finished reading

This is masterful storytelling.  Charles Lamosway deals with secrets, lies, and identity throughout this story.  Actually, the secondary characters do, too.  Having hopes and dreams crumble around him is really a theme of Charles's life, and in a lot of stories it would have made Charles a sadsack, but this story is almost hopeful.  It was a fascinating look at indigenous reservation life--and I wish there had been a little more background on the Penobscot struggles to regain and retain tribal authority.   I connected with this story, and I felt the sense of place and atmosphere.  And it's like I was sitting in a coffee shop with Charles, listening to his life story.

From the publisher:

Does she remember this day? Does she remember it at all? Does she know this history―this story―her body holds secret from her?

From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth―from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.

Now it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on and care for what he can: his home and property, his alcoholic, quick-tempered and big-hearted friend Bobby, and his mother, Louise, who is slipping ever-deeper into dementia―he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, in a hunting accident―a death that he and Louise cannot agree where to lay the blame―Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is it his secret to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth?

From award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit, is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.

currently

I am...

Reading:  Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

Listening to: a Spotify playlist

Thinking:  organizing what I would like to accomplish this week

Feeling:  accomplished!  I swept and washed the floors, vacuumed, dusted, watered the plants, scrubbed the bathroom, went to the laundromat, put all the clothes away, and made the bed with freshly laundered sheets!

Celebrating: I have completed a year of therapy--it's bittersweet to finish the program.

Grateful for: vacation week!

Enjoying: my feeling of motivation

Weather:  26° and mostly cloudy

A quote I want to share: 

finished re-reading

My niece and I are having another buddy-read, well, re-read for me, because we want to watch the Netflix movie.  Since it's a re-read for me, I'll post my original thoughts... I have no new insights to add...

There is surprising depth to this chick-lit.  At first, I wasn't sure about the narrative structure of flashbacks alternating with "this summer," but it worked.  The characters are well-developed although sometimes the main character-narrator Poppy annoyed me.  She's self-centered and slightly dishonest, but her character evolves by the end of the book.  I liked the will-they-or-won't-they, opposites attract, friends to lovers tropes.  I especially loved the inside jokes that Poppy and Alex maintain on their travel adventures.  Lots of witty banter.

From the publisher:

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

sunday stealing

 

Click the icon to play along

Things I Love Beginning with S

1.  Summer.  As a teacher, it's my time to recharge.

2. Snuggling. I loved snuggling with my dog, Mopsie, or with Dad's dog, Maggie.

3. Songs.  This week, I've been listening to "silly love songs" in honor of Valentine's Day.  A lot of classic music that my students had never heard before.

4.  Studying.  I love learning.  Thinking about thinking.  Creating lesson plans.

5. Sisters.  My three older sisters.  And the friends who are sisters of my heart.

6. Sunday Stealing, of course! 

postsecret

 

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. I like to post one that speaks to me each week.

saturday 9

Won't You Be My Valentine

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

 

1) Dore Alpert sings that while he considered asking others to be his Valentine, he's sure that this is the girl he wants to love "forever more." What do you think is the secret of a long-lasting romantic relationship? it's a secret to me-I haven't had a long-lasting romantic relationship that was successful

2) Dore is better known as Herb Alpert. He used the name "Dore" early in his career because he thought it was more befitting a teen idol than "Herb." Who made you swoon when you were a teenager? Leif Garrett, John Travolta, and the Fonz

 
3) Herb found he was a better trumpeter than singer. Between 1962 and 1969, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, had 12 consecutive gold albums. They were so popular that in 1966, they sold more records than Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Of those artists (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones), which is your favorite? The Beatles

4) He found his greatest success as an executive. Herb and partner Jerry Moss founded A&M Records and signed an array of talented artists including Cheech and Chong, The Carpenters, and Cat Stevens. Herb was happy to step away from performing and run the record label. Are you comfortable in front of an audience or crowd? Or would you prefer to be behind the scenes? I'm a teacher, so I'm comfortable in front of an audience or crowd, although I prefer being behind the scenes

5) Karen admitted that when The Carpenters were first signed by A&M, she had a crush on Herb and liked his aftershave lotion. Do you usually wear a fragrance? I recently discovered Tova, which I think smells good on me

This is our Valentine's Day Saturday 9 and so this morning we shall focus on the holiday. 

6) The holiday is also known as The Feast of St. Valentine. Do you have a special meal planned for February 14? nope

7) Thames River Cruises offers special dinner cruises for Valentine's Day that give lovers a view of London. Some cruises offer live jazz, others classical music. Which would you prefer: jazz or classical? well, it would depend on with whom I am cruising

 
8) Women buy and send more Valentines than men do. Who received the last greeting card you sent? my university counterpart for AP Psychology class

9) Men buy and send more roses at Valentine's Day than women do. What's your favorite flower? peonies, although I love most flowers

finished reading

This twisty tale kept me up late!  I thought I had mad skills at detecting plot twists, but I did not see some of these coming.  Sarah, as an overachiever, sets the tone of the novel as a no-nonsense, high-powered, named partner at a prestigious law firm.  Adam, as the other narrator, is a struggling author whose taste of success has left him with writer's block.  Their marriage, although they still care for each other, is faltering.  Adam is accused of killing his mistress, and Sarah steps up to defend him.  Which is just one of the decisions I questioned.  The world of privilege and affluence was an interesting facet of this story; it would have been a completely different book if they were struggling financially or part of a marginalized group.

The secondary characters were well-crafted.  Each plays a significant role in twisting the storyline.  I didn't see the ending coming!

From the publisher:

Would you defend your husband if he was accused of killing his mistress?

Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. At 33 years old, she is a named partner at her firm and life is going exactly how she planned.

The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He is a struggling writer who has had little success in his career. He begins to tire of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.

Out in the secluded woods, at Adam and Sarah’s second home, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers.

Then, one morning everything changes. Adam is arrested for Kelly’s murder. She had been found stabbed to death in Adam and Sarah’s second home.

Sarah soon finds herself playing the defender for her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.

But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?

three on thursday

 

Thing one: in precisely 21 hours and 7 minutes, my vacation begins!  I do not have anything planned, but I am open to spontaneity.

Thing two:  a break from school and all the sickness that is being spread around will be great.  Even if it's a staycation and I don't "do" much.

Thing three:  this is my final week of the therapy program I've been in for the past year. I have gotten so much out of it!  Therapy is the best thing I've done for myself.  This program is multi-tiered with a dedicated team including a psychiatrist (for medication management), a nurse practitioner (to monitor basic health: bp, etc), a case manager (to manage all of the team communication and appointments), a peer coach (to help with day-to-day things), and a therapist (to help with behavioral and cognitive things).  It's been a year of appointments, though, but the commitment I made to my mental health has truly paid off.

finished reading

This is an unusual book; it doesn't follow a traditional narrative thread.  There are no sweeping characters to relate to or despise.  It's a story about a place and the many people who inhabit it over generations.  It's quite dense and literary.  I did enjoy figuring out the historical context clues so I had a general timeline.  This would lend itself to quite a rousing book discussion of those who love it and those who loathe it.

The audio is wonderfully narrated.  

From the publisher:

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?

currently

I am...

Reading: North Woods by Daniel Mason--and I can't decide if I like it.

Listening to:  The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose is the audio I'm starting tonight.

Thinking:  I'm not thinking.  I thought enough for the day.

Feeling:  kinda tired

Celebrating: today, I started teaching a Civics class; I have never taught a Civics class, although I have taught all of the concepts embedded in my American history classes.  I put the students at ease and gave them a voice in how we'll begin together because they had a week of class with a different teacher and some of them were very nervous about the switch.

Grateful for: years of experience.

Enjoying: a creative challenge.

Weather:  14° and partly sunny

A quote I want to share: