In the Blood

Is it true that where you grow up is in your blood? If so, the dark, rich soil of Kentucky and its iconic bluegrass pulse to a rhythm in mine. Archeologists can tell by examining minute traces of DNA and bone fragments where a person born centuries, even eons before, lived, breathed, ate, traveled. Astonishing, really. Therefore it literally is in your blood. Is that why whenever I go home and I travel the country roads around Lexington, my very heart feels full to bursting with the beauty of it? Although I know it can’t be literally true, I think at the time it’s the most beautiful place on earth. This is a thing separate from memory, I think. It is sensory. Deeper even. Something organic. Arising from within. Something in my bones.

So, I’ve lived many places and traveled many others. Are all of these places resting in my blood? My bones? The vivid season changes of Pennsylvania, the sweet heavy air, magnolia trees, camellia bushes, live oaks, Spanish moss of South Carolina? The rugged, wild beauty of the Pacific Ocean, the worn marble steps of Rome, the ancient fountains, the reverberation of voices in the theatre of Ephesus, the unseeing eyes of the caryatids on the Acropolis all live in me.

Whatever gives me life, whatever lives in me, whether soul or my imagining of it, sings in my blood. How lovely to think that this singing might also be leftover for someone to find buried in the organic me. There to find in all of us.

Porch of the Caryatids on the Acropolis

AUGUST 2015 BOOK SELECTION & BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

This month I unintentionally immersed myself in historical fiction. Two books, different subject matter, different time periods but alike in style.

The first is The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley. Set both in present day and in early 17^th Century Scotland, the first person narrative shifts between two characters connected by ancestry and a mystical “genetic memory.” The 17^th Century character finds herself in the middle of James Vlll’s quest for the throne of England and Scotland. The present day character is an author writing about the same time period and a descendant of the 17^th century one. Confused yet? Actually this author has been compared to Daphne du Maurier and sorts this confusion rather well. It’s clear that her research is impeccable and very interesting if you are a history nerd. Guilty. My only problem was with the constantly shifting narrative voice. I found myself caring more about the outcome for one character than the other. Still, if you like the Outlander series (which is set a bit later), you’ll like this.

The second is The Dream Lover: a Novel by Elizabeth Berg. Based on the life of Aurore Dupin, aka George Sand, the French novelist and memoirist who lived in the 19^th Century, Berg, like Kearsley has done superb research. Paris in the 1800’s comes alive on the page as does Sand. Her incredibly scandalous, bohemian, in-your-face lifestyle was shocking for the times and fascinating now. She dressed as a man for the comfort and quality of life it brought her during a restrictive and oppressive time for women. You can’t help but cheer her incredible spirit. Again the author chooses to move back and forth in time, this time between the childhood of the girl Aurore and the adult authoress Sand. I found this somewhat confusing, but overall, Berg, a favorite, does not disappoint.

It was a year ago, this month, that I first decided to do Book Selections. I think it fitting to choose my Best of the Year Award. Without question, this goes to Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. Nothing else comes close.