Bow3: The CheapSkate Next Door by Jeff Yeager

This guy's so cheap he doesn't even publish under the name "Jeffery."

This was an easy read on living within or below one's means. There's enough humor to keep it moving but it is not overly obnoxious.

Triple S and I are in the process of reassessing our savings rate and determining how to do the things we want to do (like Montessori for Beanie and world traveling). Reading this book has helped me de-priortize expenses that we really couldn't (shoudn't) care about (home decor and trendy clothes?).

I was shocked to learn how much 'the Joneses' have in debt: 133% debt rate (ie working for 1.3 years to pay off DEBT) and an average of $10,000 on credit cards. WOW. No wonder I don't have so many of the things it seems others have.

He also had good suggestions, many of which he refers to in more detail in his first book, such as going on a spending fast for one week, doing a spend analysis two times a year, and spending a set amount of cash each week (and when it runs out, you're out). He also suggests saving for a car or other big expenses, instead of taking out a loan. One cheapskate interviewed in his book 'saves twice, spends once.' In other words, if they are saving for a new appliance, they will save twice the money they need to buy the big item before they buy, and thus have an extra $1000 or so to put to long term savings. It's all about delayed gratification.

If you are looking to get out of debt, save more for rainy days or be a better steward of your own financial security, I recommend checking this book out from your local library. Everything seemed doable and the writing was not preachy or accusatory.

This week, I am reading "A Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence M. Krauss. Nothing like a bit of astrophysics...

BoW2: Two Spanish short stories and an essay by Albert Einstein

Last week I read two chapters excerpted from a novel and a short story from a compilation published by Dover called "Spanish Short Stories: A Dual Language Book." These are classics, published in Spanish on the left page and an English translation on the right.

The first was two chapters from an anonymously written book called "Lazarillo de Tormes, 1554". It seems in the Dickens-Dostoyevsky vein. Even the English translation is archaic, and the plot/character/setting is also minimalist. If you can get past that, it is a social commentary on the consequences of choices and the inescapability of station or situation. However, after Chapters I and III, I did not feel enough of a connection with Lazarus to read more.

The second story was "The Power of the Blood," 1612, by Miguel de Cervantes, most well-known for writing Don Quixote.  In this story, a middle class girl is raped by an aristocratic youth and hides in shame since her honor has been taken from her. She secretly births a son. By chance, the grandfather of her son sees him and cannot get over the resemblance to his own son. Once the aristocratic grandparents learn the truth, they arrange for their son to unknowingly marry his victim. The girl is presented as happy and relieved to 'lawfully' be back in the arms of 'him who was dearer to her than the light of her eyes.'

I was left wondering if the ridiculous hope, happy acceptance and overwrought joy of marriage to her rapist was a sign of the times or the  sarchastic commentary by Cervantes on such thinking of the time. Kind of like "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope?

I asked Triple S about how it read in the Spanish and I got "HUH? I guess what you said" Genius.

I might read more of these short stories during busy weeks.

I also read an essay by Einstein written in 1949, published in an essay collection entitled "Einstein on Humanism," which I borrowed from the library of the Unitarian Universalist church Triple S, Beanie and I have been attending since we moved to the bible belt.

I should transcribed the whole essay, "Why Socialism" here because I can't paraphrase what he said better than he wrote it. It took me a long time to read it because I read many paragraphs repeatedly. He writes about the predatory phase of human development, the contrast between the individual and societal being (and how those interests compete) and the social 'crisis of our time.' Basically, it hasn't gotten much better since 1949. I think Mitt Romney would benefit from reading this essay, and thus I leave you with this quote: "The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."

BoW 1: The Violin of Auschwitz by Maria Àngels Anglada

My first Book of the Week* (BOW! KAPOW!) actually ended up being a Book of the Day. I read it in one late evening after the hubby and baby were asleep. I recommend to you 'The Violin of Auschwitz' by Maria Àngels Anglada.

It was a short novel (109 pages) about the building of a violin in the Auschwitz labor camps by a Jewish violin maker from Krakow, Poland. Most of the story is told from the same person's perspective, making it an economically short story. The book is about the journey.

The final turn in the story centers on the questions with which survivors must live out their lives - what happened to loved ones and those they met in the camps: did they make it out alive?

Nightmare questions abound for people who have seen and lived through tragedy. A vast, organized evil thing like Nazi death camps is sweeping**, but each tragedy is still intensely personal, and each person who suffered and lost loved ones must walk their journey their way, and ulitamtely by themselves. A survivor can be surrounded, build a safe life around themselves, but it is their own mind - the memories and the worries - that is a constant companion.

One character in this book does get answers in the end, but I am sure for many answers were never found and all too often those answers were less than satisfactory.

If you do read this book, please ask yourself this question: Would this book be highly acclaimed and as satisfying to you the reader, if the answer in the end were different?

As for my story, I will never know what happened to Serenity. I am not searching for a missing person, so I can say for the most part that there are many questions I don't bother asking anymore. Why? How? It turns out that I'll neither get answers to those questions nor would those answers change anything - she'd still be dead, missing and missed.


*Perhaps from this book you can see what kind of books I am trying to read, books about life. I also hope to cover personal stories (historical fiction or autobiographical personal stories) about each of the wars in the last two centuries.
*to me, also unimaginable and unbelievable, although I do know that it actually happened. It is just unfathomable. Perhaps I should try to meet a survivor before they are all gone.

Thanks for reading.

A book recommendation: "Tolstoy and the Purple Chair"

I found out just how much I miss reading.

I grabbed the very short "Tolstoy and the Purple Chair - My Year of Magical Reading" off the 'new book' library rack as I juggled "How Do Dinosaurs Play with their Dogs," "Atrapados" and a large arm-full of other toddler books. I didn't really know what it was about, but I had seen that it was November's book at our UU. I figured September gave me plenty o' time to get it finished.

This book turned out to be well-timed for me, almost five years out from Serenity's death.

The author lost her adult sister, who was 46. She talks about the three years spent trying to live enough life for two and trying to be the everything for everybody. When she realized that this wasn't working, she returned to her life-long love of reading, which she shared with not only her sister but her whole family.

She interweaves the story of her family, her sister's death, and stories from the 365 books she read in one year. The books was full of wonderfully insightful quotes on grief, resilience, and human nature.

The author reminded me how much I loved reading, the escape, the exploration of your thoughts, the refection of the commonalities between us all.

And I realized that maybe I had not turned to reading books during my intense years of grief, but to reading your words and adding my own to the lexicon of grief. That my journey was validated by reading about your journeys. That my heart was stitched up by your support and by being there to support you. I didn't take a year to sit in a purple chair and read a book a day, but spent countless hours at my computer reading the blogs.

And I could not have found a better way to walk through death's long shadow than with your company. For this - your presence, your openness, your kindnesses - I am grateful.

***

And now, I think these crazy thoughts like reading a book, a, um, week. Yeah, a book or short story a week.

So my aim is to avoid the lighthearted escapism books or SciFi/fantasy that I often read and find good, short fiction, new or old, that is about the human experience. I photocopied Nina Sankovitch's list. I started in the "A's" at the library and picked out a skinny book that had a decent teaser. And we'll see where this goes.

If you are so inclined, pick up a copy of "Tolstoy and the Purple Chair" and join me on another (continuing) journey.

I'd also love to hear your recommendations.

Fess up

Ok, I am going to stop writing that I am going to post more.

Cause then it don't happen.

Sorry! Intent is there, computer time is not.

Wrote a lovely post in my head while laying in bed trying to fall asleep last night. After watching the movie "Passengers".

Promise I'll write it out some day...

Right Where I Am 2012: 4 years, 3 months, 18 days

That's 1569 days. Not that I counted each day. I used an internet site to calculate it for me. And that is a change, because last year I figured it out by hand and with a calender. 


And that's how the grief is now. Not ritualistic, not pervasive, not to be done in a proper pomp and circumstance kind of way.


The shock is over. The active, constant, crazy grief is over.


It's a settled reality, sunk into and through the core of my being. A part of me, but it does not define me. Can I say that? I think it's true. It doesn't exactly define the current me much more than other things in my past - except that it is from the more recent past.


In some ways, Serenity's death and my grief serve as a compass now. I check myself, 'am I living in a way that honors my first daughter, not taking the time with her little sister for granted?'


The ache is mostly gone. The muscle memory of holding her is barely a faint outline. Her face is indistinct. Now these memories are part of the longing too. I long for her face to be clear to me, but without the intense grief. I suppose I can't have one without the other.


One thing that hasn't changed, I still can't spell grief. I have to correct it almost ever time I type it.


This move makes it seem like I have changed lives. I've also changed how I spend my online time. The blogs that I couldn't once live without reading are now mixed in with posts about making sauerkraut and blogs outlining how to make toothpaste from coconut oil and blogs about how not to yell at your children. And my own blog collects dust. Not that I have really found other ways to express myself, but that I just am not expressing myself.


And what I am working through has changed. Now it is all strife about raising a toddler and finding my happiness and minimizing and simplifying.


But I doubt I can ever complete a 100 thing challenge, when I hold on to pictures of hands and feet and clips of hair and a hat worn for a scant few hours.


And I find it hard to decide on, focus on and move towards something that will 'make' me happy in life. Because I just don't know what that is. 

I don't feel guilty much anymore when I am happy, although many times we will be enjoying a day - at the garden or flying a kite in the park - and I will see a butterfly and think of Serenity or see two siblings and think of all that Beanie is missing.


I am in the limbo of grief. Grief doesn't dictate my life. If I need to get something done I can turn my distracted mind away from the darkness. But I find it hard to - I don't know - dream of my future maybe. I think this is one reason why I have come back to the blogs. To seek support and advice and work through Right Where I Am now.


I haven't re-read my post from last year yet. And here is the link back to the original inspiration. Thanks yet again, Angie, and much love to you.

and her little sister

Perhaps this blog deserves a new name:
"Serenity Joy and her little sister"

"Serenity Joy and the attached little sister"

We won't say where that little sister is most often attached.

I got bit by the attachment parenting bug in a bad way. Not really understanding it much. It wasn't like a did any preparation for Beanie. Well, ok, no, it was like I did very little preparation, not wanting to jinx her safe arrival with presumption.  I read a Dr. Sears' book and the book on Elimination Communication. But I don't understand healthy attachment in my bones, in my inner being. It's not something I received or saw modeled. 

In the old town, I did here some of those 'wishy washy' moms. Sounded patient but looking worn out. And I tried to pick up on their vibe, eavesdrop on their calm, unrushed phrasings.

Here in the state that thinks it's its own country, I don't hear those examples. I feel like a pariah.  And when Beanie is overcome with emotion, and those big emotions are coming out as screams and kicking and flailing, a martyr.

I just want to yell back. I want to kick and flail. Instead, I sit with her (just out of legs' reach). Occasionally asking if she wants a hug, a cuddle, milk, if she wants me to leave. Nothing to do but let these emotions wash over and out of her.

Beanie never took to a lovey. She is not attached to a blankie or a stuffed animal or a paci. She is attached to one thing, and that is me. I try not live in a place of fear, and I know she will move on when she is ready.

She refused the bottle; so when I say she was exclusively breastfed, she was exclusively breastfed. And she wasn't much into food for a long while, and I think still gets most of her nutrition from breastmilk. When she eats more food, she also tends to take more milk, so she is in a growth spurt and increases both, instead of increasing food and decreasing milk.

But I try not to live in that place of fear, fear that she'll never wean, because I know she will, in her time. Child-led they call it.

I doubt I would have parented Serenity this way. I would have been much more like the old me, like my dysfunctional parents. Serenity's death jolted me, broke my heart, which meant some rebuilding was necessary. But I do wish the learning curve was not so steep, that I wasn't still recovering from my own independent childhood.

And I want Beanie to turn to a human when she seeks comfort, and I hope both that I am always one of those people and that she learns how to pick good people to trust in her own life.

And days like today, when she got on a rollercoaster that doesn't end for an hour, I try to remember not to get on the rollercoaster too* and just be present, be the adult. But boy I wish I could throw my hands up and scream.


*A seminar speaker at out Montessori school, in talking about teens, said that they get on these emotional rollercoasters (which may sound something like 'I hate you') and that parents shouldn't get on with them and that often, the kid gets off and the parent is still on. Made soooo much sense. And so my mom and I. And I also read somewhere that toddlers are extremely intense and require alot of the parent; Then there is this golden age that the kiddo is really settled into themselves; And then they become teens and it's all toddlerhood in a big body with hormones. So, anything I hear about teens, I ferret away, maybe for now, maybe for later.

Those little people called toddlers

We got out of the house by 11. The goal was 9ish. But there were many distractions along the way. Plus I was filling the kidde pool in the morning, so the water could be warmed by the sun. So a test dip was necessary. And then we had to 'move the' duck. And get some clothes on (one of us was showered and dressed, I'll let you guess who). And start the beef stock.

Finally got in the car, drove half a block and out like a light (one of us, the other stayed awake for the driving part). Got gas and got to the spice store. I turn on my computer and format two subheadings before she woke up. Drat.

Beanie loves shopping. She likes to look around, say hi, carry stuff. She's actually just fine in stores. She might take something to look at , but I can't really scold her, "Don't touch that!!!" because I like to touch everything -or read labels-  in the store too. If I ask her to reshelve something, she does and in the general spot too. I've seen plenty of dairy case items in the cookie row to know that adults are worse. She did like the spice store, it's just too bad everything was sealed up and not available for some smelling.

We also went to the grocery store. Beanie will get onions for me, help carry items to the scales, pick out mushrooms with the tongs. Today she stayed in the shopping cart, which does make life nice for mama.

We came home and I tried to do some chores while she played outside. The pool is a big draw. A friend came over and they played in the pool, chased the not-so baby ducks and generally mucked about.

And she fell asleep an hour earlier than normal. So, I get to do some editing... yippee....

To post or not to post

that is the question.

In many ways life is mundane, but it is also a tempest.

When I moved, I thought of picking up blogging again, but I wanted to spend time meeting people here.  But I still spend an inordinate amount of time on the computer, on FB, reading parenting blogs and Montessori blogs.

I could right a blog about life. Or not.

So inspiring, right?

I was happy to receive so many comments on such an abandoned blog -  readers have not abandoned me and are obviously still caught up on their reading. My Google Reader is hopeless. I have too many blogs in there that aren't of interest (quilting?).

I also seem to have lost my voice. Or maybe my focus. I am also not sure how much I want to post about Beanie and her life. It's her life after all. I rarely even post on FB anymore. I know it's a new age, but those are her choices.

I suppose what I lack most in life right now is someone with whom to share deeply. I have acquaintances here, but playdates are not conducive to long, linear talks.  And I am not sure how much I want to share with the whole world wide web (or the 20 people that look here).

But I remember that connection I had with you... reading your blogs, reading comments, writing my deepest and ofttimes most compulsive thoughts. Processing. Sharing. Remembering.

I've also developed a bit of an avoidance coping strategy. No new dead baby blogs, because I just can't take it. I'm not proud of it, I feel like I should repay our community and be there for our sisters.

But I have taken from this blogging world knowledge. Knowledge of everything that can and too often does go wrong. And I am more delicate in asking questions and try to avoid making assumptions. At least I hope so.

And I try to keep conversation open. If someone wants to talk to me about infertility or loss, I like to think that I give off the right vibes and say the right things ('I am sorry to hear that.' AND STOP. JUST STOP!) And I don't deny Serenity.

Those chiding "When will you give little Beanie a brother or sister?" are often answered with, "She has a big sister who died in 2008," cue demure, downcast look (And the 'Shut the F up' in my head) or the "We are only raising one." 

I know who we are, where we've been, but we don't know what may be.

Infill

I write blog posts in my head.

Long, beautiful, heartfelt.

Forgotten by the time I get to the keyboard. (along with my awesomely witty FB status updates)

Life is full. There's even a big black hole in the center of my being that is full of dark, churning matter, matter which is often left to its own devices. A hole which seems to be covered over, maybe with a flimsy layer of moss or maybe some attractive greenery.

I don't know if I don't take the time for this hole anymore, this abyss of loss, this grief that doesn't feel like the grief I knew and understood. But my patience is thin and my temper as treacherous as quicksand these days.

Life has changed so much in this last year. Moving from where Serenity was has changed my reality. The triggers are not here; the people who 'knew' her, knew us then, are not here. It's a big disconnect.

Here, we are that perfect, happy couple with the charming little daughter, the ones that people wonder when we will add to our little family.

Moving was stressful, on the emotional end, on the practical end. (Owning a house where you no longer live is also lots of fun) It took me somewhere I was not yet ready to go and took me from somewhere I was not yet ready to leave.

Home is where my family is, and we have our little family here, Serenity too, here and there and not. The ashes are on a hutch, the essence is dispersed, the hole in me is empty and full.

I want that hole to be full, but with light, with positivity, with love, with compassion, with empathy. Hell, it could even spew rainbows.

But I am just not there. I am not enlightened, I am not good at being my better self. I am a complaining pessimist who gets easily stressed out.

Something is missing in my life. I search for what it is, thinking it is due to moving, leaving friends and a city I enjoyed. I join a community, searching for free thinkers. I search Amazon, thinking it is a book to read or a new toy for Beanie, or maybe a new kitchen gadget. I search Meetup, thinking it is new mama friends. I search for a babysitter, because toddlerhood is just too much. I search Etsy just because I am an addict (thank god I have avoided Pinterest). I try a new diet. A new park. A new dress. I dance around a verdant circle...

and realize that the soft, mossy patch is just a facade, a thin overlay to a deep abyss. Where I can not hope to be whole.

Four

Four.

It is a hole, and it is not. 
A space filled with unfulfilled dreams.
A void of love.

Our daily lives are so busy now, with your little sister. I feel your absence, see it when I see how she enjoys playing with other kids. Older kids, drawn to that big sister with whom she cannot play.  When I read about craft ideas that she's not ready for yet, but that would be perfect for you. When I see a butterfly, a bird, a bee. Or feel the sun or the wind. When I breathe.

I see how happy your sister is in her innocence, not knowing what happened to us before she came along. I hope she never knows that pain.

We miss you. Maybe we don't talk about you enough.

We will mark this day. We will have cake. We celebrate the time we had together and the love for you that we have for always.

xoxo Serenity xoxo