This is my symphony

True Story …

Laurie Larson

2 comments

January 25, 2015

True story #1

[End of the hour, kids are packing up–the next day is Reading for Enjoyment in my high school junior English class.]

Me: If you guys want to look at my book cart and check out a book for tomorrow, now’s a good time.

Girl: Do you have 50 Shades of Gray?

Me: (calmly) Noooooo, but even if I did have it, you know you couldn’t check it out, right?

Girl: Because of the content? (her nose scrunched up and head tilted)

Me: Yeppers.

OF COURSE BECAUSE OF THE CONTENT, silly girl. What in heaven’s name was she even thinking?! Now. Did I read racy books in high school? Absolutely. But would I ever have even considered asking a teacher to borrow one? Nah-uh. Part of the thrill is that (we think!) the adults don’t know that we’ve pulled one over on ’em.

True story #2

[I am dog-tired. It’s Friday, the dead of winter, I haven’t slept well in ages, and it was the first week of the new semester. I greet my students at the door each hour, so I’m standing in the hall right outside my room. It’s 10 AM.]

Me: Good morning, Katy!

Katy: Hi, Ms. L.

[She continues on into the room, I greet another couple students, and Katy walks back out to the hall with a frown on her face.]

Manuel Martin@Flickr

Katy: Are you okay? You look sad.

Me: I do?! No, honey, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.

I fret a bit during the hour, thinking I’d better take a couple naps this weekend. At lunch, I stop at the rest room first thing and check out the mirror. Man, I do look tired! And … well, rather plain come to think of it … I bend closer to the mirror. Unbelievable. I somehow neglected mascara and eye liner this morning. How did that even happen?! Even on a day I go makeupless, nine times out of ten I still use mascara. At 5:45 AM I must have started my makeup, went to let a dog back in, and just la-di-dahed back to my coffee and lunch packing. Maybe I do need those naps, after all.

Or Spring would be nice, too.

Etta's Walkabout: Etta and Otto and Russell and James (review)

Laurie Larson

3 comments

January 22, 2015

Etta and Otto and Russell and James (Netgalley)
by Emma Hooper
Simon and Schuster

Emma Hooper’s debut novel begins with a note we all hope never to read: “I’ve left.” Except Etta has left, she says, because she’s never seen the water—and so, at eighty-three, she begins her three thousand kilometer trek across Canada, east to the ocean. She has a few essentials– underwear, carrots, a sweater, socks, stamps—and she’s armed with an old rusty rifle. This is her time.

Husband Otto doesn’t chase after her. He writes letters and stacks them by the breadbox for her to read upon her return. Learns to bake. Weeds the garden. Feeds the guinea pig. And waits. Russell, from one farm over, is frantic, packs up his truck and follows. “It’s not what she wants, Russell,” whispers Otto as the pickup backs onto the road. The three have been together for nearly seventy years—neighbors, school pals, lovers; through war, drought, illness, and injury. It’s been Otto and Russell, and Etta and Otto, and Etta and Russell.

They say journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and Etta’s first step came weeks before she left. She steals out of bed late one night, found by Otto in the kitchen. But when he calls her name, she’s puzzled. Blank. “Etta?” she replies and “looks at her husband like a ghost, like a mirror.” Etta is forgetting herself.

So Etta wades in streams, sleeps under the pines, walks and walks. Across Saskatchewan.Through Manitoba. All the time accompanied by a companion who woke her by licking her feet early one morning—the coyote, James. They sing together (do you know coyotes sound like an oboe?), discuss their route, share food, and occasionally argue. Etta is interviewed, photographed, and before too long she is a celebrity of sorts, greeted by crowds on the outskirts of towns and cheered on. Or is she?

Because by the last few chapters of the novel, Hooper’s prose moves towards magical and elegiac. I didn’t even bother wondering if Etta’s adventures, (and James, of course), were real or not because it simply didn’t matter. What mattered was the river of time in which I floated, carried along with Etta in flood of moments and memories.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James left me remembering two other favorite novels that address the harsh reality of loss and growing old: The Widow’s Adventures by Charles Dickinson (sadly, now out of print) and To Dance With the White Dog by Terry Kay. So many of us are squeamish about aging, about our bodies and minds failing us. And maybe you don’t want to read about it, for goshsakes. But do. Especially Etta and Otto and Russell and James.

A novel scrapbook: The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt (review)

Laurie Larson

2 comments

January 15, 2015

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt
Caroline Preston
Harper Collins

One of my most precious possessions is a “School Friendship Book” I found at a flea market several years ago. It is the real deal. None of this photos cropped, matted, and embellished with stickers stuff that we do today. No, this is a leather journal-sized wonder with dusty manilla paper pages, warped with age and crammed with mementos. It belonged to one Avis B. from Elkhart, Indiana, Class of 1923. Pages are filled with handwritten notes, poems, and remembrances from teachers and students at Elkhart High School. But the fun starts about halfway where Avis taped and glued the following:
An invitation to Bea’s party (“Oh boy, oh joy, did we have fun!)
cut-out construction paper hearts (“Valentine’s party had a swell time”)
Elkhart High Athletic Association membership tickets
cut-out EHS cheers from the school newspaper (“Hit ’em on the elbow/hit ’em on the jaw/Cemetery, Cemetery/Rah! Rah! Rah!)
newspaper articles about sporting events, Jollies, and plays
curly lock of gorgeous auburn hair
Camel cigarette (“Lavon Holdeman June 1923”)
fabric shamrock (another “swell time–why? Oh that would be telling!”)
lock of her own “golden locks”
napkins
Christmas card
Halloween paper cupcake topper/favor
and a dozen or more circa 1921-23 photos of girls, and one photo of a saxaphone-playing young man. See why it’s so precious?

So imagine my incredible delight when I found Caroline Preston’s The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt recently at my local bookstore–used, in great condition, and only nine dollars! (It was also curiously mis-filed because it was in the Book Club section, not in the used books, which in my mind, means it was meant to be mine.) I’m often late to the party, so this is my first encounter with Frankie which was published in 2011. Oh. My-lanta. I might have even gasped aloud softly when I saw it. I bought it for the novelty, assuming I’d just look at the pretty pictures and layouts one afternoon and be done with it. Except it’s a novel. Really–the scrapbook actually reads like one. And of course I can’t help but connect Frankie Pratt to my Avis.

It’s not high literature. There’s no complex plot twists or turns. But if you’re looking for something to read just for sheer fun of it? You’ll love Frankie Pratt, I’m sure.

Taking the Joy Dare with Jane Austen

Laurie Larson

no comments

January 13, 2015

I adore Jane Austen. I mean, I am so there. The countryside, all hedgerows and lanes; the homes—Northanger Abbey, Norland Park–gracious with their breakfast dishes and card rooms. And those Georgian manners, “high spirits and good humor” all around at a carriage ride after breakfast; or, letters hastily set aside with colourless faces. Where new ribbons can make any bonnet both stylish and flattering. Oh, to spend my leisure time with the piano forte or my petit point and drawing (well, maybe not so much).

So I was thrilled when I visited my local independent bookstore to choose a new journal and found this little gem: Jane Austen Novel Journal by Chronicle Books. Oh my goodness. (If you can’t find it locally, the journal is available at Gone Reading, a site with bookish gifts to die for—but more on that in another post!) The pages are sprinkled with quotes from her books; the layouts varied–some ruled, some pin-wheeled, some divided.

Now–me, a journal? Quite uncharacteristic. But I’m using Ann Voss’s Joy Dare this year to count up to one thousand gifts and graces. (You can print your own list of dares from her blog A Holy Experience.) Because I’m stuck. I’ve had countless experiences of grace recently, worked through some incredibly difficult situations last year, and still I find myself restless. Heart-weary. How can that be in the face of so much that is good in my life? I’ve managed to successfully avoid that whole gratitude journal idea—too often (at least in the posts I read) I find it a kind of maudlin here’s-my-life-I’m-pretty-holy exhibition. Harsh, I know, but that’s how I read ’em. But I know I have to do something to rock myself out of this rut.

Enter the Joy Dare which I found via A Holy Experience via Mundane Faithfulness, evangelical Christian bloggers both. Now that’s not my spiritual bent, but I can sure appreciate that the list offers some guidelines without being proscriptive. It’s fresh. So Sunday I wrote down three “yellow gifts of fresh mercy”. Yesterday was “something above, below, beside” and today, “three startling graces of God”. Now this is something I can do (joyfully, I might add!), right along with Jane, because I think she just might understand: “It is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible” (Northanger Abbey).

Which I intend to do.

Life After Daisy: Before I Go (review)

Laurie Larson

1 comment

January 8, 2015

Before I go
Colleen Oakley
Simon and Schuster

“It’s back,” Daisy Richmond tells her husband Jack. And with those words, the young couple’s life takes another unexpected turn.

Three years ago Daisy battled cancer and, so far, seemed to have won. She and Jack picked up life where they left off—Daisy doing graduate work in counseling, and Jack finishing his veterinary internship. They even bought a house—a fixer upper Spanish-style bungalow from the twenties, all stucco and wrought-iron curlicues and red-tile roof. Daisy has done everything she can think of to keep the cancer away: yoga, green smoothies, meditation. Despite the shadow that hangs over them, life is good and they even start to think about having children.

Every year Daisy and husband Jack celebrate her “Cancerversary” with a weekend away. This year is no different. Except that only days before the trip Daisy discovers her cancer has returned. In a whirlwind of appointments with specialists learns she has four to six months to live.

She cries. Gets an incredible case of the f-its and fills her cupboards with processed junk food. But Daisy rights her ship fairly quickly—at least in a state-of-denial kind of way. The to-do lists starts again: buy caulk, fix warped floor, call the plumber, find Jack a wife. Yep, Daisy is on a mission to a woman to replace her. Someone to pick up Jack’s socks, stock the frig with kale, have those babies. “I’mtyringtofindJackawife” she confesses to best friend Kayleigh. And so together they scope out prospects for Jack at work, in the bookstore, online dating sites. Daisy buys Jack Preparing for the Death of a Love One and leaves it on his bedside table. She’s got this.

Except she doesn’t. Because since she’s planning for Jack’s Life After Daisy, she retreats from Jack’s Life With Daisy. She withdraws. He worries. Life is pretty bleak. Until, as the publisher’s blurb says, “Daisy is forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own?”

I really, really wanted to love Before I Go. I mean, morbid though it may be, what wife hasn’t thought about this scenario, even briefly? I know I have. Would hubby ever eat a salad again? Would he scrub the tub each week? Would he remember to buy the candles I love … and actually burn them? Who (surely, not would) he remarry? And on and on. But the novel never really came together for me until the end and the epilogue where the writing became more honest and less “chick-lit-y”. But those last chapters just might make Before I Go worth reading.

Lollipop Moments: lead with love

Laurie Larson

no comments

January 5, 2015

Every January when we return from winter break, I show my kids at school a TED Talk about what the speaker calls “lollipop moments”—those time when our kindness makes someone else’s life fundamentally better, but we don’t even know we’ve made a difference. It’s that time of year when we all resolve to be a little nicer, a little more loving, and the students nine-week project is to create and carry out a campaign to promote some character trait they feel our world is lacking: confidence, selflessness, independence. So it fits like a charm. Drew Dudley is a motivational speaker whose focus is ostensibly leadership—but really is about so much more.

Dudley’s vitae is chockablock with accomplishments: he has coordinated one of the largest leadership development programs in Canada, founded charities, and advised multinational companies. But it’s encouraging others to recognize those lollipop moments that might be his most profound achievement. Seems that years ago he met a nervous college freshman during orientation, talked her up a bit, lightened the moment, handed her a lollipop, and went on his way. No biggie. Except it was—at least to that coed. She had all but decided she didn’t belong in university, that she would drop out before she even began. But she didn’t. Because Dudley reached out and touched her (he would say he led with love), fundamentally changing her life without even knowing it. It’s a message that teenagers, who often feel so powerless, need to hear.

But as I get older, I sometimes wonder about how I’ve made a difference and what I’ll leave behind. For most of my life I’ve been too busy—three kids, single parenthood, non-traditional college student, later-in-life career—to worry about anything quite so philosophical. And besides, I’ve always had plenty of time ahead of me. Now don’t get me wrong, I still have plenty of years left, but (and no one can argue with me here), I have decidedly fewer than before. I haven’t written a symphony or the great American novel, nor have I legislated or discovered or endowed. And I think it’s pretty safe to say I never will.

But one thing I can do is to brush up against another soul else every day and touch them in some small way—even if only to smile or meet their eye with love. Lollipop moments, Drew Dudley would say. I can, with a full and open heart, offer up small acts kindness.

You can, too.

Sailing the ocean blue: As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust (review)

Laurie Larson

2 comments

January 1, 2015

As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust (DRC)
Alan Bradley
Delacorte Press
Release date: January 6, 2015

If you haven’t caught Flavia fever by now, you’re missing out on something special. Twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is a chemist prodigy-turned-sleuth who has solved any number of thefts, murders, and kidnappings in her six previous adventures. At the end of The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches we knew Flavia was bound for Canada to train for her role in an “ancient and hereditary” organization at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy, the very same school her legendary mother Harriet attended. And true to his word, Bradley opens As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust with Flavia standing on the deck of an ocean liner–in a storm, covered in sea spray, planning the murder of her chaperone Mr. Rainsmith by champagne and bicarbonate of soda. Flavia fans would expect nothing less.

As to be expected, Flavia and boarding school prove to be an odd bedfellows. At home, playmates were decidedly missing, with Flavia preferring the company of the vicar’s wife and the police inspector. Just how would she manage the drama of dozen’s of girls living under one roof? It helps that she is quickly taken under the wing of the headmistress Miss Faulthorne—who sympathizes with Flavia on a level she’s not accustomed to–and also finds out that these girls aren’t just any girls. They are, in fact, also members-in-training of Nide, the same group that Flavia’s Aunt Felicity told her she must “learn her way into” at the end of Vaulted Arches. It also helps that by the end of Chapter 2, a mummified body falls out of the fireplace in her room, its desiccated head rolling across the floor and landing at Flavia’s feet.

With that, Flavia is off and running. Those girls I worried about become no more than stand-ins for the adults she was accustomed to interviewing (and, truth be told, manipulating) as she parsed together the truth. As always, Flavia runs into some dead ends and meets any number of decoy characters. She jumps to conclusions and puts herself in danger. But truth she finds.

When I first realized at the end of book six that there would be no more Daphne or Dogger, no more Mrs. Mullet or Colonel, my heart dropped. Buckshaw and Bishop’s Lacey, along with her friends and family, were as much a part of the books’ charms (almost!) as Flavia. But just as the almost-a-teen Flavia was experiencing some growing pains, I, too, wanted to see how Flavia would manage outside the familiarity of Bishop’s Lacey. Bradley’s oh-so-perfect details help with our transition: a chemistry teacher who is an acclaimed—and acquitted—murderer; dorm rooms named after pioneering women (Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, Edith Cavell); girls singing Ninety-nine bottles of arsenic on the wall. It’s a world of delights.

But it’s the magic of Flavia de Luce herself that successfully carries this little sleuth across the ocean, and us, the reader, with her.

Deck the Halls, or It Wouldn’t Be Christmas Without …

Laurie Larson

no comments

December 22, 2014

Of course it’s the Christmas tree that is the centerpiece of any holiday decorating. I’ve always been partial to Douglas or Frasier firs, with their dusty green, waxy boughs. And since we live near a local green grocer that has a gorgeous selection of trees, we’ve always done it the Christmas Story way, not the Christmas Vacation way. Unfortunately, with our pet menagerie, I fought needle drop every time the lab walked by the tree and wagged her tail or one of the cats swatted at some pretty bulb that caught her eye. Seriously– I’d keep the vacuum out so I could easily sweep up pine needles from the carpet three times a day. This year we took the plunge and bought a gorgeous artificial tree—Christmas heresy to some, I know, but I’m decidedly less Grinchy about the tree this year. In addition to the tree, nothing says “Deck the halls” with Christmas memories than these lovelies.

Crèche. I have the same crèche we had when I was growing up. (We called it a manger scene back
then, though.) It isn’t a fancy imported olive wood nativity from the Holy Land or a trendy Willow Tree crèche—nope, I can remember when my mom drove to Montgomery Wards catalogue department in Akron to pick it up. The figures are plaster, some with facial features slightly askew (“hand painted in Italy” says the box). The human cast of characters is pretty standard, but it’s the dog with ears and tail standing at attention and the 3-legged lambs (those spindly little plaster legs don’t stand up to any dropping or mis-packing) I love most. When I was little I’d spend hours rearranging what was a kind of Christmas dollhouse to me.

Garland. Nothing says celebration to me like a droopy, loopy garlands and I’ve loved them even before the pennant craze I see on Etsy and Pinterest. I have a felt and burlap “Merry Christmas” across the sliding door to the deck, a wooden “Let it snow” with snowmen, hearts, and snowflakes over the kitchen sink, and a pine cone garland draped on the bookcase. Our house is small, but that’s okay since I can deck each room on the main floor with a garland.

Snowmen. They’re kind of my thing. Of course we have some snowmen ornaments on the tree, but it’s my snowman collection that is dear to me—and even better, since they’re not just for Christmas, I can leave them out through January. A few tin snowmen, a wooden snowman or two, a soft little fleece guy—those tiny mittens and carrot noses and twig arms and neck scarves make me smile every time.

Train. Two months ago my dad died. In his salad days he was a model railroader and his O-gauge railroad ran along the entire wall of the basement with hills and tunnels and turnarounds. The countryside and cityscapes were populated with billboards, stores, and cars remembered from his childhood. Dad even wore an engineer’s cap sometimes when he was out and about. But since neither my brother or I had the time, space, or expertise to carry on Dad’s hobby, my step-mom sold most of the collectibles to a dealer. But not before I took a Lionel locomotive, green boxcar, and red caboose for under my Christmas tree. And there it runs, much to the chagrin of our beagle dog who thinks it’s a mad marauder from the hinterland, come to pillage our hearth and home.

Books. Most of you know when my children were young (before my life as a teacher), I worked in a children’s book store. Each year I’d buy a new Christmas book and add it to the pile in a gold wicker basket. Each year I’d haul out that basket and I think even as teens the kids would page through their favorites. Now it’s waiting for grandbabies to be old enough to love those stories.

Sled. When I was five we moved to a small little white ranch at the top of a hill. That Christmas there was a sled under the tree—a beautifully restored Flexible Flyer that had been my dad’s as a boy, now repainted red and white, with re-varnished side rails, stenciled with L A U R I E. I’m not about to take it for a slide anymore, but I do attach some greens and a big red bow and that old girl decks my front stoop each year.

So there you have it–when it’s Christmas in our house, you can be sure I’ll deck the halls with these Christmas memories. What can’t your home be without during the holidays?

A favorite at Christmas: Christmas from the Heart of the Home (review)

Laurie Larson

13 comments

December 18, 2014

The stockings are hung (although sadly, there’s no chimney), the candles lit, and creche arranged–it’s the most wonderful time of the year! And every year for the past twenty-something, I’ve added Susan Branch’s Christmas From the Heart of the Home to the stack of holiday books on my coffee table. Branch inks and watercolors every inch of every page so that reading her Heart of the Home books is like reading her journal.

The book is everything I want at Christmas: a little whimsy, a lotta charm, family and friends, and homey goodness. And it’s my favorite book Christmas book for the home. This little gem has some great recipes, from appetizers (chicken pate and Christmas oysters, anyone?) to a traditional Christmas turkey (or goose if you’re brave enough!), along with delicious sweet goodies and holiday beverages (spiked and not).

One of my family Christmas cookie favorites is something we call butter nut balls. Branch’s Mary’s Mother’s Snowballs are similar–except that the dough is wrapped around a Hershey’s kiss. My daughter insisted we include these little treasures in our cookie baking next week. Eaten still slightly warm they are to die for. Seriously.

But Christmas From the Heart of the Home is much more than a recipe book. I find myself turning the pages of this favorite for ideas to Deck the Halls—lots of candles, garlands of pine, and Christmas trees everywhere (even the kitchen!). Or how about taping Christmas cards around a doorway (I do!). The pages dedicated to the Magic of Snow are probably best understood by those of us who live in northern climes (Branch on Martha’s Vineyard, me in the Great Lakes)—the greatest love-hate story of them all. And throughout, those family memories and traditions, all delightfully illustrated and painted to size.

Need a Christmas treat for yourself? Check out Susan Branch’s blog, store, and news about anything from the Heart of the Home. I, of course, especially love her books. I usually get myself a little somethin’ somethin’ after the holidays, and I think this year it will be Autumn From the Heart of the Home, because, let’s face it–after Christmas, northern Falls are the best. (Sadly, Christmas From the Heart of the Home is out-of-print, but I found plenty of copies on ebay)

So whether my Christmas is lean or lush (and it’s been both over the years, believe me) I can depend on Christmas From the Heart of the Home to reassure me that heart and home are truly what matter most.

A sweet lil' reading challenge

Laurie Larson

2 comments

December 14, 2014

When I browse online reading challenges, I’m usually underwhelmed by what I find at the linky parties: 30 posts in 30 days and I’m to write about my “favorite side character” (really?!); a mix-it-up challenge and I’m reading “medical thriller fiction” (what the-what the?!); or 52 books in 52 weeks? (I’ve got a life, here, folks!) I have participated in the Goodreads Reading Challenge for the past two years because it’s flexible—I set my own goal, as few or as many books as I want—and that sliding bar on my Goodreads homepage is a nice nudge in the right direction. But it’s all me. And kind of boring.

But Popsugar’s 2015 Reading Challenge (link) caught my eye, for some reason when it popped up on Pinterest. Odd because I’m not Popsugar’s demographic (18-40-year-old-women … ah, I don’t think so!), nor am I particularly interested in the hottest trends or any place “women’s passion points connect”, Popsugar’s tag line. And I have no idea what a “lifestyle brand” is. But there it was, “the ultimate reading challenge”–50 categories, all but winking at me on the screen.

There are some serious categories—book more than 100 years old, a banned book. Some light reading—a book you can finish in a day, a funny book. And some that will probably stretch my comfort level a bit—a book with nonhuman characters (Have I told you how much I hate talking rabbits?), a book that scares you. Popsugar reassures that even though they included 50 categories (or 52 with the trilogy), readers should pick and choose according to their reading tastes—which I will definitely do.

And if the categories aren’t that different from the million and one other reading challenges on the interwebs? Well, there’s something about a handy printable graphic to download (link) that caught my over-40 year-old, decidedly untrendy eye.

So there it is–printed, tucked in my Kindle cover, all 50 little checkboxes just waiting for me to add my tick marks.