January 2024 Reading List

Seven books read in January --

Tom Lake is the latest book by one of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett. She is an excellent writer and I will read anything she writes, regardless of storyline.

The Cellist by Daniel Silva is #21 in his Gabriel Allon series. I only have his newest book left to read to complete all he has written in this series.

Roadside Crosses and Solitude Creek by Jeffrey Deaver are books two and four in his Kathryn Dance series. These are the only books in this series that my library has.

Mad Honey is a collaboration by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan is an absolutely captivating book written so seamlessly that one would never know two people wrote it. Picoult is another one of the authors I will read regardless of the storyline. But the storyline in this one is terrific.

Lost & Hound is the fifteenth book in the Sister Jane series by Rita Mae Brown and possibly the last I will read even if she writes more. As I noted about the last one I read, this one also seems rushed - as though she has a deadline and is in a hurry to meet it. Even though I still like the characters, I think I can better spend my time with books that have more substance.

The Girl Before is by JP Delaney, a new author for me and a book I picked up by random. Even though it is compared to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, I did not care as much for this book as I did those. Maybe I will suggest to HD that we watch the limited series based on the book to see how it compares.

On February's reading list - some books in Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series.

Oh Rowen Tree - A Scottish Folk Song

 

I always thought of Oh Rowen Tree as an Irish folk song - most likely because I first encountered the Celtic tradition of them providing protection against evil spirits in books I read about Ireland.

This is a photo of the Mountain Ash/aka/Rowen that grew across the street when we first moved here.

I don't know what killed this beautiful tree, but I did manage to save a small branch from it which I later made into a walking stick.

I also don't know what made me think of the song this morning. These are the lyrics:

Oh Rowan Tree

Oh rowan tree, oh rowan tree
Thou'lt aya be dear to thee
Entwined thou art wi' many ties
O'hame and infancy
Thy leaves were aye the first of spring
Thy flowers the summer's pride
There was nae sic a bonnie tree
In a' the country side
Oh rowan tree

How fair was thou in summer time
Wi' a'thy clusters white
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright!
On thy fair stem were mony names
Which now nae mair I see
But they're engraven on my heart,
Forget they ne'er can be
Oh rowan tree

We sat aneath thy spreadin' shade
The bairnies round thee ran
They pu'd they bonnie berries red,
And necklaces they strang
My mither, oh! I see her still,
She smil'd our sports to see
Wi' little jeannie on her lap,
And jamie on her knee
Oh rowan tree

Oh there arose my father's pray'r
In holy ev'ning's calm
How sweet was them my mother's voice,
In the martyrs' psalm
Now a'are gane!
We meet nae mair aneath the rowan tree
But hallow'd thoughts around thee twine
O'hame and infancy
Oh rowan tree

My walking stick.

In addition to protection against evil, the Rowan tree also represents healing and transformation.

Intimidated By My Sisters-In-Law

I only have two brothers but I've had five sisters-in-law. There have been only two that I felt intimidated by - and by intimidated I mean it's meaning of overawed, not frightened. Coincidently both were nurses and both were the second wives of my brothers. 

I was so nervous about meeting Ruthie when Ron brought her home to meet his family. I wanted her to like me and ironically she felt the same way about meeting me, although I didn't know that until years later.

My fears were due to my feelings of inadequacy - she was educated with degrees. I was not. She was urbane. I was not. She had never been divorced. I had. But neither of us should have worried, we became the best of friends. I truly felt that she was a sister to me.

(Ruthie died twenty years ago and Ron did remarry. 

 

I was not quite as nervous about meeting Les' second wife. I was much older than when I met Ruthie for the first time and more secure in myself.

But again, Susan was more educated and urbane. They lived farther away and our times together were, and still are, less frequent. So it took longer and probably wasn't until after she retired and we had more interactions that I felt like we had established a real friendship.

In my eyes, Ruthie and Susan have both been charming women. I am glad they have been part of my life.

When Your Chickens Come Home To Roost

When we moved here fifteen years ago, the owners/managers of Quiet Harbor told us there had once been a three hole golf course and that, as I recall, these chickens marked the teeing off sites. But by then the chickens had been moved out of the way along the fence. Eventually grass grew up around them and they were forgotten.

Last fall a couple of the workers used some wood from a downed tree and finally gave the chickens their own permanent roost. They are finally home to roost.

As a child I was warned against doing anything regrettable lest my chickens come home to roost. We had chickens and they did roost in the chicken house at night, so maybe I didn't understand what Mom meant when she first used the saying around me, but I came to understand that it meant any harm I did to others would come back to cause me problems. 

So if I wished for something bad to happen to someone, Mom would say, "Be careful what you wish for. Curses, like chickens, come home to roost." The saying probably dates from 1809 when Robert Southey wrote: "Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost."

Mom was right, of course, many times something I had said or done to hurt another came back to haunt me; made me wish I had kept quiet or not acted out. My chickens, indeed, had come home to roost. 😔

Through the Fog

"Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it." (Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771)

It is very foggy this morning and fog always makes me think of Carl Sandburg's poem, Fog.

Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet

it sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

I have used this poem before. I believe I first heard it as a pupil at Jasper #2 when our teacher read it to us.

But here is another Carl Sandburg poem. This is one that I don't recall reading/hearing before today.

 

Under The Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon, 
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker, 
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

 Under the summer roses 
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories, 
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

To quote Om Malik - "I like the muted sounds, the shroud of grey, and the silence that comes with the fog."

I'm just glad I don't have to drive in it.

The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose is the title of Umberto Eco's 1980 debut novel. It caused quite a stir at the time and I 'just had to' read it. I remember not being too impressed mostly because it was hard to understand. I have the feeling I would enjoy it more if I read again now.

But that's beside the point. The point is this quote by Eco that I read in The Marginalian* this morning: "The list is the origin of culture. But, more than that, it can be a priceless map of personal aspiration, as is the case of the kinds of lists we make this time of year -- resolution lists." Then followed this list penned by Woody Guthrie in 1942:

 I especially like #'s 13 - READ LOTS GOOD BOOKS, 17 - DONT GET LONESOME, 19 - KEEP HOPING MACHINE RUNNING, 22 - SAVE DOUGH, 32 - MAKE UP YOUR MIND, and lastly, the reason for this post, #2 - WORK BY A SCHEDULE. 

Relating the making of resolutions lists and working by a schedule took me back to a New Year's Eve in the mid '60's.

Whether it was my resolution list for a new year or just a list I had made for personal self improvement, I had shared it with friends of ours, Darlene and Roger. I think the first thing on my list was "get up at 5:30". It then included the usual, "exercise, lose weight, keep the house clean", etc., etc. I remember one of them was "write more letters". **

What I remember most was Roger saying to his wife: "You should do these things, too." (That's Roger's profile at the edge of this pic - taken in their basement at a New Year's Eve party.)

I read alot of self-improvement books in the 60's and 70's - like just reading them could make me better. I never stuck to that list I shared with our friends, nor any list ever that I can recall. But I've always felt the need to do better. 

As I mentioned yesterday, no New Year's resolutions for me, but one of hope and goals. Like Woody, keeping my hoping machine running.

*The Marginalian is something that just started showing up in my Facebook feed, most likely because of some algorithm. I do enjoy reading it and learning many new and interesting ideas.

** Obviously before the days of social media.

Figuring Out What Beauty Is For

It has been almost three years since we went to Atlantic to see the swans. I see they are there again now. Maybe?? 

To start this new year off right, here is a poem from one of my favorite poets. 

The Swan By Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

Being aware of my natural surroundings, even through the window is a panacea for me. But being in nature, under the sky, amid trees, close to water, anywhere outside is the best. It is not a New Year's resolution, but my hope - and goal - is to be out there again this year.  💞🌳👣🚶