I didn’t have any resolutions for this year – I didn’t have any last year either. Not because I thought I would fail them, but really because I couldn’t think of any. Everything I am doing in life right now is a continuation of a goal I had set myself or a responsibility I had out on myself prior to the year’s beginning.
Like homeschooling, like being consistent with lifting weights, like losing weight, like reading more, like practising art skills or walking out in nature more often with my kids or adding colour in my life. All ongoing.
I suppose one thing I like to think about 2024 is that it will be ‘the year of the core’. Exploring core strength, rehabilitating my damaged core (child-carrying does things to core muscles). Not getting ‘abs’ but experiencing the deep strength that comes with a built core. Doing certain exercises, like pull-ups, chin-ups, leg raises while hanging, heck maybe even a cartwheel.
I would like to pen down this story that is scribbled all around the walls of my brain, and which seeps out from between my fingers sometimes and darts through the pages of this blog like an uncontrollable menace. It sizzles and hisses and won’t be silenced, so I expect if I immortalise it on ‘paper’ it might finally find rest, and give my brain some respite from its incessant chatter.
I finished a re-read of Jane Eyre last month and yesterday I turned the last page on that chaotic nightmare that is Wuthering Heights. It’s my fourth time reading it and I tell you, it’s emotionally unhinged. It tells me a different story each time I read it. This time, it spoke of futile hope when love and kindness are not given freely. Also that people ought to socialise with people other than their own families sometimes lest they all marry each other for want of better things to do.
We woke up to sunshine, and when we realised the train was due in half an hour we ripped through the house, coats, shoes, scarves, hats – half on half off as we laughingly made our way to the train station. Was the front door locked? It didn’t matter, there was nothing of consequence to steal from the house anyway, unless somebody deigned to go in and usurp our residency there. They would not dare. This is the west, after all. We are civilised.
We caught our train to the city where the birds chirped the songs of robots, and the trees swayed to the tune of tram-hum. Hum drum. Our feet joining the thousands of others that battered gum-spotted pavements. The trees scattered about as an afterthought, the asphalt and cement rising around us like an enchanted concrete wood. The enchanted forest, Brenda breathed, only it was dotted with windows, sewage pipes and institutional systems.
We found the library in the end. It was nestled in between two glass towers which reflected the sun and beamed right into our eyes, distracting us, it seemed, from our literary goals. We made it, though, we always do. We made it up the ancient stone steps, the gargoyles heralding, guarding, sentinels of the treasures of the mind that lay within. We entered from light into darkness, into light again. The light of the hundreds of worlds that lay between thin leaves, that resided in the musty smell of time. The light of the voices all clamouring for attention, thousands of them, rising in unison to ensnare our minds and guide them towards the myriad of pathways to nowhere, everywhere, all the same, different.
When we left, it was dark. The sun had set. The night bore down heavily on us, too overwhelming even for the twinkling lights of the city trying its mightiest to beat away the sombre winter. Our books tucked under our arms, our laughter stilted, muffled by the bounty of knowledge we sensed we had achieved, our eyes blinking under the too-bright fluorescent lights of the train home.
Wrote one of my favourite books, a heartbreaking brick of a novel called ‘Vanity Fair’.
I was tenderly twelve when I read it, so most of the themes flew right over my head because I tended to be quite naive and had innocent and pure thoughts about the world, much like our beloved Amelia Sedley, one of the main characters in the book, who, notwithstanding her faults, was grossly mistreated by Thackeray, in my childish opinion.
It hurt to my very core that no matter how good you were as a person, you could still be swindled and cheated and heartbroken, and it awakened in me a sense of hopeless realism; that good will not always prevail, and in most cases in our harsh, cruel world, evil is cunning and therefore it triumphs.
This is what Thackeray aimed to depict in his novel.
The title says it all, that society is a fair of parading vanity, each person having a secret evil design or plan to conquer, each having a self centred and selfish need to rise against the facade of class and power, to be on top of everybody else.
Note: I write these daily Novembers to the background noise of my kids screaming. These days like to run around chasing each other and scream. It’s some kind of game. Their cries pierce right through my ears. They interrupt my thoughts and halt my words and make my brain feel like mush . I stop them sometimes, and other times I let them do it, because it seems like they enjoy it and they need to get it out of their system.
I am actually behind.
I am behind and I could panic about it but I won’t.
I won’t let the overwhelm overwhelm me.
Let this be my 25th post.
It has no substance.
My brain is mush.
But brains are mush. And it is within that mush that ideas grow.
March promised me so much on her blossom scented breath but you know, April has proved to be more frilly and flowery than my favourite month. No showers, just sunshine. Pink blossom in powder puffs adorning trees and soft sweet apple blossom scattering itself through my window like dainty fairies. Love love love.
I did not write the things I intended to write. I barely treaded water, to be honest.
I caught the coronavirus, I travelled with my kids, I worked until I fell asleep at my keyboard – not once but several times – and I watched things while I folded laundry or tidied toys or folded laundry or washed dishes. Or folded laundry. Bloody hate folding laundry but when I think that I catch myself by the arm. I say, ‘Dear, dear dear dear. Don’t you forget the blessing of clothes to cover your back and a washing machine in which to wash them. So help me God.’
I added the ‘so help me God’ because people in books say that and it sounds like a strict admonishment.
My son started nursery for the first time in both our lives. I cried tears after I left him and there was a hole in my heart and a sad emptiness in my home – he is only gone 5 hours a day but it feels eternal. Two days a week only, and he loves it. He asks to go to school on days we don’t go, and he doesn’t want to leave when I go to pick him up. A great sign, right? I hope so. I do hope so.
I watched Bridgerton, yes I did, and I enjoyed the frivolity of it all. I did indeed. I watched Wild Wild Country and I marvelled at people’s hope and search for the truth, even if it ends in futility. We are so good for hoping, aren’t we. Us humans.
I read a wonderful book called ‘Talking to Strangers’ and it’s all about how we perceive others, and it touches on the wrongs in the systems that run the countries where most violence, crime and racism occur. The author seems to think it boils down to how we approach and talk to strangers. How we cannot decipher each other at all, how the truths we grew up believing about others, were in fact not truths at all. Fascinating stuff.
I read another book called ‘Beauty Sick’, and how the obsession with appearance is a disease in Western society. I really resonated with that. I believe most women would. When I discussed it with my husband he had a different opinion and it infuriated me and turned me into a little spitfire. He told me he didn’t want to talk to me anymore as I was being rude.
I went to think about it for a bit and decided he was correct, and I didn’t need to lash out at him because his opinion was .. INCORRECT. I should have just listened and pointed out the discrepancies in his arguments. Glaringly obvious to me but he is of a different ilk. Cut. Tribe.
He is, as Aunty Caroline would say, he is a ‘Man.’ Capital ‘M’. That’s all there is to say on the matter.
This year I promised last year’s me that I would read 30 books (5 books more than my 25 book challenge last year!). I completed 26 books last year so I thought I would up my challenge a little bit. Just a small margin, haha!
One condition with these books, though, is that they have to be less fictional. My TBR (to-be-read) pile increasingly contains non fiction books about parenting, child brain development and other things I found an interest in but never pursued (such as the strange story of Typhoid Mary!), and I thought this year I really ought to buckle down and really the read things I have saved for later.
So it’s the end of January and I have completed one book so far. It’s called ‘Brain Rules for Baby’ by John Medina.
It was a wonderful book, full of scientific research about the best practices to follow in order to raise happy, healthy and most importantly, emotionally regulated children.
John Medina (who is a father of two) never writes in a way that makes you feel bad for not doing something. His tone is cheery, upbeat and optimistic. There is always something you can do, as long as you do it! Big or small.
One of the biggest things I took away from this book was the need for children to play, and to have a social circle. I won’t go into anymore detail as I am currently with my children (they are having breakfast and I am typing this out quickly while they make a colossal mess everywhere!) – but I loved reading this book. I learnt a great deal, and I am going to be using it as a reference point over the years to come. It made me feel energised and full of ideas for play and connectivity as my children grow.
I was browsing through Goodreads when I came across a title called ‘How Not to Disappear’, about a road trip across the UK. It looked really interesting. Aunt with dementia, pregnant teen, family secrets.
So I went to get it as an ebook.
When I bought and downloaded it and began to read, I realised the book I was reading was not about a road trip. It was about a teen girl who witnessed a murder.
Huh?
It was based in the UK and so I carried on thinking, ok, maybe she will get pregnant later and travel across the UK with her aunt Gloria.
Only that never happened.
There was no aunt called Gloria.
And the description on the front of the book said ‘bestselling thriller’.
Is travelling across the UK supposed to be thrilling? If so can one teach me how to make it so because so far I’ve only ever had very mundane road trips!
Anyway, halfway through this thriller – and I was really beginning to thoroughly enjoy it – I checked the cover of the book and smacked my forehead.
It was called ‘How to Disappear’
Not ‘How NOT to disappear’.
Still, it’s a fantastic book and keeping me on the edge of my seat.
Have you ever read one book thinking you were reading another?
I am nearly finished reading this booked called ‘Educated’ by Tara Westover. Oh my goodness. I CAN’T put it down. It’s a memoir that certainly needed to be written. You know how some 20-somethings write ‘memoirs’ and you’re just reading it thinking, ok first, did this person ever read anything apart from the back of a jam jar? And secondly, this person did not live life yet, and the life they lived already is so mundane that they really should not have written about it.
But, like, teenagers buy this book by the millions because it’s a famous YouTuber that they love.
Yes, this book is NOT like those books. Sure, Tara Westover is relatively young, but her life is so strange and odd and powerful, and the way she writes is so intense and gripping, that I have to read it every second I get, and when I am not reading it I am thinking about it.
It’s all about how she was brought up in the isolated mountains of Idaho as a Mormon, with an extreme father. She never set foot in a school and her family thought the Medical Establishment was part of the Illuminati and the Government were evil and wanted to control everybody. She barely learnt anything ‘academic’, but her life was filled with roughness, injury, thinking on the spot and extreme resourcefulness. In spite of, or perhaps because of this, she managed to succeed at exams to get her into a good university, which then allowed her to get a very prestigious scholarship into Cambridge University.
The story is gripping, detailing, among other things, the horrific injuries she, her siblings and parents obtained from reckless and ruthless actions (driving through snowstorms with no seats in the car and enduring severe accidents, climbing into dumping baskets in a junkyard, setting themselves on fire ‘accidentally’) without medical intervention, just recovery at home at the hands of their herbal expert mother. I cannot get it out of my head.
Above all, this story inspires me so much. That a person who had never studied or read anything apart from the Bible and Book of Mormon could then go and write the ‘best essays seen in 30 years of teaching’ (Cambridge senior profession proclamation) SHOWS me that sometimes what we pin as of ultimate importance, perhaps is just not that important. Maybe training kids from an early age to think the academic thoughts others have had before them and which have been refined for their brains is the wrong way to go about it? Maybe you ought to let children be as free as possible, and think as much of their own individual thoughts as possible, in order to create great thinkers within them?
Tara Westover describes her childhood as ‘loveless’, she was abused physically by her older brother, and felt that all her siblings and her mother suffered at the hands of her bipolar lunatic father. Yet at the same time she was given experiences that very few other children have. She worked in a junkyard with her father at age ten and learnt so many things which she applied in her later years studying at college, things which were not academic in the slightest but gave her a high advantage over others who had been trained for this sort of education their whole lives.
One of the main things to take away from this book is that the author suffered crippling depression from the aftermath of what she endured as a child. She became ostracised from her family for daring to speak up about the physical and verbal abuse she received from her older brother, but she still weathered through it and got a PhD, achieved her goals, and above all, did not let her experiences mould her. She decided to take control and mould herself. That is what is inspiring about Tara Westover.
If you love reading about lives that are out of the ordinary, and minds filled with the richness of learning, both physical and mental, and experiences which are painful and horrific but also very true, and which shaped a life in such an interesting way, then this book is certainly for you.
It’s for sure for me. It’s made me even more determined to get a Master’s degree, something I have been wanting for a while but have been dubious about following through with.
I managed to read two books this week because I deleted instagram from my phone. Instagram is highly addictive because it contains all sorts of high quality imagery as well as lets you know via short videos what your friends and ‘influencers’ are up to.
I used to use it for fashion inspiration and also to see what nice pictures my friends took on their out-and-abouts, but now my feed is all full of parenting, education and food ‘inspiration’. I must say I have learnt a lot about how to deal with my toddler by following the relevant experts and experienced mothers.
It helps when you’re isolated and can’t really share experiences with many mothers.
However, it is also a waste of time because you can end up scrolling your feed for 45 WHOLE MINUTES after your bubba has gone to bed and not realise the time.
‘That’s it,’ I said firmly last Monday, ‘THAT IS IT. I’m done with this sodding app.’
And because I suddenly had pockets of time free from scrolling, when I picked up my phone I went to the ‘books’ section to see what I’d left to dwindle.
And I found I had two books in there at 0%.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christie Lefteri, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris.
I know. Deep and heavy subject matter. But I delved in.
I started with The Beekeeper of Aleppo, purely because it was the first option in my library. It read like a sad, haunting poem. The imagery in this book was beautiful. The story was heartbreaking and you really felt like you were in the characters’ shoes. Christie Lefteri is the daughter of Cypriot refugees, and she was brought up in London. And, speaking as someone with Arab blood, I could very much tell that her portrayal of Syrians, their food and their way of life, even the words they used and how they spoke to each other, was very much through an overly romanticised western lens. This bothered me a little, but the story was so well-written that I was completely hooked throughout. Christie Lefteri did a beautiful job portraying the lives of people who are so often vilified in today’s media, and for that alone she deserves five stars. Most people like the Ibrahim family in this book will certainly not have the happy ending they did, but I think more than anything this story was meant to humanise refugees, and show that if they had any other choice, they would not be making these devastating decisions. I couldn’t stop thinking about this book and it haunted me for days afterwards. The author based this story on a collection of true stories she had heard from the mouths of refugees during her time as a volunteer at several refugee camps.
I then moved on to The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It was written well, certainly, but after Christie Lefteri’s haunting writing, this one felt a little monotonous. Like I was reading a screenplay. Throughout the entire book I never knew how the characters really felt, it was like I was being held at arms length by the author. If you overlook that, and just read the book for the sake of the plot (which is based on a true story), then you begin to really feel the story. And there are parts which are absolutely horrifying and I wish I never read, but know that it was a must to know these things. Because these things are happening again to many people around the world, and they always say ‘We will never forget the holocaust’ but they did forget it. Because humans are still suffering in horrible ways today, at the hands of evil regimes, for their religion! I was hooked on this book, I both dreaded each new page and anticipated it.
Reading two books so close to one another, both of which detail human suffering in such explicit ways makes me grateful, so grateful, that I live in ‘peace’. I have a home that isn’t bombed to a shell, my son is not lying dead in my arms with unseeing eyes. My family are not being gassed in chambers or taken away to evil camps. My siblings are squabbling peacefully and my mother is ranting about my sister’s shoes in the hallway. We are going through hard times, for sure. People are losing their jobs, dying, losing loved ones. But opening my eyes to this sort of suffering makes me realise that sometimes I complain too much, and it’s much better to count one’s blessings.
And delete instagram and read real books.
24 out of my 25 books for 2020. I think I am doing quite well.
Ocean Bream 