The Skirt!

Emma finally put it on! She went into her closet and chose it on her own. The top's not the best match, but she insisted. :)

The History of Love Written by Nicole Krauss

I hesitated with this book. The title didn’t appeal to me. The History of Love
Certainly not my kind of book. A book of love, a book about love, the reading of others bound within the glories of love? No, I’ve been in love and love, that kind of love, the romantic love, swept away love, the one which makes you sigh leaving all cares of the real world behind, that kind of love doesn’t seem to fit within my life anymore. So I don’t care to read about others and their joys.

But a friend encouraged me to read this and since I trust her, I decided to have an open mind. And within the first few pages the story of Leo, the immigrant Russian Jew, now living in Brooklyn, hoping to survive his life, oh, just a little bit longer, took me to a place I thought I never visited, but found out as I went along, this love certainly was a love I knew very well. It’s the love of the meaningful few who make your life unique. I was reminded there are surprises still around every corner.

Nicole Krauss is the author and from her tiny photo on the back, she looks to be a somewhat young woman. Almost immediately I wondered, and still do, how she found this voice of Leo. How did she put down into words his dialect, his inflections, for I can hear Leo speak as if I’d sat next to him, day after day, on the Number 4 line into Manhattan. Krauss’s imagination must be a joy for her and those who know her, for she’s immersed herself within the life of Leo and hidden behind her lovely looking face, I think there hides an old Russian Jew.

The book takes off in a somewhat curving line, but then makes a sharp right angle and fourteen year old Alma Singer suddenly enters. She too is from Brooklyn; bright, sassy, and seeking some sort of hope for her mother’s loneliness. It’s her love for her mother and her quirky brother...who thinks he can fly...which leads her to seek out the author of a book her mother is translating...a book on the history of love...and its elderly Russian author. And so another side of Krauss is revealed, for she too occupies Alma.

This novel is heartbreaking as well as delightful. It’s devastating within the character’s losses, yet, funny and charming. It’s poignant and even suspenseful. Like all the elements of life itself. A life of love. And not just a passing love, but the deep love one has for those closest to them. A love born out of hope, for hope, after all, is all anyone really has.

The writing is gorgeous, the story touching and Krauss handles it all gracefully.

The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss

Shoe Sale

Inspired by "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens.

10%
Among throngs of crazy shoppers
The only idle person
Was the dude in the luggage department.

20%
Flats, heels, sandals
Sneakers
All crying for takers
While Converse makes yet another comeback

30%
I do not know which to prefer
The comfort of frumpy loafers
Or the glamour of stilettos.

40%
A woman and a pair of size eights
are sole mates
Two women and the last pair of size eights
are potential cell mates.

50%
Once upon a time
a young woman found the pefect
glass slipper
And lived happily ever after

60%
The husband is yelling
The Visa bell must be singing.

70%
Somewhere in the world
a shopper is setting out
with a coupon and a dream.

My Sanctuary

After a long stressful day, I longingly anticipate the soothing effect my garden provides. I gather my trowel with its elongated smooth wooden handle, happy a splinter is nowhere to be found. I consider it to be an old friend; always nearby, dependable and willing to lend a hand. Hum, I thought, all that from a trowel. As I meander through the tall grass with its emerald fingers reaching for the sky, I spy a robin happily pulling worms from the soft ground and the graceful dance of a hawk drifts far above me on an unseen current. Invigorated by the fresh air, I am grounded by my connection to the earth.

I reach my sanctuary and all my cares float away like a feather blowing in the gentle wind and reminisce the times the wind sent me soft caresses on bare skin, ruffled my clothes and played with my hair. Opening the tall latticed wooden gate, I lovingly glance at the tiny plaque hanging by a piece of torn and tattered twine, “Mom’s Garden” it reads. I smile to myself and enter. As I kneel to till the soft earth, slightly damp from a spring shower earlier in the day, a musty earthy aroma enters my nostrils. I throw my trowel to the side and sink my hands directly into the soft, moist dirt twirling the earth around my fingers. “Wear gloves.” my husband always says. “No way.” I lovingly reply. Planting and tilling a garden with my bare hands allows me to spend time with nature in a very personal way. A true healing garden, I feel.

My relationship with nature is close as I understand what is needed for life to thrive. Lingering over seedlings to observe their growth is as if I am watching my own children from birth to adulthood. Surrounded on one side by tall dark green foliage that supports the roundest, reddest fruit, the tomato. So perfect, in its own way. Red and smooth as the finish of a newly waxed car. On the other side of me, jalapeño peppers, some long and thin like fingers of the wicked witch of the west. Others, not round, not square, a shape only known to the bell pepper. The gnarly sting of thistle burns my hand as I gently and delicately pull weeds from between the plants so as not to disturb their home, but to give them more room to expand and thrive. I pull a few lettuce leaves, wilted from the hot day in the sun and place them aside for tonight’s salad. A cucumber here, a carrot there, completes the bounty the earth provides.

Creating beauty through the creative use of space, and giving myself over to the possibilities of birth and growth connects me to the basic force of nature by being in the moment and allowing nature to sooth me. Nature’s power is as close as my breath, and I breathe deeply once again before returning to the world around me.

"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"

~Benjamin Franklin

Wonderful quote for all writers from John Leggett:

A story teller, like a travel agent, can help us up from wherever we are,

and put us down in another setting.