Fantastic Fiction

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page

and feel a little as if you have lost a friend

~ Paul Sweeney

 

 

The above quote captures the way the way I felt when I recently finished reading, "The Light Between Oceans." by M.L. Stedman.

 

If you are looking for a book of fiction that will transport you to another time and place, then I would highly recommend "The Light Between Oceans" to you.  It is beautifully written and for a first novel, an amazing piece of storytelling.

 

Essentially, it is a story of stunning loss, healing, the resilience of love and the consequences of choice.

Tom Sherbourne, who has just returned to Australia after four combat filled years on the Western Front, takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock for the stability and peace of living on an island.  Janus Rock is nearly a day's journey by boat to the nearest coast.  Tom falls in love with Isabel, a young and headstrong girl who returns his affection.  They get married and Tom brings Isabel to the isolated island. 

 

Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries somewhere near a beach.  She discovers that boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

 

I won't tell you anymore for you need to read it for yourself.

 

I would like to point out a particular passage from the book which struck me for its simplicity, clarity and truth.  This will give you a flavor of M.L. Stedman's insight and beautiful touch with regard to the power of letting go of a hurt, a loss or of a heartbreaking tragedy:

 

"She was about to go back inside when she caught sight of the Cape gooseberry bush, and remembered that terrible day after Grace's return when her daughter had wedged herself behind it.  As she sank to her knees in the grass and sobbed, the memory of a conversation with Frank floated into her awareness.  "but how?  How can you just get over these things, darling?" she had asked him.  "You've had so much strife but you're always happy.  How do you do it?"

 

"I choose to," he said.  "I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget."

 

"But it's not that easy."

 

He smiled that Frank smile.  "Oh , but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting.  You only have to forgive once.  To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.  You have to keep remembering all the bad things."  He laughed, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow.  "I would have to make a list, a very, very, long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount.  That I did a very proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No" -- his voice became sober -- "we always have a choice.  All of us."

 

The Selling of The Washington Post

There are some stories that I never expected to read in my lifetime.

 

The selling of The Washington Post is one of them.  When I saw the first tweet about this surprising event, I thought I had read it too fast and read the words completely wrong.  I had to go back and read it again a few times before I understood that it was a real story.

 

I just never in a million years thought the Graham family would sell the newspaper that they have owned for decades and generations.  To those of us who live here in Washington, DC, the Grahams are The Washington Post.

 

People are saying and writing that change is good and that selling The Washington Post to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million means that the paper will survive and ultimately, thrive and grow.

 

 

I sure hope so.  I was in sixth or seventh grade when I first started reading The Washington Post.  It was the first newspaper I ever read on a daily basis and even today I continue to have it delivered to my house.  For 20 years, my late husband reported and wrote for The Washington Post and we talked a lot about the crazy, fascinating and annoying things that routinely happened in the newsroom.  The newspaper felt as if it was a part of our family.

 

But whether I like it or not, families change just as many other things in life.  Change is part of life and that's all there is to it.  While the news of The Washington Post being sold is sad and it brought back lots of memories about my husband and the time he spent diligently and creatively working there, no one knows what the next chapter is for The Washington Post.

 

Sometimes as we pass through sad times or even painful times we move into unexpected events, events that we never thought would happen; events that turn out to be positive and good.  But those good things would never have visited us unless we had the pain first and so whatever happens after the pain sometimes feels bittersweet.

 

I hope Jeff Bezos knows the tremendous power of what he bought and treats it with respect.  We as a community at large are hungry for daily independently reported and written information about what is going on around the globe.

Who knows if The Washington Post will even exist a year from now but I really hope that it stays around because opening the front door every morning to read what has been thrown onto my front lawn is a critical tool for understanding and dialogue and it will always pique my curiosity.
 

Carl Hiaason

If you are looking for a book that will take you to a wickedly funny place and make you laugh out loud, then I highly recommend Carl Hiaasen's new book, Bad Monkey, to you.

I just finished reading it while on vacation at the beach last week and I loved it!  I can't tell you how many times I was sitting in my beach chair with my book while my friends were talking and catching up with each other.  There I was, face stuck in the book, reading Bad Monkey and literally bursting out laughing at the smart, flip and hysterical dialogue.  Truly great stuff! 

Come on.  Admit it.  You can't always read heavy, informational, historical books that you know will keep you up to date about what is happening in this crazy world of ours.  Sometimes you just have to read something for the pure unadulterated fun of it because laughing helps you de-stress and triggers positive emotions.  Laughing is definitely an energy and mood booster!  I usually experience my best laughs when I am relaxed.  Things just aren't that funny when you are tense, twisted and closed up.

 

 

Carl Hiaasen's gift to us as readers is that he always manages to create fabulous characters in all of his books and they always end up in a lot of wacky situations.  Given that Hiaasen writes a column for The Miami Herald, I have a feeling that he probably knows some of these people he writes about or has taken bits and pieces of different people's personalities he comes in contact with as a reporter and thankfully creates new people in his fabulous fiction.

 

I don't want to reveal the places in the book where I couldn't stop laughing because you really need to know the plot and the characters of Bad Monkey and allow them to cook together for a number of chapters before it truly becomes funny.  However, just to give you a flavor of Hiaasen's satire, here's a short excerpt involving the main character, Andrew Yancy, and Yancy's love interest, Rosa:

 

"Rosa looked irresistible as she walked up Yancy's front steps, but he was in too much discomfort to make a move, even after she changed into a devastating sundress.

While she inspected the knot on his skull, he said, "Know what?  We'd make a great crime-solving duo."

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Have mercy, woman.  I ran out of Advil."

"Well, I don't sleep with drunken guys.  Period."

Yancy sighed.  "So many rules."

She took notice of the shotgun propped in a corner, and Yancy told her restaurant inspections could be dangerous.  She informed him that for dinner she was doing blackened grouper with mashed sweet potatoes and a grilled Caesar, and that he was going to finish every bite or never see her again.

"I also stopped in Key Largo and got some homemade carrot cake," she said.

"From where?"

"What's the difference?"

"Rosa, you don't understand.  I see all the health reports.  I know the dirt on every kitchen."

She ordered him to be quiet while she sewed up his gnawed butt cheek.  To take his mind off the intimate unpleasantries, Yancy told the story of how he was conceived during side of one of Abbey Road.

"You mean side two," Rosa said.  "The medley."

"No, side one.  According to my mom, the big moment happened during Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

"It's all starting to make sense," said Rosa.

 

Besides Hiaasen's dry and snappy dialogue, Bad Monkey takes us on some unpredictable trips through Florida, where Hiaasen was born and raised, and also to the Bahamas where "everyting is jahmmin'."

 

Bad Monkey is a everything I wanted it to be: a great read and a fun, wonderful escape!

Carl Hiaasen never disappoints.

 

What Day Is It?

Vacation.

Isn’t it a great word?

Although it’s a verb, the word vacation doesn’t evoke action to me.  When I hear the word vacation I think about the air being let out of a balloon.  Or exhaling slowly.

I am in vacation right now and I feel blessed to be having one.  I am off-schedule, under the radar and very much unplugged, living in an alternate universe of sleeping in, eating and reading books whenever I want and not knowing what time it is.

Or even what day it is.  I haven't turned on the television in days.  What a surprise it was to log on to the internet and discover today is the first day of August!  

I work hard and enjoy working hard but at a certain point everyone needs to take a break from their daily routine and enjoy themselves.

As one of my friends said as we set up everything on the beach, “I didn’t think I needed a vacation until I got here.  Now I realize how much I needed one!”

Even writing this post is a stretch for me because my brain is resisting complete thoughts.

I hope everyone has the opportunity this summer to rest, relax and refresh!!

You deserve it!

Mental Relaxation

 

 Planes, trains, cars and boats are not always at the ready to take us to dreamy destinations.

 

Work, finances and other life responsibilities sometimes get in the way of traveling even though everyone needs take occasional breaks from their surroundings, especially if life is particularly stressful or painful. 

 

You can't always take a vacation even if you really need or want one.

 

But you can read a book.

 

I saw this wonderful saying from Dr. Suess (posted above) on one of my favorite websites, The Silver Pen (www.thesilverpen.com) and was reminded of the magical healing power of reading and books.

 

I know this may sound simplistic but books can be short-term solutions to an ongoing need to give your brain something else to think about.  After I experienced the loss of my husband, I couldn't concentrate when I tried to read the newspaper.  Every morning I would go out and get the newspaper from the sidewalk and try to read it and couldn't get past a sentence or two.  It was frustrating and I would end up tossing the newspaper.  This went on for months. 

 

Then I discovered reading poetry.  Slowly, I would let my eyes go over the words and try to absorb them.  Sometimes I discovered that I had been momentarily transported in my thoughts and sometimes not.  Eventually my ability to focus returned but I learned it's a process that you can't hurry along.  Healing happens at its own pace.

 

Reading is truly a gift.  Movies can give you a similiar mental break but I always think our imaginations are better than anything a movie will show us.

 

Fiction, non-fiction, biographies, poetry, it's all good.  To loose yourself in a book is so relaxing.  Ever since I learned to read as a child, I have loved books and sometimes hold on to a book that I've already read just so I can go back and read various parts of it again.

 

There are some books that grab you right away and totally bring you into the story to the point that you feel as if you know the characters and you don't want the story to end.  I have read books where this has happened and as I am nearing the end of the book I purposely slow down my reading because I know it's going to end and I really want to enjoy each and every last word the author has written.

I hope you have found books that mentally allow you to fly away and go places you never imagined.

Sweet reading to you!

 

 

 

 

Gaining Personal Power

One of the many trees that uprooted after Washington, DC storms

Over the past several weeks, my neighborhood has lost electrical power several times for varying periods of time.

Maybe you've read about the very sudden and very strong storms that recently have hit the Washington, DC area.  It's been very scary and frustrating.  We are still recovering from the last storm that hit over a week ago: some people in Bethesda and Rockville, Maryland are still without power and have been without power for over a week.  Pretty unbelievable right? 

You should read the news stories and tweets about PEPCO, the area's local utility.  PEPCO was recently listed by Business Insider as the number one "most hated company in America."  Oh yeah, by the way, PEPCO has proposed a 5% rate increase for the District of Columbia and a 4% increase for the state of Maryland.  Definitely no love there!

It's a funny thing about losing power in your house.  For some reason it doesn't really hit you at first what you can and can't do.  For example, when I first lost power, my thoughts immediately went to this: "I should go on the computer and report this to PEPCO."  And then I thought about cooking something in the microwave.  DUH!! How can I go on the computer or use the microwave when I don't have any electricity?

The first storm was so powerful it blew my cable box out.  I didn't have television for 7 days.  I missed watching TV mostly in the morning when I wanted information about traffic jams and the weather before I went out the door to work.  But I also found that when I didn't have TV, that I spent my evenings more productively. 

I admit there are times when I just automatically turn on the TV.  It's just a bad habit.  The power outage made me rethink what I was doing.  No power, no TV.

Instead of mindlessly lounging in front of the TV after work, I was doing a lot more reading, organizing around the house, talking to my neighbors and yardwork that I had put off.  I listened to the radio for news but only when I needed to.  It wasn't blabbling for hours at a time.

I recentered myself and I felt I was more engaged with my daily routine.  I found I had more creative and had quiet time.  Quiet time is so important because it allows you to untangle your thoughts. A frantic mind is what causes stress.

Watching television is passive and I think I was turning on the TV after working all day because I didn't want to think anymore.  Does that make sense?  I thought TV was helping me relax but it really wasn't. 

The heat wave in DC is going to continue for awhile this summer and I do expect to lose power again because that's the nature of the service we get from PEPCO.  But the next time the lights go out and I grab the rechargable flashlight and candles, I won't worry about what program I'm missing on TV because I wasn't watching it.