WRP 4: United States

World Reading Project, Book #4

United States

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker , 1982

What a beautiful, beautiful book. I loved the spirituality of the book and connection to nature. Shug's explanation of God being everything and feeling that connection was so beautiful. Coming into this book I knew it was a classic of African American literature, but I'd never heard that it was a queer book. It reminded me of reading Proust, and all of a sudden it's gay! I guess I purposefully avoid learning a lot about books before I read them, but I still wonder how it is that that was filtered out of all mentions I'd heard. This book made me cry, and also feel so uplifted, hopeful, and grateful for my loved ones. There were so many beautiful quotes. I'm copying an extended quote below. 

"She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.

Shug! I say.

Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.

God don't think it dirty? I ast.

Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love- and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.

You saying God vain? I ast.

Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

What it do when it pissed off? I ast.

Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back."

Outgoing Mail and Peach Ice Cream

We went to the orchard a couple weekends ago and got tons of apples and peaches. I adapted the strawberry ice cream recipe I had made earlier for peaches!

Roasting the peaches for a few minutes to get some of the liquid out:

Then they are pureed and added to the ice cream base. It didn't turn out super peachy, even though I added twice as much puree as I did for the strawberries. I had even more puree left over though and we ended up spooning it over the ice cream, which made it delightfully peachy.

Some recent outgoing mail:

I'm finally sending the postcard (lower left) that came with the Griffin and Sabine book!

I thought this cow from National Geographic was so cute. And an old French postcard going out to a French friend in West Virginia.

WRP 3: Equatorial Guinea

World Reading Project, Book #3

Equatorial Guinea
La Bastarda, by Trifonia Melibea Obono, 2018

This is the first book by a woman from Equatorial Guinea to be published in English. I thought it was great. The writing feels very spare, or plain, and I think that at first I overlooked some of the themes and meaning because of that. The afterword to this book was really good and helped me think about it more deeply.  

The book is about a young girl whose mother died in childbirth and whose father has not formally recognized her as his daughter. Therefore she is considered a bastard. She lives with her grandparents but is trying to find her father. She makes friends with the outcasts in her village, her gay uncle and a group of lesbian girls. It was really interesting to see this perspective from queer Equatorial Guinea. In the end she finds solidarity with this group. 

I loved role of the forest in the story. In a lot of books the forest is a scary place, where danger lurks, but in this book the forest is their haven. Whenever she travels through the forest she notes that the animals are watching her, but it doesn't feel threatening. As someone drawn to the woods and nature I loved this aspect of the story.

August life

I went to see Lucinda Williams!! She is doing a 25 year anniversary tour for her album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. It was so so good. She played the whole album through, and then played a set of other songs. In between songs she talked about writing them or about the people that they were about. It was really cool to hear all that. I learned that one of my favorite songs, "2 Kool 2 Be 4-gotten" was inspired by a photograph of some graffiti, and now the spelling of the title makes a lot more sense. haha

I've been sending a significant amount of mail recently. Having fun matching stamps with airmail envelopes.

I ran down my stationery supply to my last 5 notecards! And the last ones were my cutest ones, Mary Engelbreit, and bunnies gardening, dressed up in cute outfits. These are the types of cards that I hang onto longest because I'm such a sucker for them that I don't want to let them go. 

Of course, I couldn't stand not having a bunch of notecards for long. I used some of my storecredit at our used bookstore to buy two packs of art notecards, Monet and someone I'd never heard of before and can't remember their name now. Woops. Turning books I don't want anymore into notecards is the best kind of magic.

Currently reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'm all bundled up in this picture because I frequently disagree with someone about the thermostat in our house! ;)

My exciting news: I signed up for a watercolor class at the community center! I can't wait! It starts in September and I have to see if the supplies I already own match the list for the class.

Summertime happenings

Petunias doing well on our patio. 

Volunteer morning glories from last year! Being eaten up by something.

Hubble loves biting and herding this ball. He pushes it around with his nose.

This sign at the pool is like a bad pick up line.

Visited my family in Maryland for a memorial for my grandfather who passed away earlier this year. Spent time with my grandmother and looked through old photos. My grandmother looks so glamorous even in this simple outfit. She reminds me of Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, wearing that little black outfit.

I saw this on the wall in a crab house in Princess Anne-- the disappearance of Holland Island! Soooo creepy!

Went to Assateague with a couple friends and had just the best beach day ever. Not too hot, perfect easy waves, saw so many ponies. We walked on the beach, we swam, we waded, we sat in the shade of our umbrella and caught up. I showed them how to catch sand crabs. We saw piping plovers, brown pelicans and seagulls, seagulls, seagulls. I love this place so much.

We couldn't rinse off when we left the beach because they were drinking at the spigot!!

Here's a sketch my grandmother did many years ago for a poster for the Chincoteague Pony Penning.

But it's good to be home after time away, sleeping in my own bed, snuggling Hubble again, going back to work so I can bring in that moolah!

WRP 2: United Kingdom

World Reading Project, Book #2

United Kingdom
My Man Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse, 1919

This project is partly to stretch my reading experience since previously I did not read many books from outside the US. This book was not a stretch for me because I've read and loved Wodehouse before, but I let myself have this hilarious and cozy read. The book is a series of short stories, mostly about Bertie Wooster and his inimitable butler, Jeeves. The formula is: Bertie is constantly getting into scrapes, everything goes wrong with no possible solution in sight, and Jeeves saves the day at the end with some very clever fix. I find that reading the whole book through in one go can even get a little tiring because this formula is repeated over and over. But, BUT... you get lines like this: "I was in bed, restoring the good old tissues with about nine hours of the dreamless, when the door flew open and somebody prodded me in the lower ribs and began to shake the bedclothes." I find his writing style hilarious. I wish I could incorporate expressions like that into my everyday. "What ho!"