Another week of headlines that make the world feel like a dark place. Another week of grey, wet, and windy March. We had one glorious day last week where temperatures rose to 18 degrees, before winter returned with a vengeance. The snirt (snow-dirt) and dog poop that were revealed after the big melt have once again been buried under a blanket of white.
I’ve been consciously focusing on the moments of joy amid the gloominess in an attempt to keep March madness at bay.
We had a lovely visit from longtime friends, Tim and Pamela. They’re wonderful guests and we spent a low-key weekend together catching up and chatting about life.
I spent another day drinking tea and catching up with longtime friend, Susan, who was visiting from England. I was sad when she moved to the UK, knowing we’d have to give up our regular chats, but between our visit to the UK, her semi-regular visits to Canada, and video calls, it’s worked out better than I’d expected.
And I spent an afternoon at the local fine food emporium drinking tea and chatting with shorter-time friends, Lorrie and Melanie.
My volunteer work also brings me joy, though it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes I’m smiling at the kids on the outside and banging my head against the wall on the inside. Okay, let’s try LOOKING at the letters, I say calmly as they call out random words, apparently believing there are only 50 words in the english language and they’re bound to guess right eventually.
Still…I got joy out of accompanying one grade 3 student to the ice rink for a field trip where he spent over an hour circling the rink, holding onto the boards the entire time, while most of the other boys his age zipped past him. He fell often, but kept getting back up and stayed out there until it was time to go.
And, I felt joyful working with a new grade 3 student who, every time I asked if he wanted to read another book, said, “Yeah!” as though I’d just offered him an ice cream cone. That kind of enthusiasm is rare among struggling readers.
My own little ‘bundle of joy’ turned 27 last week.
[They seem to be taking this whole girlfriend-boyfriend thing pretty seriously.]
Speaking of being in your 20s…my reading list over the last month has included three memoirs written by young people, and it’s got me reflecting on how old you have to be to have gained enough wisdom to write a memoir. I certainly wouldn’t want to have anyone read my perspective on life when I was in my self-absorbed twenties, full of insecurities and uncertainty. Then again, I didn’t have the kind of traumatic experiences to draw from that these authors did.
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo was my favourite of the three. At 30 years old, she had a successful career and a supportive boyfriend, but was struggling with her mental health. She was diagnosed with complex-PTSD caused by childhood trauma. The book covers her childhood, her exploration of the treatments available for C-PTSD, and the role of multi-generational trauma. Stephanie was already an accomplished journalist at the time of her diagnosis, so the book is thoroughly researched and well written.
Between Two Kingdoms, by Suleika Jaouad, is a story about the boundaries between the world of the sick and the world of the well.
Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.
~ Susan Sontag
Like Stephanie Foo, Suleika came from a financially-privileged background and was a high achiever. Her life was irreversibly altered when she was diagnosed with leukaemia shortly after graduating from Princeton.
The first time I picked up this book, I read the first sentence – “It started with an itch.” – and put it back on our bookshelf. That was, of course, how Nick’s cancer symptoms first presented, and I wasn’t ready yet to revisit that time. A few years have passed since then, so I tried again. Reading it helped me process some of what we went through from a distance of eight years, and helped me understand some of what Nick might have been feeling at the time too.
The author’s journey was longer and tougher than Nick’s, lasting four years with many hospitalizations and setbacks along the way. The first three-quarters of the book covers the period of her diagnosis and treatment, while the last quarter is more of a travelogue as she goes on a 100-day road trip to reflect on how to reintegrate into the ‘kingdom of the well’.
The book definitely conveys the hellishness of dealing with a life-threatening illness, and the idea of two kingdoms was thought provoking, but I found the author difficult to relate to at times. That could be because I was reading it from the perspective of someone in the kingdom of the healthy. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to read about someone’s horrific experience, but also feel like she should be ‘nicer’. She should, of course, be allowed to feel however she feels.
The book received very positive reviews and was on multiple best-books-of-the-year lists (which is probably how I ended up ordering it without knowing what it was about).
The House of My Mother is another book I ordered without knowing much about it because it was a top-memoir-of-the-year selection on Goodreads. It’s about a family of mormons in Utah who become famous when the mother creates a Youtube vlog of their lives called 8 Passengers. Their channel was followed by millions, but was controversial because of its portrayal of her strict parenting methods.
The book talks about the effect of putting children on social media, but the story gets darker as the mother becomes involved in a cultish organization called ConneXions. I knew nothing of this family’s story before reading this book, so in that sense it was interesting, but as a memoir it lacks depth and perspective. I could have learned just as much from a quick wikipedia search (more, in fact, since Shari leaves out many details of the abuse to protect her younger siblings).
Shari was only 22 when she wrote the book and it’s clear that she didn’t yet have the distance or maturity to have gained perspective on the situation, particularly as it relates to the role of her father and the church in what happened to her.