Bits and pieces

Some favorites from the past few weeks:

This new podcast. Because there's no such thing as too much Modern Love.

This book, by one of my all-time favorite authors. Some other good reads: Little Victories by Jason Gay, Lila by Marilynne Robinson, and What She Knew by Gily Macmillan.

My 16-year-old daughter, Kate, turned me on to this vlog on YouTube, and now I can't get enough. I especially love this one about snowboarding through the streets of Manhattan.

This family of six sold their house in London to travel the world for a year. I've been following along on Instagram.

And this poem, which I find myself reading again and again:

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here. ~ Wendell Berry

Photo: National Geographic

A book, or four

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I picked up The Girl on the Train from the library the other day, and now I'm in the thick of it. I have the same sort of feeling I had when I read Gone Girl: a bit of dread, knowing it likely won't end well, and the desire for at least one character to make a good choice.

The Boston Girl would make a good beach read. Migratory Animals is gloomier but so well-written. And as a break from my usual fiction, I just read Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, mainly because I liked the title and was intrigued. I'm glad I did.

Meanwhile, some of us around here are ready for summer. The other night when I was saying goodnight to Livvy, she said she didn't think she could go to school the next morning because her lips hurt.

Just 31 more days.

(Photo: Conde Nast Traveler)

Bits and pieces

Some favorites from the week:

This book. I couldn't put it down, and I now I can't stop thinking about it.

I skipped the final season (and season finale) of Parenthood so I'd be able to watch it in one fell swoop. It ranks up there as one of my all-time favorite series, and I will miss the Bravermans terribly.

Remember Felicity? As I waited for the end of Parenthood, I began to spend a few late nights re-watching this other favorite, which ran from 1998 to 2002. Back then, it reminded me of my own time in college. Now, it makes me think of my children, and what's just around the corner. Eek.

Hometown pride.

So it's been a little snowy around here. There were two days off from school, much shoveling and blowing, and a dog in snow heaven, but now we're getting back to normal. As I was driving Holt, who's 12, to school yesterday for his first day back, he reminisced about his unexpected vacation. "I needed that," he said. I had to agree.

(Photo: My 24/7 Media).

Bits and pieces

I'm going to just jump right in and pretend my last blog post was yesterday - not June 3. Good lord. My early New Year's resolution is to do much, much better.

In my long time away, I kept a list of thing I could - and wanted to - write about, i.e. books read, products found, articles loved. So here are a couple of those thing to kick off the start of a new commitment to blogging.

It feels like a million years ago now, but over the summer I read, among other things, Big Little Lies, The Arsonist, and, most recently, And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass. I hated for this last one to end, so I'm now rereading Three Junes and plan to go back to I See You Everywhere, two earlier Glass books I loved. Quick tip: And the Dark Sacred Night revisits characters from Three Junes, so if you read Three Junes first, it helps (but isn't necessary).

I was chatting with a friend on the playground not long ago about the death of Boston Mayor Tom Menino, which led us to how we keep up (or don't keep up) with the news, and she told me about the skimm. Have you heard of it? It's a daily email highlighting the news stories of the day (or, really, the previous day) and - more important - explaining those stories in simple terms. Whoever writes the skimm is funny and smart and keeps things brief, and I love it.

I'm also loving a new-to-me blog that has nothing to do with the daily news. It's called The Mom Edit, and it's a fashion blog, but a kind of everyday, mom-ish fashion (in the best sense of the word), with articles such as "Seven Ways to Style a Basic Grey Sweater Dress," "How to Tie Your Scarf Like the November J. Crew Model," and "That Time I Wore My Mom's Dress to New York Fashion Week." "The Mom Edit" is really for new mothers trying to get back to their more stylish selves, but Shana Draugelis writes in such a down-to-earth, fun way that it works even for those of us whose babies aren't babies but who still need help getting dressed each morning.

My youngest daughter, Livvy, who is nine, asked the other day if iPhones were invented when I was little, and she was shocked when I told her there were no iPhones when she was born. Imagine. It reminded me of this fabulous article in The New York Times Style Magazine about how - despite what we might tell our children - life wasn't really better in the old days, when we didn't carry our phones with us and there was no Internet to keep us connected 24/7. "We can't become hostages to the romantic notion that the past is always a better country," Andrew O'Hagan writes. "There's a few million girls with flatirons who will happily tell you the opposite."

Photo: Free People

Congratulations!

And so it begins - or ends, as the case may be. I have a niece graduating from high school (and moving from China to college in NYC) and a daughter moving the much shorter distance from middle school to high school.

So I'm thinking about graduation gifts and trying to channel the mind of an 18-year-old (the 14-year-old is easier, since I live with her). What I've come up with are all things a certain 40-something also wouldn't mind having. Isn't that the sign of a good gift - something you'd want for yourself?

Jewelry, of course. I love this navy brass bracelet and its straightforward name, 'Love This Navy Brass Bracelet' from Isabel Harvey.

In case my niece (or yours) is more of a necklace girl, there's this 'I Heart You' necklace, because I do love her, and I'm sure you love your graduate, too. Also from Isabel Harvey.

I'm a pushover for aviators. I particularly like these new top-bar shades from Madewell.

I haven't yet read Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts On Kindness, but I'm a George Saunders fan.

David McCullough, Jr., an English teacher at the high school my daughter will attend, gave a graduation speech in 2012 called "You Are Not Special," that was picked up by media outlets around the world. He turned that speech into a book of the same name, and I'd like to both read it and give it as a gift.

Both my daughters have these cameras (like the Polaroids of old), and they love them. My 8th grader often brings hers with her when she stays over at a friend's, and the photos she takes are very fun. I think a freshman in college might like one to help document the year, so I'm putting the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 camera on the list as well (and adding a box or two of film).

I got into the graduation spirit last night when I read a speech given this month to graduating seniors at the University of Texas at Austin, called '10 Life Lessons From a Navy Seal' about what we all can do to change the world. You can read it here, if you'd like.

Bits and pieces

Some favorites from the week:

Going outside for the very first time.

I loved Maine and Commencement, both by J. Courtney Sullivan, so now I'm reading The Engagements, and yes, it's a good one.

Some thoughts on age and beauty.

A nanny's love.

And a reminder that it's never too late to start.

I hope you have a happy and fun long weekend, with lots of down time and good things to eat.

(Photo by Jessie Webster for Smitten Studio.)

Reinvention

As soon as I heard about the new book Still Life With Breadcrumbs, I reserved it online from the library. It's the story of 60-year-old Rebecca Winter, a famous photographer whose career has floundered and whose bank balance has dwindled. In an increasingly desperate effort to fix her financial situation, she rents her lovely and loved apartment in New York and moves to a less-than-charming cottage in the country. Her only choice, she realizes, is to start again.

Anna Quindlen has been a favorite author of mine for years, and I must not be the only one: When I picked up the book, the librarian told me I was the first to check it out but that there were 497 "holds" on it. In other words, many, many people were waiting for me to finish. So I read quickly and enjoyed every minute.

"When Sarah was gone Rebecca looked in the mirror. She realized she hadn't looked in the mirror for several days. Her hair reached to below her shoulders, and she'd taken to wearing it in a stubby braid down her back. She sighed. 'I look like one of those women,' she said to the dog, who looked as though he understood what she meant, although she wasn't sure what she meant herself. One of those women who let themselves go, who paid no attention to how they looked? One of those women who had given up, like the ones she saw in the market in the city sometimes with their canvas shopping bags, buying one grapefruit and a box of eight tea bags?" ~ from Still Life With Bread Crumbs

Bits and pieces

Five things I'm loving right now:

1. I am not much of a cook or a foodie, but I'm loving the website Food52. Have you seen it or, even better, do you get it as a daily email? I love the clean, stark photography and its simple presentation. To be honest, I have yet to buy any of the kitchen items for sale or try a recipe, but I look forward to reading it every day.

2. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty. A good beach reach while it's still very much winter here.

3. My current Facebook obsession is Susie's Senior Dogs, spotlighting elderly dogs around the country that have been abandoned and desperately need homes. Thousands of people are seeing this page and, best of all, adopting these sweet, gray-faced pups.

4. An opinion piece in Sunday's New York Times about what people learn in their 40s. My very favorite: "There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently."

5. Ellen DeGeneres as Oscar host. She may have gotten some mixed reviews, but I loved everything about her performance, from her opening monologue to her Glenda the Good Witch costume change to ordering pizza without money to pay the delivery guy. She made me stay up hours later than I had planned.

(All photos from Food52.)

Bits and pieces

Four things I'm loving right now:

This book and this book. "The One and Only Ivan" is written for children, but if you were to ask me for a very short list of favorite books, this would be on it. Meanwhile, "The Goldfinch" is keeping me up much too late at night.

This is not a painting (or, rather, a print of a painting) of my children, but it could be, and it makes me think of them every time I look at it. I bought it from this Etsy shop.

This spoon, made in a 6th grade woodworking class. Like Ivan, it's a one and only.

Dog

In the introduction to Maddie on Things, author and photographer Theron Humphrey (Maddie's owner) says he woke up one morning with this idea: "I would go into the world, traverse all 50 states in 365 days, and meet one person a day, every day."

But the best part of the story, Humphrey says, "is about the dog that came along for the ride." After quitting his corporate job, Humphrey adopted Maddie from a local animal shelter. She jumped in the front seat of his truck, and that was that. "One morning I figured I needed a photograph to remember how we traveled together," he writes. "So I picked up Maddie and put her on the roof. She just stood there and smiled at me. Good things seem to start that way. You know, small."

I bought Maddie on Things at the same time as Mary Oliver's Dog Songs. Clearly, I was in a dog mood. I love Oliver's poems about the many canine companions she's had over the years, and I love Humphrey's photographs of his patient, athletic, very sweet Coonhound. You can see more of Maddie on Humphrey's blog maddieonthings.com.

Percy, Waiting for Ricky
by Mary Oliver

Your friend is coming, I say
to Percy and name a name

and he runs to the door, his
wide mouth in its laugh-shape

and waves, since he has one, his tail.
Emerson, I am trying to live,

as you said we must, the examined life.
But there are days I wish

there was less in my head to examine,
not to speak of the busy heart. How

would it be to be Percy, no
thinking, not weighing anything, just running forward.

(All photographs from maddieonthings.com)

Love story

I have a friend who's always reading and who, when she says she loved a book, I know I will as well. Her latest recommendation was eleanor & park, one of the most moving love stories I've read in a long time.

Eleanor and Park are two 16-year-olds - a redheaded girl and an Asian boy - who are forced to sit together on the school bus. Neither of them fit in in their 1980s high school in a working-class neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska. But they slowly realize they share a love of comics and music and, most important, a sense of humor, and their friendship becomes something more.

eleanor & park falls under the category of "young adult," but I'd hope anyone reading would be at least an "old young adult." The language is harsh, and Eleanor's home life, particularly her relationship with her alcoholic and abusive stepfather, is disturbing, to say the least. Yet the relationship between these two teens is innocent and tender and so true, and I was rooting for them from the minute they met until the last page.

"Nothing before you counts," he said. "And I can't even imagine an after."
She shook her head. "Don't."
"What?"
"Don't talk about after."
"I just meant that ... I want to be the last person who ever kisses you, too ... That sounds bad, like a death threat or something. What I'm trying to say is, you're it. This is it for me."
"Don't." She didn't want him to talk like this. She'd meant to push him, but not this far.
"Eleanor ..."
"I don't want to talk about an after."
"That's what I'm saying, maybe there won't be one."
"Of course there will." She put her hands on his chest, so that she could push him away if she had to. "I mean ... God, of course there will. It's not like we're getting married, Park."
"Not now."
"Stop." She tried to roll her eyes, but it hurt.
"I'm not proposing," he said. "I'm just saying ... I love you. And I can't imagine stopping."

Have a happy weekend.

A Book (or Four)

The books I've read most recently have ranged from memoir to a compilation of advice columns (not what I would typically pick, but one of the most moving books I've read), from fiction to a children's book (by one of my all-time favorite authors, Patricia MacLachlan). What have you been reading? I'd love to hear.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Cheryl Strayed)

'The thing about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, the thing that was so profound to me that summer - and yet, also, like most things, so very simple - was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do. How there was no escape or denial.... As I clung to the chaparral that day, attempting to patch up my bleeding finger, terrified by every sound that the bull was coming back, I considered my options. There were only two and they were essentially the same. I could go back in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go. The bull, I acknowledged grimly, could be in either direction, since I hadn't seen where he'd run once I closed my eyes. I could only choose between the bull that would take me back and the bull that would take me forward. And so I walked on.'

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (Cheryl Strayed)

'I do know one thing. When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we've fallen before. I hope you remember that the next time you fail. I hope I will too. Remembering that is the most important work as parents we can possibly do.'

The Good House (Ann Leary)

'I show homes to a lot of important people - politicians, doctors, lawyers, even the occasional celebrity - but the first time I saw Rebecca, the day I showed her the Barlow place, I have to admit, I was a little at a loss for words. A line from a poem that I had helped one of my daughters memorize for school, many years before, came to mind. I knew a woman, lovely in her bones.'

White Fur Flying (Patricia MacLachlan)

' "He doesn't speak?" asked Alice.
"No," I said.
"Why?" asked Alice.
I shrugged.
"Okay," said Alice. "I can talk."
I smiled.
"You sure can," I said. "You and Lena."
"He doesn't have to talk," said Alice.
"That's what Mama said."
But why didn't he talk? Was he afraid? Was he sad? He must have talked once, maybe when he was a baby. When he was little? Maybe he talked last week. Why not now?'

Second best

Oh, what a week, including one daughter home from school yesterday, a second one home today. What I think they need most of all is sleep. School, away games, late-night practices, and even later-night homework, and it's not yet October. And, in our case, it's not yet high school. But it reminded me of a New York Times interview with Debora Spar, president of Barnard College and author of a new book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, which came out this week.

In the interview, Spar says Barnard women are "coming out of high school exhausted," after years of fighting for perfect SAT scores, working to get into AP classes, and trying to balance all those many, many sports and extracurriculars. In her book, Spar advocates "satisficing," or settling for second best. "Sometimes second best is really good," Spar says, "and second best is much better than fourth best or worse."

She gives an example of coming home from work, saying a quick hello to her 8-year-old, and rushing back out the door. "Where are you going?," her son asked. To a PTA meeting at your school, she said. "Why?," he asked. Because I want to be involved in your school community, she told him. "But I want you here," he said. And after that, she never attended another PTA meeting.

During late-night homework sessions this week, I finished The Art of Fielding, a book I resisted for too long, thinking I had enough baseball in my real life. And if I'm completely honest, I also resisted because I tend to prefer books written by women. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this - it's ridiculous - but it's true. After reading this book, I hope I've learned a lesson. This is a story about baseball, yes, but also about relationships, home, fear, failure, and love. It paints such a true picture of college life and the friendships formed there, particularly male friendships:

"Schwartz held out his fist and Henry bumped it with his own, and Pella could tell from their somber, ceremonious expressions that their feud, or whatever you'd call it, had ended. Men were such odd creatures. They didn't duel anymore, even fistfights had come to seem barbaric, the old casual violence all channeled through institutions now, but still they loved to uphold their ancient codes. And what they loved even more was to forgive each other. Pella felt like she knew a lot about men, but she couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of them, to be in a room of them with no woman present, to participate in their silent rites of contrition and redemption."

Home from the library

I haven't yet come up with a perfect system for reading (or, rather, for buying or borrowing books). Typically, it goes like this: I'll be at the computer late at night and realize I have a list of books in my head or written down somewhere that I'd like to read. I'll skim through reviews on Amazon and then order them all at once from the online site our public library maintains. Because of this, they usually come in and need to be picked up all at once. But I can read them only one at a time, which means I rarely get through the stack before they're due back, which in turn leads to another flurry of emails and inevitable library fines. There must be a better way, or at least I need to read much faster.

With that said, this is the stack I've just picked up (and as I write, I realize there's a common theme running through all of these):

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight. A single mother searches for the truth about her daughter's tragic death.

Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead. A father prepares for the wedding of his daughter at his family's New England summer home.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. A fed-up mother disappears, and her daughter sifts through clues to find her.

She Left Me The Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me by Emma Brockes. A daughter travels to South Africa to try to unravel her mother's mysterious past.

So here I go. Trying not to panic.