Darrel

I’ve blogged previously about The Oxford Project which, through photographs and interviews with the residents of tiny Oxford, Iowa, provides confirming evidence that everybody has an interesting life story.

But further, it suggests that people are complex characters in their interesting stories.* Consider this quote from a 75-year-old man named Darrel:

We lost one of our daughters to cancer two years ago. I still talk to [her] every day. She had a great sense of humor. Always did, even as a little girl. The loss of a child is about as bad as it gets. The last thing [she] said before she died was, “I love you, Dad.”

Darrel’s comments break your heart, yes? In a novel, he’d be a 100%-sympathetic character. But in real life, a few pages earlier in the book, we saw another side of him (and that daughter) through the words of a 35-year-old woman named Robin:

I met Karen when I worked at a theatre in Amana [Iowa]. A week later, we went on our first date. When I told my mom, I think she cried, but in front of me, all she said was that she was disappointed. Mom told my brother Ben, “You need to hate the sin, not the sinner.” My grandfather Darrel and I don’t talk.

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*aha: maybe the complex part begets the interesting part?

Abundance -- Proving Itself

OMG, see??

I just blogged about (re-)establishing a trust in abundance:

I'm stingy with pleasures, including books, saving them up instead of gobbling them up. But by giving myself permission (a mandate, really) to savor a bunch of books, I had opportunity after opportunity to notice that each time I finished one, another (two others? ten?) appeared in its place.

I no sooner posted that, then finished the lush Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics -- than I stumbled onto this thread about unique fictional narrators … and a dozen new books that call to me.

Sideways points of view* intrigue me; I love the twist of perspective that inspires a fresh look.

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*Yes, they’re easy to overdo. Witness Dan Wiencek’s satirical “Thirteen Writing Prompts” in the hilarious McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes:

Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man’s friendship with a former girlfriend. Do not mention the girlfriend, the man, the woman, or the argument.

A husband and wife are meeting in a restaurant to finalize the terms of their impending divorce. Write the scene from the point of view of a busboy snorting cocaine in the restroom.

Still … aren’t you tempted to try? :)

2009 Reading Preview

How, you’ve asked, did my 2008 reading challenge change me?

A couple ways come to mind, the first being that I learned how to (duh) read a lot. Not to read fast, mind you; I’m still slow, I sub-vocalize. But yet to read a lot. Mostly, I reallocated evenings to reading instead of wishing there was something good to watch on TV. By finding minutes to read whenever I waited in a line or for an appointment. And especially by paying attention -- if I wasn’t making progress in a book, I learned to eliminate distractions and dig in deeper until the pages took hold. If they didn’t (no time for that! either in the Challenge or in life), Plan C was to ease up by alternating the book with another, more engaging read … or finally by cutting bait altogether and abandoning the book to a pile for the Friends of the Library sale.

Second, I learned to trust in abundance. I'm stingy with pleasures, including books, saving them up instead of gobbling them up. But by giving myself permission (a mandate, really) to savor a bunch of books, I had opportunity after opportunity to notice that each time I finished one, another (two others? ten?) appeared in its place. (Ah, abundance: so many lessons still there for me. It was, after all, the stimulus for beginning this blog two years ago.)

Good changes!

And yet.

All that reading diverted me from my family ... friends ... homekeeping ... this blog. And my writing. For a year, I spent no time in the energy of my favorite magazines -- New Scientist’s curiosity, Martha Stewart Living’s lush images, O Magazine’s fun. While meantime, the deep immersion in long works (especially novels) explored ideas rather than incited them. My imagination turned dusty, a rare idea blowing through like tumbleweed.

Only recently have I felt a hint of humidity returning. Part of it must be a satisfaction at finally having read some of the books that are basics in literature or popular culture (Alice in Wonderland, for God’s sake!). Part of it is probably the year’s accumulation of some very good reading that is starting to compost. Whatever, a bit of it escaped in a little creative burp while I was in the driver’s seat on a road trip over Thanksgiving … and I suddenly connected the premises of two of my (languishing) writing projects and merged them into something new. Huh!

I have no better transition into this year’s reading than to simply admit I’ve taken on the 999 Challenge. Not for the volume of reading this time, but because organizing and list-making are forms of play to me. Heck, it was fun just to gather the Challenge books that I already own onto this separate shelf.

How about you? Any readerly learnings from 2008? Any solid or semi-solid plans for 2009?