Look

 I’m trying to really look again. Really see. So often I move through the day without. My mother taught me very early to really observe; to see beauty in the natural world all around me, in faces, everywhere. It was a gift. But you can forget to turn on your eyes.

Some things this month have been hard to see. The deaths of two more people known to me. As a result, I saw others I had not seen in decades. It was strange. Moving. I was embraced by a young man I didn’t even know would remember me. I still feel it in my heart. His words were so gentle and loving when it was his heart breaking. My best friend lost another sibling. The second in six months. I don’t know how she stands it.

The best of the month was seeing my son. A surprise visit. A risk for him. A joy for us. That beautiful face. My beautiful boy.

The worst of the month was fear for my daughter’s children. Real terror. I was not strong. I surprised myself. Meltdown. Not good. They are okay. The Unimaginable averted. Fear is a horrifying thing.

I saw rainbows on the wall this morning when I really didn’t want to get up. I think it was my mother. Making me use my eyes. Sending me a message. Keep on, my darling girl, keep on. You, too.

She could have written this because she did.

HAMNET & THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS- SEPTEMBER 2021 BOOK SELECTIONS

 Two very dissimilar books highlighted my reading in September. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell by far stood out. It is the fictionalized story of the short life of Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet. Very little is actually known about the boy or how he died at age eleven. The story renders in heartbreaking and exquisitely beautiful detail the author’s depiction of Shakespeare’s early life, his parents, his marriage, his wife and three children. Told with limited omniscience, O’Farrell weaves a mesmerizing tale of the events, relationships and personalities in Shakespeare’s life before and during the plague years in Europe. In spite of the difficult subject matter, I highly recommend this novel.

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult was a book club pick. I found this novel confusing in its format. The story skips forward and back so often, the reader doesn’t have a clue which events happened in which sequence.

The Book of Two Ways is an ancient, Egyptian burial tradition which shows two ways, by land or water, to reach heaven in the afterlife. It tells the story of a woman who has lived two lives and is faced with choosing how to continue her story, thus the parallel. The woman has a history as an Egyptologist who interrupted her studies due to circumstances beyond her control. She never returned to Egypt and became a death doula.

For students of Egyptology as well as Quantum Physics the novel covers these topics fairly extensively and is interesting information. There are simultaneously two quite lovely love stories interwoven that make up part of the choice that must be made.