Fave Quote of the Book: Small Victories by Anne Lamott (Part 2)

From Amazon:

So, where did we leave off? (LINK)

Was I saying that I came from an unhappy family?

What does it mean to have a happy family?

Who knew that I'd be exploring such difficult questions in a silly little blog that is supposed to be about non-cancer. Yet, here we are.

My family is special. I remember a childhood of laughter, silliness, bad jokes, talking lobsters, and spontaneous trips to unexpected locales.

I also remember a childhood with tears, fear, hurt and misunderstanding, and being misunderstood. As a shy introvert from an exceptionally loud family of extroverts, I spent too much time with my own thoughts, wishing I fit in better. I had feelings I didn't understand, couldn't put words to, and as an early reader who read "at the college level" by the time I was 11, it was unusual to be unable to find the words I needed.

We fought (and still fight). We cried (and still cry). We try to understand each other, even though it often feels like we all came from different planets. Are all families like that? I honestly don't know.

We had love, but we also had an unfair share of unhappiness. Well, I call it unfair, but I don't know if that is true either.

We have hard conversations, hard feelings, and hard hearts, and all the wishing in the world can't undo some of the terrible things we've done, or unsay the terrible things we've said. Lamott says,

"Forgiving people doesn’t necessarily mean you want to meet them for lunch. It means you try to undo the Velcro hook. Lewis Smedes said it best: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lamott 117).

As family, we should always be prepared to forgive, because we are family, right? Even the Bible says we should turn the other cheek, so forgiveness is the word of the day, yes?

Maybe.

For me, explicit forgiveness is not free. Again we come back to the idea of grace. I am not full of grace, I might be full of something, but grace ain't it. Forgiveness comes at the cost of acknowledging the wrong, committing to never repeat it, and apologizing. An apology involves the words "I am sorry" or "I apologize for the hurt I caused to you."

A non-pology might include the words "I'm sorry if..." or "I'm sorry but..."

"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings" is NOT an apology. "I'm sorry but I didn't mean it that way" is NOT an apology. I'm sorry for anything that I might have done" is not an apology. It is so difficult to find grace when trust is broken. Trust might be healed if the apology includes a commitment to not repeat the transgression. Trust might be healed if the transgressor takes some action toward healing. Trust might be healed by respecting boundaries.

I am no expert on grace, but I have so many expectations. I love the idea of grace, of love undeserved and without conditions. I want to learn that grace.

My therapist tried to teach me about giving myself grace. Do you want to know what is even harder? Giving grace to others. But as Smedes above said, forgiveness sets us free. Perhaps that is the grace that I am looking for. That doesn't mean that my heart is left open to be trampled by any and all who wish to stomp on it. The doesn't mean that I have no hurts left, because I do. But in my quest for giving myself grace, I have to try to let go of those hurts and move forward. Unconditional love is not the same as unconditional trust, but maybe we can learn to get closer to that, no matter how far away that grace might seem.

Read this book. It is by far one of the best I've stumbled across in a while.

Fave Quote of the Book: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Amazon describes it like this:

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

One of my favorite bits:
The narrator reads a book by a doctor who write horror novels. In that book, the narrator reads, "No art is possible without a dance with death" (Vonnegut 21).

I am no doctor, and I am too much of a scaredy-cat to write or read horror novels, but this one sentence really spoke to me. Seeing as how I have cancer, and have had three brain surgeries in the last nine months, I'd argue that I've danced with death, at least a little, here and there. I'd also argue that some of my best writing has come about after my diagnosis, if I may be so bold as to toot my own horn here.

My diagnosis has made me even more cognizant of my own mortality, but beyond that, I've realized that I have so much left to say. The words pile up inside of me, as I write this blog, letters and cards to my loved ones (SNAIL MAIL!), in my own journal, the book that I'm writing. I have so many words, and even when I'm exhausted from the terrible insomnia, and even when I'm goldfishing, I've stories and poems and memories to share. I write and I write, and eventually, I sleep, and I read, and I write. If for nothing else, this has been a blessing for inspiring me to put ass to chair and hands on the keyboard, and I write and I write.

So it goes.

Fave Quote of the Book: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Amazon link:

One of the twentieth century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

I've read this book before, and only recently finished it. I don't know if I struggled with it because my brains have been poked and prodded, or because my memory sucks, or because this is just a tough book, but it takes place over the course of a literal hundred years, and many of the characters have the same names across generations. Aureliano Buendía and the 17 (literally 17) other Aurelianos over the years made this book a challenge for me this time around, but even though I found it challenging, I loved it. Gabriel García Marquez is the king of magical realism, and he gives the reader no chance to figure out which way is up before someone inexplicably floats away, someone else goes blind and nobody notices, and for no discernible reason, it rains for more than four years.

The version I read was translated by Gregory Rabassa, and he did an incredible job of keeping the lyrical prose and the poetry embedded in the plot with chapters that enveloped me in beautiful words and sentences like a warm blanket.

My favorite quote from this book, when a group of men are traveling through a dense jungle:

"The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin . . . For a week, almost without speaking, they went ahead like sleepwalkers through a universe of grief" (Garcia Marquez 11).

A universe of grief. My God, how beautiful is that?

I imagine the all-encompassing silence in this dense jungle. I remember the days after my diagnosis. After the sobbing, after the hysterics, the panic and fear. The stillness in the house. I felt like I was silently drowning in my sorrow. Shattered to pieces, scattered all over the floor. Days merged into nights, and still I cried until I was all dried up inside.

The men in this chapter are overwhelmed by ancient memories, and I was overwhelmed with ancient traumas from my youth rising to the surface unexpectedly. Old hurts mixed with the new, perhaps as a reminder we are made of all the pieces of our pasts, whether we like it or not. They say that the present is a gift, but if I may be so crude, sometimes, it is a shitty gift, the kind where you paste on a fake smile and hope nobody notices the disappointment in your eyes.

This universe of grief still overwhelms me. I mourn the many things I have lost, from the piece of bone in my skull to the ability to actively engage in large groups of people without debilitating anxiety. I grieve for all of these lost things, but none of that grief can be expressed as beautifully as GGM did. Read this book. It is beautiful and it is weird, and it is worth every page.

Fave Quote of the Book: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

 My favorite book (counting it as one because I have it as one complete and ultimate anthology) is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I own at least 2 and possibly as many as 6 different copies/versions. There's the copy I read:

 But there is also the leather-bound copy with gilded edges. The paperback radio-script. The movie. The BBC miniseries (on Prime). All twelve episodes of the radio play. And most recently, this:

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

Amazon Link

Now, why would I need a copy of just book 4 of the trilogy?

Before I answer that, let me tell you a story. Back before The Husband was The Husband, he worked at a bookstore. Dangerous place to get a paycheck if you are me, but luckily (I suppose) I did not work at that bookstore. But oh how I loved that bookstore. And I found out that people who work at these type of bookstores have access to things that I never dreamed of. Rare books. Databases. Dealers.

One day, the not-yet-husband gave me a gift. I don't remember if it was a Christmas gift, or a birthday gift, or a just-because gift, but this gift was a very effective love letter to me. He got me a very rare signed first edition of a book by one of my favorite authors (Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman). When he explained to me what he went through to get this book for me, that was one (of the many) moments that I knew this wonderful man loved me.


Over the years, I have acquired quite a few signed books, as gifts from friends, from The Husband, as lucky finds. It is important that you know that signed books are not for reading. They are for admiring.

What that means is that for every book of which I have a signed copy, I have a reading copy. We don't just go pawing signed books. We look with our eyes, but never touch with our hands.

Now, prepare yourselves. This is gonna get mushy.

I know that every signed book I've gotten from The Husband has been a love letter to me. He knows exactly the way to my heart. My love letter to him is in sharing my favorite books with him. He doesn't have to love them the way that I do, but getting a peek into these beloved books gives him a peek into my soul. Sometimes I feel like this is not enough, but those books make me who I am. Understanding my favorite books means he understands me.

My favorite quote from this specific book (but not from the complete series) is from Wonko the Sane:


Fave quote:
“[T]he reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting” (Adams 587; emphasis added).

Now, I am no scientist (too much math involved) but I love this. Always see first.

When I saw this scribble on the front page of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, I don't know what I was expecting, but what I saw was yet another love letter from The Husband. I've always wanted something signed by Douglas Adams, but because he died almost 20 years ago, finding and verifying items with his signature is decidedly more difficult than finding signed Neil Gaimans, of which I have three signed items.

Have I mentioned how much I love The Husband? Not just because he knows my love language is books, but because he knows which books, which means he knows me. He sees me.

Fave Quote of the Book: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Amazon link:

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.

I've taught this novel in the classroom. The experience of teaching this novel was made even more interesting because this book is easily in my top 10 favorite books of all time. Point of interest: I collect signed books. I've always wanted a signed copy of this book, and interestingly, when I mentioned this in class in the fall of 2017, I failed to be entirely clear with my intent. At the end of that semester, I received a gift from three students: a signed copy of the book.

Let me clarify. This book is not signed by Margaret Atwood. Instead, it was signed by those three students.

"Mrs. Blank,
Coming into college, the impression we all were under was that all college professors sucked and we would be miserable, especially in English. Over the past semester, you have not only been one of the coolest teachers we've had in high school and in college, but you've been one of the best. You've taught us so much but at the same time, we've had a lot of fun. I know myself, Student B, and Student C have been a handful and we appreciate you dealing with all our crap. You said you wanted a signed copy of this book so we went out and got you one. See you around campus, Student A, Student B, and Student C"

The class these boys were in was one that affected me deeply. It was my third year teaching, and this was one of the first classes in my short experience where I discovered that the dynamics of a classroom can make it feel like only a classroom, or the dynamics can make it feel like a real community. This was a class of very smart students with very bright futures, and we laughed, but we also had some very serious conversations. I won't say that this specific group of students was my favorite class I've ever taught, but they sure came close. It was because of these students that I realized that teaching did not have to be painful. I learned as much from those students as I hope they learned from me.

Without further ado, my favorite quote from this book, when the protagonist is speaking privately and illicitly with her Commander in his office: He tells her that the Republic of Gilead is better than what they lived with before. "Better?" The protagonist asks. "How can he think this is better?":

"Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some" (Atwood 211).

This is something that I hadn't thought much about, in general, or specific to this story; nonetheless, when I first read this, I underlined it as something to contemplate. Is this always true? It feels like it is a universal truth, but I am not sure. Is this what life is about: a zero-sum game where some win and some lose?

Those special students of mine expected to be miserable in my class. (Why do so many people hate English class?).

I was able to show them that my class could be better than what they expected, but I am sure, over the years, that there have been enough students whom I was unable to reach.

Even in a book that I have read easily a dozen times, I am still able to share those glimpses of magic, those moments when the world between the pages grabs at you and refuses to let go.

Fave Quote of the Book: Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Amazon link:

When a young photographer living in New York learns that her estranged father, a well-respected rabbi, has died, she can no longer run away from the truth, and soon sets out for the Orthodox Jewish community in London where she grew up.

Back for the first time in years, Ronit can feel the disapproving eyes of the community. Especially those of her beloved cousin, Dovid, her father’s favorite student and now an admired rabbi himself, and Esti, who was once her only ally in youthful rebelliousness. Now Esti is married to Dovid, and Ronit is shocked by how different they both seem, and how much greater the gulf between them is.

But when old flames reignite and the shocking truth about Ronit and Esti’s relationship is revealed, the past and present converge in this award-winning and critically acclaimed novel about the universality of love and faith, and the strength and sacrifice it takes to fight for what you believe in—even when it means disobedience.

I read this book in one sitting two Christmases ago, before all of this happened. The Husband and I were locked away in a cabin in the middle of the woods with no cell phone signal, no television, and barely enough internet for it to be worth it.

It was wonderful. We spent four days off the grid. I read five or six books in that time. We sat by the fireplace and listened to Frank Sinatra and other jazzy favorites of ours. I really couldn't ask for a better Christmas.

So, without further ado, my favorite quote from this book:

"All things, when measured in spans of years, seem simple. But human lives do not occur in years but slowly, day by day. A year may be easy, but its days are hard indeed" (Alderman 222).

Just a little over a year ago, I put a bookmark* on this page because even then I knew I would want to revisit these sentences. How could I have known how viscerally that quote would hit me today? The true gut punch here is that 2019 was arguably one of the most difficult years of my entire life for a variety of reasons. So many of my days in 2019 involved physical, emotional, spiritual suffering, and I did not know how to get through it. There is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill which some quick Googling tells me is probably misattributed to him, but the quote is still quite relevant: "If you are going through hell, keep going."

Those who know me well know that my stubbornness and spite have gotten me through some truly difficult experiences. For that, I blame inertia. A *me* in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by some outside force. I may not be the fastest in the race, or the smartest in the class, but my stubbornness has carried me along with good strong inertia.

Each day that was oh so difficult last year, regardless of the reason why, was punctuated by a semicolon; this may be a pause in the sentence, but tomorrow I will start again, spiting and stubborning my way through the day. And before I know it, 2019 is over, and we are into a new year (and new deductible, if you feel inclined to donate). I have a feeling that this year will be difficult, but you know what? I've made it through lots of difficult days, which add up to lots of difficult years. Day by day, we carry on.

So it goes.

*A random scrap of paper; bookmarks are for quitters.

New Series: Fave Quote of the Book

So.

I have an idea:

I don't know if it's a good idea, but I don't care, I'm gonna do it anyway.

I've been reading pretty voraciously for my entire life. This diagnosis has slowed down my reading speed, but not my appetite. I am currently simul-reading two books (one fiction, one non-fiction). As soon as I finish one of them, I'll start on the next. I can simul-read up to three books at a time, but they have to be in different genres, otherwise my brains hurt.

Anyway, I'm telling you all of this for a reason. I have really enjoyed blogging about the books I've been reading, but the reality is that I'm reading them much faster than I am blogging about them. The two that are currently in action (The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly and The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers) will be completed as usual, with updates every couple of days for both of the books. I estimate I have just over a week's worth of posts scheduled and ready to post before I finish with these two books.

In the meantime, because I am reading faster than I am writing (more accurately, I am spending more time reading than I do writing), I want to introduce a new series of posts. Instead of full and in-depth book reviews and discussions, I will choose my favorite single quote from a book and talk about why it is my favorite. I don't know yet if there will be a theme, but at the very least I will provide title and author, image of the book cover, and link to Amazon.

So yeah, things are going to change a little around here. The frequency of posts may decrease. I will still update about my diagnosis when I feel it is appropriate, but if there is no update, it is pretty safe to assume that no news is good news.

So, book lovers and bibliophiles alike, strap in, put on your helmets, and brace yourselves: we are in for an interesting ride!