoiling from within. Goodrick is Faulker without the page-long sentences.
     Equally haunting, Heading Out to Normal exposes the greedy center of American life that
     threatens to consume us all. Picture Jay Gatsby in the midwest without the parties.

Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness
         The second in Harkness' All Souls Trilogy, this book takes us from present-day New England to
         Elizabethan London, where Diana Bishop  and Matthew Clermont (witch and vampire)
         continue their hunt for Ashmole 787, an illusive manuscript that contains the secrets of
        "creatures" (witches, vampires, and daemons). Note: we meet Christopher Marlowe as a
         daemon! Harkness seems to have found a better balanced pace for her plot in this second
         volume.

The Beginner's Goodbye, Anne Tyler
        Anne Tyler is today's best popular novelist at navigating the shadow's of the human heart. In this
        short work, almost a novella, Tyler introduces us to Aaron, a vanity publisher who has long
        struggled with a physical infirmity, but who now is devastated by the loss of his wife Dorothy--
        sturdy, practical, Doctor Dorothy. When Dorothy begins to appear in Aaron's life once more his
        journey begins again.

      
The Street Sweeper, Eliot Perlman
        Complex characters bring together the American Civil Rights movement and the Holocaust in
        this lyrical novel. The tension is palpable from the first chapter as we meet Lamont Williams, a
        man recently paroled from prison, who struggles to keep his job as a sanitation worker at a local
        hospital. A novel full of surprises, Perlman's words wrap us in the hope and devastation of the
        human condition.

      


The Rebel Wife, Taylor Polites  

Set in the in the aftermath of the Civil War, The Rebel Wife is both suspenseful and thought-provoking, as Augusta Branson,

former Southern belle married off to a seeming carpet bagger,

must survive by her wits after her husband dies from a mysterious illness. Polites offers insight into the turmoil and betrayal that must have been the reality of the South shortly after the end of the war.

The Lost Saints of Tennessee, Amy Franklin Willis
       Ezekiel Cooper and his family (a passle of siblings, including a mentally-handicapped twin
       brother and his fire-hearted southern mama, Lillian) provide the emotional backdrop for a
       modern novel of the south, full of angst and healing. Think male version of The Divine Secrets
       the Ya-Ya Sisterhood  (Rebecca Wells) or Prince of Tides (Pat Conroy).

American Dervish, Ayad Akhtar

       The coming of age story of young Hayat Shah, an American boy living in the suburbs with his  Pakistani parents, this novel focuses on the arrival of Mina, the beautiful friend of Hayat's mother who comes to live with his family. Mina takes on the role of religious tutor, teaching Hayat about the Quran. Confused by the power of his emerging sexual identity and what he perceives to be morally right, Hayat betrays the lovely Mina, essentially condemning her to a miserable

existence.

Prayers for Sale, Sandra Dallas
       A home-spun tale of women who struggle to survive the physical hardships, weather extremes,
      and constant loss that exist in a 19th-century Colorado mountain mining community. Dallas
      bookends the life cycle with two predominent women: Nit, the 17-year-old bride who knocks
      on mountain matriarch Hennie's door after seeing Hennie's yard sign offering prayers for sale.

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
      A love triangle begins simmering between three Brown college students beginning in the 1980s.
      Madeline, the lit major researching the Victorian marriage plot; Leonard, the beautiful and
      brilliant science major, locked in the early stages of bipolar disease; and Mitchell, the religion
      major, all-around good guy in love with Madeline. Masterfully written, we are invested in all of
      Eugenides' characters as they rise and fall with and without each other.

 

 

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
       If you haven't read Gone Girl, put it at the top of your list. Set aside the block of time you'll need
       to read 432 pages of this rollercoaster of a novel about "until death do us part," this rock'em
       sock'em robot word fight, this labyrinth of plot and suspense. Just remember this, when you open
       the pages of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, remember: nothing is what it seems.

Pool Days

The sky darkened above me as I pushed open the door to the pizza shop where my youngest daughter's working for the summer, a late afternoon storm promising to break the humidity we've felt for a string of ninety-degree days. I sat in the shop a bit, swirling a straw in my styrofoam cup of Diet Coke, the square clear ice moving with the current. The door opened once, twice, and again admitting young families...mothers wearing sundresses over bathing suits, boys in swim trunks and tank tops, pony-tailed girls whose curled toes held tight to neon flip flops.

 Four kids and a mom climbed into the counter seats facing the window, each waiting for a slice of pizza straight from the oven. My heart constricted a bit with the memory of my own four on days like these, when we sought shelter from the rain.

My oldest daughter calls me nearly every day from California, as she walks the 20 minutes to her local pool. I'm happy to imagine her passing through the gates, a colorful bag in one hand and her thermos in the other. I can see her there, lying stomach to grass, reading until the sun chases her into the water. My youngest daughter is lucky to have a group of friends with pools; sometimes she is happy to work the evening shift in exchange for an afternoon with her girls. She comes home with tales of unbelievable floating chairs, the last one feeling just like a couch as she lay on her side.

We used to go together, spending most summer days from 11 to 4 or even 5 at the YMCA pool.
Certainly I'm romanticizing the experience, forgetting about the packing up before hand: suntan lotion, combs, towels, toys, snacks, books, magazines, money, and pool passes. I've forgotten the crankiness of children who are tired from the sun and hungry RIGHT NOW. I don't miss watching a baby who might, at any minute, slip under water. I've almost erased the angry woman who guarded four lounge chairs in the same spot every day, whether her friends joined her or not. My memory blurs the ride home, the 15 car minutes far too long, with a frazzled young mother threatening to "stop the car, if I have to," coming home with a mess of wet clothes and a dinner yet to prepare.

Oh, but the smell of chlorine in freshly-combed hair, the sight of wet suits on the line, the touch of a small damp hand on my shoulder...those I do remember. I feel cheated, as if we didn't have long enough at the pool.

It did rain today, needles of rain exploding against the hot pavement. When I left the pizza shop, the temperature had cooled, a slight moist breeze trilling across my skin. I hope the families had enough time to go back to the pool, taking another dip, before things changed again.

New Beginnings

I woke up early today, though I thought I'd sleep longer, later, deeper, and started the morning by reaching for my book--to tuck in another chapter before I punctured the haze of sleep, before reality claimed me. Early morning reading used to be a habit of mine back in graduate school. During the semester, I'd finish whatever I'd abandoned  bleary-eyed the night before, whether it was literary criticism for a class I was taking or an essay for the class I was teaching. Over vacations, this habit turned into a delicious luxury as I reached for the novel on top of the stack of the many waiting for me. After I became a wife and a mother, other voices called me from my sleep, and I've only revived this custom since my children no longer sleep under my roof.

It's one of those hazy, end-of-summer days, the humidity frosting the outside of my windows. My husband just stopped his mowing to take refuge in our air-conditioned kitchen, wiping his face with his shirt, though it's just 9:30 a.m. I'll have to water the plants early, even though we watered them late yesterday, while farm market eggplant roasted in the oven for our dinner.

Despite the heat and my flowers overflowing from their containers on my deck, all of them tumbling in a freefall fight with each other for attention, I feel the pull of fall. Classes began this week for me, a sure marker. As I drove the long stretch of 79 to work, I  warily eyed the "Bridge May Freeze Before Road" signs. I'll drive those roads as the leaves change, then drop, white-knuckling the early snowfalls. Soon the next few months will soon become a jumbled clump of days filled with classes, assignments, conferences, and grades, my students and I emerging changed people.

I've always loved the newness fall brings. As a child, I stood in front of the small school supply section in the local drugstore, touching the pens and pencils with anticipation. I still buy notebooks every semester, delighted in the ever-expanding selection of covers. This year my daughter and I walked through the many aisles of Target devoted to back-to-school shoppers. We weighed the color choices carefully, ending up with simple bright blue, green, and pink composition books.

"Do you need pens?" she asked me, in a strange reversal of roles.

Perhaps it's that strange reversal of roles that kept me in bed this morning, that had me reaching for fiction about Sullivan's Island instead of beginning my day. Fall brings something new for all of us, and my children leave my home for other lives, for growth that doesn't include me. The first to go this year was my oldest; rightly so, I guess. He left our vacation a day early, driving 11 hours straight to arrive in Morgantown for an editorial meeting the day before classes began. A little over a week later, my youngest left for San Francisco, struggling to pack all she'd need for four months into suitcases that didn't weigh over 50 pounds and a carry-on that would fit in the overhead compartment. My oldest daughter left on Wednesday, stopping to visit her boyfriend in Florida before she reached her destination in Sacramento. She's lived away for so long that it takes nearly the entire visit home for her to shed her hard armor, becoming the girl I knew just a day or so before she has to leave again. My second son's living only a half hour away, and while he and his girlfriend come back every Sunday for dinner, he's still not here where we all began.

The house misses my children. Sometimes we'll hear doors slamming and drawers closing abruptly. Andy nicknamed this phenomenon "The Energy," blaming the noises on the residual energy left behind by his frenetic sister Laura, but I think the house is perplexed. Where are the feet that pounded up and down its steps, bounding then down the hallway? Where are the hands that threw open the doors, softly closed the doors with a click, sometimes slammed the doors? Where are the voices that called out to each other, to me? The house bristles against the silence, calling the children back with its empty noises.

This morning was a reading-in-bed morning until my husband brought me a tall coffee, steaming hot. Last night we went to the farmer's market, loading our bag with eggplants, tomatoes, scallions, and cilantro. A yellow and orange bunch of zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers nested in the crook of my arm as we debated over the box of soft chocolate cookies with raspberry filling. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder in line at the cheese truck, lucky, as the cheeseman told us, to get the last piece of Pennsylvania white cheddar. Breaking off a chunk, we shared a bite marveling at our good fortune, and then headed home together to prepare our garden feast.

Fallout

How is it that we've come to this? Angry, venonmous voices snake across the table, searching for a soft target. Snide "hmm's" and "sure's" poke at conversation attempts. Dark moods set in to match the bullying tones, and I look at my children, my family in confusion.

Do I encourage this? Does my demeanor feed this frenzy, this wild ride of the whip at my dinner table? I close my eyes and picture the four of them younger, fresh from their baths. Two of their heads of hair are wet springy ringlets; two others peek out from behind bangs plastered to their small faces. We always read then, each child carefully selecting a stack of favorite books. Did they sense my tiredness as I thumbed through their towering piles of what we called "the long books"? Did they misinterpret my physical exhaustion as lack of interest? Sometimes we all climbed into my bed, and I would read from Hatchet or Holes or Harry Potter until the littler two fell asleep. I felt so confident then, tucking each pajamaed child into bed. Kissing foreheads and tiptoeing backwards out of the door, I was strong in my motherhood. There had been measureable progress. I had loved them well, nuzzling their damp faces, inhaling their sweet breath, moving us forward to another day of just us.

It wasn't enough. I know that now. The knowledge is ugly, twisting around my heart with a viscious squeeze. I must have missed something along the way. Some task, some link, some act of love was forgotten--lost, dropped, split in two. Now hateful words sting me. I watch, feeling myself grow smaller inside. I am there, yet I am not. I am so painfully present, but I am distant...falling, falling, falling deep inside myself. I have failed them. When was the moment we lost other? Did I let go first? The nightly string of words, once soothing, is jumbled now.