Monthly Book Report: Nightwoods

I read so many good books in June, that’s it’s nearly impossible to pick one as the monthly favorite.  I started the month finishing out the splendid The Covenant of Water and from there tore through The Lincoln Highway, Salt Houses, and Our Souls at Night.  I landed on Nightwoods by Charles Frazier toward the end of the month.  It’s the shortest of the novels on my June list but I stretched out my reading of it to savor the prose.  

I have loved each of Frazier’s novels. He writes of the South and of its people in ways that are both candid and sympathetic, never excusing their sins but always understanding their very human foibles.  His sense of place and joy in the landscape is palpable, a trait that was shared by the other novels I loved this month.  Nightwoods is the story of a young woman, Luce, and the young children she takes in after their mother - her sister - is murdered.  The children are traumatized but what they’ve seen and experienced and Luce - no stranger to trauma herself - gently cares for them.  Luce lives deep in the woods of Appalachia  in a world big in space and quiet but small in people. The people in Luce’s tiny community - an elderly neighbor and a gentle man with a crush on Luce - soon come to be the family that Luce and her niece and nephew need. 

There is suspense and tension in the novel and the characters richly drawn.  The story is told by a narrator who sees everything and though not jaded is honest, sometimes sarcastically so.  The sarcasm prevents the sweeter parts of the story from becoming cloying.  I’ve been reading library books of late but Nightwoods is a novel I purchased a few years back.  I’m glad that I own it because I will reread this story, if only to visit the splendid landscape once again.

In Praise of Morning Coffee

I love my morning coffee.  In the Summer, I drink my cups outside on the front porch.  The birds chirp, I inhale the aroma of the first mug of joe, and all is right in my world.  On the coldest and darkest of Winter days, I summon the urge to get out of my warm nest of a bed because of the siren call of fresh-brewed coffee and the way the hot mug warms my cold hands.  If there is morning coffee for me, I can be sure that all will be right in my world.

Cooking Journal: The Salad Season

The arrival of warmer weather means that unless there is rain, supper at my house is always served outside on the back deck.  Everything tastes better when its eaten al fresco and we’ll be out here for meals until the cold weather arrives.  And we’ll be eating salads.  I have a nearly endless array of salad recipes and I’m a wizard with homemade dressing so……come on over for salad.  

There’s peanut chicken salad.  There’s bbq ranch salad.  There’s salad with homemade blue cheese dressing.  How about salad with candied pecans, avocado, and champagne vinaigrette dressing?  Anyone up for hummus with cucumber-tomato salad?  

You name the salad and I’ll be serving it on the back deck until it's too dark or cold to eat out here.

Still Paying the Toll

The past two years have been hard.  JT’s post-graduation struggle, T’s departure, my father’s death, and then the disability and pain of my wonky hip…..  Each event was separate but they added up.  The break-up with T came just as my son was finding his equilibrium and at first the freedom from the daily anxiety of an unhappy and angry partner was a relief.  I was just beginning to come to terms with all that the break-up meant when my father died.  That was unexpected and knocked me for a loop.  Six months later, before I really found my footing in the face of the losses I had experienced, my hip gave out on me.  Six months of increasing pain and anxiety followed.  

I’m four months post-surgery and finally feeling that I have found my footing.   As I do that, some of the loss that I didn’t have time to fully grieve is now demanding its due.  I feel it most when I’ve had a hard day at work and on weekends.  Some nights it would be nice to have a partner who made supper and is there to help me talk through the struggles of my day. Weekends on my own aren’t quite hard or sad - I like being alone - but they are different from the life I had with T and I find they go better if I make plans.  

This summer, I feel as if I’m finally finding my way forward.  Slotted in among my usual chores, I plan activities for my weekends - enjoyable things like going to the farmers market, time at a local coffee house, finding a new-to-me park for walks, cooking supper for friends, taking up a new hobby (I’m learning how to embroider!).  I like the life I’ve built for myself but sometimes I miss having a companion.  I long for an excuse to dress up and go out.  I wish that someone would notice me and tell me that I look nice.  Mostly, I try not to linger on the losses or the sense that I am alone.  Some days that’s easier than others.

Gratitude Journal: Daily Walks

For years now, my favorite place to go for a walk is Colonial Park.  Its gardens, its roses and flowers, its expansive sky, and its woods have long been a place I visit to refresh my spirit and soul.  I missed walking there in the Fall and Winter, when my hip was too painful for any of my usual wanderings, let alone a long walk in the park.   

My sister knew this and during the post-surgery week that KO came to look after me, she drove me to Colonial Park.  I walked a familiar sunny path with my walker and still recall the feeling of hope that filled my heart:  my visits to this happy place could resume. 

The very first day when I could drive myself, I went to the park.  This Spring, I’ve gone for a walk at the park as often as I can.   I never tire of the expansive views and the spiritual salve this place brings me. That I can now walk as long as I like without pain still feels like a miracle and I feel so much gratitude to have this place back.  It’s one I never tire of experiencing.

Looking Beyond Anger

At the three month check-up for my hip, the Physician’s Assistant made the mistake of asking me if I was glad I’d had my hip replaced.  She’s the good PA - I truly like her - and I sensed this was a standard question meant to collect stories to help people considering their options when it comes to hip replacement.  So I played along - I have no regrets.  None.  The new hip has not only given me back my life but it’s eased all of the pain I experienced from hip arthritis.  I couldn’t be more thrilled with my new hip.

But the fact is I needed a new hip five months before I received it.  From September 2023, when my excruciating, disabling pain was diagnosed as arthritis that had deteriorated my hip so badly that only a replacement would do, to the point of hip replacement in mid-February - well it was a struggle.  A colossal, horrifying, miserable struggle.  That I was forced to lose 35 pounds and live with increasing pain and disability for 5 more months…..well, I am mad as hell about that.  I met the weight loss goal in 3 months by engaging in significant calorie restriction - effectively starving myself - and then continued the food restriction for another two months while I waited for a surgical date.  Try as I might, the misery of those months —— the growing disability, the non-stop physical pain, the reliance on opioids for rest (though not actual sleep), the misery and fear, a weight-loss requirement not supported by valid medical research, and living with the stark reality that my life didn’t matter because I am fat —— I find that very, very hard to set aside. 

Many, many people feel called upon to recognize the weight loss that occurred as I waited for surgery.  I know that they mean well but the need to lose weight so that I could receive life-saving medical treatment created a mental health crisis for me.  Long a woman who had come to value her fat body despite social norms, I became a woman who loathed her body.  The dysmorphia that I have lived with my whole life exploded in those months of food restriction.  Today, three months after the new hip, with much of my strength returning and the pain gone, there are still days when I cannot eat because I do not feel that I deserve to eat.  I remain unable to select clothes that fit because I cannot reconcile what I see in the mirror with the physical existence I actually have.  Those feelings linger more than I would like. 

I am doing the work to like my body again but some days are really hard.  I resent the fact that getting much-needed medical care meant having to shrink myself.  I am glad beyond measure to have my life back but I am also so fucking angry at what I had to go through. I don’t enjoy living with this anger so I am working on that as well, aware that forgiveness will restore my equilibrium.  I’m just not quite sure who needs forgiving. 

Style Journal: In Praise of Gauze Everything

Last week - the last week of the school year - we had some blazing hot afternoons.  I have recess duty every day after lunch and the kids play and hang out on the school’s turf field.  The temperature of a turf field in the full sun of a hot day approximates what I imagine the surface of the sun feels like.  Thank the heavens for my gauze skirt, a recent acquisition that has become my go-everywhere; do-everything favorite piece of clothing.  It’s lightweight, it’s slightly textured but still a single color, it’s navy blue, and it has pockets. *Hallelujah! *I wear my gauze skirt nearly every week and my mind has already packed it for all of my Summer travel plans.  I see gauze clothes everywhere these days and I find myself wondering how we ever lived without this warm-weather essential.  While the days are hot, bring me all the gauze clothes.

Back in the Swing of It (I Hope)

Now that the school year has ended, I’m faced with the prospect of actually having enough time to do all the things that need doing.  It’s a happy development.  I’ve got a back log of half written pieces for this blog and I’m glad to have time to finish them and write more.  Shorter work days and loads of time off mean that I’ll have time to travel, to garden, to go for longer walks, and to catch my breath.  As I approach August, and the one year anniversary of my hip’s collapse, I’m a little more grateful for all the good things in my world.  I plan to write about that, to record some of my most pressing thoughts about the medical establishment, and to renew my commitment to daily writing and more consistent posting.  The long days of June make everything feel possible, don’t they?  That’s happy!