{read: memoir} And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road by Margaret Roach

Margaret Roach, formerly the editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, retires at about age 50 and moves from New York City to her weekend home in rural New York. Freed for the first time from the constraints of earning a paycheck and the strictures (and structure) of a workday life scheduled in 15-minute increments by her assistant--a life in which she was never hungry and in which she took the quickest showers possible because she couldn't even enjoy the luxury of a long, hot shower--she sets out to figure out who she is if she is no longer mroach@ marthastewart dot com.

This book has one of the most eloquent titles I've come across recently (tied with Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky). I think most of us can emphathize with the struggle to define yourself (and find the time to define yourself) as more than just your work and your relationships to other people - wife, mother, etc. Who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I become that person?

I enjoyed this story, but I confess it took me until the book's final third to be able to slow my own internal agitator down and relax into the rhythms of the story.

And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road by Margaret Roach (Grand Central Publishing, 2011)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

{crafts} Craft Fail

A little humor for this Monday morning ... craft fails. You know we have all been there. The project goes terribly wrong, or the homemade gift is not presentable. Have a look at some craft fails!

{a thought for Thursday} Picture this

"An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak’s thatch."
-- David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

{wordless wednesday} Pounce!

{read: short stories} Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories by Aryn Kyle

I loved the first two stories and began to think that perhaps my idea of myself as someone who doesn't like short stories was wrong. The third story was okay, and then it went downhill from there except for the final paragraph of the final story (Boys and Girls Like You and Me). By this time I was reading impatiently, ready to be done with the book. And then, at the end of a story about loneliness and bad choices and sadness and women who let men control too much of their lives, a teenage Goth girl begs the woman in the apartment upstairs (a woman who is having an affair with a married man, who drinks too much, and who writes papers for a cheater website), to give her a ride to the regional music festival across town, where she is supposed to perform in front of a judge. The woman agrees and is surprised by how beautifully the girl plays the violin. And there was a passage of beauty and hope that I read, surprised, and then read again. The final paragraph was this (the woman talking to the teenager about when she played the violin):

And this, this is the part I want you to know: That moment lives in my head, a thing with breath and blood. A present tense. An always--that sudden blossoming of grace and beauty and competence, all of it so unexpected, all of it so undeserved, and the feeling or knowledge or faith that somehow, someday, everything was going to be all right. (p. 224-225)

For me, that made it worth finishing the book. I'd read another novel by Aryn Kyle, but not another book of short stories. I read this one because I loved her first novel, The God of Animals, which I would highly recommend.

Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories by Aryn Kyle (Scribner, 2010)
My rating: 2. 5 stars

{crafts} Craft Fair Search

Are you looking for a craft fair to explore. Fairsandfestivals.net is a great site that allows you to search for craft fairs in your area. You just put your zipcode into the search field and you will find local craft fairs and festivals. Spring is a great time of year for these events, especially when they are outdoors. You can also plan ahead and see what might be happening on your summer vacation. Enjoy, I hope you find a fun event to attend.

http://www.fairsandfestivals.net/

{a thought for Thursday} Who's in charge?

"We all know that it is women who make the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women."
— Alexander McCall Smith