Tag Archives: books

love rules

Posted on
17

I usually have two books going at once, one fiction and one non-fiction. Yesterday, I was scanning my bookshelf in the family room looking for something motivational/comforting/self-helpish and I spotted What Happy People Know by Dan Baker, Ph.D. I read it a few years ago, but apparently I’ve forgotten “what happy people know” because I’ve been feeling pretty blue lately. After rereading it I decided to play along with the Teaser Tuesdays Blog meme at MizB’s Should Be Reading blog. I randomly opened the book to page 94 and picked out this quote to share. “From that day on, I realized that there was something happy people know that unhappy people don’t: No matter what happens in life, there’s always something left to love, and the love that remains is always stronger than anything that goes against it.”

I like that, the idea that love rules, that the capacity of our hearts to appreciate and love unconditionally can overcome the craziness in our minds. Craziness that is almost always motivated by fear. Fear that we aren’t good enough, we aren’t loveable, fear of loss, fear that things won’t get better, fear that we are helpless to “fix” the broken pieces of our life. I think we all have to dig deep sometimes to find the courage to quiet that fear-based voice with a conscious prayer that begins and ends in gratefulness and love. My take away after reading Dr. Baker’s book again is simply this: Life is a dance and we all might be a little happier if we remember to lead with love, not fear.

my book

Posted on
29

For a long time after my mom passed away, I lost my voice and my creative juices. It wasn’t just the losing her, although I had never experienced the death of someone so close to me before, but it was also the many months that led up to that day. It was her long illness and the heartbreak and helplessness of watching her disappear before my eyes as she slowly lost her breath to COPD, and finally her life. There were other losses during that time, many other reluctant goodbyes, and it all simply emptied me out. So I set my writing life aside and tried to figure out how to process the layers of grief and regret, how to regain my emotional footing after a yearlong free-fall. Eight months ago, words started to bubble up in my head, little teases and glimpses of ideas and improvements for the book I was working on before my mom got sick. At first I ignored them. I just wasn’t interested. But eventually, I couldn’t ignore them anymore and I reread the book and began to work on it again.

And now it’s finished, and although I thought it would be published early in September, it somehow happened that September 30th was the day it was finally ready to go, which I think is pretty cool. Because it was three years ago on 9/30/08 that my mom died and it suddenly felt like I had been given the opportunity to take that date back and fill it with something joyful to honor my mom and my own creative spirit. By the end of the day on the 30th however, it didn’t look like I’d get the okay from CreateSpace in time to publish and I was pretty depressed as I got ready for bed that night. Just before midnight, I went downstairs to check my e-mail one last time and the notification was there! It felt like my own moment of ordinary magic as I sat in the dark in front of a glowing computer screen and hit the “publish” button just minutes before September 30th ended.

A blogging friend wrote this recently in a comment,  “I still miss my Mom, and she died a long, long time ago. Luckily, her spirit still inspires me.” Now, every year when September 30th rolls around, I will still think of my mom. I’ll think how lucky am I to have had her in my life for as long as I did, to have grown up in a house full of books and love, to have so many wonderful memories of my mom to inspire me as I go forward. How lucky am I? Damn lucky indeed.

If you think you’d like to take a chance on a newly minted author and read my book, the paperback is available now on Amazon and it will be coming soon to Barnes & Noble, Kindle, Nook, and iBooks:)

teaser tuesday

Posted on
7

Teaser Tuesday asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

Outside, surrounding the plane, was the sense of weather growing vindictive-an accumulating energy with its own agenda. The weather didn’t care that they had connections to make, medication that needed to be taken, appointments that would be missed, vacations that were ruined before they’d even begun. In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke

Sometimes when I board a plane, I look around and wonder if the people I see are the last people I’ll ever see? Or if we’ll go through an unwanted and frightening adventure together like the passengers of the “Miracle on the Hudson” flight. It’s like I’m seeing the characters from a book or a movie and I especially wonder about those sitting near me, what the couple in front of me are whispering about, or why the young father across from me is traveling alone with his baby son, is he divorced or widowed or flying home to his wife after visiting his parents? I watch the cabin crew go about their jobs, some smiling and talkative, while others looked bored and annoyed as they repeat their instructions and answer the same questions over and over again. In some ways flying is isolating, taking us away from the noise and hustle of the world below us. But it also forces an intimacy on us that we have little time for in our normal daily lives, which aside from the fear of crashing part, ain’t all bad!

best book lists 2009

Posted on
11

I put together a few best book lists so you can copy and paste them and take them along with you to the bookstore. Hope you had a good year in reading, I can see by the lists that I missed way too many good reads and need to hit the books in the coming year!

PW TOP TEN

Cheever: A Life – Blake Bailey

Await Your Reply – Dan Chaon

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon – Neil Sheehan

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders -Daniyal Mueenuddin

Big Machine – Victor LaValle

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science – Richard Holmes

Stitches – David Small

Shop Class as Soulcraft – Matthew B. Crawford

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi - Geoff Dyer

Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon – David Grann

OPRAH’S TOP TEN

The Bolter – Frances Osborne

Dreaming in Hindi – Katherine Russell Rich

Little Bee – Chris Cleave

Blame – Michelle Huneven

Losing Mum and Pup – Christopher Buckley

Zeitoun – Dave Eggers

Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan

Some Things That Meant the World to Me – Joshua Mohr

The Invisible Mountain – Carolina De Robertis

Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness – Tracy Kidder

Continue reading →

teaser tuesday

Posted on
10

Teaser Tuesday asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. This teaser is from one of my novels, and like me the main character has hit those mid-life years where you feel like the future is finally just around the corner, for better or for worse! That’s my mom with my sister Amy and my big brother David, and my dad steadying baby David as he takes his first steps.

Maxine had only to close her crinkly farsighted eyes and she could see her father, young and healthy, putting on his felt fedora and blowing her a kiss as he left for work in the morning, or her pretty young mother setting a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies down on the table in front of her after school. She could see a six-year-old Sela at her first ballet recital, the ten-year-old Sela doing cartwheels on the front lawn, and the confident young college student waving goodbye in front of her dorm at Brown. It all went by so fast. Too fast. Maxine often wished she had a pause button that she could hit on the really good days. She didn’t want to stop time—she just wanted to slow it down and give herself more time to take it all in.

teaser tuesday

Posted on
12

Teaser Tuesday asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. I’m reading The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer. I don’t read a lot of mysteries or thrillers but sometimes I think it’s good to step out of your reading comfort zone and shake things up a bit. I’m really enjoying the read and when I went to his website I also enjoyed his snarky sense of humor! He has fake movie trailers and in one video he’s got family members reading some crummy reviews of the book. It’s totally hilarious, you gotta love a guy who can laugh at the critics! And if those are real reviews I certainly don’t agree with them. I plan to read more of his books, he’s an interesting guy and a good writer.

My teaser sentences are from page 44 where he writes, It’s so damn easy to judge. But Paulo knows from his niece, no matter how much you want someone back in your life, sometimes it’s the letting-them-back-in part that hurts the most. I reread that second sentence several times. It struck me how true it was, and not just about letting people back in, but about letting anything back into your life that you associate with heartache. Years ago, I had to stop painting because I was very ill. When I finally regained my health I didn’t go back into the spare bedroom where my easel was set up for many months. I thought it was because I was afraid I wouldn’t remember how to paint, that I may have lost the ability to be creative after going through so much physical and emotional hurt.

One afternoon, I finally got up the nerve to venture into my little studio. I opened a can of turpentine and squeezed a selection of oil colors onto my palette. Facing a blank white canvas, I breathed in the scent of my paints, dipped my paintbrush into a swirl of cadmium red, and promptly burst into gut wrenching sobs. It was at that moment that I realized it wasn’t the fear of not being able to paint that had kept me away from my art, it was the fear of losing it all over again if my health problems returned. I had grieved long and hard after first losing that part of me, did I really want to let it back in? So I agree with Mr. Meltzer, that simple little sentence says a whole lot about human nature and I imagine most of us can relate to in one way or another.

tuesday teaser

Posted on
7

Teaser Tuesday asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. In February of 2008 I started a meme based on the book created by Smith Magazine, book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Recently I got a copy of their latest book, I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets which are six word memoirs written by teens. I love the whole six word memoir idea and reading what teens wrote was fascinating. When I opened it today these were the memoirs I read. The exits were entrances in disguise. ~Shannon B. Learned that sometimes friends aren’t forever. ~Victoria L. His abuse made me respect myself. ~Lindsey E. Good stuff.

teaser tuesdays

Posted on
14

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to : Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. I finally finished the Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitteridge. I had started it in April but set it aside unable to get into it, this time it took however, and I thoroughly enjoyed the read. Each chapter is a short story and they are all linked by the main character of Olive, a stern (and not always likable!) retired schoolteacher in the small town of Crosby, Maine. Themes of aging, marriage, and the always messy expectations of how we relate to our friends, spouses, and children are explored through the brutally honest eyes of Olive Kitteridge.

Today I’ve picked up something a bit lighter from my TBR pile, The Next Thing on my List by Jill Smolinski. The reviews say it is a charming summer read and when I opened to my teaser quote I liked what I saw!  This was catching a wave, and – my suspicions had been correct – I’d never done anything like it before. It felt as if the water beneath me had turned into a sea of hands that kept spiriting my board up and forward – gliding and skipping and lifting until I was shrieking with the unexpected thrill of it and wishing that this amazing rush would never, ever have to end.

Surfer girl photo is by Casch52 on Flickr. I tweaked it a little in my photo program:)