Halfway There

Tags

birthday, HCM, life events

Today is my birthday. 42 years ago today I entered the world, some 3 weeks earlier than anticipated. (I’ve always been a bit impatient.) Every year I do some reflecting on or around my birthday – how am I doing? How was the last year? How is my health? How is my family? And occasionally – how old am I again? Once you hit a certain age the actual numbers tend to blur together and you have trouble remembering whether you’re 37 or 38, 43 or 44. (My husband is the master of age-forgetting.)

It occurs to me this year that if the statistics are correct, I’m about halfway through the journey. 50% behind me, another 50% to go. Of course, given that I basically died and was resuscitated half my life ago at 21, I’d appear to be anything but a typical statistic on life expectancy. And of course, I could (as the saying goes) get hit by a bus tomorrow.

The last year has been pretty challenging, both personally and professionally. My surgery and subsequent long road back to health pointed to the fact that…well…my body is aging and I can’t expect to push it the way I used to. It’s funny – I know I’m getting older because of all the physical challenges, but there’s a part of me in there that’s still 15 and is somewhat shocked at how old I am. Happily, the 42-year-old part of me wins out over the 15-year-old in outlook, wisdom and acceptance (most of the time).

On the career side, I lost a job, looked for a job and found a new one. In this economy that seems to be something of an accomplishment. I’m still adjusting to the new position – especially the extra travel and the commute into the city. My household is also still adjusting. It’s difficult to venture forth to the airport every other week or so, leaving my husband to juggle single-parent duties. The eternal ambivalence of the working mother, I guess.

Still, overall, even with all the challenges, I am blessed. I’m blessed with a wonderful family and great friends. I’m blessed with a nice home and all its attendant comforts. I’m blessed with an inquiring mind and a hard work ethic. I’m blessed with stable health and the desire to keep it that way. I’m blessed with the aim of improving myself and with the ability to admit when I’ve screwed up (most of the time). And even in the face of challenges and hardships and difficulties, I’m blessed with strength and courage (and a good support network) to face anything that life throws at me. And that’s a valuable gift, no matter how old you are.

Nancy Drew

Tags

Aunt Agatha, Bobbie Ann Mason, Carolyn Keene, Edward Stratemeyer, Glencarlyn LIbrary, Hark! A Vagrant, Nancy Drew, The Hairpin, The Hidden Staircase, The Secret in the Old Clock

OK everyone, I have to give it up for Nancy Drew. If it weren’t for Nancy, intrepid teenage sleuth, I’d never be as obsessed with mysteries as I am now. I think I started reading the Nancy Drew books at around age 9.

My mother often took us to the Glencarlyn branch of the Arlington (VA) library system when we were kids, since it was only a couple of miles from our house. Even now, 30-odd years later, I can remember exactly where the Nancy Drew books were kept in that library, on a shelf in the back corner. As a Drew-ite, I always felt a flash of excitement in heading back to that corner and seeing the 2 (or was it 3?) shelves of Nancy Drew titles, with their bright yellow spines, lined up in order.

The Nancy Drew books were first published in 1930, the idea of publisher Edward Stratemeyer, who’d begun publishing the Hardy Boys mysteries in 1927 to huge success. Stratemeyer wanted to create a series for girls, because apparently he felt the Hardy Boys were just for boys. He succeeded in this marketing, at least for me, because I never read the Hardy Boys ever, probably thinking, 9-year-old style, Ewww gross boys cooties yuck barf.

Stratemeyer and his wife and daughter wrote the outlines of the books, and then hired random ghost writers to write the actual prose. Which, honestly, bums me out a little even to this day, because as a kid I envisioned “Carolyn Keene” as this sophisticated, glamorous author who ran around in couture and a roadster (possibly much like Nancy herself).

Nancy is 18 and a pretty redhead (ahem, “Titian-haired”). Her coterie consists of her father, handsome 40-year-old lawyer Carson Drew, her housekeeper Hannah, her best friends Bess and George (a tomboyish girl), and her loyal boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. Mr. Drew always seemed like a great dad, except that he was never home and came across as standoffish at best. (He was pretty cool, though, in that he basically let Nancy do whatever she wanted, including chasing criminals, so he’s got that goin’ for him…which is nice.) Hannah was motherly…but not Nancy’s mother, who was dead. The idea of not having a mother both fascinated and terrified me. Bess was a scaredy-cat and chubby (horrors!) and George was awesome. And, honestly, even at 9, I had figured out that Ned was kind of a drip. Nancy really needed a boyfriend who could stand up to her and tell her when she was being a dipsh*t, and Ned was not that guy.

The plots? Hoo boy, danged if I can remember any of them clearly. The first book was called The Secret in the Old Clock and involved…a secret? In an old clock? The second was The Hidden Staircase, and took place in a house that was supposed to be haunted and contained (duh) a hidden staircase. Or something? Honestly, 30 years later, they all jumble together.

I remained obsessed with Nancy for a couple of years, reading all the yellow-spined books, possibly even in order. There was an 80s-era Nancy series that had her doing more updated things, like sneaking wannabe defectors out of the Eastern Bloc. (Miss u, Cold War! Not really.) Then at some point, I lost interest…probably when I started reading Aunt Agatha at around 11 or 12. The plots were never that complicated – some shenanigans were going on somewhere, Nancy Nosy Parker ran in enthusiastically to investigate, found some clues, and saw weird things like ghosts and floating faces which later got debunked as psychic phenomena. Eventually the wrongdoer would be unmasked and the police would thank Nancy for doing their job for them, again.

It seems that I’m hardly the only one who was influenced at a young age by Nancy and her adventures. Some authors claim “I owe it all to Nancy Drew” and gush about her spirit, her intelligence, her independence and her moxie, all of which were ahead of her time. Others (looking at you, Bobbie Ann Mason) despise her as a representative of a “fading aristocracy” in a world full of endemic racism and classism. Which, yes, but it was the 1930s, you know? What must Mason think of the classic British mysteries, which are even more class-bound (and probably equally as racist) as Nancy and her ilk?

Lately I’ve read (and loved) a short piece on one of my favorite websites called “Texts from Nancy Drew.” And just the other day I came across a whole series of comics inspired by Nancy Drew covers, by the awesome Kate Beaton at Hark! A Vagrant. She also has a series of “Nancy-tines,” very appropriate for this time of year.

I just told my daughter to go read the Nancy Drew books, and she said OK, so we’ll see what she thinks. Anyway, thanks, Nancy, for starting me on the path to mystery fandom. Much appreciated. Now go home, have Hannah make you a sandwich, and stay away from the abandoned orphanage where someone recently saw that weird spinning fire wheel in an upstairs window.

A Surfeit of Elizabethans

Tags

A Discovery of Witches, Anne Hathaway, Christopher Marlowe, Deborah Harkness, George Chapman, Henry Percy, Louis Bayard, MRT, Queen Elizabeth I, School of Night, Seana McKenna, Shadow of Night, Shakespeare's Will, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Harriot, Vern Thiessen, William Shakespeare

A few weeks ago I read a book called The School of Night, by Louis Bayard. It was a random library pick-up – I saw the book on the shelf as I was walking by and its title caught my eye, so I pulled it down, looked at the inside cover and took it home. Imagine
The DaVinci Code, only better written and researched and with fewer insane religious albinos and focused on (what else?) the School of Night in Elizabethan England.

The story takes place both in 21st century Washington, DC and in 1603 England, soon
after the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Henry Cavendish, a disgraced former English professor now doing odd jobs, attends the funeral of his best friend, Alonzo Wax, a pre-eminent collector of Elizabethiana. There he meets a mysterious woman and a British collector who asks him to retrieve a page that Wax “borrowed” from him months before, part of a letter from Sir Walter Raleigh making reference to “The School of Night.”

In 1603, Thomas Harriot, scientist, inventor and former member of the School of Night, has returned from an early colony in Virginia and is living on the estate of his friend and patron, Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. There he makes an interesting discovery with an unexpected lab assistant, and recalls with longing his days of freedom in Roanoke. Did he leave a treasure there? Did he bring it home with him?

Needless to say, these stories are intertwined and at the end the mystery is solved and the treasure revealed. The book was very well done – compelling characters, a plot with lots of twists and turns, evocative writing. It’s always surprising to me that the better historical thriller-mysteries, like this one, don’t get the acclaim, but Dan Brown’s mediocre books sell millions and get made as mediocre Hollywood blockbusters.

Somehow I’ve come up against a lot of stuff lately about the Elizabethans. Last year I read (and very much enjoyed) the first two books of the vampire-witch series by Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. The first book takes place in the present time, but the main character is a history professor whose research specialty is Elizabethan alchemists and scientists. Then in second book, she time-travels back to 1590 and meets the members of the School of Night.

And last month, my husband and I went to the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, MA as part of our season subscription. We saw Shakespeare’s Will, a one-woman play by Vern Thiessen and starring Seana McKenna from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada. It portrays Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, coming home after his funeral and reflecting on their life together. And finding out why Shakespeare famously left her only “my second-best bed” in his will. It was captivating – funny and heartbreaking all at once.

We know very little about Shakespeare’s actual life – people still insist that others wrote his plays, after all – and it’s interesting to see how people interpret what is known. Ditto the other famous Elizabethans – Marlowe and Raleigh and Harriot and Percy and George Chapman. I mean, we know what Raleigh did in service to the queen, and we know about Marlowe’s works and Shakespeare’s plays and verse, but what about them as people? Or their daily lives? While the paucity of information in this area may be an annoyance to historians, it’s provided platforms for launching new works of imagination. Not too shabby.

The Blue Castle

Tags

Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, heart condition, L.M. Montgomery, Prince Edward Island, The Blue Castle, Valancy Stirling

So this week I came down with a bad head cold that turned into a nasty sinus infection on Thursday morning. I spent most of Friday in bed, then went to the doctor in the afternoon and got a prescription for some antibiotics. Then I took some pills and got back in bed.

While I was in bed, I read The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. L.M. and I go way back. I read the Anne of Green Gables books as an 11-year-old (still have them, Easter
presents from my parents, 30 years later) and fell in love. With Anne herself. With Marilla and Matthew. With Gilbert and Diana and Jane Andrews and Charlie Sloane and the rest of Avonlea. But most of all, with Montgomery’s storytelling, with her ability to catch the funny and tragic and embarrassing moments of life, to show what life was like in rural Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s, to evoke the character and landscape of Prince Edward Island and the beauties of nature.

My husband and I spent our honeymoon in Nova Scotia and P.E.I., and I saw why Montgomery was so enthralled. The Island is small and out-of-the-way, with red cliffs rising out of the ocean and acres and acres of woods and farmland. We visited the Green Gables Heritage Place in Cavendish and in that day’s photos, I’m starry-eyed and wearing a stupid grin, like I can’t even believe I’m there. Even now, almost 17 years later, I regularly re-visit Anne and Green Gables and find both something familiar and comforting, and something totally new.

This obsession with the Anne books was probably the reason I never felt the need to explore Montgomery’s other works. But finally a year or two ago, after reading a thread on one of my favorite blogs, I realized that (a) there were other Montgomery books and (b) they were most likely really good. So I ordered the Emily of New Moon books and several volumes of short stories from Amazon. The Emily books were enjoyable, but frustrating (more on them later). And then earlier this January I got The Blue Castle.

It’s really more of a novella – my copy only has 122 pages, although it’s an odd, larger-size edition with pages that probably fit 1 1/2 to 2 pages of a regular-sized novel. It concerns Valancy Stirling, a 29-year-old “old maid” in a very clannish family living somewhere north of Toronto. They live in a small town called “Deerwood” very close to “Port Lawrence” and “Lake Mistawis,” which I assume is a pseudonym for Port Sydney, just south of Lake Muskoka (north of Toronto).

Poor Valancy is treated as a recalcitrant child by her mother and live-in cousin, and as an object of derision by the rest of her relatives. Montgomery perfectly captures the characters in this family, all proud of how upstanding and respectable and Christian they are, and all quick to look down on others and condemn them. In other words, all narrow-minded hypocrites. In one scene, Valancy asks her mother to stop calling her by her hated childhood nickname, “Doss.” (I don’t blame her. Ugh.)

“Mother,” she said timidly, “would you mind calling me Valancy after this? Doss seems so–so–I don’t like it.”

Mrs. Frederick looked at her daughter in astonishment. She wore glasses with enormously strong lenses that gave her eyes a peculiarly disagreeable appearance.

“What is the matter with Doss?”

“It–seems so childish,” faltered Valancy. 

“Oh!” Mrs Frederick had been a Wansberra and the Wansberra smile was not an asset. “I see. Well, it should suit you then. You are childish enough in all conscience, my dear child.” 

“I am twenty-nine,” said the dear child desperately.

“I wouldn’t proclaim that from the house-tops if I were you, dear,” said Mrs. Frederick. “Twenty-nine! I had been married nine years when I was twenty-nine.”

I know, right? And this doesn’t come close to the worst of Valancy’s treatment by her odious relatives, including her beautiful but shallow first cousin, Olive, who is everyone’s favorite. Where Valancy is small and dark and “sallow” with dark eyes, Olive is curvy and tall and blonde with large (vacuous) blue eyes. She is only a year younger than Valancy, but engaged to a respectable (if dull) young man in town. Olive has always received preferential treatment from the family, and Valancy despises her. But then, she despises (and fears) all of her relatives. Her only pleasure in life is in her imagination, spinning a life in a Blue Castle, serene and far way.

One day, Valancy sneaks out to the doctor to find out why she is having severe chest pains. He examines her, but then must rush off to see his son, who’s had an accident in Montreal. A few days later, she gets a letter from this doctor, telling her she has a dangerous heart condition and only has a year to live. Jolted by this news, she realizes how afraid she’s been all her life. And she decides then and there, to live a life without fear and without concern for what others (especially her family) think of her. The results are amazing.

I don’t want to tell anymore, because you should go read the book. Suffice to say that Valancy starts living, and realizes that life is full of joys and sorrows, and beauty and loss. She begins to appreciate the beauty of her surroundings, especially Lake Mistawis and the surrounding woods. And she really does find her Blue Castle.

A Short Note on the Real Thing

Tags

Amazon, Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island, Barnes & Noble, e-books, independent bookstores, Kindle, L.M. Montgomery, Nook, serious sh*t going down, Wall Street, Willow Books

In today’s news, the Wall Street Journal reported that Barnes & Noble plans to close up to one-third of its brick-and-mortar stores over the next 10 years. A company spokesperson insisted there was nothing newsworthy about its store closings, stating
that the company had been closing about 15 stores per year for the last 10 years and the actions were “consistent with analysts’ expectations.”

(This is what happens when you’re a public company these days – Wall Street basically has you by the shorthairs and everything must be as analysts expect, or some serious sh*t will go down.)

Various blog sites bemoaned this turn of events, arguing that Barnes & Noble is giving in to capitalist greed and presaging the end of the bookstore. B&N, they argue, “poisoned the well” of the book market in the 90s, ruthlessly taking out independent bookstores with prices that the smaller stores couldn’t match. Now they’re falling prey to the rise of Amazon and the inexorable rise of e-books. Everyone seems to be moving to the Kindle or the Nook or the iPad – on Marketplace radio this evening, even a rural county in Texas is getting in on the act, planning to build a bookless library to offer residents e-readers and e-books.

And hey, I think e-books are great. I’ve heard all the raves and completely understand them – the e-readers are light! And they hold 2.7 million books apiece! And they have pictures! And you can read them on the beach! (Some of ‘em, anyway.) And you can check your email on them and read magazines and order groceries and surf the web! Next thing you know, they’ll be washing your car and picking up your dry cleaning! Hooray!

BUT. But. (You knew there was a “but,” right?) E-books may be great for some people. But not for me. Yes, I know that actual books are heavy, and they use up a lot of trees, and they take up space in your house, and you can’t email your friends on them. But there’s nothing like picking up an actual book, and opening the cover to read the inside front summary (or looking at the back on a paperback), and turning the pages to see the “also by” list, and the title page, and the dedication.

When you own an actual book, you can scribble notes in it, or underline parts you especially like. (I know that you can highlight sections in e-books too, but it doesn’t seem to create the same satisfaction.) I still own the paperback set of the Anne of Green Gables books that I got for Easter in 1982, and I re-read them all about once a year. My copy of Anne of the Island (the college years) is an especial favorite, and when I was 16 or 17 I highlighted my favorite passages. It still makes me smile to see what stood out to me 25 years ago. Can you do that on an e-book? Is it as meaningful?

Right now I have an impressive stack of books, both owned and library-borrowed, on my bedside table, waiting to be read. It’s a delicious feeling to look at these books every night when I go to bed and think of the enjoyable time I have ahead in reading them. I don’t think I’d be able to say that looking at a list on a Kindle. There is something about holding an actual book in your hands and starting to read that surpasses just about every solo pleasure in the world, and e-books just don’t have the same je ne sais quoi.

Of course, all this could change should anyone give me a Kindle or iPad. But right now, I’ll stick with the real thing.

And everyone should support his or her local independent bookstore! They may cost a bit more than Amazon or B&N, but they are much friendlier and often contain unexpected treasures. My local bookstore is Willow Books, where they have a wonderful children’s section and where I’ve found a number of interesting (if not recent) reads for $6 or $7 apiece.

Can’t Stop the (Classical) Music

Tags

"Taisez-vous, garces du seizieme", hissy fits, Igor Stravinsky, Johannes Brahms, Josef Haydn, Symphony NH, The Rite of Spring, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Last weekend I went to yet another classical music concert – this time with Symphony NH, conducted by Jonathan McPhee (who is also the music director for Boston Ballet). My aunt lives in New Hampshire not too far from the orchestra’s performance hall, so she got us tickets. We went to dinner at her house, then headed off to the concert hall.

The theme of the concert was “Under the Influence,” featuring pieces inspired by previous composers or musical eras. The first piece – the baseline, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor. It’s pure Top 40 Classical – I dare you to claim that you’ve never heard it before, even if you’re not a classical music aficionado. But dang if it’s not a ridiculously great piece of music anyway, even at the 2,792nd listen. Interesting observation in the program notes that you seem to come in on the music after it’s already started…which is true. The orchestra plays this piece really well, and the audience is happy and settled. This is what classical music should be, they seem to say. Pretty, well-ordered, some passion but not too much…perfect.

And then, after intermission, maybe not-so-”perfect.” Difficult Listening Hour starts with Stravinsky’s Symphony in C. A neo-classical work modeled on and inspired by Mozart, but in twentieth-century style and unmistakably Stravinsky. The key signature may say “C” but there’s definitely plenty of minor going on. The program notes state that this piece was written in a dark time in Stravinsky’s life (1938-40), in which his wife, mother and daughter died, and he was forced to leave Paris for the U.S. with the onset of World War II. The first two movements – very vigorous, ordered like Mozart or Haydn but with something very dark and chaotic under close rein. The third movement – dramatic, muscular, with a note of triumph underneath. Surely this must be the end of the piece.

Nope. Here comes the fourth (and last movement), largo alla breve. Dark and ponderous. Then urgent and complex. Then back to light and classical. Then back to ponderous. What is going on here?!? Then a series of ascending arpeggios that seem to be leading up to something…a big finish? Psyche. The music trails off into a some indeterminate chords and then…ends, leaving you suspended in nothing.

This piece leaves me gobsmacked, but my neighbor is having none of it. Tiny, fur coat, about 102 years old, sporting excessive makeup and several of those thick lucite bracelets that clack against each other. In the middle of the fourth movement of Stravinsky she has a minor hissy fit in her seat and demands to go home. Her companion asks her how she’s going to get there. “I’ll just take a taxi,” she snaps, quietly but with venom. Has the Stravinsky pissed her off beyond reckoning, or is she just tired and ready for a nightcap? I remember an account of the infamous Paris premier of The Rite of Spring in 1913, when a near-riot broke out in the theater. I restrain myself from leaning over to Ms. Seatmate and whispering “Taisez-vous, garce du Nashua” as it’s rude and I doubt she’d even get the reference.

So my neighbor leaves with her companion after the Stravinsky – guess she won’t have to take a cab after all. And it’s too bad, because the orchestra then embarks on the final piece, Variations on a Theme by Josef Haydn by Brahms. And it’s wonderful, taking an 18th-century theme (that was not, after all, by Haydn, alas) and transforming it into a sterling Romantic piece using a number of traditional forms. And it ends, fittingly, with a passacaglia that is simultaneously a love letter to J.S. Bach and a statement that Brahms is a composer to be reckoned with. And he is, too – this piece ended a 14-year drought in orchestral music for Brahms and led to the 4 symphonies and the towering violin concerto.

It surprises me to read in the program notes that Brahms lacked confidence in his orchestration, and undertook this piece as an exercise to prove his skill. You’d think that a genius would know how great he was. But Brahms was human…and I’m human…and my esteemed seat mate is human. But one of the pinnacles of human achievement is classical music, so the night ends on a positive note.

Pride & Prejudice & Spinoffs

Tags

Death Comes to Pemberley, E Nesbit, Jane Austen in Scarsdale, Laurie Viera Rigler, P.D. James, Paula Marantz Cohen, The Railway Children. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Right after New Year’s my daughter and I went to the library to snag a few new books to read. Usually the ratio of books we check out is 5 books of hers for every 1 book of mine, but that night it was closer to 3:1. I need to figure out how to get her to branch out from fantasy and anime; I still haven’t given up on convincing her to read E. Nesbit. I cherish pleasant little scenarios wherein my favorite mini-girlfriend will thank me forever one day for introducing her to The Railway Children.

Anyhoodle, during that trip to the library, I wandered semi-aimlessly through the fiction stacks and came across 2 (count ‘em, 2!) modern novels inspired by Jane Austen. The first was Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler, and Jane Austen in Scarsdale (Or Love, Death and the SATs), by Paula Marantz Cohen. Despite my general allergies to anything resembling Jane Austen “sequels” (and despite my completely unreasonable prejudice against women who use 3 names when they publish something – my maiden name is for Facebook, not for authorship), I checked them out.

So…Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict…hmm. It concerns one Courtney Stone, the thirty-something Austen addict of the title whose fiance has just left her for another woman. After a night bemoaning her desertion with junk food and vodka, she wakes up as “Jane Mansfield” (ha ha), a wealthy spinster in Regency England. At first she can’t believe it’s not a dream, but then she realizes she’s stuck in history with a vicious
mother and a somewhat sketchy admirer until Fate will re-intervene. But will it? And where is the real Jane Mansfield?

And honestly, do I really care? Not really. It was hard to get in sync with Courtney or any of the characters in this book. There were some interesting parts, mostly when Courtney is realizing how good she has it in the 21st century as compared to the beginning of the 19th, when as a single woman she can’t even leave the house without proper chaperonage. And the male lead (a widower/lothario who may or may not have gotten a housemaid into trouble) had his moments. But the ending was kind of a mess; even after 3 or 4 re-reads I still had no clue what had really happened. So I gave it up. There is apparently a sequel called Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, in which Jane Mansfield wakes up as Courtney Stone in 21-century L.A. But given my disappointment with the first book, I think I’ll give it a miss.

Despite its awkward title, Jane Austen in Scarsdale was a pleasant surprise. It’s essentially a re-telling of Persuasion in modern-day Westchester County, which works a lot better than you’d think. The main character, Anne Erlich, is the 34-year-old head of guidance at a prestigious public high school in Scarsdale, NY and as such must deal with the insanity of wealthy parents desperate to get their children into Ivy League schools, whether said children want to go to Yale or not. 13 years earlier, Anne’s wealthy family convinced her to break up with her boyfriend, Ben Cutler, then a poor graduate of Queens College. (City-funded school! Oh, the horror!)

Now Anne’s family is not so wealthy, as her profligate father has frittered away his dead wife’s fortune, and the family house must be sold. To add insult to injury, Ben Cutler, now a rich travel writer with a beautiful European fiancee, comes to live in Scarsdale to oversee his nephew’s senior year in high school…at Anne’s school. (Oh, the horror! But you can see how this is very like Persuasion.)

While Anne and Ben’s story is compelling (though maybe not quite Anne Elliott-Captain Wentworth awesome), the best part of the book is the on-target skewering of the college admissions process. Normally sane and intelligent parents, intent on getting their Aiden or Lauren into Columbia or Stanford, go crazy for a few months in their children’s senior year, hiring applications packagers, essay writers and SAT prep coaches to make sure this happens. They also make poor Anne’s life miserable with constant nagging about recommendation letters and minor adjustments to GPAs. But Anne’s misery is our entertainment, and things turn out right in the end…just like they do in Persuasion.

My favorite Austen spinoff thus far is – no surprise here – P.D. James’ Death Comes to Pemberley, published just over a year ago and recently released in paperback. I’ve read it twice now, and boy is it good. I’ll admit I was nervous when I first saw it, thinking there was no way James could combine a murder mystery with the wit and sharp social commentary of the original, but she pulls it off.

The story takes up 6 years after Pride and Prejudice leaves off. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth have 2 young sons and live most of the time at Pemberley; Mr. Bingley and Jane have moved from Netherfield to a nearby estate. At the time of the autumn harvest ball, Elizabeth’s sister Lydia arrives, hysterical, insisting that her husband, the disreputable Mr. Wickham is dead. As it happens, he is not dead, but he is soon arrested for the murder of his friend and the wheels of the Regency law system are set in motion.

One of the things I liked best about this book was its insight into Mr. Darcy – his feelings for his wife, his residual issues with Mr. Wickham and his past scandalous behavior, his relationship with his sister, Georgiana. Another enjoyable aspect of the story was James’ weaving in of characters from other Austen books, notably those from Emma. And James manages to effectively mimic Austen’s very recognizable voice in clearly but drily describing the faults and foibles of her personages. Of the 3 spinoffs I’ve read, this one was my favorite. But you knew that already, right? The only thing really missing from Austen in the first place (if anything) was a nice, juicy murder.

The Days After Resurrection Day

Tags

Arlington, cardiac arrest, December 14 1992, Fairfax Hospital, heart surgery, hospital johnnies, Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, ICD, memory, Reggie Lewis, rock star EPs

The two days after December 14, 1992 are not in my memory banks. They’ve been related to me by others. Add to this the fact that I don’t actually remember anything from the 14^th, and you have “Three Strange Days” (as a friend once called them). Yep, that’s right – everything I told you in the Resurrection Day post was recounted by friends and family, as that day is missing from my consciousness. I told you memory was fragile.

On December 15, my sweetie and parents return to National Orthopaedic Hospital to find out more about my condition. There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that I’m awake, and seem to have a good level of mental facilities, including knowing who I am, who others are, and that I’m in a hospital. The bad news is that the sudden cardiac death has torched my short-term memory, and the doctors still don’t know why my heart suddenly stopped working. They propose to transfer me to Fairfax Hospital, home to a top-ranked cardiology unit. The move occurs later that day.

At Fairfax, they put me under the care of two rock-star doctors known as electrophysiologists (cardiologists who specialize in the heart’s rhythms). I don’t use the term “rock-star” merely figuratively either – one has long Steven Tyler-esque hair, and the other wears a crazy moustache and colorful cowboy boots. We quickly nickname them Hair and Boots.

During the next couple of days, Hair and Boots run a series of tests to find out why I collapsed and what’s actually wrong with my heart. One of these tests is a cardiac catheterization, in which the doctor runs a line with a tiny camera through the femoral artery (that’s in the groin, boys and girls) up into the heart, to find any problems or damage to the organ. What they find in my heart is full-on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM. In English, that means that certain muscle walls of the heart are too thick, up to 2 or 3 times thicker than normal, and can interfere with the heart’s normal rhythms. HCM is a genetic disease, and there is no cure.

In the downtime between all these tests, I rest in my hospital bed and oh-so-fashionable casual wear known as a johnnie. This is a knee-length hospital gown that can be worn with the opening in the front or the back, and allows doctors and nurses quick access to various body parts. I’m also wearing wires and tubes – wires from EKG leads, wires from an arterial line, tubes for several IVs, and everyone’s favorite, the catheter tube that pees for you. (The catheter will become my nemesis during this hospital stay, and at every other stay for the next 20 years. It is truly an evil torture device.)

My family, sweetheart and friends visit during this time as well, bringing flowers, cards, books and gifts. They amuse themselves by taking advantage of my short-term memory loss, giving me the same gift over and over again and getting the same excited happiness as the first time I received it. My boyfriend brings me my French Asterix comic books, but has to remind me where I stopped when I get distracted. I can read a foreign language perfectly, but I can’t remember what I did 2 minutes ago. The brain is a mysterious country, you guys.

It’s not clear initially what Hair and Boots should do with me, now that they know I have HCM. At this time, in late 1992, HCM is still not clearly understood, and most people don’t survive sudden cardiac death (RIP, Reggie Lewis). In fact, they tell me, I’m part of the 4% who do survive. (This stat has haunted me ever since.) Finally, they decide that the risk of another life-threatening episode is great enough to warrant an implanted cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) device. At this time, ICDs are a relatively new technology, consisting of a device the size of a pack of cards and a wire that extends into the heart and senses any arrhythmias. They function exactly as an external defibrillator does.

I clearly remember when the memory impairment wears off and I start really understanding what is going on. Or, I should say, this happens over a period of days as I become more and more my usual self. Except I’m not really my usual self, because I’ve essentially been dead and I’ve gone through a generous helping of trauma. There are a few times in that hospital bed when the reality of what I’ve been through, and am going through, are just too overwhelming for me. Dealing with regular life is hard enough at 21, and having this life-threatening condition thrust upon me is just too much to handle. At one point, Hair and Boots tell me I’ll need an ICD for the rest of my life. I try to imagine what that means, what that looks like, and fail.

The day of the implant surgery arrives – it’s December 23. The doctors have worked out the logistics of the ICD for me, and amazingly, it is all intravenous, with no need for open-heart surgery. (20 years and 6 heart surgeries later, I’ve never had my chest cracked – a real blessing.) I go in for the surgery, which is successful. Post-surgery is not quite as successful, as I have a bad reaction to the general anesthesia and puke my guts out. Thus starts a long and unfriendly relationship with general anesthesia and various anti-nausea meds. It’s strange having a medical device under my skin. It’s strange (and initially painful) having incisions all over my torso. It’s strange thinking someday I’ll be more used to this.

I’m discharged from the hospital on Christmas Day. It’s been a long 11 days since I first collapsed in my apartment, but I’m going back there to live with my sweetheart and roommates after I celebrate the holiday with family at my parents’ house. The nurse wheels me out to the hospital lobby, where my roommates and I exchange presents, holiday music playing from an unseen speaker. Then I walk slowly out to my parents’ car to start The Rest of My Life.

Louise Penny and the Bliss of Ignorance

Tags

Canada, Chief Inspector Gamache, Clara Morrow, Diana Gabaldon, Inspector Bouvoir, Louise Penny, Outlander, Quebec

Over the Christmas holidays, I read the two remaining Louise Penny mysteries I hadn’t read yet. My friend and former work colleague suggested these books to me earlier in 2012, and I started reading them last fall.

(Correction: I just checked Amazon.com and realized there’s two more for me to read. Oops. This is what happens when I read books out of order…among other things. The other thing that happens is that I get confused about what happened, when and to whom.)

Penny’s books feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete* de Quebec. He heads up that organization’s homicide squad, a group that features a motley group of stray detectives he’s picked up over the years from other parts of the Surete, a group of people no one else believed in. They each contribute to solving murders in their own unique way. But no one contributes more than Gamache, an amazing (but still all too human) man who’s able to see killings through a murderer’s eyes yet still maintain his sane and sympathetic demeanor. He also unfailingly does the right thing, even if it costs him promotions and friends. My favorite thing about Gamache is how content he is with his life, how he’s able to count his blessings (job, wonderful wife, 2 kids, 2 grandkids) and savor them all.

Apparently the Surete’s jurisdiction is province-wide but doesn’t include major cities like Quebec and Montreal. Thus Gamache’s murder investigations take place largely in small towns, and mostly in a small village in the Eastern Townships called Three Pines. This allows Penny to track a set of endearingly wacky villagers as they deal with violent (and often bizarre) murders in their idyllic little town. Most of these villagers are refugees from Montreal or New York, people who wanted to escape difficult lives in the city and ended up in the Middle of Nowhere, almost by accident. They take care of each other and love their village as the sanctuary it is.

My favorite village character is Clara Morrow. An artist from a middle-class background, she lives in a cottage with her more patrician (and, on the outside, more conventionally attractive and talented) husband, Peter. Clara is kind, generous and missing that extra shell that most of us develop to protect ourselves from external insult. She always tries to do the right thing, but often ends up wounded – it’s almost as if people see her sweetness and vulnerability as weaknesses, and go in for the kill.

Including, unfortunately, her husband. Peter’s art has long been more recognized but through a series of events across several of the books, people realize that Clara is a genius and her career takes off. This is great for her but throws Peter off-balance and he starts to try to undermine her. Their relationship has that train-wreck quality – you shudder but you can’t look away. There was actually a point while reading about something he did when I winced and said out loud, “No, Peter…don’t.”

If I’m talking more about characters than the actual mysteries in Louise Penny’s books, it’s not by accident. The mysteries are, as I said above, compelling, but the people – both the witnesses/potential suspects and the investigators – are even more compelling. They are all interesting, flawed and occasionally brave in crazy ways. In short, they are perfectly human.

And this is where the bliss of ignorance comes in for me. It’s hard to read about these characters, to watch them screw up and do the wrong thing, to watch them crumble in the face of tragedy. Although, unlike with my distaste for the violence in Outlander, it’s not because of the violence. Penny conveys very effectively the horror of murder and its aftermath effects on those who’ve experienced it. However, the bliss of ignorance I sometimes wish for with these books is more about getting attached to these characters, and getting upset when they take wrong turns.

After I’ve finished a Penny book I’ll find myself worrying about some character or other in the ensuing weeks. Often I worry about Clara but in the most recent 2 books I’ve been very concerned about Inspector Beauvoir, Gamache’s second-in-command. And sometimes this bums me out, as I feel like I should be focusing my thoughts and energies on the real people in my life instead of imaginary people in a book. This is one of the top reasons I choose not to read books or watch movies/TV series my friends and family recommend for me – books like The Hunger Games or TV series like The Wire. It’s exhausting and draining to invest too heavily in people in pages or on screen, especially when I should be investing that energy in my family and friends.

I’ll still read those remaining 2 Louise Penny books, though. Eventually.

*NOTE: I haven’t figured out how to add accents to letters in WordPress, so please imagine the accents aigus/grave/circonflexes in all the French words. Thanks.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Tags

2012, 2013, family, layoffs, life events, surgery, travel

I’d meant to write and publish this post on December 31, so it looked like I was wicked organized and ready to put 2012 to bed before the new year arrived. But yesterday we hung out with our friends in Saranac Lake in upstate NY in the morning (en route home from a majestic interlude in the Canadian wild), then drove 5 hours home, then had our best local friends over for New Year’s Eve dinner. And then we passed out way before midnight. So I never got to my ruminations.

2012 was a challenging and eventful year for me. (I won’t even mention everything that happened in the country, or in the world.) It started tough – I had unanticipated heart surgery on January 3, and all did not go as well as we’d hoped. It took longer to recover than ever before, and even longer after that to realize and accept the fact that this was the new reality. I’m getting older, and while part of me still feels 15, my physical self is slowly deteriorating. I can’t really run anymore, and there’s a long list of exercises I’m no longer allowed to engage in.

(But you know what? I’m pretty sure I’m going to sign up for my town’s annual 5K in May…and then walk the heck out of that course.)

As I recovered from surgery, a new challenge emerged, this one on the work front. The writing on the wall for my job appeared and started to flash red as winter turned into spring. I realized that I could get laid off – not because of performance issues, but because of massive budget cuts – and if it happened, it’d probably happen in May at the end of my company’s fiscal year. So I started making backup plans, reaching out to former bosses and colleagues. When the layoffs did occur, right on schedule, I was prepared.

(I wrote a whole blog post about getting laid off, too, but ended up deleting it. It was fairly well-written and accurate, but also kinda whiny.)

I spent the summer relaxing, job hunting and doing contract work for a former boss. Before all that, though, I took a once-in-a-lifetime trip with my mom’s family to Greece and Turkey. By the end of the summer I was job hunting in earnest and getting good at resumes and interview-speak with recruiters. I started a new job in October. The end of the year was busy, but a good kind of busy, as my family and I adjusted to a new work schedule, visited relatives out of town, and heard (and performed) a lot of music.

2012 was a tough year. But it was also a really good year. It threw a lot of road bumps in my path, over which I had little or no control. It challenged me to ride those bumps and see how I could live through them, learn from them, get stronger on the other side. It wasn’t pretty (hoo boy, it was absolutely butt-ugly at times) but it was worth it. And now I’m looking at 2013 with a new perspective and new confidence, knowing I can handle whatever comes my way.

I’m also looking at 2013 as a year of fun, because frankly, life is too short to spend being serious and fixated on to-do lists. My husband and I spent a good chunk of yesterday and this evening planning out actual and potential weekend trips, longer vacations, and even just evenings with friends. I’m looking forward to improving my relaxation and laughing skills this year.

I’m also planning my reading lists for this year, but more on that later.

EDIT: I’m looking back on this post, and realizing how cliche it sounds. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” “The bumps are what you grow on!” “When life hands you lemons…” blah blah blah, eye roll snore zzzzzz. But it’s cliche because it’s true. When things get tough, you can choose to deal with it or crumple like a plastic baggy. And crumpling just wasn’t possible, for my sake and for my family’s. Not that it was all positive and upbeat and proactive all the time, mind you – I spent plenty of time whining and feeling sorry for myself, and even more time vegging out in front of bad television or reading Entertainment Weekly. But ultimately, it’s about (eventually) stopping whining, picking yourself up, taking a deep breath, and getting going.