Category Archives: Non-fiction

A Summer of Flowers

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At the garden center…

My daughter and I love to garden. I will say right off, though, that her thumb is greener than mine! She and her husband (who also loves gardening) have an amazing garden and yard! I’m always in awe of their vegetables and their abundance of beautiful flowers and shrubs. They inspire me!  After I had the dangerous oak tree removed from the back corner of our yard last fall, I found that I had a new patch of sunshine where there had always been shade. So I created my “Sunshine Garden,” a small patch for vegetables, inspired by Jamie and her husband. In the rest of the yard, I’ve focused on flowers.

Whenever Jamie comes to visit me, we inevitably take a trip to the garden centers nearby. We love the inspiration we get from those trips. But in recent years, much of our gardening inspiration has also come from one particular flower farm owner and author, Erin Benzakein, of Floret Flower Farm. She and her husband, Chris, started Floret Flower Farm over 15 years ago, and they sell flower seeds to devoted followers internationally. Jamie and I love to order seeds from her!

 

Erin has published three books, all of them filled with excellent information and gorgeous photography. Her husband, Chris, is the photographer and over the years has documented their flower journey and their extensive research with what must be millions of photos by now.  They are an impressive team!

 

There is also a two season Emmy-nominated documentary series about them, available on MAX or through Prime VIdeo. It is a beautifully filmed account of their experiences with beginning such a business, their struggles and successes over the years, the people they hired to help them fulfill their dream, and the phenomenal effort of all involved. I found the documentary to be very moving as well as inspirational.

Whether you are a seasoned gardener or a beginner, I urge you to check out the Floret Flower Farm website for inspiration, education (very helpful video classes!), and special sales on their wonderful and unusual flower seeds. I am sure that you, too, will become a major fan and follower of Floret Farms!

Art by Mary Englebreit…

April Activities

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Is it only April 7th today? It seems like April has already been a month long! How much Life can be packed into seven days, anyway? Well, I have to answer my own question with: A LOT!

April Activities thus far:

I have finished two books already in April. I read Round the Bend, by Nevil Shute, for my Classics Club Spin book. I will be reviewing it soon. Then, I listened to the audiobook version of When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. It’s a beautifully written memoir of a young neurosurgeon’s battle with lung cancer. It made the waiting room time go much faster.

 

Our daughter came to spend time with us, which is always a delightful time for us. Once again, she helped out with our yard work and gardening, something she loves to do and which we appreciate so deeply.

Our daughter starting the spring clean-up the butterfly garden…

Byron underwent his second chemotherapy infusion, and in these first few days of April, has completely lost his hair. He is tolerating these chemo treatments every three weeks pretty well, with fatigue (and hair loss!) being the main side effects so far. During the times that he is feeling deep fatigue, we have been watching (and really enjoying) a YouTube channel called 4kSeoul. A very talented young man films his walks through the beautiful city of Seoul, South Korea. There is no narration, just sounds of the city surrounding you (especially if you put on your headphones to listen). Byron loves to see the architecture of the city as we walk through different neighborhoods. I am fascinated by the people we see, the energy of that city, and the historical structures we come across on these walks. It’s a fun way to experience a different place and a different culture.

On a walk in Namsan Park, in Seoul, South Korea…

So, hello to April! Life is full and busy for us right now, albeit in some ways we didn’t anticipate, and we are enjoying and appreciating the beauty of early Spring.  I hope you are enjoying your April, too!

The Elephant’s New Shoe

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The Elephant’s New Shoe, by Laurel Neme, is a non-fiction picture book about a young elephant in the forests of Cambodia who lost its foot in a snare trap. When he as found, he was thin and suffering tremendous pain. His rescuers nursed his wound and took care of him, but were afraid that he would die soon. However, this little elephant had both courage and a great will to live, and when his rescuers saw his fighting spirit, they worked to find a way to help him become a whole elephant again. They began to design a “shoe” that would enable him to walk again. This account of Chhouk’s healing and recovery, and the attempts to make a comfortable shoe for an elephant, is a warm and heartfelt story.

In the forward to the book, Nick Marx, the man who rescued this little elephant, wrote:

We must not forget that animals have feelings, too. Baby elephants are like children and need love if they are to grow up happy and strong. Please remember this and try to conserve wild animals. They may look a little different, but they are people, too! We should leave them in the forest where they belong, not capture them in snares, put them in cages, or keep them as pets.

This book jumped out at me as I was browsing through the library this week. When my focus and emotional energies are drained, I find solace in reading children’s books, and this little book touched my heart.

Kimchi

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I have discovered a new love: Kimchi.  My knowledge about kimchi was minimal, so when I found The Kimchi Cookbook, by Lauryn Chun and Olga Massov, I checked it out of the library to learn more about this delicious subject. This was a fun cookbook to read because it was a complete education on the subject, not just a book of recipes. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever attempt to make my own kimchi, but I’m loving trying it out with new recipes and adding it to things I already eat. (A melted cheese sandwich with kimchi is a winner here!)

Day of Remembrance

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Monument at Manzanar Cemetery

“Our differences in beliefs do not truly separate us or elevate us over others. Rather, they highlight the rich tapestry that is humanity.”
   ~ George Takei

In the United States during World War II, about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific Coast, were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in concentration camps in the western interior of the country. Approximately two-thirds of the internees were United States citizens. (Wikipedia)

A few books I have read and recommend highly on the subject of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II:

That Good Night

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Many people are unaware of the branch of medicine known as “palliative care.”  Some, who have sort of heard of it, may think it is the same as hospice care, that when you enter into palliative care, you no longer have medical treatments for serious diseases, and you are on the verge of death. But that is not so. The World Health Organization defines palliative care this way:

”…an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life threatening illness, through the prevention of suffering by early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychological, and spiritual.”

That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, is a memoir by Dr. Sunita Puri, who chose Palliative Care as her medical specialty. She tells the story of her training and experiences in medical school that led her to make that choice. And she shares the experiences she had with patients and colleagues, many of whom were not familiar with the type of help palliative care can give patients and their families, and the kind of help and support it gives the doctors treating those patients. It was an eye opening and very moving education for me about a relatively new field of medicine.

From the publisher:

As the American born daughter of immigrants, Dr. Sunita Puri knew from a young age that the gulf between her parents’ experiences and her own was impossible to bridge, save for two elements: medicine and spirituality. Between days spent waiting for her mother, an anesthesiologist, to exit the OR, and evenings spent in conversation with her parents about their faith, Puri witnessed the tension between medicine’s impulse to preserve life at all costs and a spiritual embrace of life’s temporality. And it was that tension that eventually drew Puri, a passionate but unsatisfied medical student, to palliative medicine–a new specialty attempting to translate the border between medical intervention and quality-of-life care.

Interweaving evocative stories of Puri’s family and the patients she cares for, That Good Night is a stunning meditation on impermanence and the role of medicine in helping us to live and die well, arming readers with information that will transform how we communicate with our doctors about what matters most to us.

My husband, Byron, is now in palliative care while undergoing his treatments for cancer (see my post on his diagnosis). I should probably say that “we” are in palliative care, because family is as much a focus there as is his pain management and quality of life help. It is a very individualized care, with much more direct communication, and the team includes the palliative care doctor, a social worker, and a nurse. And all of this care is in support of his ongoing treatments and of his oncologists and other doctors who are treating him. Our palliative care team is helping Byron to have the best quality of life possible as he fights his disease, and they are providing support and care in helping us make the many profoundly difficult decisions of treatment and end of life care. When Byron’s ongoing treatments no longer work and are terminated, he will be moved from oncology and palliative care into hospice care.

Wise and poignant words from Dr. Puri:

“For we will each age and die, as my father told me years ago. We will lose the people we love. No matter our ethnicity, place of residence, income, religion, or skin color, our human lives are united by brevity and finitude, and the certainty of loss. Just as we strive for dignity and purpose throughout our lives, well before the light fades, we can bring this same dignity and purpose to our deaths, as we each journey into our own good night.”

I highly recommend this book. It is very moving and heartfelt, and it has a positive, uplifting, and empowering effect, overall. For those of us experiencing palliative care right now, it is an important and helpful education.

Dr. Sunita Puri…

Unearthing The Secret Garden

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If you love gardens and are interested in the lives of authors, Marta McDowell writes books for you to love. My sister-in-law recently sent me a lovely gift — a copy of Marta McDowell’s new book, Unearthing the Secret Garden: The Plants and Places that Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favorite authors. She wrote The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, two of my all time favorite books. She was also an avid gardener, and created three special gardens over her lifetime — one in England, one in the United States, and one in Bermuda. This book goes into great detail about each of those gardens and about the life of FHB herself.

What an interesting character was FHB! She was not at all what I expected, but I enjoyed getting to know so much about her personality and her life. The book was also filled with wonderful photos and illustrations. Two of the photos that I thought were quite lovely are below. The one on the left shows her sitting in her garden at Maytham Hall. I thought the photo was like a lovely impressionistic painting and had to look closely to see her. The photo on the right is of her writing desk, and I love to see photos of the desks and spaces that writers use to create their wonderful works!

FHB sitting in her garden…
Her writing desk…

Her love of gardens and her writing were deeply intertwined.

It was a lovesome, mystic place, shut in partly by old red brick walls against which fruit trees were trained and partly by a laurel hedge with a wood behind it. It was my habit to sit and write there under an aged writhen tree  gray with lichen and festooned with roses.

~ From My Robin (1912), describing the rose garden at Maytham Hall..

Marta McDowell divided the book into four sections: before The Secret Garden, inside The Secret Garden, after The Secret Garden, and outside The Secret Garden. At the end of Part Three, she wrote:

Frances Hodgson Burnett gardened as she lived — large — and became the unlikely inspiration for generations of gardeners through The Secret Garden. She unlocked a door that beckons. If you ask a gardener if they have a book — in particular a childhood book — that led them into gardening, many of them would name The Secret Garden. Frances would be pleased.

And for those of us who garden and grab ideas for our gardens from everywhere, there is an extensive table in the book that lists the flowers, fruits, and trees FHB planted in each of her gardens. Finally, I have to rave about Marta McDowell, not just because of this table, but because of all the amazing detail she put into this book! She is a wonderful researcher!

November Reading, 2021

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November has been a busy reading month for me. Here are the books I finished this month:

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And here are the books I’ve been reading in November that are taking longer to finish:

My Other Reading

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Painting by Anna Forlati

My reading has always been all over the place. There are genres I love, like mysteries and gardening books, and I love children’s literature. But reading is how I process most things in life. Books and authors are my guides. I am curious and a learner and have gotten my best education from my books. So simply put, I read all kinds of things, and when I need to learn about a new topic, I dive in head first.

Byron and I are now facing changes and challenges that require a whole new education. Thus, I am reading about all kinds of topics that I haven’t read about before so I’ve started calling this “my other reading.” Many of these books, articles, even research papers are recommended by our current support team which is made up of family and friends, doctors and our grief counselor, and new acquaintances who are going through similar things to what we are facing.

Some of this reading I am doing slowly, over time, because the topic is so intense emotionally. Others I am reading quickly needing the information right now already. And some are fiction that give me a completely different view and understanding of our situation.

This “other” reading is helping me understand, cope, prepare, and live with the certainty and uncertainties of life since Byron’s diagnosis.

My current “other” reading:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gwandi, after having loaned it to our daughter to read. This is a reread for me. It’s such an important topic, rarely discussed in public, but a book that I think everyone should read. We are all mortal.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee, is beautifully written, but difficult (emotionally) to read. I’m reading it a little bit at a time, learning sooo much about cancer, and finding passages that perfectly describe our life right now.

During one session recently, my grief counselor read to me an excerpt from the book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, by Francis Weller. The passage she read to me was called “An Accumulation of Losses,” and it really hit home with me. So I ordered that book and am slowly reading it, savoring the wisdom it imparts.

She also recommended that I read the book Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life, by Jeffrey Rediger, MD. I was hesitant at first to read this one because “being cured” seemed like such a long shot when we are coming to terms with the finality of Byron’s diagnosis. But as the author says, “We have a lot of work to do, in both medicine and as a larger culture, when it comes to talking about death and understanding what it can tell us about life,” and this book is full of ideas to ponder about life when faced with a terminal diagnosis.

Last year, I read a fiction book that touched my heart. The Springtime of the Year, by Susan Hill, was a story of loss and grief. A young, newly married woman loses her husband in a sudden accident. Her journey through grief and how she found her way back into Life, was beautifully told.

I also recently read a non-fiction book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. Notes on Grief, was about the sudden loss of her father during the Covid 19 quarantine (he did not have Covid), and her own journey through the grief and difficulties of losing him during a pandemic. I wrote a mini-review of it here.

One of the most poignant stories I’ve read about loss and grief is Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. My review of it is here.

And finally, I am reading a lot of Mary Oliver‘s poetry…because she puts it into words…beautifully deep-felt words.

 

Reading Short Books

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Renia Reading, 1910, painting by Wojciech Weiss

This week, in between my current project of reading two long books at the same time, I took a break and read two short books. I didn’t plan to do that, it just happened. I also didn’t sign up for a ‘reading non-fiction in November’ challenge, but both short books were non-fiction. I guess I just needed some delightful balance in my reading life this month.

Both short books were very interesting to read. The first one was Notre-Dame: A Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals, by Ken Follett. It was, simply put, a love letter to the magnificent cathedral of Notre-Dame, started shortly after he heard about the fire that shocked the world. Having done extensive research on cathedrals for his book, Pillars of the Earth, and having spent much time in Notre-Dame, he was deeply shocked and saddened when he learned of the fire. It wasn’t too long before reporters started calling him, wanting his expert advice and viewpoint on the possible fire damage. Another call he received was from his publisher telling him that given his knowledge and background in the constructions of cathedrals, he must write a book in response to this tragedy. This little book was what he produced from the notes he started immediately.

The wonderful cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, one of the greatest achievements of European civilization, was on fire. The sight dazed and disturbed us profoundly. I was on the edge of tears. Something priceless was dying in front of our eyes. The feeling was bewildering, as if the earth was shaking.”

The second short book I read last week was The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter, by Margareta Magnusson. It was actually a re-read for me because I’d listened to the audiobook a few years ago, and decided to re-read it because I’m currently working on a major decluttering/downsizing project here at home. I hoped it would give me some ideas and motivation to really let go of a lot of things, and it did. It’s a common sense book, and is just straightforward in explaining the ideas and philosophy of “death cleaning.” I’m glad I re-read it.

So I am enjoying my November reading, both the long books and the short ones. I hope you are enjoying your current reading, as well.

 

Walking with Thoreau

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Walking on a trail in the Hoh Rain Forest, 2019…

Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay called Walking, which was published as a long article in The Atlantic in 1862. Although some of the words he used are dated — we seldom use “methinks” anymore — his ideas are still clear and fresh today, and it is very readable. In this essay, he expresses his need for long walks in nature, and laments the loss of “wildness” in our culture and the encroachment of private ownership of great parcels of wilderness areas. Looking back at his world of 1862, when there were still great areas of unsettled land, and where woods and forests still remained right outside of towns, easily accessible for long rambles, it makes me sad to realize how far away we have come from that closeness to nature.

He reveled in the beauty of nature on those walks, a phenomenon that was mostly unknown to the village dweller who sat indoors all day:

We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold, gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow east-ward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever, an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.

And he prized “wildness” over “civilized.”  Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him.

In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human voice—take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for instance—which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones.

He used the word “sauntering,” and gave the history of the word from the Middle Ages, which basically meant a type of “crusade.” So walking was not merely taking a walk, but was a devotion, a commitment to immersing oneself in wildness.

If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again — if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man — then you are ready for a walk.

I enjoyed his musings on being in nature, and I admired his commitment to living in wildness. He was a unique individual with unique circumstances that allowed the freedom he had to devote his life to nature. I’ve always been a bit intimidated by what I perceive as his fanaticism, but he reminds us of what we have almost completely lost today: the incredible restorative power on the human soul of being outside, in the wild, in nature.

 

I chose to read this book as one of my 50 books in 5 years for The Classics Club, Round 2.

Mid-August and Hunkered Down

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Birdwatching and watching the birdwatchers. Plus, smoky air!

We are well into mid-August and the usual heat of summer has been replaced by the especially miserable record-breaking heat, drought, fire, and smoky air. We do all our errands in the early morning, occasionally picking up a cup of coffee at Starbucks and then hanging out at Fern Hill Wetlands watching the birds and the birdwatchers. Then, it’s home to hunker down as the heat of the day builds up and the air becomes worse. And I must add that the hunkering down is also part of our daily protection plan for my husband’s compromised immune system during this time of raging variants!

So, all that sounds pretty grim, but the nice thing about it all is that we are getting a lot of reading done, are enjoying watching our current K-drama during the day instead of after dinner, and are having fun trying out new recipes. Adjust and Adapt!

Woman Reading, by Henri Ottmann

Books read and enjoyed in the last few weeks:

A Song for Lonely Wolves, by Lee Evie. The first book in a new mystery/detective series that takes place during the Joseon Dynasty in Korean history. The main character is a talented young female detective during a period of time when women were not valued. A very interesting historical fiction mystery. I’m looking forward to reading on in the series when the new books come out.

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Notes on Grief is a short book by Chimamanga Ngozi Adichie about the death of her father during the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown last year. (He did not die of Covid.) It is a beautifully written account of his sudden death and the grief that followed, complicated by the restrictions of the pandemic. “I am writing about my father in the past tense, and I cannot believe I am writing about my father in the past tense.”  It is a deeply personal, yet completely universal, story, and I appreciated her honesty and her sharing her grief with us. I wrote down many quotes from this book because I know they will give me strength later on.   “Grief was the celebration of love, those who could feel real grief were lucky to have loved.”

My emotions are like a roller coaster these days, since my husband’s diagnosis. We have days that are “mostly normal” and days where waves of sadness hit us hard. So after reading Notes on Grief, I decided to return to the kind and gentle world of Miss Read’s Fairacre. I picked up the 15th volume in the series, Village Centenary, and read it through in a short few days. It was an absolute delight, and exactly what my soul needed. In this book, the village celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the village school. Most of the residents of Fairacre went to the school, and the town comes together to honor the old school with a wonderful celebration at the end of the year. “There was no doubt about it, Fairacre School was the heart of our village, and memories of their own schooldays quickened the adults’ response to this tribute to its hundred years.”  What a lovely series, and this was one of my favorites of the ones I’ve read so far.

We are currently enjoying watching the South Korean drama, Bossam: Steal the Fate. It’s a highly entertaining series about a man of the Joseon Dynasty who mistakenly kidnaps the widowed daughter of the king. Bossam” was a “customary remarriage procedure” during that period of time. “A widow could not remarry. A single man or widower would kidnap the widow and marry her. Some of the kidnappings were agreed upon in advance and others were by force.” So a man could be hired to do the kidnapping, but things went awry with this particular job!  It is both humorous and serious, with wonderful acting, costuming, and filming — just a fun and very addictive historical drama.

Aside from reading and watching historical South Korean dramas, keeping my garden alive in the heat this summer has been a full-time job. I have to get it all watered before the heat builds up, so I start early and finish before noon. Fortunately, my zinnias like the heat!