100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #9

(Picture is my favorite of my kids, Colt, Jolene and Cuatro, when they were 2, 3, and 5 in 1977)

You don’t know how strong you are until you have to be.

I’m pretty sure my children have already discovered how strong they are. Life doesn’t wait long to throw curve balls, and it doesn’t discriminate when it comes to divvying out heartbreak, sorrow and stress. Young, old, rich, poor, we all face life challenges although, admittedly, some seem to get more than their share.

What I want to assure my children and grandchildren is this. You are much stronger than you know. There are three reasons that I know this to be a fact.

First, our family comes from what was once referred to as “hardy stock,” the reference being strong, well-bred animals, but which, in more modern terms, might mean genetically advantaged.  We are damned near bullet-proof, solid.

Second, no one in our family permanently “falls apart.” They may make mistakes, but they always cowboy/cowgirl up to handle whatever needs to be handled.

And finally, my mom taught me that if you believe you can, you can.  So believe you can.

I have several good examples of my rising to the occasion to handle extremely stressful situations, but the most recent is my husband’s illness. This winter Crouse was in the hospital for six weeks. At one point the doctors told us to start making end-of-life plans.

Above the East China Sea by Sarah Bird

Upon finishing Sarah Bird’s ninth book, Above the East China Sea, I was simultaneously gobsmacked  and acutely humbled. This is an outstanding book.

Although Bird has been a highly recognized author for some time, I agree with Dallas Morning News reviewer, Joy Tipping, who said Above the East China Sea could be the book that lands Sarah among the literary elite.  Some might think that my friendship with Sarah disables me to render an unbiased opinion of this book, but there are plenty of opinion merchants who agree with me, including Tipping and the Houston Chronicle, Washington Times, San Francisco Times and the growing list of readers and reviewers. (Seventy-nine percent of Amazon readers gave Above the East China Sea five stars and ninety-two percent gave it four or five stars.)

I recommend that you read Above the East China Sea, and I want to offer guidance to help you get into it smoothly. Don’t try to figure out what is going on in the first twenty-five pages. Just let Sarah’s beautifully constructed words wash over you. It will all come together in due time. And don’t let your over-analytical tendencies inhibit your enjoyment of this author’s sensual, lyrical writing. For example:

A breeze from the East China Sea lifts sweat-dampened hair from the back of my neck. It carries with it the stench that is a constant reminder that not a single leaf of green hope has survived.

I also want to share some history that I wish I’d known going into this book. First, do you know exactly where Okinawa is? I’m big enough to admit that I knew it was somewhere around Japan, but that’s about it. Okinawa is the largest of five islands know as The Ryukyu Islands strung between Japan and Taiwan. In 1945, the date setting for much of this book, Okinawa was ruled by Japan despite the fact that Okinawan culture and language have always been distinctly different from that of Japan. 

Here are a couple of maps to give you a little better perspective. There’s a map in the book, but for some reason I didn’t pay attention to it until I was sucked into the story and realized how despairingly ignorant I was on everything related to Okinawa.

Half of Above the East China Sea is set in 1945 when the Americans invaded Okinawa with the intent to use it as a base for air operations to eventually invade Japan. That battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II, including 77,166 Japanese soldiers, 14,009 American Allies deaths and 65,000 casualties, and a third of the native Okinawan population, which is more deaths than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The  Okinawans weren’t fighting, they just happened to live where the American military wanted to be and the Japanese government didn’t want them to be?

The main character of this half of the book is Tamiko Kokuba, one of 222 Okinawan teen girls  hand picked by the Japanese Imperial Army to serve as "Princess Lilly"student nurses in military hospitals housed in caves and under horrific conditions. While bombs rained down above them, the girls dealt with the blood and gore injuries of soldiers who didn’t even have the advantage of pain medication or anesthesia. The conditions were so crowded that the girls couldn’t sit down for days, and there was nowhere for them to relieve themselves.  Eventually, Tamiko escapes the “rape and torture by the Americans" as promised by the Japanese military occupation, only to arrive at the cliffs above the East China Sea and the choice of suicide by choice or death by dishonor.

Summer Fun!

Here's a cute video of the wonderful summer we've had with grandkids!

See Jane Write

Women of a certain age have accumulated a wealth of history and stories and a propensity to share, which is lucky for us. Such is the case of five of my friends, Heidimarie Seig-Smith, Kelly Jackson, Charlena Chandler, Aralyn Hughes, and Sarah Bird, all of whom have recently published highly-regarded books. It is my joy and pleasure to have read their charming, funny, tender and insightful writing, and to now share a little about each with you.

After the Bombs – My Berlin by Heidimarie Seig-Smith

I met Heidimarie Seig-Smith in Italy, and, because I found her to be a thoughtful and interesting person, have stayed in touch. Reading her recently published book After the Bomb  – My Berlin is a soundly-penned and unique story about what it was like, as a family, to be on the other side of WWII. Sure you can read shelves full of books about the hardships, attitudes and families of the English, French and Jewish victims of WWII, and plenty has been written about the major players on the other side like Hitler and Göring, but I’ve not seen many accounts of what life was like for the average German during and after that horrific time in human history.

Heidi has done a commendable job of collecting information about her ancestry and their day-to-day lives during and after WWII, Heidi’s immigration to the US in 1963, and up through the fall of the Berlin Wall, about which she says, “I attacked the Wall with great satisfaction, equipped with a mason’s chisel and hammer.  I pounded until I got my chunk of the Wall to take home and remember.”

Read After the Bombs – My Berlin.

A Texan Goes To Nirvana by Kelly Jackson

I don’t exactly recall how and when I met Kelly (KK) Jackson (Author/Yoga Guru/Horsegal) and her sister Sally (Actress/Scouting Agent for Speilberg), but I want to be them when I grow up. Why? Because they have incredible attitudes and senses of humor, and that will get you further than anything I know.

KK the younger sister (sorry SalGal) has written her first book, A Texan Goes To Nirvana about a recently, divorced NYC woman, Wendy, who in a desperate attempt to gather her wits and make a living decides to go to an ashram in Kentucky to get certified to teach yoga. Just to give you a hint about what a fertile set up for humor that scenario is, the title of Kelly’s next book is Yoga For Smokers, Drinkers, Meat Eaters and Non-Believers.

But A Texan Goes To Nirvana isn’t just a divorce-recovery thing. We get our first clue when the receptionist at the Ashram says to Wendy, “We very much look forward to eating you.” 

This is a well-written, hilarious book with a fun storyline that you will truly enjoy! Read it.

Also, Check out KK and SalGal’s The MidLife Gals blog, and their More Magazine gig!

Kid Me Not: an anthology by child-free women of the ‘60s now in the 60s edited by Aralyn Hughes

Aralyn Hughes sold us our home in 1990, and sold it for us in 2014, and has remained a friend for more than 20 years. To you however, Aralyn is the creator of the “Keep Austin Weird” campaign, co-author of In The West, one of the longest running monologue shows in Austin, which also played the Kennedy Center and was later adapted into the movie Deep In The Heart. Aralyn performed her solo play, Aralyn’s Home Economics in NYC at the International Solo Theater Festival in 2013. This weekend Aralyn will be at the Portland Film Festival presenting her most recent film, Love In The Sixties.

When Aralyn found time to assemble and edit Kid Me Not, I’ll never know, but I suspect she doesn’t sleep. Kid Me Not is an anthology about child-free women who came of age in the 1960s and who made the decision to not have children. They were the first generation of women to truly have that choice, due to the advent of the birth control pill, which makes this book of historic significance as well as an enjoyable read. Many of you will recognize women featured in Aralyn’s book, and will relate very closely to their stories and the time and the culture in which I, and some of you, grew up.  I have many friends who chose to live life without children, possibly just because they could. 

I kid you not, you really need to read Kid Me Not.

Dead Javelinas Are Not Allowed on School Property by Charlena Chandler

When I was a young girl, Charlena Chandler and her younger sister JoBeth were two of my older brother’s many girlfriends. Occasionally my brother had to take his little sister along on dates either as a chaperon or  an enforced babysitting gig. Whatever the case, I got to go out to the Chandlers on many occasions, which was extremely cool because not only did they live way, way out in the country, but they lived on the beautiful spring-fed Pecos river under massive Pecan trees and they had a swimming pool and a golf course, which in dry West Texas is literally an oasis in the desert.

Charlena and I relate closely also because we grew up in a culture of rough country folk who worked very hard, minded their own business and kept life simple. With that came a strong sense of irony, a dry but generous sense of humor and an insight into life unencumbered by politics and baloney. And this is why I absolutely adore everything Charlena writes. In spite of the fact that Charlena is an educated world traveler, she hasn’t lost any of the valuable assets ingrained by her heritage and we are the better for it.

Dead Javelinas Are Not Allowed on School Property is a joy-filled account of what it was like being an open-minded librarian in a very conservative country school – all blended with the delicacy of a soufflé!

If you want to know where I’m from, and where Charlena is from, or even if you don’t, you should read this book.

You can find all of the above books at IndieBound.org and/or Amazon.com.

Cluster Critiques

An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay

I went into this book thinking it was a true story and, although I now know it isn’t, I still have a hard time believing it isn’t true. This is a tribute to the stabbing strength of Gay’s writing.

Mireille, the main character is a modern-day attorney, wife and mother who was raised in a large, well-to-do Haitian family. When she and her husband and young son go from their home in Miami to Haiti to visit, Mireille is kidnapped for ransom, which is apparently not uncommon in Haiti. Mireille’s husband has no money and her father refuses to pay the ransom, saying that will only reinforce the thugs’ dedication to their lucrative crime. Coming to grips with her father’s decision is heart-wrenching for Mireille, and for us.

In the days that follow, Mireille is tortured and raped and Gay doesn’t spare our sensibilities by describing the acts as “disgusting” or “painful.” She holds your head, forcing you not to look away, and then shoves it down for a really close look until you feel raped and tortured yourself. She also movingly narrates with piercing observations about what could cause humans to be so inhuman.

I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men

with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin

and strengthened their will right through their bones. 

As you can imagine, life changes forever for Mireille – what she calls the “before” and the “after.” I recommend you read An Untamed State because, although it is a grotesque story about the inhumanity that happened in a country of crushing inequality, it is also an uplifting story of the strength of the human spirit, all beautifully told.

Read it.

A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable

I’m so damn mad about this novel. The set up is so juicy. You have a Paris apartment discovered in 2010 that was once owned by a famous 19th century courtesan of the Belle Epoque, Madame de Florian. Madame de Florian’s granddaughter inherited and closed up the apartment in 1945, which was not entered again until the granddaughter passed away at the age of 91. Upon entering the perfectly preserved apartment, one of the many prizes discovered was a never-before-seen, unsigned painting of Madame de Florian that appear to be painted by famed Italian artist Giovanni Boldini. Love letters confirm an affair between Boldini and de Florian and seemingly, the authenticity of the painting as it recently sold for €2.1 million.

Unfortunately, in spite of this ripe setting for a fabulous story, Ms. Gable writes a fluff story about a Sotheby’s furniture specialist who goes to Paris to assess the value of the furnishings and ends up being pursued by French men, or worrying about being pursued by French men, or wishing she were pursued by French men.

Mon Dieu! Skip this one.

What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night by John Brockman

To sum up this book, there are a frightening number of weird things to worry about, 90% of which have never even occurred to you. Take ‘worrying’ for example. It’s good for you in the right dose, but can paralyze you when not taken in good measure. OK, maybe that’s not the most profound example, but I found the essays to be so specifically tied to who wrote them that they all seemed a little myopic. The financial guys worried about the global economy, scientists about global warming and the lack of funding for their programs, and a few unexpected red flags pop up like the internet ruining writing, the dearth of desirable mates, our continued taboos of "bad" words, etc.

Some of the essays are engrossing. Some are better than a sleeping pill. 

So read it if you don’t have enough to worry about, or if you suffer from insomnia.

Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel by Nickolas Butler

Shotgun Lovesongs is sort of a millennium version of The Big Chill but not as well edited. Five characters grew up together in a small town and stayed friends.  They include a famous rock star who just wants to live the simple life (sort of), a rodeo cowboy bounced a few too many times on his head, a developer frantic for success and acceptance, and a soulful but struggling farmer and his wife, the latter of whom spends a lot of time suppressing her lust for the rocker.

Shotgun Lovesongs has all the right ingredients, just not enough of any of them. 

Read this one only if you’re desperate.

You can find all of the above books at IndieBound.org and at Amazon.com.