Monthly Update: October 2024
Life, Writing, Reading
Life
As a toddler, my son Finley preferred Allison to be the main bedtime person. I helped with brushing teeth and reading books, but once it was lights out, Finley wanted to cuddle with Mama, not me. He was three-and-a-half when Callen was born, and suddenly, Mama was not available for post-book cuddling. He was stuck with me. The first few nights were challenging, with me trying to explain to Finley why things were as they were. My reasoning was of no use to him.
Then one night I had a breakthrough. I told Finley a story from my childhood. He listened calmly and asked for another. Every night thereafter, I would tell him stories until he fell asleep. I asked if he wanted a story about anything specific. “What do you want in this story?” For many months, he asked for three kinds of stories: ouchie stories, toot stories, and poop stories. Eventually, I ran out of those. I told stories about the cats I had growing up, about camping trips, about playing at school, about playing sports, about going to the library. I told stories that were so buried in my memory I’d forgotten about them until, on a particular evening, I shared them with Finley. Every night since (for two years now), Finley asks me or Allison to tell him a story before saying good night.
Callen is now two years old, and just last week, I told him a story from my childhood. He sat on my lap facing me, and every time I dramatically paused at the end of a clause or sentence, he would bounce up and down with excitement.
Being a student of literature and the Bible, I hear all the time about “the power of stories.” And I say, “Yeah, stories are powerful, yep yep yep.” It’s easy to believe that idea in theory. And maybe I can recall a “powerful” story or two that have been shared with me. But it’s much more of a surprise to see the effect stories have on my children. They are calmer (and more excited at the same time—how does that work?). Their attention is hooked. They want to hear more. I guess I gotta practice my storytelling skills. Thankfully, I have the best, most snuggly, most receptive audience in the world.
Writing
Most of my writing this month has been for Substack and class preparation. I have been revising and writing poems, though my output has slowed since last month. Submission has become my new discipline. Submitting my poems to various places, I mean. I am not very good at submitting work. Since 2020, I’ve submitted probably 4-5 times per year on average. This year, I challenged myself to submit 10 times. So far, I’m at 5, but 4 of those have been in the last two months.
A new fiction project is starting to form in my head as well, and I’m taking notes and sketching brief scenes. It’s a futuristic world (like 2080-ish), post-climate-disaster but also post-climate-solutions, and the resulting conflicts of ideology that happen at that time. Millenials are the elderly. Toward Gen Z, the youth groan and say, “Okay, Zoomer.” I’ve been reading a bit of climate literature (see below) and feeling inspired to write in that direction.
Reading
Here are brief reviews of some of my favorite books I read in September.
Fiction
Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation
This is my second Ozeki book this year. The Book of Form and Emptiness is still in my top 2 fiction reads this year. All Over Creation is an earlier work from Ozeki (2002), but her signature narrative features are still present: weaving together several narrative threads and richly layering meanings upon meanings. An old Idaho potato farmer is reaching the end of his ability to farm; his wife has dementia. Their estranged daughter returns to the small town to help care for them. She brings her three kids, and with the help of her high school friend, they try to figure out end-of-life plans for her parents. But then some environmentalist youth activists pass through town, decrying the use of pesticides and GMOs. They take a liking to the crotchety old potato farmer, treating him almost like a cult leader. They help around the farm, but also plan for big protest “actions” around the area, attracting the police and the media. In the meantime, the potato farmer dies. Everything comes to a climax at his funeral, and the various endings are satisfying each in their own way. The book wrestles with questions of fertility (both of humans and of the earth), safety and health, economics, motherhood, love, commitment, and change. And potatoes. Lots of potatoes.
LeAnne Howe, Savage Conversations
For fans of George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, Howe’s book is a darker take on Lincoln’s legacy, paired with the supernatural. While it is historical fiction, the story is based in facts. Mary Todd Lincoln suffers from nightmares and hallucinations after her husband’s death. She envisions a “Savage Indian” who comes to her every night and scalps her. They have a fearful intimacy, and their conversations reveal why the visitation occurs. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln ordered the hanging of thirty-eight Dakotas, the largest mass execution in United States history. In her novel, Howe links the two historical events, weaving the nightly “conversations” with historical documents and perspectives from other characters, including the rope used to hang one of the victims. “The rope seethes,” is one of the refrains of the novel. A haunting and evocative story.
Non-Fiction
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katherine K. Wilkinson, editors, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
This anthology of essays on climate change are all written by women involved in climate work, from gardens to global emissions. This collection is hopeful and challenging, showing the impact climate change has on communities, families, countries, and ecosystems while also proposing ways forward. Here are Johnson and Wilkinson at the end of the book:
Know that we already have most of the solutions we need—from regenerative farming to renewable energy to restored ecosystems to redesigned mobility, materials, and structures. We don’t need to wait for new technologies or new practices; we just need to get to it, removing barriers to solutions, accelerating their implementation, and expanding their reach, while actively stopping sources of this crisis—namely fossil fuel power plants, rigs and wells, pipelines and refineries, subsidies and loopholes, as well as the destruction of ecosystems. Where national governments are not stepping up, local, city, and state actions are even more important and may hasten the federal mobilization that is vital. Roll up your sleeves. Everyone has a role to play.… This is an era of transformation. This is generations of work (373–374).
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, editor, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures
That name sound familiar? Ayana Johnson is becoming my new favorite science writer. (She also edited the 2022 edition of “Best American Science and Nature Writing”, which is, in my opinion, one of the best editions in the series.)
In this book, she interviews people working on climate solutions in a wide array of sectors, from farming to legislation, journalism to filmmaking, economic investment to grassroots organizing, neighborhood gardens to ocean farming. This is a hopeful book. It’s not hope as in wishful thinking. It’s hope in the concrete, word-made-flesh sense: ideas being put into action. These are people making progress on short-term and long-term solutions that will keep our earth healthier for us going forward. No one Johnson interviews shies away from naming the challenges they face, but neither do they shy away from committing to the work they do. I recommend this book for anyone who is tired of hearing only the bad news of climate change and climate disaster. This book explores and answers the question, “What if we get it right? What does that look like?” (Also, if you can, I recommend audiobooking it so you can listen to all the interviewees, hearing their excitement, laughter, hesitation, etc.).
Farah Karim-Cooper, The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race
I was intrigued when I saw this book at a bookstore in Port Townsend last March. Since I’m reading Shakespeare plays this year (one per month), I thought this would be an interesting resource to have alongside. Karim-Cooper explores the role race played—and continues to play—within the realm of “Shakespeare.” She examines the race-making enterprise of the sixteenth and seventeenth century (i.e., how racialized categories were being created and negotiated at the time when Shakespeare was writing). Was Shakespeare playing into stereotypes, or was he being subversive through those stereotypes? She also looks at the long history of Shakespeare performance and the racialized typecasting that continues to exclude people of color from certain roles because they are for “white actors.” The book begins with the question, “Is Shakespeare racist? Can we still love Shakespeare?” The book ends where it started, the answer to both being “Yes, but keep in mind…”
Drama
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
A strange, magical tale on a deserted island. Revenge that ends well for everyone. Shipwreck, true love, angelic liberation. While the following quote seems to be a sincere way of saying, “You must have an amazing story to tell,” it also sounds like a backhanded compliment:
“I long to hear the story of your life, which must take the ear strangely” (Alonso to Prospero, Act 5, Scene 1).
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Strange that the title character has very few lines or scenes and is killed halfway through. Is it really even about him? I suppose he is the hub of the action, into which all the spokes stick, the pincushion, if you will. All the scenes point forward or backward to his murder. Sorry, spoiler alert. Here is a quote from Caesar that sounds like a Chuck Norris joke:
Danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.
(Act 2, Scene 2)
Theology
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe
Many people have recommended this book to me. I found it engaging and winsome. Many of the theological claims and conclusions Rohr articulates are ones I have come to on my own meandering path, but his way of putting things shines new light onto faith, the Bible, and spiritual practice.
Hannah Burr, Contemporary Prayers to Whatever Works
This is a small book with few words. It is a book of prayers, specifically for artists, but I think they can be applicable to anyone. Each page has a one sentence prayer. The prayers are not explicitly religious. Instead of addressing God, the author inserts a painted image, an abstract and amorphous design of one color. Each page contains a different image. There are other painted “blanks” for the reader to offer their own specific concerns (for example, “thank you for _____, _____, and _____”). I think the artwork could be a benefit for Christians, for whom the name “God” carries a lot of weight and assumptions. The image allows us to rest in the mystery of the divine, the abundance of presence without words.
Currently Reading
Hana Videen, The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English
Videen’s book is about Old English words. She started posting an Old English word each day on Twitter, and eventually developed the practice into this book. A “wordhord” is like a treasure-chest of words and phrases, a “word hoard,” if you will. “A wordhord wasn’t a physical object like a dictionary, or even a library, but a metaphor for the collection of words and phrases a poet memorized and drew upon for their craft” (17). Videen says this book was “inspired by hord-wynn (hoard-joy), the joy that comes from hoarding” (17). As someone who finds joy from hoarding (um, I mean, collecting, acquiring, curating) things like books and notebooks, I can relate. This book is more than just an encyclopedia of Old English terms. It is an examination of what Old English vocabulary reveals about the day-to-day lives of people from over a millennium ago. Here are some of my favorite Old English words so far:
an-genga: noun (AHN-YENG-ga): solitary walker, lone wanderer
frith: noun: peace
uht-cearu: noun (OO’HT-CHEH-ah-ruh): care/anxiety that comes in the morning
wynn: noun: joy, delight, something that causes pleasure
Richard Hamer, ed., A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse
I came across this book in a used bookstore right after I started reading The Wordhord. Hamer’s anthology is a “bilingual” edition, with Old English on one side and modern English on the other. It’s fun to read the selections side-by-side and look into the rich history of the English language, all the while getting an interesting vocab and cultural primer from Videen. This is from “The Ruin” (anonymous), likely written about Roman ruins seen in a field. But I think this also sounds like a warning from the future about our own “great cities” (is not “the works of giants” an apt name for skyscrapers?):
Marvelous is this masonry, though fate
Has ruined and destroyed the city buildings,
The works of giants crumble, and the roofs
Have fallen in, the towers have tumbled down,
The barred gate has been borne away as plunder,
Frost cracks the plaster, all the ceilings gape,
Collapsed and pierced with holes, consumed by age.
…
A hundred generations now have passed.
Often this wall, red-stained and gray with lichen,
Has stood through storms, while kingdoms rose and fell;
But now the high curved wall has also fallen.
…
Decay has brought it to the ground,
Broken, as heaps of rubble, where long since
A host of heroes, glorious, gold-adorned,
Gleaming in splendour, proud and flushed with wine,
Shone in their armour, gazed on gems and treasure,
On silver, riches, wealth and jewelry,
On this bright city with its broad domains.
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