“When we cast our bread upon the waters, we can presume that
someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action,
as we who are downstream from another will profit from that grantor's
gift.”
-Maya Angelou
I have recently read a number of really thought-provoking, well-written books that I'd like to share. Two of them are fiction, two are non-fiction. All of them opened up new worlds to me and left me in a better place than I was before I read them. Books are one of my great pleasures and I can't imagine a time where I'm not in the midst of at least a couple. So here are some of my most recent finds:
Mink River by Brian Doyle.
These things matter to me, son. The way hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife’s voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers...
Treat yourself to Mink River; you won't regret it.
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
The Still Point of the Turning World by Emily Rapp
"Grief, we understood, would now hijack a part of our day for the rest of our lives, sneaking in, making the world momentarily stop, every day, forever."
I just finished The Still Point of the Turning World this afternoon and feel like I've spent time with a kindred spirit. Emily Rapp is a writer whose world was turned upside down with the diagnosis of Tay Sachs in her baby boy, Ronan. Tay Sachs is a rare, terminal disease that strikes babies and they don't survive past the age of three. In this book, Emily manages to write while dealing with the diagnosis. She finishes the book before her dear Ronan dies, although he died this past February.
You might wonder if this is a book for bereaved parents only, and I would argue no. Rapp chronicles Ronan's life while also trying to understand and seek the overall meaning of life. She reminds us that we are all mortal, that we all will die eventually. She reminds us to live in the present:
"Planners, I decided, are about planning to be immortal, and we'll all assume that we'll get another day, another week, another year. It's part of how we pretend we won't die. But when you have lived with and cared for and loved a child who is actively dying (or at least dying more quickly than the rest of us are), you learn to live in the present moment."
I understand so much of what she writes. It is her struggle to make sense of Ronan's life, of her life and ultimately of all of our lives. It is raw and emotional, and reminded me of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Rapp challenges us to find beauty in even the most difficult and painful of circumstances, and to appreciate life's fragility while living in it as boldly as possible. She doesn't want our pity, but instead dares us to live with more awareness and open hearts.
I hope you will feel free to share some books with me. And if you are buying books, please try and buy from your local independent bookstore!