A Work in Progress

Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone

I wish Monica Sone had written more books, as I would happily read more about her life and experiences.  Her memoir, Nisei Daughter, published in 1953 is easily going to make it onto my favorite books of the year list.  It is one of the best memoirs I have ever read.  If I could, I would press a copy into your hands right now and suggest you read it too.  If you are a fan of memoirs, curious about Asian-American culture, life in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest around the period of WWII or just like good writing and storytelling, I can warmly recommend it.  It is still in print and I imagine very likely will be in many library collections as it is really a classic of the era and Japanese-American culture as well as the immigrant experience.

Nisei is the Japanese word for a first generation Japanese-American.  Sone's parents emigrated from Japan in the early 1900s.  Her father worked as a cook for a while on a ship that traveled between Washington and Alaska.  Her mother came to the U.S.  when she was only 17 and notes that she was still a girl, too young to have had a mature Japanese culture/outlook impressed on her (yet still very firmly Issei--which is the term for those born in Japan but immigrants to America).  She was still a young woman filled with energy and curiosity.  Sone's father had started studying in Japan and wanted to become a lawyer, so was more of an intellectual, though ultimately he become a hotel proprietor in Seattle before the war where the Sone family was raised (monica had three siblings).

The memoir follows Monica (born Kazuko Itoi) from her early girlhood through the end of WWII and her years at a Midwestern college.  There is a happy sense of nostalgia yet the memories are also peppered with the reality of life for an immigrant from Japan at a time in U.S. history where Asian immigrants were very decidedly not welcome (does that sound familiar still?).  In the 1920s there was a law which prohibited Japanese from emigrating to the U.S., so almost a whole generation was barred from entry.  In the introduction to my edition it was noted that there was a gap between Japanese of Monica's parents and that of Monica herself.  So she very much felt an outsider to both cultures.  She was not fully Japanese, nor was she fully accepted as an American either.  As a matter of fact she didn't even understand the concept of being Japanese and any different than anyone else until her parents made her go to a Japanese school where she could learn the Japanese language at the age of 7 or so.  

She shares many happy and often humorous memories, but there are many that while 'funny' are not funny at all.  Prejudice against Japanese was rampant (all Asians I am sure, but more so Japanese during the war years) to the point that they were not allowed to rent rooms or apartments or were not welcome in jobs.  Of course it only was made worse by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.  All Japanese on the West Coast (I'm not sure ho far inland this stretched), even those born in the U.S. were required to move to internment camps.  Sone and her family were moved to the Minidoka Camp in Idaho, where the camp was essentially run in almost every aspect by the Japanese internees.  Before the end of the war some, and this included Monica and her siblings, were able to leave the camp and move east if they could claim either a job or a spot in a college or university.  

I was gushing about the book to an acquaintance and fellow reader and she asked to read the book, so I have passed it on to her, but all my notes went with the book.  I have a library copy, but it was hard to remember which passages that struck me and I had wanted to share, but I have a few excerpts that might grab your interest.  I tend to be attracted to food mentions as that is always a fun way to experience an unknown culture.

"From a corner near the kitchen window, a peculiar, pungent odor emanated from a five-gallon crock which mother kept filled with cucumbers, nappa (Chinese cabbage), daikon (large Japanese radishes), immersed in a pickling mixture of nuka, consisting of rice polishings, salt, rice and raisins.  The fermented products were sublimely refreshing, delicious, raw vegetables, a perfect side dish to a rice and tea mixture at the end of a meal."

"Among the usual pots and pans stood a dark red stone mixing bowl inside of which were cut rows and rows of minute grooves as n a record disc.  The bowl was used to grind poppy seeds and miso (soybeans) into a soft paste for soups and for flavoring Japanese dishes.  I spent many hours bent over this bowl, grinding the beans into a smooth, fine paste with a heavy wooden club.  For all the work that went into making miso shiru, soybean soup, I thought it tasted like sawdust boiled in sea brine.  Mother told nothing could be more nutritious, but I could never take more than a few shuddering sips of it."

Sone's mother cooked both Asian and Western dishes, however, so she had steaks and potatoes, ham and eggs and even apple and pumpkin pies.

When you think of the U.S. you tend to think of it being a place of opportunities, but it was really difficult for Asian immigrants.  Monica was hoping to get into a vocational school and then find a job, but this was not an easy thing to do at the time.  As most businesses were not likely to hire a young Japanese woman, in order to even get a spot in a school they had to show proof that they had a job to go to when they finished their studies.  It was a catch-22, as the only places hiring Japanese workers were those run by Japanese and the community could only offer so many positions.

"I did (understand the school's policy), and I was gateful to Miss Thompson for her straightforward approach.  She left no trail of embarrassed excuses, nothing but clean-cut wounds.  I knew that the Nisei girls competed fiercely among themselves for white-collar jobs in the Mitsui and Mitsubishi branch firms downtown, local newspaper establishments, Japanese banks, shipping offices and small export and import firms.  Opportunities were limited.  If a girl did not go to business school, the only other occupation open to her was as a domestic in a home.  More fortunate girls went on to college, and so postponed their job hunting for four years."

I'm not sure if I can find another memoir like this, but I would love to read more and will be on the lookout.  Surely there must be other books about this era and the world of Asian immigrants in the Northwest.  A perfect read for my summer reading project, which has been off to a very good start.

May in Stillmeadow

"This month the full flowering moon floats above the horizon, serene and eternal.  Its light is translucent and casts shadows delicate as lace.  In the rich nighttime scent of lilacs, it has all the mystery and tenderness of young love."

The trees have bloomed here.  I love this time of year and there are several spots where I walk and pass by trees in bloom.  There is always just a short window of opportunity to see the buds open and explode into color.  Tiny pink buds open into fragrant tiny white flowers.  And now I will occasionally catch the scent of lilacs and I have to stop and let the aroma sink in before moving on.  It has been a strangely cool and very wet (and for some in my area that means yet more flooding) May, which makes me wonder what summer will bring.

In Gladys Tabor's Stillmeadow May seems all about gardens and blooming flowers too.  She has a soft spot for violets it seems.  She wonders whether a person is born with a sense of beauty of special things or if it comes with being immersed in nature while growing up.

"There are lots of violets at Stillmeadow.  I like to go to the upper meadow to find the white ones, which I put in a tiny child's mug.  By the back door bloom the almost-black purple ones, which are much larger and have wider shining leaves.  I suspect these were planted in that particular spot many years ago."

"There are the regular blue violets, too, shorter stemmed and plentiful in number.  They pop up in the middle of the lawn, bloom at the edge of the pond, and grow by the woodshed where the white lilac is coming out.  They have stolen out beyond the fence to carpet the vegetable garden; they peep around the end of the woodpile.  In short, they take over!"

That actually sounds quite pleasant to me!  If Gladys is the cook in the household (I didn't realize she wrote cookbooks, too, which she mentions in this chapter--no wonder she is always sharing recipes), her friend Jill was the gardener and could not wait to sink her hands into the earth come spring.  I imagine Stillmeadow must have been quite a place--a countrywoman's delight, which Tabor most definitely considers herself--a countrywoman at heart.

One thing I love about reading this book over the course of the year is how it makes me think about the rhythms of the year.  Tabor was certainly in tune with nature.  So often it, for me anyway, it comes down to the more obvious aggravations that the seasons bring.  Too cold, too snowy, too rainy and soon too hot and humid.  If even for a short while she makes me stop and think about all the smaller details that change with each season.  The things that should not be overlooked and appreciated no matter how quickly they may pass (those blooms on the tree open so quickly--just a few days and then they are gone!).  After all the work Jill put into planting their garden (and it was a lot of work), the change is eye opening to her.

" . . . I ask myself, is this the same countryside that only a few months ago was swept by bitter winds?  Or did I only imagine the stinging snow and glittering icicles?  Changing seasons will forever be a mystery to me.  Time has folded winter away into yesterday; tomorrow, summer will make May just a memory."

It is funny to think that not so long ago I was shivering in my coat and covered in layer of clothes and today I am in short sleeves with just a sweater to keep the spring chill at bay.

I do have to share one more thing.  I wish I had created a sort of dramatis personae in the front of the book.  Jill I know, but there are other characters that people her book.  Family and friends and I am not always entirely sure who is who.  I think Betsy is her granddaughter and great fan of Gladys's dogs.  

"Only the other day I looked out and saw Don's daughter Betsy rolling on the green grass with the cockers.  I noticed that she was feeding them dog biscuits--those pretty colored ones.  Holly was not the least interested: she doesn't care for dog biscuits.  However, I saw that Betsy was giving a biscuit to each dog and taking one herself.  All of them were chewing happily.  I have made it a firm practice never to interfere with the raising of the new generation, so I didn't say anything.  I reflected that anything more sterilized than a hard-baked dog biscuit could hardly be found.  Perhaps she was just trying to be one of the cockers."

That made me laugh.  Apparently no harm came and I suspect worse things have been consumed by small children!  

April in Stillmeadow

It's funny how spot on this book is with the seasons even if I am from a different geographical region.  Still, Midwest or East Coast, we both share four (reasonably) distinct seasons.  I say reasonably, since it seems that my favorite seasons--fall and spring--are really the shortest, when I wish they were the longest (I would be happy to have temperate weather year-round however--does such a place even exist?).  So, much like Stillmeadow we are straddling two seasons.  We are just at the start of May and here I am still wearing my winter coat (but then I am weirdly cold sensitive having to wait for public transportation in the cool, dark of morning I opt for warmth over stylishness).

I could just about substitute Omaha for Stillmeadow.

"The look of April at Stillmeadow is a tentative questioning look.  For spring is beginning and yet winter has not absolutely gone.  I note in my journal that the past five years have brought cold weather, rains (today here!), and even blizzards!  But there are days--oh, tender daffodil days!"

We have had some warm, pleasant and very springlike days, but then it turns cold again and the only hint of it being spring are the trees that are full of blooms and hearing birdsong every morning once again.  Gladys pretty much has been following a similar format each chapter.  She writes about nature and how the seasons are subtly and not so subtly changing.  She writes about family and friends and neighbors and there is always some bit of wisdom.  She shares recipes and meals and I wonder if she will have and write about a garden.

So here is the bit of wisdom she shared which stuck out to me, and I made a little notation by.  She writes about her friend Jill's son and his son, both of whom learned to swim.

"Tall man, small boy, and the pattern repeats itself.  It made me think, as I watched Jamie in his father's lap,that perhaps the real secret of success in life is faith that we cannot sink!  When we are faced with a problem, if we believe we can solve it, we are likely to.  So, as you embark on a new course, why not assume you cannot fail because you just happen to be one of those who cannot sink!"

While she does share another recipe it was her writing about peanut butter she put out for birds that I most enjoyed.  She was advised not to put out plain peanut butter because it sticks to the roof of their mouths.  No longer--she made a change and any PB that went out "was mixed with seeds, crumbs or something to keep the stickiness out."  Imagine those poor birds with PB glued beaks!  I like to add jelly to my PB sandwiches, that seems to help, or opt for crunchy over plain!

As always, my monthly visit to Stillmeadow is a pleasure.

March in Stilmeadow

Have I mentioned (many times I suspect) how delightful Gladys Tabor is and especially this book!  I save the chapters as they are something I look forward to and read very quickly.  She wrote a lot of books and I need to read more of them even as I save this for my monthly "dips".

She seems to touch on a variety of topics, not necessarily nature-related but there is a lot of that, particularly in a month like March when the seasons are changing (and sometimes it feels like it is happening daily  You can see above how she opens the chapter, but I rally liked this.

"This month brings a patchwork of weather.  One day sleet laces down and fresh icicles hang from the old well house at Stillmeadow.  The next day sparkles with sunshine.  The house vibrates as the wind roars down the hills."

Oh, yes.  One day was 70F last week and two days later raining with snow mixed in and a bitter cold wind.   And yes, last week the worm moon made an appearance.

"The Indian name for the March moon was the full worm moon, which doesn't sound poetic but does suggest life stirring again in the earth.  April rains bring the worms up toward the surface and without the worms the soil would not be friable."

So, as she says, bring on the worms!  Interestingly, though, she shares a number of recipes.  She segues into them by mentioning how at this time of year she goes through her pantry to check out her spices and herbs, chucking the ones that have lost their aroma and flavor.  And then comes out the last of the winter veggies and pork chops and chicken.  And she cooks and shares her recipes and they are pretty basic and whoever had this book before me found them to be useful.  See second photo above!  I wondered what all those marks were, and after reading the chapter and looking more closely I see someone found this book more than just entertaining.  Note the paperclip and splatters of mystery juices . . .

I like the idea of other readers having enjoyed a book I am now enjoying, but this is the first time I have had such obvious evidence of it!

Ready for April!

A Russian Princess, an Actress, NF Forays

Coming up for a little air.  I've been submerged in my reading of late, trying to make this a more productive reading month than the disaster that was February!  (I blame that on the nasty weather).  I am trying to squeeze in two (it would be nice to make it three to double last month's numbers--maybe a slim graphic novel?) more books by the end of this weekend so I have been mostly absent here and online generally. 

Happily I have been enjoying my most recent reading--mostly carryovers from last month or my regular reading projects but I have also returned to a couple of books that I started earlier this year but have been a little neglected through no fault of their own.  I have particularly been trying to make headway in a nonfiction book--a biography as last weekend I bought another true crime nonfiction read that has gotten many good words and notable mentions, and which I will tell you about next week.  (Must continue to focus on what is currently in hand).

I've really drawn out reading Sofka Zinovieff's Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life about the author's grandmother who led quite an adventurous and romantic life.  The book covers so much ground and is so full of interesting detail I am not sure how I will ever write about it, but I want to mention it here now as I have thoroughly enjoyed it even if it has taken me ages to work my way through it.  (Typical of me and nonfiction--I always want to take in all the details so read very slowly).  

The impetus for the book was a diary which her grandmother had given her when she was younger and which sat unread for some time.  A decade later she pulled it out of a drawer and properly began reading and was taken up into this tragic yet very full life and she began a quest to fill in all the details that her grandmother Sofka (yes, they share the same name) left out. 

Sofka, the elder, was born into a privileged and aristocratic Russian family, but the Revolution threw all their lives onto a new trajectory.  Sofka spent time in Europe and England while her mother, a doctor, went off to lead a scholarly and very different life.  It is perhaps not so surprising that Sofka would lead an independent life, too.  To the consternation of many she left behind three children by two different husbands to live her own life--very artistic and bohemian.  In part it was WWII that kept her away from her children and time spent in a French internment camp, but she never quite fit the mold of mother and housewife.  She had lovers, was a Communist, worked with and was good friends with the Oliviers (She knew him well enough to call him Larry).  She traveled and was unapologetically her own woman.  

Sofka Dolgorouky was such a fascinating woman.  She lived through world shattering events and while she suffered many losses when it comes to family and love, but in her way she was ultimately triumphant.  So many considered her scandalous, and a bad mother, she had a secret government file that her granddaughter was able to gain access to.  I can see where she would have been considered quite selfish and not a very good mother, but she was not born into a traditional home and the events of history had some part in shaping her life.  It has felt a little voyeuristic reading about her Sofka's personal life and certainly has been entertaining.  Sofka Zinovieff has several of her own books--a recent novel and a memoir of her own that I want to track down. 

 I like reading about strong, independent women (not apologizing for her lack of motherly inclination of course--I'll leave that open to other interpretation), and for a look at life as lived by one woman in the first half of the twentieth century I can heartily recommend this book.  I have also, inspired by Sofka's life and a desire to read more biography/memoir, picked up and am getting back to Salka Viertel's The Kindness of Stranger's (my NYRB Classic from January!).  I wrote about it earlier--she lived about the same time as Sofka and spent time on the stage and went to Hollywood.  I forgot how much I like reading memoirs, so I will keep chipping at Salka's book and soon will move on to another nonfiction read.  

I've been spending time with some other great books and will be back to tell you about them soon!

February in Stillmeadow

Since I am reading this serially--one chapter a month (conveniently there are chapters one for each month of the year), I both want to race to the next chapter and wait and prolong the experience.  I so very much enjoy her writing, and maybe it is the nature of how this is presented almost as a diary, I feel like I am chatting with a friend.  Gladys Tabor has such a charming way of moving from topic to topic.  She moves from one thing to the next and they might not necessarily be related, but it flows perfectly--just as it is to chat with a good friend with whom you are catching up with on all the news since you last spoke.

There are lots of interesting things I could tell you about--like those buttermilk pancakes she begins the chapter with and syrup-making, but I will just share a few excerpts that I particularly liked, and I think you'll understand why they really stuck out.

"I have been sorting books, this being a February job.  I make a firm resolve annually to keep poetry in one part of the bookshelves, country books in another, classics on a low level for easy reaching, reference books very near my desk, fiction by itself.  The way it ends is that I have two of my beloved Beverley Nichols books [I wonder which two were her favorites?] right in with Emily Dickinson and Wuthering Heights.  As an organizer I was a washout.  Should Keats's Letters be with Katherine Mansfield or along with Keats's poetry and The Making of a Poet?  And where does James Thurber go?  I do a lot of happy random reading while I am at this job;  otherwise the results are just more confusion."

***

I find myself doing this right now, too!

"Finally, I went outside to see if I could detect a hint of spring in the air, even at night.  It was very still: the smoke from the chimney stood straight up in the air.  The moon shed cold silver on the meadow, I remembered that Hal Borland had told me that the Indians called it the hunger moon.  Looking up at it, I thought how fitting the name was, for I hungered for spring, and wide-open roads, and an unfrozen windshield."

I had to look up "hunger moon" in the Farmer's Almanac and apparently it is also known as the Full Snow Moon.  "The heaviest snows fall in February."  Yeah, apparently that must be what we are experiencing right now as a matter of fact . . .

***

And more wisdom that gives me much to think about.  This excerpt is in response to her grandson--when she asked what he was doing--sitting quietly with his stuffed bear and cat--"jus' loving".  

" . . . busyness doesn't seem to be connected with wealth or poverty, city or country.  I haven't in years known anyone who had real leisure.  I should define leisure, for I do not mean just giving up ad sinking into lethargy; I mean time to think, to read, to hear music, to walk in snowy woods, to drop in on a loved friend for no reason at all but to see her.  I should, perhaps, call it constructive leisure.  I do notice that often illness is connected with what we call so lightly 'overdoing'."

If I have not yet tempted you, too, to go in search of this book, or some other writing by Gladys Tabor, I'll try again in March!  Maybe rather than portioning off my time with her writing, I should pick up another book by her that I own?

Salka on the Casting Couch (#metoo)

I've been very slowly reading Salka Viertel's memoir, The Kindness of Strangers, and I came across a very interesting and timely passage about her experiences in the theater in the 1920s.  Salka very much was enamored by the theater and wanted to be on stage.  She was living in what was then Teplitz (now Teplice part of the Czech Republic) and was called into the office of the director.  Can you guess where this is going?  A young, attractive actress trying to make a name for herself and get an important role in a play?

"I went, my heart pounding so wildly that I thought I could hear it echo in the deserted corridors.  The waiting room was empty, the door to the office open.  I saw him, in his shirt-sleeves, sitting on the couch.  I knocked and he motioned me to come in, then staggered from the couch and closed the door."

"There was not much dialogue in the ensuing scene.  Director Frank was not what one would call an articulate man, but by grunts and by transferring the weight of his massive self to me, he drunkenly managed to convey that the time had come for us to know each other more intimately.  Once I was able to extricate myself from his grip, it was easy to win the wrestling match.  He lost his balance, fell, and cursed me.  In a second I was at the door.  Luckily he had not taken the key out, though he had remembered to turn it."

"Bruised, disheveled and breathless, I raced back to the dressing room.  The ingenue was still in front of the mirror, taking off her make-up.  'That was fast work,' she said appreciatively, but then she looked at me and shut up."

What a sad thing to think it was known and expected that this was coming and would happen.  Even sadder that nearly a century later it is still happening and only now being talked about and those who are taking advantage being outed and brought to some kind of justice.  

This is good reading but so much to take in and so many details to remember.  I suspect I will be chipping away at it for a while, and am waiting for my February book to arrive.

February Prompt: Something Old

This weekend I went to the bookstore, gift card in hand and all intentions on choosing a new book to buy . . .  Curiously I came away with only a magazine!  I did look and I had a few books in hand, but as interesting as they looked  I just was not quite in the mood for any of them.  And then I thought, why would I buy a new book which I am not going to start reading right away when I have this pile of books waiting for me.  One of these is going to be my February prompt book!

This month my prompt is "Something Old", which I have decided to interpret as a book with a historical setting or a book about a period of history much earlier than 20th century or after.  I thought about choosing some books that are old and long sitting on my shelves as yet unread.  But as I have so very many of those, how would I ever choose?  These seem much more appealing to me at the moment!

Aristocrats, Stella Tillyard -- "A superb study of a remarkable family in eighteenth-century England that 'leads us skillfully into the unseen spaces of women's lives'." --Lyndall Gordon, The New York Times Book Review

The Firebrird, Susanna Kearsley -- "Nicola Marter was born with a gift so rare and dangerous, she kept it buried deep. When she encounters a desperate woman trying to sell a small wooden carving called 'The Firebird', claiming it belonged to Russia's Empress Catherine, it's a problem. There's no proof.  But Nicola's held the object. She knows the woman is telling the truth."

As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in 11th-Century Japan -- "Born at the height of the Heian period, the pseudonymous Lady Sarashina reveals much about the Japanese literary tradition in this haunting self-portrait. Born in 1008, Lady Sarashina was a lady-in-waiting of Heian-period Japan. Her work stands out for its descriptions of her travels and pilgrimages and is unique in the literature of the period, as well as one of the first in the genre of travel writing."

Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, Louisa Thomas -- "Born in London to an American father and a British mother on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Louisa Catherine Johnson was raised in circumstances very different from the New England upbringing of the future president John Quincy Adams, whose life had been dedicated to public service from the earliest age. And yet John Quincy fell in love with her, almost despite himself. Their often tempestuous but deeply close marriage lasted half a century."

First Family: Abigail and John Adams, Joseph J. Ellis -- "Drawing on over 1,200 letters exchanged between the couple, Ellis tells a story both personal and panoramic. We learn about the many years Abigail and John spent apart as John’s political career sent him first to Philadelphia, then to Paris and Amsterdam; their relationship with their children; and Abigail’s role as John’s closest and most valued advisor. Exquisitely researched and beautifully written, First Family is both a revealing portrait of a marriage and a unique study of America’s early years."

The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry -- "An exquisitely talented young British author makes her American debut with this rapturously acclaimed historical novel, set in late nineteenth-century England, about an intellectually minded young widow, a pious vicar, and a rumored mythical serpent that explores questions about science and religion, skepticism, and faith, independence and love."

Circe, Madeline Miller -- "With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world."

Which direction to go in?  Mythology?  History?  Biography?  Fiction?  Lush and colorful?  A Garden?  Time travel?  This is why I didn't buy a book at the bookstore this weekend.  Who needs anything new when I have all these to choose from?  Now for the pleasure of dipping into each one and having a little taste before making a selection!

Teaser Tuesday: The Kindness of Strangers

The year, specifically my NYRB Classics subscription, is off to a good start.  I've got my January book, which is very much of interest to me as it is not only in part set in Vienna, but also about the earlier part of the 20th century and about the early-ish days of filmmaking.  Score on several fronts.  The Kindness of Strangers by Salka Viertel is an autobiography just over 300 pages, somewhat densely written but so far very chatty and interesting going.  She knew knew writers and artists and actors and filmmakers and has lots of stories to share.  I'm hoping it will be a fly-on-the-wall get a peek into a long gone world.  Better than any historical fiction really, right?

Salka was born in 1889 in Galicia, the part of Poland that belonged to Austria and now is called Carpatho-Ukraine part of the Soviet Union.  It sounds as though the book is broken into roughly three sections--her early life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire--Berlin, Prague and Vienna, then the war years and particularly her experiences on the homefront, and then her life in America and Hollywood.

She was a stage actress initially, I believe, but then went on to work in film.  She was a close friend and confidante of Greta Garbo.  I think many actors who started out in silent films (I'm not sure exactly if this is the case for her) had a hard time switching over to talkies, but I know she did eventually become a screenwriter.  Like much of Hollywood in that era she was blackballed in the 40s.  Eventually she emigrated to Switzerland where one of her sons lived.  

I've just barely started reading, so let me share how the book begins and set the scene for further adventures to come.  

"Long, long ago, when I was very young, a gypsy woman said to me that I would escape heartbreak and misfortune as long as I lived close to water.  I know that it is rather trite to being a story with prophecies, especially when they are made by gypsies, but luckily this prediction did not come true.  It was utterly irrelevant as far as the happiness or misery in my life was concerned, how near or distant I might be to a body of water.  But I cannot deny that some of my inner storms would subside when I looked at the crested waves of the Pacific or listened to the murmur of an Alpine brook.  And so I could never forget the prophecy of the gypsy which also evoked the landscape of my childhood and the house near the river, where I grew up.  The name of the river was the Dnjester.  It was young and wild where we lived, flowing only a short distance from its source in the Carpathian mountains in a pebble-lined bed, shallow in some parts, then suddenly deep and turbulent in others, following an irregular and unregulated course to the black sea."

That has set my imagination racing and I have high hopes the rest of the book will be as lush and descriptive and I will find Salka as fascinating as I expect her to be.  

Usually NYRB sends a freebie book as part of the subscription, though last year I never received mine and this year seems to be following the same course.  I am hoping still, it will show up.  Not to be greedy or anything.  But when the writing is as good as this, and their books are almost always keepers, of course I won't ever say no to a freebie.

I suspect I will have more to share or say about this as I read.  Curiously for me, I have three nonfiction books in progress at the moment.  And a three day weekend to look forward to.  Bring on the reading time, please.

January in Stillmeadow

Over the weekend I finally got around to reading the first of my twelve serial reads installments of Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Calendar.  As the book is divided into monthly chapters covering the months of the year it is a perfect book to dip into each month.  I want to read each chapter in one sitting and 'January' was read sipping a hot tea in cafe--a cozy afternoon spent in the presence of a charming and cozy book, and I had to stop myself from reading on.

The book was published in 1967 and I suspect that the chapters were loosely written to reflect her experiences over the course of the year or maybe even over many Januaries as experienced at Stillmeadow.  Taber was first and foremost a writer so while she writes in diary format I think she is simply evoking time and place.  You definitely get the sense of the rhythms of the year and the seasons as they occurred, so I wonder if it is also more a composite of her life at Stillmeadow.  Although Taber had been married and writes about her children and grandchildren she and a good friend (called Jill in this book) bought Stillmeadow together and I hope to learn more about their friendship.  Jill is briefly mentioned as having spent the new year together with Gladys, but it was to be their last before Jill passed away.

I'm sure each chapter will offer inspiration to write about it in some particular way each month, but I think this time out I will just share a few quotes that I jotted down in my own journal--a few sentiments that are especially pleasing and noteworthy to me and will set the tone for the rest of the book and maybe for the rest of 2019.

"There is, I have found, at least one good or lovely thing in every single day.  Everyone has sorrow, endures difficult times, but loveliness abides if we look for it."

***

"When I go out with the cockers and Holly (her dogs--a couple of which were Cocker Spaniels), I sometimes look to see how many branches came down in the last ice storm.  Winter does her own pruning.  And I think that, as the new year begins, I might well do some pruning in my own life, keeping essentials, the real values, and letting go the part of my life that is no longer contributing to the growing time of my spirit."

***

"Life is  not, for most of us, a pageant of splendor buy is made up of many small things, rather like an old-fashioned piecework quilt.  No two people have the same, but we all have our own, whether it is listening to Beethoven's Fifth with a beloved friend or seeing a neighbor at the back door with a basket of white dahlias.  Or after a long, hard day having the family say, 'That was a good supper'."

Reading her writing is truly a delight.  Stillmeadow sounds pretty amazing and I think it will be lovely to hear about the seasons in New England.  January is a time of beginnings and this was a perfect little mini read.  So many wise things to think about at the start of each new year--I am already looking forward to February.