There’s no getting around it – this has been a weird summer. And not the good kind of weird. Lots of rain, lots of sadness, lots of solo weekends with the kids as Steve has been traveling every few weeks. Lots of work stress and some disappointments on the professional front. The garden’s a dud (but the weeds are thriving). We’ve barely hit the trails at all, we’ve only been to the pool once, we haven’t picked blueberries and we haven’t kayaked once (unless you count a failed attempt I made while visiting my parents’ lake house – Nugget cried if I got more than five feet from the dock). I bought the kids their own kayak paddles to use at Fletcher’s Cove and on vacation in the Adirondacks this summer, and they’re still in the boxes. All things considered, it’s just… not shaking out.
That’s not to say there hasn’t been some good stuff. I don’t mean to throw myself a pity party here – or at least, not for too long. We made it to Cornell Reunion and to visit my folks (including my brother and sister-in-love), and we’ve done a little hiking – Bash Bish Falls was a highlight. Peanut sang a solo at the camp talent show. I started baking bread. But even with those highlights, it just feels like the earth is off its axis.
But I’m a naturally hopeful person, and I’m convinced we can still turn this ship around and salvage one of my favorite seasons. Our family vacation is still ahead of us and I’m looking forward to long days of hiking Adirondack trails, splashing in Mirror Lake and sipping local Lake Placid brews. I’ve read some wonderful books and I have a big stack of more summer reads waiting for me. And right now, as I write this, the kids are running around the house playing “Magic Tree House,” and their little voices lift my heart like nothing else.
It’s been a weird summer. But I’m finding joy where I can, and there’s more on the horizon.
Howards End, by E.M. Forster – Here’s one that’s been on the TBR for ages, which I finally picked up because (1) there’s a new adaptation and I wanted to watch it but I really wanted to read the book first; and (2) I got a pretty hardcover copy from Hodder & Stoughton. The story of the clashes and intersections between the Schlegel sisters and the Wilcox family were absorbing from beginning to end – and, predictably, I identified with Margaret and found Helen mildly exasperating.
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown – I’m not sure if lately there are more memoirs about the experience of living as a woman of color, or if I’m just more aware of them, but I’ve read several now and this is a standout. Brown writes compellingly about names, identity, work, religion and more. The section in which she details the microaggressions of a typical workday was really eye-opening and made me all the more determined to be a good ally. (My friend 
North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell – Another one that I’ve been meaning for a long time to read. I picked this up while in the first shock of grieving for a loved one who had enjoyed this book, and it was the only thing that made me feel better. Asked to describe it midway through the reading experience, I said it was “Pride and Prejudice and labor unrest,” and I hold to that elevator pitch – but man, it is SO good. For some reason I’d had it in my head that Elizabeth Gaskell would be a difficult read, but that can’t be further from my experience. I’ve now read two of her books – the other being Cranford – and loved both. I can’t wait to wend my way through the rest.
Summer, by Edith Wharton – Sometimes described as “the hot Ethan,” Summer tells the story of young Charity Royall’s awakening during an affair with the cousin of a neighbor, visiting from the city. Typical for Wharton, the writing is spare and elegant and the scene-setting is atmospheric. I enjoyed it all the more for having just been in Lenox, where Wharton had her country estate, earlier in the month. (The Mount has long been on my to-do list. I must make it happen sooner than later.)
The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah – I picked this up because it was described as a “classic of urban literature” and was recommended on PBS’ The Great American Read. But man alive, how I hated it. Winter Santiaga is the spoiled eldest daughter of a Brooklyn drug kingpin, but her world comes crashing down when her father is arrested. Winter decides she is going to do whatever she has to do in order to survive, but surviving for Winter appears to mean finding a man to take care of her, or alternatively, coming up with her own crime schemes to get money quick so she can buy designer clothes. For a short time she comes within the orbit of Sister Souljah, a Harlem activist who comes across as completely self-righteous and sanctimonious. Midnight, the only man Winter can’t get, and Rashida, one of Winter’s acquaintances at a group home she resides in temporarily, are the only characters I found at all worthwhile in the book. For awhile I tried to equate Winter with other unsympathetic anti-heroines – namely Scarlett O’Hara – but it didn’t work. Scarlett at least had something she loved outside of herself – Tara, her father’s plantation – and her schemes were all centered around her purpose of saving and keeping Tara. Winter was only interested in Winter. But I plugged away at it and finally finished, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been so glad to be done with a book.
Slightly Foxed No. 5: A Hare’s Breath, ed. Gail Pirkis – After the 400-page miseryfest that was The Coldest Winter Ever, I needed some quick comfort, and fortunately I had a few essays left to read in the fifth volume of Slightly Foxed (as I am reading my way through the back issues at the meditative pace of an essay or two a night, unless I need a palate cleanser from a terrible reading experience). I think I should read through more quickly, though, because the essays at the end, when I was steaming along, made more of an impression than the earlier essays I read in snatches. Particular highlights were an introduction to a princess who followed her Decembrist husband to Siberia, and a meander through the gardening literature of Vita Sackville-West (which is already on my Amazon wish list).
News from Thrush Green (Thrush Green #3), by Miss Read – I was still in need of comfort reading after finishing the Slightly Foxed issue described above, and there’s nothing like Miss Read for that. I’d been saving this third installment in the Thrush Green series and I happily dove right back into that world. In this one, marital problems abound. Nelly Piggott leaves her husband Albert after he grouses about her cooking one too many times, and a newcomer arrives in the village with a sweet son but no husband (!!!!!) which, naturally, sets tongues wagging. There are other domestic disturbances, too – the Baileys host an irritating family member for an extended visit and Dotty Harmer has kittens to give away. Thrush Green is a sweet, slow-paced world where the problems are slight and you’re guaranteed that everything will turn out fine in the end. Just what the doctor ordered.
