Great (but Easy) Books to End a Reading Slump

When I read/hear a book review/author interview, if the book sounds good, I put a request in at the local library--the same goes for social media.  But often, it takes many months before I actually read the book, which means I often don't remember where I heard about the book.  In some ways, it doesn't matter, but I'm often curious, particularly if the book disappoints.

I'm happy to report that my 3 latest reads have not disappointed.  I am always overjoyed when I get books that are the kind of reading experiences where I get lost in the book and/or when I wake up thinking about the book.

*  Still Life by Sarah Winman was not that kind of book.  It was more gently compelling, a perfect just before bed kind of read, when I can only read a page or two, every evening or so.  It was a book about two characters who meet in Tuscany as WWII is coming to an end and the ways their lives revolve around Tuscany and each other.  It was a delight of a read, not the 800 page sprawling history, but encompassing post-WWII 20th century history nonetheless.  It showed humans at their best, and occasionally (enough to make the book compelling) not at their best.  What made it gentle is that the characters were able to recover from bad behavior.  It's the kind of book that bubbles up in my brain occasionally, and in a good way.

-- Nonesuch by Francis Spufford was also rooted in World War II, but it was a different approach, with time traveling and wizardry of a sort.  I loved the main character, a woman both of her time and ahead of her time, lots of interesting insights about gender and relationships and finance.  I had trouble visualizing the way the time travel happened, by way of statues and shapes shifting, so I scanned the pages and pages of description, and had a reading experience that came out just fine.  It was a fun but also serious read about fights against fascists, both the historically accurate kind (Britain during the bombings of London) and the time travelling, fantastical kind.

*  The Wedding People by Alison Espach was a different kind of delight, revolving around the ways we try to redeem our lives through our relationships.  At first, I almost took it back to the library, because I didn't want to read about very expensive weddings and the entitled people who want them.  But the book was in high demand, even though it was published in 2022, so I decided to read the first chapter--and I was hooked.  The main character is an adjunct English faculty member, so there's some delightful stuff about reading and teaching, along with lots of humor--and a happy ending!

# Next up is Colored Television by Danzy Senna.  How delightful to have a bit of time to return to reading, one of my earliest loves. 

* I put these books on my list after reading Paisley Rekdal's March 18 Facebook post:  "OK people, I'm getting ready for a little R&R time and I'm looking for a fun book that will tax no more than 5 brain cells. Like, writing that will basically bathe my frontal lobe in martinis and oxytocin and chocolate for a day or two then evaporate. A one-night stand of a book. A dumb but hot college boyfriend of a book. What is that book? I swear, I will go back to serious literature and yelling at my congresspeople and more paperwork in a week, but right now I just need a recommendation for a fun, IQ-obliterating read. No judgement. What is that book for you?"  These two books were so delightful and satisfying that I returned to her post this morning to capture some additional recommendations.

-- This book came to me by way of a Fresh Air interview with the author.

#  This book came by way of Leslie Pietrzyk's May 16 Facebook post of 4 books that she had recently read: "Earlier in the year I was in a patch of so-so books, and I'm delighted to report that these excellent beauties got me out of my slump! Highly recommend, and 3 are writer-adjacent!"   Her post reminded me that I heard good things about Colored Television when it first came out, so I requested it from the library, where it arrived in record time.

Creative Upkeep: Sorting the Strips, Filling the Markers

Yesterday was a day of creative sorting, creative upkeep.  Late morning, I returned home from a bagel break with a retreat friend who is here working a temporary gig at Lutheridge--what a delight to remember how many friends I have in the wide, wide world.  I decided it was time to return to my Christmas quilt that I want to have ready to gift at Thanksgiving.

Of course, it's been awhile since I picked up this project, so I had to remember what plan I had back in March when I cut strips and put them away.  Happily, I had put all the strips in a separate bag inside the bag of Christmas cloth, so I laid out the strips by color and leapt back in.  Later, I laid out the patches on the bed to see how far I am from finishing.  My plan is to sew the top together at the August Quilt Camp and finish assembling it at the November quilt camp.

In the afternoon I read a bit outside, as I did on Monday--trying to keep my sunkissed look from last week going.  It's been awhile since I spent time on the deck, and I've missed it.  I used to do the refilling of my markers on the deck--at first because we didn't have another table, and then, because it was messy and I wanted the mess to stay outside.  I decided to refill my markers yesterday.

It's a task that I don't particularly like--I would rather buy a new marker than refill the old one, wasteful as that is.  But I've already bought a lot of ink to refill markers, so I try to make myself refill the markers occasionally.  It's sort of meditative (when the ink goes where it should), sort of irritating (when the ink spurts or overflows).

In the evening, I did some stitching and did some sketching, along with some reading.  I felt a bit irritable because it's a week that's unusually hot for the mountains in North Carolina, and I'm trying hard not to turn the AC on too early in the afternoon/evening.  My spouse hates the cold weather months, and I want him to have some heat while it's here (while at the same time wishing he would just go outside and be in the heat out there).  

We finally turned on the AC when the inside temp hit 80 degrees.  Shortly after that, I went to bed where I slept the satisfied sleep of one who is getting her creative life back on track.

Summer Writing Intentions

I have not meant to let so much time go by since my last blog post; indeed, I'm astonished to see that I haven't written since Friday.  On Saturday, I wrote a rough draft of my sermon, and Sunday, I had to be on the road by 7 a.m. to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran in Bristol.  Yesterday I was putting together the syllabus and other unique-to-me course elements for the online Professional Writing class that I'm teaching for Spartanburg Methodist College this summer.  The class starts on Tuesday, a week from today, but students have access on Thursday.

I often tell people that the only time I really feel that I have off is the week between Christmas and January 1:  no classes to teach, no sermon to write, no prep work to do.  Still, this week feels different, even though I still have appointments and online teaching duties.

It feels like the first week of summer, although it's hard for me to pin down when summer starts precisely.  The last day of in-person class feels like a demarcation line, as does turning in grades, as does graduation.  I want to spend some time this week planning for ways to get back to creative writing, the non-seminary, non-sermon writing.  I want more poetry.  I also want to remember that this summer is the time I planned to put a new poetry collection together.

Here's what I wrote in a December blog post:  " I'm going to wait until summer to do a deeper dive into manuscript assembly. I'm going to create a new manuscript called Higher Ground. The title works on several levels with the climate change poems along with spirituality poems."  That blog post reminded me that I had looked at past manuscripts--do I want to use one of them as a skeleton/scaffolding or start by looking at files of individual poems?

I also want to return to my New Year's resolution, which was also my 2025 resolution:   "I am not feeling OK about how many poems I am not writing. I do a good job of writing down fragments and inspirations, but I'm also aware that I have fewer inspirations and fragments in the past year or two than has been usual. I want to end the year with 52 poems written, finished poems. They may not be worth sending out, but they need to be finished. Fifty-two poems gives me space to catch up, and space to have a white hot streak that sets me ahead."

Here's hoping for some white hot writing streaks this summer!

Notes from an Off-season Beach

We are at the beach in a slightly off season, here in mid-May.  It's warm enough to work up a summer-like sweat in the late afternoon.  But my morning walk today had a chilly enough wind that it was almost unpleasant.  Let me record a few other observations.

--Being here in mid-May means that the only children who are here are younger than elementary school age, which translates into lots of cute toddlers.

--We are also here with lots of older people, the ones with either very flexible vacation times or retired people.

--I am likely in the same age category as many of these older women, yet I am working from a different jewelry sensibility:  a nice way of saying that I love colorful glass beads that aren't very valuable, and I'm surrounded by precious gems and metals that are.  I am not wearing jewelry on vacation, and I'm in the minority.

--I have started judging restaurants by their playlists.  High marks go to Poseidon for having 3 Queen songs, including the more obscure "Hammer to Fall," which I am listening to in my earbuds right now.  What a great song--and it still feels very relevant.

--I do realize that "Hammer to Fall" was released as a single and went up the charts.  When I say it's more obscure, I mean that it no longer gets much airplay.  We're much more likely to hear "Somebody to Love," when we're out and about.

--A different musician performs by the pool each day.  Yesterday the musician could play steel pan drums, guitar, and saxaphone, but he didn't always know the song lyrics.  Strange to hear his version of Sting's "Englishman in New York," which didn't sound very English-y, and we're far, far away from both England and New York.

--Yesterday was my last Lutheran Confessions class.  It was a good class, and I learned a lot, although I'm not sure that much of it will be useful in my future life.  I love the idea that the creeds are not like a pledge of allegiance, but more like a love song of the early Church, more like a hymn than a confession of faith.  It seems counterintuitive--we say we confess our faith using the words of the _____Creed.

--It's been a good week, both bittersweet and tiring and inspiring.

A Poem for Ascension Day

Today is Ascension Day, the day that 40 days after Easter, 10 days before Pentecost. This feast day commemorates Jesus being taken up into Heaven.

Imagine it from the eyes of those who have followed Christ from traipsing around Galilee, Crucifixion, and then Resurrection. You have just gotten your beloved Messiah returned to you, and then, poof, he's gone again. What a whipsawed feeling they must have had.

For more on this day from a theological view, head over to this post on my theology blog.

A few years ago, May Day, Ascension Day, and performance review deadlines all converged, and I wrote a poem, "Conducting a Performance Review on the Feast of the Ascension."  It reminds me of how I am so grateful to have ascended out of administration.

Conducting a Performance Review on the Feast of the Ascension

I have wrestled
with these forms—a modern
crucifixion—for over forty
days. I spend more time
trying to coerce
the software into cooperation
than I do in assessment
of employee performance.

Regulations require me to assemble
the same information across several forms.
Employees must cobble
together thick packets of proof
that they’ve done what the forms
report, although if they hadn’t,
the work would have ground to a halt.

How I wish I could ascend
above all this bureaucracy,
that I could shower
my employees with all the glory
they deserve. I long to welcome
them with praise instead of forms.

Alas, the modern workplace
has yet to be redeemed,
and so, I slog
through forms and documentation and rubrics and scales
of pay. I protect my cowering, stressed
employees as best I can.
I whistle “Solidarity Forever” as I complete
the tasks that must be done.

Beach Sunrises

It's been a time of mostly vacation--and yet, I need to finish a paper for my Lutheran Confessions class that I'm taking and start thinking about Sunday's sermon.  It's been a time of mostly vacation, and yet, I still have 2 online classes that began at midnight.

It's nice to take a walk with different sunrise vistas:

Here's the Facebook post I wrote about the picture:  "This morning's Hilton Head sunrise is winder, sand scoured, with storm clouds rolling in. Only 5 of us on the beach to bear witness."

I thought that yesterday's sunrise would be like this morning's, but yesterday, we had a surprise break in the clouds.  At times, the sun looked like one of those pictures of a distant planet:

At one point yesterday morning, a sea turtle patrol truck drove down the beach away from the sunrise, with one young worker guy hanging out the window taking pictures.  I assume that the workers get to see a beach sunrise every morning.  The fact that one of them went to such an effort to get a picture made me happy.

I've said before, and I'll continue to remind myself that the human capacity for wonder makes me think that humans may survive after all.

On Mother's Day, Vacations, and Work

Here I sit on Mother's Day morning, one of the rare Sundays that I'm not getting ready to drive across the mountain to Bristol to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran.  Let me record some thoughts:

--I feel lucky to have a mom I love who loves me.  I know that many don't have that kind of luck.

--I feel lucky that my experiences of not having children is what I wanted, and it worked out how I envisioned.  I know that many don't have that kind of luck.

--I'm not preaching today because I'm in Hilton Head, SC with my mom and dad, who are in their last half of their 80's.  I know we don't have many more holidays like this ahead of us, so I'm glad to be able to be here.

--The last time I was in Hilton Head was in 2022, with my lower arm in a cast.  In fact, I had just had surgery to repair the broken wrist, so I was on heavy antibiotics, which messed up my GI system.  Happily, I'm not facing those kinds of challenges on this trip.

--The time before that, in 2021, we had stopped to pick up my sister at the Savannah/Hilton Head airport on our way north.  I remember one morning talking about whether or not we should sell our Florida house--the market was just starting to heat up.  She was one of the first who said, "Sell."  No equivocating, no hesitations. I had been accepted to seminary, but I still had my administration job, which was slated to end later in the year when the New York buyers of the school were going to close the Hollywood campus.

--We also came in September of 2020, where we were careful to stay very far apart from each other.  We grocery shopped early in the morning.  The resort amenities were very limited.

--I'm glad I was blogging during the pandemic.  Otherwise, I'd have lost a lot of those memories, or I would think back and doubt that it was really as bad as I was remembering.

--It's been a week of a different kind of disease news, hantavirus on a cruise ship.  I'm glad that I don't love going on a cruise ship.  In light of my understanding of disease and transmission, I have no desire to have a vacation that relies on a plane or a ship.

--It is the day after graduation which went well, but meant it was a day of a lot of driving.

--I came across this statistic in a New York Times article about retirement and work:  "Roughly 37 percent of Americans over 55 are in the work force."  That number seems low to me.  But what I really want is the percentage of working Americans who are ages 60-75.

--I feel lucky to be at a school where I can envision teaching long past the age where others might retire.  I won't be the only older faculty member--a lot of us know a good thing when we see it.

--And a lot of us have been teachers our whole lives, which means we can't afford to retire like past generations could.