Anniversary

Until we got married, Kevin and I didn't have an anniversary to celebrate. We were both fuzzy on when we we started hooking up. I know when we decided to become monogomous, but then we broke up twice during the first year. So where do you count from? The first time we got together? The third? And especially considering that I thought we were back together 2 months before Kevin did (and most of our friends assumed it was a month before that), it became impossible to pinpoint a date. So we didn't.

When we got married, we finally had an anniversary to celebrate. Which is pretty much the only thing that changed about our relationship that day. But due to Kevin's work schedule, we only managed to celebrate together once on our actual anniversary. By then we were so used to not celebrating our anniversary that it didn't really matter. We never needed a special day to celebrate anyway.

Since Kevin passed, the anniversaries have multiplied and spread through the year. The day he was diagnosed. The day he went to the hospital for the last time. The day the doctors told us to prepare for the worst. The day we moved him to hospice. The day he died. The day I picked up his ashes. Every birthday and holiday picks up a new level of sadness.

It turns the calendar into a minefield. Every time I start to get my life together, another anniversary arrives like a punch to the gut and scatters everything again. But I think I'm starting to recover a little bit faster each time. I'm spending less time anticipating each anniversary with dread. I'm doing better between the anniversaries. I guess that's all I can ask for.

Is This Healing?

 When you lose someone, they stop and you keep going. Every day takes you farther away from them. And the language you lose enforces that distance in your mind.

I lost him this week.

Last week.

Last month.

Over the summer.

Last year.

I've reached the point where language is starting to fail me. There's no shorthand anymore for how long ago it was. Because it's no longer a short time. 

I expected this to hit me really hard. A year ago when I had to change from "this year" to "last year" I wept. But it didn't.

Grief is unpredictable. There's no way to plan for it. A song will come on the radio and out of the blue there are tears running down your cheeks. Then you brace for something major and it passes right by you.

I'm fine. And it's weird. I'm maybe even better than fine.

One of the things I've seen over and over again is that the second year is harder. The first year you're just trying to get through it. You're in shock and nothing seems real and it's occasionally a struggle to make it through the next five minutes.

But in the second year, reality sets in. You look around and you can start to see the life you were planning to live. You can see all the ways your life is diverging from what you thought it would be. And it's so easy to focus on the ways that life has gotten harder. The gulf between the life you thought you were going to live and the life you're currently living is impassable, and it gets wider every day. But during the second year, it's still narrow enough to see across. The fog has lifted enough that you think you're seeing it clearly.

The thing I'm starting to realize is that some things are easier now. I don't have to fight my frugal husband to get the kitchen of my dreams because I know I have the money. I don't have to come up with a whole strategy to cook and eat a vegetarian meal. I can just do it.

Even stranger is that I realized I like who I am right now. I like who I'm becoming. It both does and doesn't feel like a betrayal.

I know that there are still ups and downs in the future. Grief isn't linear and there are some hard anniversaries coming up. But right now I feel calm and optimistic in a way I haven't felt for a long time. Even if it only lasts for another week, I'm trying to embrace the feeling. To remember that I can get here again, and it's worth getting here.

Falling in Love With January

I've long considered October to be my favorite month. The world cools down. The leaves change colors. There are festivals and fairs, and I always find myself with jam-packed weekends. At least, I did pre-pandemic. Summer is ending, and it feels like I'm starting to wake up.

I recently realized that I love January just as much. On the surface, it seems like this love is for opposite reasons. January is a time to hibernate and cancel all my plans. It's like a deep sigh and collapse after the mayhem of the holidays. A time to rest and heal. But I think the real reason I love January is the same reason I love October - it's a time of change.

January is a time to take stock of you life and make some small adjustments. So many people make new year's resolutions at the end of December, but I'm always too overwhelmed from the holidays. I need to rest a bit first. Then I can start to look around and see what I want to change.

The short days and cold air help facilitate this. Most people want to stay home, which means you end up with fewer plans and more time for introspection. But I find the weather itself healing. I get to see the sunrise every morning when I drop my kids off at school. I get to see the sunset every evening when I pick them up. On some level, it feels like the days are the perfect length.

And then there's the cold, which so many people hate but I find rejuvenating. I went for a walk every day this past week, and it was so nice to not feel like I was overheating. The chill is refreshing. That sharpness in my lungs when I take a deep breath reminds me that I'm alive.

I'm alive.

And I guess that's really it.

October reminds me that death is coming for us all, so I need to enjoy life while I can.

January reminds me that I'm still alive. I still have time.

Every Little Bit Helps

I don't know if you follow the news, but the world is pretty scary right now.

I could be referring to any of a dozen things. Right now I'm talking about climate change. It's terrifying. The world we leave to our kids will be unrecognizable from the one we inherited. And it's so easy to point fingers. It's so easy to talk and talk about all these huge changes we need to make. It's so easy to get paralyzed into inaction because nothing will ever be enough so why do anything at all?

Because if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

And yeah, I'm still drawing inspiration from that quote.

There's this thing that pops up again and again that most of the pollution is caused by 100 companies or some bullshit. If those 100 companies disappeared tomorrow, our lives would be drastically different. We are all complicit in this.

But the world is big and complicated and it's impossible to be perfectly morally virtuous with a carbon footprint of zero. So why even try.

Because every little bit helps. Every small change leads to a bigger change.

Anyway, this is the year of small changes for me. Things that are sustainable. Things that maybe don't have a huge impact but that will build over time. Things that will hopefully make it a little less jarring when we are eventually forced to make big changes.

I've replaced all the soap in my house with bar soap. And I'm going to switch to bar shampoo and bar condition and probably bar lotion, too. A little less plastic. We'll never get rid of plastic entirely - if you spend any time in a hospital you'll understand how many lives plastic saves. But we can and should cut back.

I'm eating less meat. This was easier than I expected. When Kevin was alive, we had meat with nearly every meal. I ate beef at least once a week. After he died, beef became more of a treat, something I'd eat once a month if that. I accidentally went three days without eating any meat at all, and that's when I became more deliberate about it. I started looking up more vegetarian recipes. I recently embraced "plant-based meats". I'm still going to eat filet mignon on my birthday for as long as I possibly can. But I can certainly balance that out with meatless Mondays.

I'm on the lookout for other small changes I can make, too. Things that are easy to do. Things that will eventually become second nature so that I can start embracing other changes.

It's so easy to feel helpless in this big, bad world. All you can do is control what you can. And try to do a bit better every day. Just a bit though. It's gotta be sustainable and something you can build on.

Fail Better

 There's this quote I come across every now and then. One of those inspirational mantras that gets recycled over and over.

Ever Tried? Ever Failed? No Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.

It's from Samuel Beckett, who you probably first encountered in a high school English class. One of the greats. Of course his words are inspiring.

But once words are out there, they're open to interpretation. The intent of the reader matters as much as the intent of the author, at least when it comes to finding meaning. Which is why everything means something different to everyone.

Anyway, this year I've decided to fail better by failing deliberately. I decided not to finish my book club's first pick of the year. I set a Goodreads goal of 100 books, then promptly picked up a 650 page book. I can't quite shed my identity as someone who reads 100 books a year, even though I know on some level that I can't currently read 100 books a year. Maybe someday I'll be back to 100 books a year like it's nothing. Maybe I'll never get back there. Who knows what the future will bring. For now, deciding that I'm not going to read 100 books feels easier than deciding that I am going to read 50 or 75 books.

Life has been pretty disappointing lately. Both in big ways and small. I've gotten myself in a rut over the past few months, and I'm having a hard time shaking myself out of it. It doesn't help that all the plans I make lately get thwarted. By COVID or snow or something else outside of my control. It's demoralizing, this chafing up against circumstances that I can't change.

I've always had a tendency to get stuck. My routines keep me going when life gets hard. They also trap me. Kevin was good at shaking me out of it. He brought spontaneity to my life. He made me brave. But he's not here now, and for the sake of our kids I have to find a way to do it on my own.

I've been failing at so many things for so long. But most of it's been out of my control. So I'm flipping the script and embracing it.

It already seems to have jogged something loose.

Book Meme - Day 31

What would be on the soundtrack for your favorite book?

Well this is a bummer of a question to go out on, because I don't really have any idea how to answer it. Sometimes I'll connect a specific character to a certain song. Like Denna and Richard Thompson's "Beeswing". But coming up with an entire soundtrack? That just sounds like work I don't want to do.

And since no one is making me do it, I'm not going to.

Book Meme - Day 30

How many books do you typically read in a month? How do you feel about this number?

According to the spreadsheet I started keeping this year, I read 12 or 13 books a month. Which is honestly a little high. I'm reading more this year than I ever have in the past, and it's hitting the point where that's probably not a good thing.

Reading is an effective way to learn more about the world around you, to escape when things get too hard, to pass the time when your bored. But I need to start making time for other things again. I want to find time to practice yoga regularly or go for a bike ride. I want to hang out on the couch with my husband and watch TV or even a movie. I want to write more (actually, I'm doing way better at this this month).

Then again, all those things require a solid chunk of time - 45 minutes at least. And at Gavin's current age, it's hard to carve out that kind of time. It's much easier to find five minutes to read another page or two of a book.

I'm going to read more books this year than I ever have before. I think I want this to go down as my record year. Not that I'm going to stop reading altogether or anything. But I need to start getting back to other things.

If only there weren't so many books I want to read. A big part of this is that I need to stop buying books so I don't feel as much pressure to read so fast.

Book Meme - Day 29

Are there any books or topics that should not be published? What are they? Why?

No.

I support free speech and freedom of the press and that means even things I don't agree with. Every idea deserves to be heard. And then you can reject it, argue against it, and shoot it down. But you have to at least hear it first.

Book Meme - Day 28

What are you reading right now? What are it's strengths and weaknesses?

As usual, I'm reading several books at the moment:

The Name of the Wind. This is one of my favorites. I got the Tenth Anniversary edition for Christmas, and I'm finally reading it now. It has a bunch of new illustrations and some bonus material at the end. I love a lot of things about this book: the use of language, the world building, the magic system, the characters, the way it talks about music and poverty and the quest of knowledge. The dichotomy of the hero and villain and how it's mostly a matter of perspective. The way rumors turn to myths and legends. I wish there were more female characters. And that the hardcover wasn't so heavy. It's hard to read in bed at night.

Discount Armageddon: The first in one of Seanan McGuire's many, many urban fantasy series. And possibly my favorite of hers. This is a fun adventure that's bringing back a lot of the things I liked about Buffy (the heroine has a quick wit, a strong family, and a desire to have a life outside of monster hunting that she's struggling to balance with the monster hunting). McGuire has matured as a writer since the early Toby Daye books (which I also want to revisit - apparently I quit that series just before it got good). I dunno, I'm barely 100 pages into this book, but so far I'm loving it. I'll probably have more to say when I'm finished.

A Hat Full of Sky: One of Pratchett's Discworld books, the second about Tiffany Aching. This is a great young adult story about growing up and taking responsibility. It could be more diverse, as could all of Discworld. But I love it for being about a practical young girl who wants to help people.

Book Meme - Day 27

Describe your ideal book club

There would be an emphasis on SFF. Maybe that's all we'd read. I know most of the history of this genre, I'm familiar with it's tropes. I think there are a lot of exciting things happening there right now, and I'd love to discuss it with other people familiar with the genre.

All the members would be well-read and politically engaged. I want to talk about how books do or don't reflect the larger world, and I don't want those conversations to be a bunch of 101 lessons. I want the discussion to be on a higher level.

There would be a set meeting time, once a month. Roughly six people would show up each month, a mix of people who are there every month and people who only come occasionally.

There would be wine and snacks and it would be close enough to my house that I could walk home.

It would not fizzle out after 3 or 6 months.

Book Meme - Day 26

Do you return your library books on time? What do you think your answer means about other aspects of your life?

I don't check out books from the library because I get too anxious about not finishing them before they're due. This is ridiculous. I believe library loans typically last 2 weeks, and I usually finish a book in 3-4 days. A week if it's really long. But I always worry that it'll take longer, and then I'll have to return it unfinished. Or renew it and then someone who was waiting to read it will have to wait even longer. I stopped going to the library years ago, because it was causing me too much stress.

I think this demonstrates rather well that I will spend money to avoid a stressful situation if at all possible. I'm lucky I'm rich. If I weren't, my anxiety disorder would be a much bigger presence in my life. As it is, I can avoid most things that cause me stress and manage my anxiety without medicine.

Book Meme - Day 25

Have you ever pulled an all-nighter to finish a book? Which was it? What made it so compelling?

I have twice stayed up all night (or at least way, way too late) to finish a book.

The first time was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when I was twelve. It was summer, so it's not like I had to wake up and do anything the next morning, which helped with the staying up all night aspect. I had initially intended to read the series a chapter at a time with my mom and brother. That conviction evaporated the second I cracked the cover. As many people can attest, JK Rowling created a truly magical world. And it sucked me in.

I probably would have repeated this feat when the fourth book came out, but I received it in the morning and spent all day reading. I don't know if I finished it or just fell asleep - either way, I didn't stay up too late with that one. And after that I had responsibilities that made staying up all night a less appealing prospect.

The second (and last) time I stayed up all night with a book was when my friend loaned me Wizard's First Rule, the first in Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series. This time was more egregious because I actually had a test the next day at school (albeit, a state-sponsored standardized test, so I wasn't taking it too seriously). But right as I was preparing to go to bed, Richard was kidnapped and spent the next 200 pages in captivity. I simply couldn't put the book down and sleep until I knew he was safe. By the time he escaped I was so close to the end of the book that I just went ahead and finished it.

Book Meme - Day 24

Who was your first literary crush or character you wanted to be friends with? What drew you to them?

I'm not sure I've ever really had a crush on a literary character. My early exposure to vampires like Lestat certainly informed what I find attractive (without having much bearing on my real life). And I remember loving Renzo Leoni from A Thread of Grace in a way that made me wish he were real. But when I was first reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels and a friend at the time enthused about my meeting a character because he was "so hot" I was a little confused. I'm not great at visualizing book characters (or settings) unless there's a lot of detail, and there wasn't much in this case.

I guess there's a difference between thinking "I want Katniss to choose Peeta" and "I would choose Peeta". Even when I was writing fanfic, my self-insert wish fulfillment was reserved for TV characters. They loomed a bit larger in my imagination. (For me Lestat was initially an extension of Spike.)

But man did I want to be a member of the baby-sitters club. I could never fully map myself onto any single character. I had Mary-Anne's shyness, Stacey's math abilities, and Jessi's love of dance. I was an amalgam of all of them, and therefore sure that I would fit right in with them. I also loved the structure of their friendship - the frequent (though brief) meetings and the shared interest of babysitting.

My friends and I talked about starting a babysitters club of our own, but it wasn't meant to be. We couldn't meet regularly, and I could never quite figure out how to get my CPR certification that would make me hire-able to people outside my family. But I always had those books and the friends in them that I could revisit time and time again, until I finally outgrew them.

Book Meme - Day 23

Describe how your bookshelf is organized. Why do you organize it this way? What other organization methods might you consider?

For the most part I have my books organized by genre and then further into subgenre. Within subgenres I mostly go by feeling. I put books next to each other if they're similar enough or if they both evoked the same feeling in me.

So, for example, I've got a couple of book cases of fantasy books. I have a couple of shelves devoted to series (Discworld and The Wheel of Time). I have a shelf for urban fantasy, one for portal fantasy, one for epic fantasy, one for chosen one tales, etc. The urban fantasy shelf shades from the more realistic (magical realism, a la The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake) to the more fantastical (The Dresden Files). The Magicians sits next to The Chronicles of Narnia because the former is a direct reaction to the latter. Sometimes books might belong to multiple sub-categories, and they just get put on whichever shelf has more room.

I have a non-fiction book case with pop science and history books and memoirs. I have a couple of shelves devoted to science fiction, broken further into dystopian fiction, space adventures, and time travel. Actually, I had to put time travel next to WWII, because I own a surprising number of time travel books about WWII. Or possibly WWII books with an element of time travel. Again, sometimes it isn't so easy to categorize a book.

Years ago I attempted to organize all of my books alphabetically by author then title (keeping series in order). It lasted less than a week because I couldn't find anything.

Conversely, a few months ago I put together a rainbow bookcase, expecting to take a picture and then put everything back where it went. But I ended up really liking the rainbow bookcase (it's actually two bookcases, next to each other). It's fun to look at. It's surprisingly easy to find books because I actually have a pretty good visual memory (this might be related to the fact that I was always better at geometry than algebra and physics fell apart for me when we started treating time as a dimension - I need to be able to turn word problems into pictures).

The thing I really like about my rainbow bookcases is that it provides a neat snapshot of who I am as a reader. I've got everything jammed in together. Memoirs next to young adult and fantasy next to physics text books. The individual books in each series are scattered all over the place. I love the contained chaos of it, possibly because it feels like it reflects what my life is like right now.

The only thing I don't like about the rainbow book case is that I can't apply it to my entire collection. It represents roughly a quarter of the books I own. Most of my books have either solid black or solid white spines. Or they have colorful spines that can't be easily called blue or green. And so those books are still being shelved according to my gut feeling genre system.

Honestly, the whole thing is a bit of a mess. But it works because I know exactly where every one of my books are. And that's the whole point of organizing your collection.

Book Meme - Day 22

What author, book, or series do you refuse to read and why?

Somewhat recently, an older, beloved author died. I had never heard of him until that day, or at least not in a way that made an impression. I read his obituary and a couple of other articles about him and reactions to his death. And I decided that I had no interest in ever reading anything he'd ever written. As someone who reads a lot of books, there are few things as satisfying as learning about a new author and then decisively not adding them to your to-read list.

It might help if I could remember the name of this particular author. But forgetting about him is just as effective as purposely avoiding him.

Actively refusing to read something isn't generally something I do. If I'm not interested in something, it doesn't stay on my radar long enough to show up on my to-read list. And if I keep hearing about someone, well, never say never. There's always a chance I'll get around to them someday.

Possibly the best example of this is Stephen King. A lot of people love him. He's incredibly prolific and has had a profound impact on both horror and science-fiction. He seems like a cool dude. But trying to pick a starting point is honestly overwhelming. It's not just that he's written so many books. It's that so many of his books are so long. I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of commitment right now.

I did finally decide to try The Dark Tower, his magnum opus. A sprawling, science-fiction series seemed like as good a starting point as any. But I read the first two books, and I just didn't care. And now I'm worried that I won't like any of his other books. Too worried to pick up a 1000-page tome just because other people love it.

I'll probably never pick up another Stephen King book. Not because I actively refuse to read him, but because there's pretty much always something else I'd rather read. Then again, never say never. My curiosity may just get the better of me one of these days and compel me to finally pick up Carrie or It or The Stand. It just won't be anytime soon.

Book Meme - Day 21

What author of color deserves a bigger audience? What will you do to help introduce more people to this writer?

This is a tough one. The truth is that I don't read all that many authors of color. I'm actively working on fixing that. But most of the authors I come across are already award winners, which tends to lead to a sizable audience. There's not a ton I can do to add to that.

I have been pushing Octavia Butler on more people in the past couple of years. Her science-fiction is short and, I think, particularly pertinent to the world we live in. I wish Parable of the Sower was as popular as 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, because I think it's just as good and important as those classics. But it has also spawned it's own religion, so it's not like no one is reading that book.

At this point I'm trying to expose myself to a bigger variety of voices. And when I find a book I like, I recommend to anyone else I think I might like it. I also have a dedicated boo blog, though it doesn't get that many hits. And I've been trying to steer my book club to books that are written by women of color (we're two for three so far). But the truth is that this is an area where I need to do better.

Book Meme - Day 20

If you could only read classics or contemporaries for the rest of your life, which would you pick and why?

I would definitely do with contemporaries. This isn't even a difficult choice.

The truth is that I hardly read classics anyway. And when I do, they tend to be more "modern classics" than actual classics. Things that are less than a century old. There are a lot of barriers to the older classics, and the truth is that I probably get just as much from a Wikipedia entry or the spark notes. Mostly I'm just reading them so that I understand references in newer books anyway.

The world has changed a lot since most of the classics were written. And it's only changing faster. It's not just the language in older books that's burdensome, it's the almost complete lack of diversity. Reading older books is like looking back at a time when the world was a lot smaller and more narrowly defined.

I'm not trying to say classics are bad. They tend to be classics for a reason. They're foundational to a lot of what we read today. But when I'm trying to learn more about the world we live in, it helps to read something that was published more recently. The authors are more diverse and so is their subject matter. It makes for a better overall reading experience.

Accident Prone

My brother was an accident prone kid. He had stitches more times than anyone else I know and broke a few bones, too. He was in the hospital to the point that it became fairly routine. We tell the story about the time he got stitches in his head, and his only concern was that they be purple. The nurse was rather surprised by this.

Most of his injuries make good stories now. None of them caused permanent damage, and a lot of them were just so weird. A kid at camp throws a rock in the air and it comes down right on his head. He catches a football that snaps his thumb back and breaks it. He stands up after getting a vaccination and faints, knocking his head on a metal table. It's all just so absurd.

And it looks like Gavin is on track for the same kind of life. What we thought was Nursemaid's elbow was not Nursemaid's elbow. On Wednesday morning it was clear that Gavin's arm was still hurting him. He'd barely moved it at all since Monday evening and was becoming surprisingly adept at doing things one-handed. We decided to take him to the pediatrician for a second look.

She referred us to orthopedic pediatrician and was able to get us an appointment for later the same day. By the time we got there, he was beginning to use his arm again, and we were thinking that maybe it was unnecessary after all. But they took some x-rays and did an examination, and it was clear that the elbow was still bothering him.

The x-ray didn't turn up much, because toddler joints are still mostly cartilage. But combined with the exam, the doctor decided he had either a fracture or a bruise on the cartilage. It'll heal quickly, but as he gets more comfortable with it, there's a bigger risk of re-injury. So the doctor recommended we put him in a cast for a week to give his arm a chance to heal.

It's unfortunate that this lines up with his and Kevin's trip to the beach. With a cast on he can't get in the water and he can barely play in the sand. But it's not like Gavin knows the difference. Kevin is much more disappointed than he is.

Gavin didn't like having the cast put on, but once it was there he cheered right up. Now that his arm is being held immobile I think it's hurting him less. And he's a bit too oblivious to really be bothered by the cast. Every now and then he asks what it is, but then he goes back to whatever he was doing.

I'm still not sure how he got hurt so badly. It seems like that he whacked his elbow in addition to what we saw on Monday. But who knows? Maybe he'll end up being just as accident prone as his uncle. Or maybe this will just be a blip and he'll go on to have a normal childhood with a minimum of extra doctor's visits. Either way, this story will quickly become part of Gavin's personal legend, trotted out for new friends and girlfriends for the rest of his life.

Book Meme - Day 19

What is the perfect reading snack? Why?

I have no idea how to answer this question.

The truth is that I don't really snack. About a decade ago I dislocated my jaw, and then I had to wear a bite guard full time until it healed. And I got out of the habit of snacking. I sort of started again when I was pregnant, but quickly reverted to my three meals a day after Gavin was born.

I'll read a book during a meal sometimes. And in those cases, I prefer food that can be eaten one-handed. That way I can hold my book with the other hand. So nothing that has to be cut up, and generally no sandwiches.

But just snacking? Not for me.

Book Meme - Day 18

Do you feel pressured to read the latest book or are you more of a backlist kind of person? Why?

I'm definitely a backlist kind of person. Paperbacks are cheaper than hardbacks, and used books are even cheaper. Which is important given my reading habits. But more than that, sticking to the backlist helps me keep my to-read list to a reasonable length. New book always get a lot of buzz, which has more to do with the advertising campaign than the content of the book. But if people are still talking about a book 3 or 4 years after it was released, it's more likely to be good.

That said, there are a few categories where it makes sense to favor new releases over the backlist. I talked about this in romance - where the newer books are more likely to reflect current sexual mores. Political books are another category that can get outdated quickly. And there are a handful of authors who I like enough to pick up their books soon after the release, especially if those authors do a local book signing.