be here now

You bit into the perfect flesh of the peach. It was warm from the sun burning down on the roadside stand. Juice misted from the meat as you sank your teeth in. The aroma of peach - not peach scented or peach flavoured but raw ripe perfection - filled your nostrils. Licking the sweet sticky juice from your fingers you sighed 'there is nothing in the world as perfect as an in-season peach.'

But the season is fleeting. A few weeks at best and you make do with that poor substitute, canned peaches. If you are lucky they were canned at home - anyone's home. In a desperate pinch, you can make factory canned peaches work, though you'll probably choose instead to go without. 

How would you ever know, sitting outside that road stand and lamenting your lack of napkins or wet wipes, if that peach would be your last fresh one? Would knowing make you savour it with that much more attention, or would it add the hint of a bitter edge? 

How often in a life do you experience a last time and not know? That favourite chocolate bar from your youth. That summer trip as a family. That soft kiss on the cheek from your grandma. That perfect night in the arms of a lover free from pretense or concern. Would knowing ruin the moment? Would you work to make it memorable and in so doing ruin it? Would your concern about the coming emptiness take away the fullness of now? 

I suppose that's one point of the oft-repeated refrain to be present, to stay in the moment and experience the power of now. Then again, maybe knowing would also free you from being haunted by that everlasting question - was that it?

something fierce: memoirs of a revolutionary daughter, a book club review

I don't read a lot of memoirs. For me, novels have a truth and a reality that someone telling their own story cannot equal. I read on Twitter this week "you are a continuously unfolding story told by an unreliable narrator: act accordingly," and it rang very true for me especially in thinking about writing this review.

Carmen Aguirre's memoir covers her life from the ages of eight to eighteen years - an age span that is particularly unreliable. As she travels between Vancouver, Chile, Argentina and holidays in Brazil, Carmen is indoctrinated into her parents' revolutionary beliefs. Or is she? Her frequent admissions of bourgeois desires reinforce the impression that she is not to be believed without question, and her motives for action throughout the book are unclear at best. 

In the end, Aguirre's story failed for me: it failed to engage, it failed to inspire, and it failed to inform. I did not trust her motives either in action in the story or in its telling. Her presentation of 'facts' turned me off the things that mattered to her, even those that I would naturally otherwise support. And, at the end of the book I was no more clear about the reality of South America in the revolutionary 1980's than I had been before I read the book. 

Aguirre's style is mildly entertaining, which made the book somewhat less of a slog. After the bounty of great books we've read so far in book club, this one gets filed under 'Meh." 

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About the club, not the book:

Unfortunately, book club was cancelled this month. I think we'll have to work to make sure that the show goes on no matter what, but sometimes things happen - I had a migraine, another member was recovering from dental surgery, a third had a cold. You get the point. We didn't get our dinner, and more importantly we didn't get our evening of awesome conversation.

That's okay though - we'll have that much more to share when we get together in November. 

it's all good

I've been at a conference the last couple days, and in the midst of of the usual 'getting to know you' and small talk yesterday I heard myself say "I got married at 20 and divorced at 30, but my sons and I have done okay." I was surprised to hear it. And even more surprised when I stopped, contemplated and realised it's true.

1999: Our first summer holiday as a family of three.  

It hasn't always been straight forward. We've each wobbled and struggled and grown. It hasn't been a straight trajectory, but we've all gotten better. I, for one, no longer wear socks with sandals.

That's all. No deep thoughts. Just a revelation that made me smile. 

the robe: review

It wouldn't normally occur to me to pull this book off a shelf, and I would have missed out greatly if it hadn't been loaned to me. I don't read 'Christian fiction,' but the review SugarMama provided when she offered me the book made me take the chance. 

Calling this book 'Christian fiction' is like calling Mahalia Jackson 'Contemporary Christian Music' - unfair, dismissive and misleading. The Robe is a classic written in 1942 by Lloyd C. Douglas. Taking a historical approach, it tells the story of the Roman tribune who gambled for, and won, Jesus' robe at the crucifixion. It follows the impact of that event on the tribune, and traces the roots of the young Christian religion. It's a finely wrought and moving personal story of duty, love, struggle, and wonder. 

I don't know how different my reading of the book would have been if I wasn't a Christian with a whole lot of familiarity with the gospels and the new testament record of the early church. I cheered when Simon Peter entered the story and sighed when Stephanos was introduced, knowing how his story arc would end. However, no matter what I am reading I always try to read like a writer - with attention to plot, structure, pacing, language, character, etc. The Robe has all of those things and also offers, as the writer of the preface states, a sense of the 'mystery and wonder' of Christ. 

Without that 'mystery and wonder,' the story is still powerful on many levels. The character development of the main players - tribune Marcellus Gallio, his love interest Diana, and his Greek slave Demitrius - is moving and appropriate for both their youth and their relative stations in life. Character growth is so often forced into a story or completely missing - it was refreshing to have it handled skillfully. Marcellus' skepticism is especially finely handled. A Roman Tribune is a man of reason and evidence; he's the perfect person to investigate the stories of Jesus. 

The story moves smoothly between Rome, Athens, Damascus and Jerusalem. The historical detail - from quivering, aged, senile Tiberius and rabid Caligula to the information on how a robe was woven differently in Galilee than in Jerusalem elevated the book far beyond a simple story. The language is rich - it's not often I find myself reaching for my dictionary while I'm reading, and this book had me doing so repeatedly. 

This is the point where I normally say whether I'd recommend a book or not; I absolutely do recommend The Robe, but I do so with an awareness that where you stand in relation to Jesus will, I assume, greatly influence your reading of this book. I'd love to know if any of my atheist/agnostic friends have read it and what they think. As I've said, it's a well written book - rich, engaging, and a page turner. I think everyone can enjoy it from whatever perspective they approach it. 

And yes, The Robe was made into an epic movie in 1953 in the style of The Ten Commandments and Moses. It stars Richard Burton in the part of Marcellus, and I'm pretty sure it'll be worth watching. A little cheesy and over-the-top, no doubt, but interesting. 

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let's explore diabetes with owls: a book club review

There's long list of words and phrases that we, culturally, grossly over-use. To me, the three most egregious are love, literally, and 'laugh out loud funny.' And then I read David Sedaris' Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls and it was, literally, laugh out loud funny, and I loved every page of it. 

Funny aside - when this book showed up on our book club reading list, I raved to my fellow clubbers about David Sedaris, and told this great story about another book of his I'd read and how I'd laughed out loud just reading the publication page. Only it turned out, once I picked up Owls and read what other books Sedaris has written, that the author I was referring to was David Eggers. 

I don't normally read essays, or even very many short stories. I am mostly a novels reader. But that is one of the reasons I joined a book club - to broaden the scope of what I read. Also for the wine, food and great company, but in terms of it being a book club as opposed to some other kind of club - I really wanted to be introduced to books I wouldn't normally read. Anything subtitled "essays, etc" would definitely have fallen into that category if this book hadn't been our selection this month, and I would truly have been missing out. 

Some of Sedaris' essays are at least loosely autobiographical and moderately non-fiction. Some of them are outlandish character sketches. All of them are revelatory and heart-warming. In even the most bizarre, triggering episodes that allude to attempted rape or edge on to what we now consider child abuse have a tender charm that brings us back to a world where love and gratitude and appreciation cover a multitude of sins. 

In fact, one of the things I like best about this collection of 'essays, etc' is how well edited it is to fulfill on that promised final pay off. Although the stories jump around in time and space - 1970's Raleigh North Carolina, to 2008 West Sussex, England, with stops in China, Chicago, New York, Japan, Australia - the constant theme of connectedness carries through. Sedaris may try to pass himself off as a heartless disengaged teenager when he returns from a school trip to England to find his mother has died, but underneath all the English slang is a longing and sensitivity that left me both laughing until tears ran down my legs, and wishing I could give young David a long hug and a cup of cocoa. 

I loved this book. It was literally laugh out loud funny. And touching, poignant, intelligent, and eye-opening. 

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About the club, not the book:
I arrived at book club an hour late, having made my way straight there from the ferry. What a lovely way to end a long day - delicious salmon, scalloped potatoes, fresh tomato salad, pinot grigio and fabulous conversation. As usual, only 10% of the conversation was actually about the book, but I think we like it that way.