Artisanally!

A Favorite from the New Yorker
I recently had the following query from someone who read (but perhaps did not fully grasp) my
Trilogy of Homebody Thoughts:
Homebody Anybody
Homebody Somebody
First Fiddle
Question: "Are you suggesting that, because I work full time outside the home (as does my children's father), that we don't "take care of our own children?"

Answer: Well, none of us can be two places at one time. If you are at home full time taking care of children, then you are obviously not at a workplace full time. If you are working outside the home full time, then someone else must be taking care of the children -- unless they take care of themselves or are left unattended. The fact is, if you are away from your children, then, no, you are not taking care of them. Someone else is. Perhaps you have provided for their care, but you are not working as their full - time caregiver for the simple reason that you are working somewhere else, doing something else.

As Neil Gilbert observes in
A Mother's Work:
How Feminism, the Market, and Policy Shape Family Life:

"The analysts interpret the declining magnitude of behavioral adjustments as a sign that the extent to which men and women can rearrange their livs to accommodate both paid and unpaid work has hit a ceiling. Ultimately, there are only so many hours a day available for a reallocation by people who are employed full-time.

" . . . From the rational-choice perspective it comes as no surprise that as women invest more time and effort in developing human capital to boost their market value, they devote less time and effort to household productivity associated with the long-established sexual division of labor." (73)

First Fiddle

Barefoot Prodigy by Martha Moore
Contemporary American Artist
When I was in junior high, a 5 x 7 reprint of this painting appeared on the back of a cereal box -- The Fine Arts, brought to you by Post Grape Nuts! I cut it out and propped it on our piano where it stayed for as long as I can remember, certainly until well after my high school years. Somewhere along the way, Gerry and I picked up a poster - sized copy, which is still looking good after twenty - odd years, framed and matted in our family room. That little girl has been an inspiration to me and many others for several decades now. She can do anything!

Now, for the third installment in my
Trilogy of Homebody Thoughts,
following Homebody Anybody
and Homebody Somebody

Not long after the last presidential election, my wise friend Etta sent me a "really great article," "The Momification of Michelle Obama", written by her "new favorite feminist Rebecca Traister." Etta explained that "it's an article about how the feminist movement has to keep on top of and point out when the culture keeps going back to what it always does, i.e. putting women into categories of 'Motherhood' OR 'Career-Women.' Why are women judging each other for what kind of a feminist they are or what kinds of choices they make? It is never that easy, and at least 70% of all women know that (30% are the self-righteous crazy women like Sarah Palin). My question is why do women have to make these choices, and when will it end? Given that life is unfair and the choice is unfair and I didn't really have a choice to do what I really set out to do, I have chosen to be happy within that parameter. Otherwise the only one that suffers is me. I think that it is still the culture we live in that restricts us . . . Michelle and Hillary have the brains and talent to be President but instead their husbands are."

Now that you have read Etta's preamble, click here if you have a couple of minutes to read Traister's article. Sure, it was written a couple of years ago, but it's just as relevant now as it was then. So relevant, in fact, that at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I'd say that it is a pretty accurate description of my own life, except that I didn't become successful in my profession before having my children, so I had less to walk away from.

I do find it odd of Traister to suggest that walking away from a meaningful career that provides extra but not not necessary income for the family is more difficult than it would be to give up working to make ends meet. I always thought it was the opposite -- if you are struggling to make ends meet, then you have more difficulty choosing to walk away than if the money is optional to the budget -- in which case, you have the good fortune of choosing how to spend your time, how to focus your energy. It's a luxury to make that choice. And if you can make it at all, why not make it in favor of your kids? Yes, it's wrong for Americans to obsess about Michelle Obama's clothes and household choices, but why shouldn't or wouldn't she pick parenting as her first choice these days? Her children need her, now more than ever.

I appreciate Traister's final observation:

"In certain critical ways, Michelle Obama will come to stand in more prominently than anyone could have imagined for the shortcomings of feminism as described by Linda Hirshman in her 2006 book Get to Work in which she argues that the weighting of domestic responsibilities toward the woman in a family handicaps her chances for professional and economic success. Obama has already said that one of the issues she plans to put front and center while in the White House is the impossible bind faced by working mothers. She knows the trade-offs and sacrifices all too well.

"And now, she is in the unenviable yet deeply happy position of being a history-maker whose own balancing act allowed her husband the space to make his political career zip forward, his books sing, his daughters healthy and beautiful, and his campaign succeed. In having done all this, Michelle Obama wrought for herself a life (temporarily, at least) of playing second fiddle. Then again, did she have a choice?"

I like this conclusion because I like to think that my own balancing act allowed my husband to "zip forward" and our children to "sing." On the other hand, why does Traister have to embrace the assumption that profession is first and home is second fiddle?

It's a struggle sometimes to enjoy being at home with people asking you all the time "when are you going back to work?" Sometimes I fear that I've spent the last twenty years trying to come up with a good explanation for my choices that won't make me sound lazy and unambitious.

Recent reading for further perspectives on this topic:

1. Mama, PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life
Edited by Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant

2.Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
by Ayelet Waldman

In conclusion, two heart-warming anecdotes:

My friend Karen recently said, "I'm happy 'at home' and enjoy being here for my family, but I know what you mean about the questions about ever going back to 'work.' I recently was at a doctor's office and he asked me what I did for a living. And I sighed and said, 'Oh, I'm a stay at home mom' for lack of a better term. And I liked his response, 'That IS work!' "

My younger sister, who works at a pre-school, likes to tell the story about the little student who asked her one day, "Miss Diane, do you work someplace?"

Priceless!
See also Artisanally!

Homebody Somebody

Spice of Life!
A few additional Homebody thoughts, compiled after reading:

1. The Ten-Year Nap
by Meg Wolitzer

and

2. Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists
edited by Courtney E. Martin and J. Courtney Sullivan

After re-reading Anna Quindlen's bothersome late twentieth century essay on the topic of "Nesting," I thought I'd take a look at the new generation of writers in Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. Some get it, some don't. Nellie Beckett, for example, can see that it's all real work. She writes that "Being a feminist means making my own choices but it also means supporting the choices that women in my life make. I'm a feminist for my mother, who chose to stay home with her kids and was criticized for doing so. She's now applying to be a lawyer. Despite her excellent credentials, law firms seem to think that fifteen years as a stay - at home mom don't qualify as "real work" (34). Thanks Nellie!

J. Courtney Sullivan, on the other hand, takes another tired old swipe at cookie - baking. She observes that her mother was successful professionally yet punished for not simultaneously being the perfect homemaker, victimized by a culture that devalues caretaking in the home while at the same time fetishizing it. . . . Those other mothers in my neighborhood, with their brownies and their wreath-making and their long dull days in the house, were no doubt victims of this too" (196 - 97). Wow, Courtney! Way to devalue!

Okay, I understand about her mother and our culture's schizophrenic attitude toward housekeeping and homemaking, but was their neighborhood really filled with women who spent long dull days stuck in the house making wreaths and brownies? Again, I hear an annoying echo of Quindlen's upholstery appointments and empty hours. For me and my parenting acquaintances, however, the hours were never empty. The years and days have been neither long nor dull. They have been fleeting and packed from morning until midnight with tasks and errands, and work of all kinds: free - lance, part - time, professional, communal, volunteering and fund-raising; grading, reading and writing after the children were tucked in bed. Some of it was inspirational, some of it was not -- but isn't that true of all work? And, yes, arts and crafts and baking did enter into the picture; but it wasn't dull; it was fun!

I'm the first to admit that running a household is something I always wanted to do. Quindlen confesses that she ran from that role "with furious little feet when [she] was growing up." That's okay. But, guess what? I ran toward it. Sure, popular television made it all look so easy and attractive -- June Cleaver vacuuming the carpets while wearing pearls and heels; and Donna Reed, the very image of comfort, handing out those brown-bag lunches. But it wasn't that. In fact, I was only too willing to follow the excellent advice of Barbara Ehrenreich: no need to iron the diapers or polish the ceiling; that kind of make - work can go by the wayside. Still, as a student of literature, I wanted what Yeats' describes: " . . . a house / Where all's accustomed, ceremonious."

I wanted to take an hour pulling the dinner together. As mentioned before on this blog, I've been inspired by writers like Laurie Colwin, who shows her readers how to feel "ennobled" by the elemental, yet potentially elegant, task of feeding loved ones. Or Joan Didion, who writes so beautifully about "the repeated rituals of domestic life. Setting the table. Lighting the candles. Building the fire. Cooking. All those souffles, all that creme caramel, all those daubes and albondigas and gumbos. Clean sheets, stacks of clean towels, hurricane lamps for storms, enough water and food to see us through whatever geological event came our way. These fragments I have shored against my ruins, were the words that came to mind then. These fragments mattered to me. I believed in them. That I could find meaning in the intensely personal nature of my life as a wife and mother did not seem inconsistent with finding meaning in the vast indifference of geology and the test shots; the two systems existed for me on parallel tracks that occasionally converged, notably during earthquakes" (The Year of Magical Thinking, 190 - 91). Never do Colwin or Didion undervalue nesting!

My experiences growing up had shown me that home was a happier place with a dedicated grown up human at the helm. If you ask me, it's not good growing up in a house that isn't run by anybody. Dreamy Leonard Cohen writes that "My favourite cooks prepare my meals, / my body cleans and repairs itself, / and all my work goes well." Very good for Leonard and wonderfully poetic, but I have yet to meet the body or the house or the child that cleans and repairs itself. Best to have someone committed to these tasks rather than crossing one's fingers and hoping for the best.

I can't help thinking, just for a moment here, about one of our babysitters from those early years -- not a teenage girl, mind you, but an adult mother who claimed to run an in - home, small - group daycare service. She "fired" my child from her group because, according to her, when he was there she was unable to accomplish her household chores such as cooking and laundry! Ah ha, I realized, this was a daycare service for children who didn't need daycare (something like David Letterman's laundry service that only accepted clean clothes)! The other children in the group were able, apparently, to clean and repair themselves. Not my child; he needed some minding, which, of course, is why I was seeking out a few hours of childcare in the first place!

Likewise the house. It's a better place to live if someone is minding it.

I recall a magazine article I read back in the mid 90s, when my children were small -- about the father who was put to shame when his young son exclaimed about the household, "It's like Mom runs this place!" The message, of course, was that every adult in the family should be equally competent at every task -- no division of labor allowed! Dad must now scurry to become as proficient as Mom is at whatever it is that Mom does best. And vice versa, surely. But this model isn't always possible, or timely, or effective, or even to be desired. If my children had ever exclaimed in wonderment that "It's like Mom runs this place," my husband's answer would have been immediate: "You bet she does!"

How unfortunate, though, that the implication of laziness and lack of ambition has attached itself to the task of running the place.

I encountered this when an old friend was in town for business and we met for dinner, an enjoyable occasion until the separate checks arrived and while charging hers to her company card, she said, "I guess your husband will have to pay for yours." Funny she couldn't see me as paying for myself.

Or the well-meaning (?) family member and house guest who glanced up as I carried in the grocery shopping and declared, "Out spending your husband's money again?" Funny it didn't occur to her to ask, "Out taking care of your family again?"

Or the party guest who stated, "So I guess you just do pretty much whatever you want to all day long." Funny it didn't occur to him that I, like any other responsible adult, spend many hours per day fulfilling obligations.

Or the husband who, hearing his wife tell me that she had retired from part-time work to become a busy grandmother, chimed in to chide: "You can't really call it retirement unless it comes with a pension." Funny how little he was able to honor his own wife's effort as mother and grandmother.

Friends, relatives, colleagues, feminist essayists -- they should offer support for our choices which in turn support their choices. So why the denigration? Why the sneering? Because apparently a woman's worth is measured by her income.

Maya Schenwar brings this point home in her excellent article about homechooling. Because it is unpaid, homeschooling, like homemaking, is not always thought of as real work, regardless of how challenging and rewarding it may be. Schenwar enumerates the "tricky questions for homeschooling mothers" raised by the issue of homeschooling. For example:

"Can women trade their careers for their families without sacrificing a few of their feminist values?"

Since most homeschoolers are women and most of their income providers are men, does the woman's economic dependence on her husband set a bad example for her children?

Is it truly possible to live at a remove from sexism and consumerism?

When stay-at-home moms and homeschoolers choose to leave the workforce, to what degree if any are their decisions actually influenced by insidious patriarchal forces?

How deal with feeling undercompensated at times?

How negotiate the fine line between protesting capitalism and becoming unpaid labor?


Although I did not take on the challenge of homeschooling my own children, Schenwar's conclusion still rings true for me as a summation of the years I have spent so far at home with my children:

"As the feminist homeschooling movement gains momentum, mothers will increasingly be faced with tough, identity-defining questions: Does being a feminist mean you have to have a paid job? What does it mean to raise a feminist kid? Is there a feminist definition of success, and should there be? It’s important to keep in mind that a homeschooling mom is many things besides a homeschooling mom — even if she can’t stop talking about her kid’s latest papier-mâché dinosaur. Forging these more complex identities entails recognizing all the hats they wear besides “homeschooler.” Packebush is a zinester, Schira is a webmaster and writer, and so on. They’re Marxists, or anarchists, or punks, or please-don’t-define-me-the-reason-I-homeschool-is-to-get-away-from-this-label-slapping-bullshit human beings" (see "Learning Curve," www.bitchmagazine.org).


I am intrigued by the title Meg Wolitzer has given to her novel about stay - at - home - motherhood: The Ten - Year Nap. One thing I can say about my first decade (soon to be two) as a stay - at - home mom and politically incorrect housewife -- it sure hasn't been a nap!

Far from it! Regarding all the brain cells and manual labor required to keep the family up and running, I relished the following line from a Christmas letter we received from some of our British acquaintances who have two sons, both of whom are just a bit older than our two and no longer living at home full - time, proof that the organizational needs of the family don't go away just because the kids get bigger; perhaps, in fact, the opposite: the needs increase with size! The writer of the letter is the husband Julian (an Anglican priest in Sheffield, England), who pays this loving tribute to his wife Veronica, in his succinct list of how each family member has spent the previous year:

"Veronica busy keeping everyone else going
-- well someone's got to do it."
Or as my wise friend Eve wrote to me about rising above that nagging, sometimes overwhelming "errand - girl" sensation: "If I didn't do these things, we would have a very different family--and that's the truth."

Very plain prose, yet I think both Eve and Julian (and Anna F. / previous post, just below) express what we crave -- not reams of praise, but merely the affirmation that working in the home is way more than brownie baking and wreath making; that what we spend so many hours doing is absolutely necessary, not a frill, not a frivolity. If we do it out of love -- good; if we happen to love doing it -- good. But all that aside, it's primary, not secondary to everyone's well - being. That's all.

Scroll down (or click) for Part One . . .
Scroll up (or click) for Part Three
And Artisanally!

Homebody Anybody

"McCartney's Mini-Mart"
Our amazing pantry, designed by Gerry in Philadelphia


"These days I live in Brooklyn, NY and 'work in the home' with my seven - month old daughter. I always remember how you told me that your wife 'works in the home.' I thought that was a wise way of looking at it, and I especially appreciate it now, because although I don't have a job, I certainly work."

Anna F. (former colleague of my husband Gerry)

"I'm happy . . .
yet I'm aware of the ironic ramifications of my happiness."
Anne Taintor (ellipsis, Taintor's)

Way back in her first book of essays, Anna Quindlen said that occasionally she "met a woman with children in school all day and no job, and . . . thought, quite uncharitably and almost reflexively, what in the world does she find to do with herself all day?" ("Nesting," in Living Out Loud, 41 - 43). These sharp words have echoed in my mind ever since I first read them, many years ago. Now that my children are not only in school but nearly out of school, they haunt me with a new vigor.

Yes, Quindlen retracts her "uncharitable" knee-jerk reaction: "I don't think that anymore" she says. Even so, I've never quite been able to decipher her tone here. She observes that "we undervalue nesting," while simultaneously claiming that nesting is not work. What is it, then? Play? What Quindlen imagines is delusional, certainly not the life of any woman I know with children in school all day and no job. "Now I imagine" she writes, "lunch with a friend, considering slipcovers, doing a little gardening, spending an hour working on dinner before everyone arrives home. That life -- of ladies' lunches, of appointments with the upholsterer, and shopping trips stretched to fill the empty hours . . . barely exists now . . .[is] barely tolerated by men or women."

Lunch with a friend? Maybe once every couple of weeks.

Considering slipcovers? Considering what exactly? Whether that peanut butter stain will come out in the washing machine?

Doing a little gardening? Okay, maybe picking up sticks and raking out last year's leaves.

Working on dinner for an hour before everyone gets home? Well, what exactly is wrong with that? I wouldn't call that self - indulgent; I would call that good for the whole family. Is it indeed more honorable to be way too busy with paid work than to spend a full hour -- or more! -- organizing dinner for one's family?

Ladies' lunches? Every other week or so, I admit.

Appointments with the upholsterer? How about running into a tiny little family owned shop, grabbing a couple of sample books, and bringing them home for the kids to see, and then playing voice mail tag with the upholsterer for the next couple of days in order to work out the rest of the details by phone. Oh yes, and there was that one time when the upholsterer did come to our house to fit seat covers for the dining room chairs and scolded my toddler for touching the fabric, looked scornfully at the cats, and rolled his eyes in annoyance. That was a leisurely afternoon, so idyllic, so idle.

Shopping trips stretched to fill the empty hours? Are you kidding? How about in and out of Walmart as quickly as possible? Or ordering a few items from Lands End and hoping they fit? Or dragging in a hundred pounds of groceries for the billionth time? That's what shopping means to me.

Empty hours? Ha!

Quindlen points out that most stay - at - home moms of the fifties were not living the life of June Cleaver. But she glosses over the stay - at - home moms of today, choosing instead to describe a fantasy life of discretionary hours and conclude that perhaps "the very rich" stay - at - home moms spend their days thus. Well, I wouldn't know about that. But wait a minute, not all of the women at home with children in school and no job are rich, let alone very rich. I do know about that. Quindlen knows about women such as herself, with babysitters and jobs; but she draws no distinction between her very rich fictitious bon-bon eaters and millions of real women who care for their homes and children in an unpaid capacity, lumping them all together into a group whose chosen role is "barely tolerated by men or women." Not tolerated by Quindlen at any rate!

All this is not to say that I did not read and reread and quote endlessly from this book. I did, and have given many copies to many friends, yet I remain stunned, shocked -- dare I say shamed -- by her admitted intolerance for the non-revenue-generating (I refuse to say "non - working") choice. The assumption that profession is first and home is second fiddle has become such a cliche that you might think it would lose its currency. After all, Quindlen wrote these words twenty years ago. Yet all you have to do is google "Linda Hirshman" for the brittle affirmation that a life of money - making work is the one true path. Forget the liberal arts; forget volunteering at the food pantry; forget that it can take all day to run a homestead, especially one with children in it (even if those kids are at school for several hours of the day).

Scroll up (or click) for Part Two: "Homebody Somebody"

Scroll up (or click) for Part Three: "First Fiddle"

And Artisanally!

Big Hair Day

Print by my cousin Pam Carriker
from her series of historical women
Related hair blogs:

Royal Hair
Scary Hair ~ Fortnightly
Scary Hair ~ Quotidian
Off to a Bad Start
Ad Hairenum ~ Fortnightly
Hair Today
Lililth, the Long - Haired Seductress
My Friend Hair

In these various hair blogs, I look at a number of relevant texts, including several recent novels, all featuring characters of greatly conflicted hair:

High Maintenance
by Jennifer Belle, 2002 (see earlier post: Highlights)

Miss American Pie:
A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s
by Margaret Sartor, 2007 (see earlier post: Memoirs)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, 2009
"I know that I am fortunate . . .
but I much prefer whining to counting my blessings."

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett, 2009

In these novels, you can find all the major forces, with hair taking on each of the opposing roles:

Character vs Self
Character vs Other
Character vs Society
Character vs Nature / Fate

Altering the state of your hair as it grows out of your head is mostly a fight against Nature. Conforming to currently held standards of beauty -- or deciding not to -- is a struggle with Society. Standing in front of the mirror and cursing your hair for its defiance -- or giving up as it takes on a life it's own -- is a battle with the Other. Torn between judging yourself harshly or embracing the reality of your appearance? That's a conflict with the Self.

Chris Rock presents all of these conflicts in his wise and witty documentary Good Hair. He focuses specifically on the African - American hair industry, and the complicated, conflicted, costly quest for good hair, i.e., good / straight / Asian / white.* As the film demonstrates, the results can be fun and beautiful, but also disturbing.

For example, in her interview for Rock's movie, actress Traci Thoms questions:"To keep my hair the same texture as it grows out of my head is looked at as revolutionary; why is that?”

Interior designer, Sheila Bridges (who is bald naturally, due to alopecia, says: "I think the reason hair is so important is because our self - esteem is wrapped up in it. It's like a type of currency for us." Beautifully and eloquently, Bridges models the possibility of rising above baldness rather than living against it.

I first learned of alopecia just last month, when watching the movie Grey Gardens (2009), in which Drew Barrymore portrays a character, the real life Edith Bouvier Beale (1917 - 2002), who faced the condition bravely with her glamorous collection of scarves and turbans.

Young Edith Bouvier Beale


Drew Barrymore as Edith Bouvier Beale
*That's white as in race not as in hair color, which is yet another area of social and personal judgment, prejudice, anxiety, conflict, and alteration.

In Susan Newman's The Book of No: 250 Ways to Say It -- And Mean It and Stop People-pleasing Forever, hair coloring is the topic of one of her assertiveness training "Scenarios":

" 'You would look a lot younger if you colored you hair. Have you thought about it?'

What's going on here: Your friend is giving you her point of view, one you may not agree with. You don't want to be bothered with the time-consuming maintenance once you begin coloring your hair, and you're not unhappy with the gray. Rather than come back with a bard or show your annoyance with her for implying you don't look so great, be gentle. She'll get the hint that she's gone over the line.

Response: 'Thanks for the suggestion, but I like the gray.'

Alert: A friend will very likely back off when she realizes that you don't appreciate her beauty tips" (26).

******************
Usually on the realistic side, Newman comes across as incredibly optimistic, even naive, in this particular scenario. Plenty of friends (or so - called friends), firm in their belief that artificial coloring is the norm, will not be dissuaded quite so easily.

[Note to self; not about hair:
"The Drifters" by Harold Pinter:
"You made of your friendship a tool to bludgeon me with."]
August Update
Check out Judith Newman's "Defense of Curly Hair" in The New York Times: "Making Waves, With No Apology" (and comments following)

September Update
My friend Eileen sent the following link:"Does Your Hair Have a Mind of Its Own?" and said, "Personally, I like that my hair knows its own destiny and follows it through!"

Debbie & Kitti: English Majors on Graduation Day
We had BIG hair before anybody ever heard of big hair!

Movie Tie - Ins

Cool new nail polish color: "Not Like the Movies"!
Next, I would like to try "Not Like the Book"
. . . I wonder what color that would be?
So, life is not like the movies, and the movies are not like the books! Even so, I'll be in line later this summer to see the film version of Kathryn Stockett's 2009 bestselling novel, The Help. It was a compelling narrative, and I'm curious to see the how it will be depicted. Soon to be viewable are a few other recent favorites . . . well . . . fairly recent.

Warhorse: take your choice ~ screen, stage, or text.

I guess it's actually been three years since I sat down one snowy day in February 2008 and read Sara Gruen's 2007 novel, Water for Elephants all in one sitting -- very unusual for me. Usually, even when I love what I'm reading, I have a bad habit of allowing myself to be very easily distracted, always jumping up for this, that, or the other -- a cup of tea, a load of laundry, etc. But this novel about veterinary science, circus trains, and aging definitely held my attention, like watching a very good show. I just kept wanting to see what would happen next! The elderly narrator and the subtext on aging provide a very thought - provoking twist to the story. Though, speaking of twists, I remain a little miffed at the way the conclusion makes the opening seem like a trick. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing this one very soon (in theatres April 2011).

Later that same year (2008), I read Erik Larson's non - fiction thriller from 2004, Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America in a rather uniquely appropriate setting, considering that it is about the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 - 94. A couple of people had recommended it to me, so I started it on the train going up to Chicago early one morning, picked it up again that night on the return train, and finished it a few days later, faster than I read most things. The chapters alternate between American history and true crime. Utterly sick, but captivating. I would recommend reading it only if you don't mind being creeped out in a jack - the - ripper kind of way . . . and I bet the same thing is going to be true for the movie adaptation, coming in 2012, starring Leonardo Dicaprio.

It was also back in the summer of 2008 that I watched Notes on a Scandal (released in 2006). I was so mesmerized by this movie that I had to order the book (published in 2003) by Zoe Heller and read it right away. I passed it on to Gerry who also read it quickly, and then we watched the movie a couple more times before returning to netflix. As always, a few changes had been made between text and film, e.g., calling the movie not by the full title -- What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal] -- but by the subtitle only. However, both are very well done, filled with thought - provoking analysis of the personal motivation behind reckless behavior: "Some people live in constant fear of having their secrets found out; others have a kind of arrogant certainty that anything they wish to keep private will remain so. Sheba belongs to the later group" (220). Ah ah! so that's what she was thinking!

Every now and then I hear a rumor that Don Delillo's 1972 novel End Zone is going to be made into a movie, but nothing seems to have come of the proposition yet. I wish it would! I read the novel a few football seasons ago (late summer 2007) upon the recommendation of a well - meaning friend who felt that it might help me understand what it was that my sons were doing out there in the end zone. I've learned a lot about the game since then; yet I still think the visual aid of a movie tie - in would increase my appreciation of this book about college football, nuclear warfare, and James Joyce.

Imagery from Afghanistan and Iran

Saffron, the world's most expensive spice,
is derived from the flower of the saffron crocus
(Crocus sativus)

A few favorite passages . . .
On ETERNAL RETURN
from The Saffron Kitchen, Yasmin Crowther

"It was suddenly a warm afternoon, a lost summer day in late autumn . . . " (48).

"That's the way of things: saffron, shit, saffron, shit" (175).


On SUSTENANCE
from A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

"You make the night to pass into the day and You make the day to pass into the night, and You bring forth the living from the dead and You bring forth the dead from the living, and You give sustenance to whom You please without measure.

"Give sustenance, Allah.

"Give sustenance to me" (87).


On THEFT & FORGIVENESS
from The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

"Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. . . . When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. . . . There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir" (17 - 18).

"Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night" (359).


P.S. April 2020

More on Forgiveness:
from Nadia Bolz-Weber:

"I’m not sure what allows us to forgive. . . . Harm is harm. Forgiveness doesn’t minimize harm, nor does it exonerate the perpetrators. But maybe it can free victims. Free us from carrying someone else’s burden - someone else’s shame - someone else’s sin. That is for them to carry alone. And when it comes, when forgiveness shows up, it feels free and unbidden . . . and it brings life, and life abundant. Yes, forgiveness feels impossible, and also like the most holy thing there is."

and from my sister Diane Burrows:
" . . . if you can, open your hand and let the guilt go."

and from The Little Paris Bookshop