Summer storms

I love the summer storms that have been rolling in almost every day this week. The days start with crisp sunshine and clear blue skies, but by mid-afternoon, the clouds have not only flown in, they've turned a little gray underneath. Then the breeze starts to pick up, and I watch from my office window as the tree branches start to dance. At first it's just a little shuffle-and-sway, but soon they're jumping and jiving to a rhythm I can feel through the glass. The drops start to slide down the window and the pavement produces a splattered pattern, until with a quick flash and booming roll, the thunderstorm starts up in earnest. The world is shaded, but it's not like January, gray and grim. The leaves, grass, flowers, and buildings are just as colored as when the sky is tranquil, just slick with rain. Usually the storms have moved on by the time I leave work in the evenings, but I can't get enough of the warm dampness and sweet smells that surround me when I walk to my car. I even relish the humidity hanging in the air. Sometimes I could swear that the rain has brought the woodsy smells of the mountain forests all the way down to the valley.

When I was growing up, I remember my mom gathering us up to sit on our front porch during thunderstorms, wrapped in our old brown blanket and counting between flashes and claps. Sometimes we'd run outside, my dad leading the way, when the rain came down in sheets and the sun was still glowing, jumping in puddles and watching the curb overflow with a torrential river. The storms usually moved on quickly, and the torrential rain never lasted more than ten minutes, but maybe that's why we celebrated them. My parents knew the joy of summer storms, and it's something I've carried with me. Summer isn't complete without a few crackling, drenching, sudden and swift downpours.

And of course, the full clouds at the end of the day make for the most amazing sunsets.



I can't get enough of this kind of summer.

Book Review

I hate to admit that I haven't been reading much lately, but between work and life, it's something that doesn't happen as much as I'd like. I have read a couple of books in the last few months, however, and I liked them enough that I thought I'd give my recommendations.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
From Amazon.com: This remarkable new novel weaves together the lives of Andi Alpers, a depressed modern-day teenager, and Alexandrine Paradis, a brave young woman caught up in the French Revolution. While in Paris with her estranged father, a Nobel geneticist hired to match the DNA of a heart said to belong to the last dauphin of France, Andi discovers a diary hidden within a guitar case - and so begins the story of Alexandrine, who herself had close ties to the dauphin. Redemption and the will to change are powerful themes of the novel, and music is ever present - Andi and Alex have a passion for the guitar, and the playlist running through Revolution is a who's who of classic and contemporary influences. Danger, intrigue, music, and impeccably researched history fill the pages of Revolution, as both young women learn that, "it is love, not death, that undoes us."

My friend Jen recommended this book to me. Well, recommended is a very tame word - she actually brought this book to my house, shoved it my hands, and said, "You have to read this. End of story." I'm always busy, so it took me a while to start and then once I did, it took me a little while to get into it. The main character, Andi, is not in a good place when the book starts. Her family has completely fallen apart and she's on the edge of the deep end (sometimes literally). Truthfully, it was a little depressing. However, once she got to Paris and started meeting people and reading this diary written in the aftermath of the French Revolution, I got completely hooked. There's an element of mystery as you try to piece together what happened to the girl who wrote the diary and how it fits in with the history of the French Revolution, and I loved seeing the similarities between the girls and how their lives intersect (quite literally). And of course, it was a great story, completely compelling and incredibly well-written. And in the end, there is an incredibly beautiful message of hope and healing. It's definitely worth reading.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
From Amazon.com: Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

I read this book for my ward's book group and I really enjoyed it. Again, it took me a little while to get into the groove of it, but once I did, I couldn't stop reading. It's written from the perspective of three very different women, and each one has her own distinct voice and personality. It felt a little choppy at times because of the jumps, and I would have like more resolution at the end, but it was a novel about change and so leaving the end open for the characters' lives to change fit the theme, I think. It had a ton of great moments, but funny and insightful, and it brought attention to an issue that I had never explored or heard much about before. There was a line near the end that really summed it up for me, and I didn't write it down but it was essentially that reaching across lines to understand each other is essential to our humanity. I also loved learning about the author's life and realizing that this was a very personal story to her. There's a quote on the book cover that compares it to To Kill A Mockingbird (which is pretty much my favorite book ever) and it isn't at that level, but I definitely recommend it.

Post script: I saw the movie and I loved it. I think it took all the best parts of the book and then gave the story more resolution, which was just perfect. So thumbs up for both the movie and the book!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Amazon's summary wasn't great, so here's my own: Starting in January 1946, writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a stranger and a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, about a book that he acquired that had her name in it. After the grimness of London during World War II, Juliet is eager to correspond with a fellow book-lover and learn more about Guernsey and the Literary Society. "And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name." (That last part was from Amazon.)

I absolutely loved this book - I saved the best recommendation for last! Full of quirky characters and both funny and moving stories, this book was written entirely in letters and was one of the best books I've read in a long time, possibly ever. I read it in just one day - I couldn't stop once I started! Through the letters, you get to know a cast of wonderful characters (I had a hard time keeping them straight at first), but you also get an incredible sense of what life was like for them during WWII. It wasn't all light and fluffy, though that aspect was definitely there, but the hardships, the bombings, the prison camps, and the losses were presented in a very non-dramatic way, making them even more powerful. The book was romantic without being sentimental, beautiful without florid descriptions, funny without even trying (you can ask Tim, I laughed out loud every other page), and touching without manipulation (I also cried quite a bit). It's a book about the power of books and stories to see us through our darkest times. It's about the power and love of a community, and the importance of compassion even in the face of brutality and fear. I definitely recommend it - though I think I might have been the last person on the planet to read it - it was wonderful.

Thank goodness for girls' nights

The other night I was with some of my friends for a semi-impromtu girls' night - nothing fancy, just a few treats and some catching up. It was good to see them, and even more good to plan for our next get-together. But I had a moment of clarity during the evening that I wish I fully put into words. This moment happened as I was listening to one of my girlfriends talk about the challenges she's facing right now and it allowed me to see all of us a little more clearly. I saw how we're all struggling with different things and how we're all in different places in our lives, but that it's a time of growth for all of us.

It was not a happy realization, or a sad one; it didn't make me grateful or pleased or discouraged. It was just...clarity. It wasn't a "Everyone struggles, even if you don't see it" epiphany and it wasn't quite a "We're all in this together" realization either. I just could see how our friendships had changed and grown as our lives have taken us on different courses, but how we're still friends and how girls' night is a safe place to share the things we're struggling with. We really are in every stage of life - married with two kids, married and expecting a second kid, married with no kids, single and working, single and looking for a job. We've completed different levels of education, we have different personalities, we have different ways of approaching the things that challenge us, but we're all in the same state of facing our individual challenges.

In my moment of seeing clearly, I guess what I really saw is that even though we're all struggling with very different things, we're all on our way to bigger and better things. This is a transition time for each of us, though what we're transitioning to isn't always clear and it definitely isn't the same thing. And the changes that are taking place are good reason for these girls' nights, no matter how impromptu, thrown together, or short they may be. We all need someplace to unwind and hopefully, if my moment of clarity was any indication, get some perspective. After all, and as we always said in high school, it's the little things in life that make living so grand.

Harry Potter: A Farewell

Thirteen years ago, Harry Potter was introduced into my life. A decade of books, overlapping with a decade of movies. Characters who have become friends, quotes that are now part of my permanent vocabulary, moments that have thrilled me and saddened me and moved me deeply.

Harry Potter is an inextricable part of my generation's growing up. Whenever it comes up, my friends and I can swap stories; we still remember how we came by our first Harry Potter book, which volume of the series we read first, how old we were, and all our initial reactions. A lot of our stories start the same ("I resisted because it seemed like such a fad") but all the stories end the same - we were hooked. Hooked on not only the magic in the books, but the magic of the books. We were given a world of vivid characters, fantastic creatures, mystical secrets, and hilarious one-liners (I'm looking at you, Fred and George), and a gift of that magnitude and depth is a once-in-lifetime experience.

And now, it feels like it's all over. The stories we love are always with us, as J.K. Rowling herself said just last week, but the excitement of midnight showings and pre-ordering books and skipping ahead because I absolutely HAVE to find out what happens in the end, is over. I know I'm being overly sentimental, but it really does feel like saying goodbye to a friend - or in this case, a world of friends.

Tim and I and our group went to see the last installment of the movie last night at midnight. We decided to make t-shirts instead of dressing up as characters (pictures below), and we were definitely a smashing hit. I won't say too much about the movie for anyone who wants to be surprised, but I loved it. LOVED it. It was different from the book, of course, but I laughed and cried and felt more for the characters through it (one character in particular). (I also nearly had a nervous breakdown at one point, which was exactly the point at which I had a nervous breakdown when I read the book for the first time. So you know they did a good job.)

At one point in the movie, Dumbledore is talking to Harry in a conversation that is very similar to the one in the book, but the writer added something in:

Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.

Dumbledore went on to make his point, but as soon as I heard that phrase, "Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic," I felt like the essence of the entire series had been summed up in a subtle tribute to J.K. Rowling. Words are a source of magic and that's the reason we all fell in love these books in the first place. Maybe it's because I am always aware of the power of finding the right words, but that one short line meant so much to me. I will be forever grateful for these books, and I can't wait to read them all again.






Mischief managed!

Musings on insecurity

I've been thinking a lot lately about insecurity. I realize that I have posted about this before, but it's something that comes up for me occasionally and I am always looking for validation and/or feedback and/or suggestions for how to cope. Lately I've been thinking about the insecurities that come from family. Family dynamics are always interesting to watch and every family has its own unique culture - a way of communicating, a hierarchy, a type of humor - but sometimes we get stuck in these patterns of reactions and assumptions and we don't say anything, or we say too much, and it seems like the cycle just goes on and on. I want to know how to break the cycle, for myself and for Tim.

I don't think we ever fully let go of our childhood hurts, especially when it comes to our siblings. I see this not only with my siblings and with my husband's, but even in the relationships of the adults around me. I wish so much that I could take back some of the ways I unintentionally caused hurt while I was growing up. I remember my mom trying to warn me about not cultivating good relationships with my siblings when we were young, but I didn't fully listen. I think I was too scared by the prospect of irreperable damage I might have already caused to face what my actions meant.

How do we escape the roles of our childhood? And maybe even more daunting, how do we prevent our children from taking on those roles that will impair their ability to have relationships later? How do we avoid reinforcing the birth-order stereotypes and sibling hierarchy and subconscious competitions and help our children be friends?

I'm an adult now, with adult siblings and adult siblings-in-law, but sometimes I still feel like a little kid who can't figure out how to communicate what I'm feeling. How to make myself be heard and how to make people listen without jumping to conclusions or misunderstanding. I wish that just saying I'm sorry were enough; I wish other people saying "I'm sorry" was enough. I want a quick fix, though I know there isn't one.

Maybe the solution is just to be more direct with my opinions and my questions, risk looking foolish and risk getting hurt or hurting others. I believe in being genuine and honest in relationships, but I sometimes I don't practice it very well. I'm afraid, and I hate being afraid. Is it worth the risk? That's what I want to know more than anything else.

Whenever I reach the end of a personal stream of consciousness blog post like this, I always doubt whether I should really publish it. It feels so indulgent to present all my inner thoughts like they're important to the world, but one of things I love about blogging is that it makes me part of a community of people who have something to say and who don't mind reading what I have to say too. At least, I hope so. I'm putting my faith in you, blogging universe. Don't let me down. Because seriously, I don't think my insecurities could take it. (Just kidding)

The Vacation, or There and Back Again

We're back from almost two weeks of vacation, and I can't believe it's over already. It was a prefect mix of anniversary celebrations and family time, and it was just amazing. Some people go on vacation for the beautiful scenery; some for the fun sites. Some people go hiking, some go to the beach; some go to visit family, some go with family. We just did it all. San Francisco (Jelly Belly factory on the way), down to Monterey (where we went to the aquarium, Fisherman's Wharf, the beach, and shopping), then along the Pacific Coast Highway (GORGEOUS), down to Tim's family in Moreno Valley (home sweet home) and back up to meet my family in Torrey to finish off (Apple Days parade, hiking, and lots of naps). We didn't even mind the driving so much (except through SF, that was awful) because we were listening to podcasts of "Wait wait...don't tell me!" It was relaxing and fun and I loved that it was one big loop that took in almost every kind of landscape. Like I said, just amazing.

I took an obscene number of pictures, so here are just a tiny smattering to illustrate what I'm saying: