Books, Among Other Things

You might remember, maybe not, but awhile ago, when we were getting ready to leave the US, I talked about the number of bags we would bring with us. I think at that point I had 5 packed, or something, of a possible 11. I, pretty smugly, thought (and published) that I probably wouldn’t fill all 11 bags…some kind of missionary martyr moment, something like that.
I filled all 11 bags.
And then some, apparently, because we were scrambling at the airport to balance out those 11 bags because our at-home scale didn’t quite match the at-airport scale. All this while I am trying to sort out the fact that somehow, Daisy, Dexter, and I ended up without tickets. Anyways, another story, another day. More travel horrors, of which I’m quite certain I haven’t experienced the last, given my stellar record to-date.
Still, though, I don’t know what ended up in those bags. Diapers, I know. Wipes. For some reason I just got in my head that if I was going to go to seven different stores in Addis Ababa to find diapers in the right size and wipes that were little more than dryer sheets and pay 2x as much for them, I might as well bring Huggies for my son to poo in, since I had the room in those yet-to-be-filled 11 bags. I brought the chocolate chips, because. Chocolate chips. I already told you about missionaries and their chocolate chips. I brought numerous super-cute nightlight gadgets (which Caleb gives me serious crap about) because in the last two weeks of being transient for the previous 18 months, I suddenly realized I would have been a really good, good mom if I had provided some sort of stability in the form of night lights for my kids. No matter that this was all a brilliant idea some 530 nights and a couple dozen different beds too late. Even so, the night lights made it in.
(Tangent. Total and utter randomness: the ‘good, good mom’ triggered it. Yesterday Caleb caught a 10 foot freaking huge python in some bushes where the kids often play. Huge. As in, swallow Dex huge. Because my husband is a Snake Guy, he caught it for relocation purposes, rather than cutting off its head as others may have done when put in the position of spotting a giant reptile in the bushes where their kids play. So he loaded up the snake (now named Boss, Joey, or Stella, depending on which kid you ask), and the other 9 footer–but much smaller, this new snake had some serious girth to her–who has been making its home in my veranda for the past three months, with the intention of letting them both loose where they won’t be killed (or kill, if we’re splitting hairs, here). We all go on this little outing, downriver about 3 miles. We find some rare stretch of bush without people, densely packed thorn trees where these little friends can get lost forever. Caleb sets the two trunks containing the snakes at the edge of the forest, and opens the lids. The kids and I are standing about 8 feet away, closer to the riverbank, because I plan on the snake being of the reasonable sort and exiting the trunk from the clearly logical side closest to the forest. (Of course). When the snake inches her head over the side of the trunk closest to us, still, no big deal, she’ll correct course. (Obviously). But then she sets on a path directly for us, at which point we all start screaming and yelling and I lose any notion of the fact that my four year old is standing in the way of a snake three times her size because my main and only objective is to be faster than all of these little people, who had, until that point, been faithfully entrusted to me to raise to semi-competent adulthood. Alas, the snake sees the wisest road and heads for the forest, but not before opening my eyes to my line in the sand of the degree of self-immolation that is motherhood. Apparently, my love for my children stops at a 10 foot python, and then, self-preservation is the name of the game.
I told you–complete and utter randomness. But seeing as this is one of my proudest moments as a mother, obviously the most practical thing to do is write it out for the internet to keep in posterity forever and ever amen.)
There were some major gaps in my plan-ahead plans while buying and packing in the US. For instance, I bought exactly one pair of shorts and one pair of leggings for Elsa to grow into. Ezra got two pair of shorts to grow into, and one pair of jeans. Clearly, I’m intending them to defy all rules of chronology and stay 7 and 8 forever. Caleb, I guess, needed new underwear. Which, no, I didn’t buy. I bought exactly one minuscule container of mapleine flavoring, for making syrup, and considering that my family considers syrup one of the major food groups, this will last us somewhere in the ballpark of 2 months out of the next 36 before I make my next trip to Kroger.
All of this brings me to what I really want to talk about, as you can see from the really direct way I got here: BOOKS.
I had this semi-idea in my head to write some thoughts down on the books that I read this year, sort of a collection of reviews of sorts, but then I finished Everything Belongs, by Richard Rohr, which I really loved, but I couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say about it, because it’s one of those books that made me feel smarter and dumber at the same time, just for having read it. It really, really is a great book, but that is pretty much the lamest review ever, so there goes my idea for reviewing some books.
I ended up bringing a lot of books–a lot of books for the kids’ homeschool curriculum, which if I ever get over my fear of jinxing our current homeschool state of Not Totally Sucking, I’ll write more about sometime. But I also picked out a handful of the 70 or so that ended up on my Amazon Wish List over the course of the six months in the states and brought them along, too. Caleb says I am a bad deal when it comes to books. Especially novels. Especially for the Kindle-averse reader. What is the point in spending $10, packing it in a bag that probably should have contained some underwear, flying it across the world, driving it south two days in a Toyota Landcruiser, lugging it down a riverbank, across a river, up the riverbank on the other side, and then hauling it up to the house on a 4 wheeler–if you’re going to finish the book in 2 days and then probably not really remember the plot of it anyhow? He, on the other hand, gets his money out of a book. For one, he only reads things that are true. He feels like a work of fiction is a crime against humanity–putting all of these ideas out there in the world that aren’t real, are you kidding me? So anytime he reads, he’s getting an education. Plus, he actually remembers the things he reads. And he takes his time–one book can last him a year. So he is the better buy when it comes to books, for sure. But thankfully, he also knows how books can save a girl, so I had free reign when it came to ordering and packing books.
Some of my books were ones I swiped from the shelves at my parents’ cabin, including Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, and Brothers K. I haven’t read them yet, but they are sufficiently fat to have justified their extra weight. I’ve heard great things about both books.
Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Gregory Boyle came to me for my birthday, and I hesitate to put into words anything about this book. I can’t do it justice. It is the best thing I have read in a very long time. I don’t think I knew the meaning of the word ‘weep’ until I read this book.
A Dream So Big, by Steve Peifer, is a book I almost didn’t want to read because I didn’t want it to end before I’d even started it. Mr. Peifer was a teacher at the boarding school Caleb and I went to in Kenya, and so this book was a bit of coming home. I loved this book for all the things I already knew about it–the people I recognized, the roads I knew, the smells and sights and places that were once mine. But I love it even more for the story it tells of one man’s willingness to truly see: to pay attention to the world around him–and what amazing things came from those open eyes.
I ordered When We Were on Fire when I stumbled upon Addie Zierman’s blog during my months of too much internet access. This is a beautiful book, powerful in that while Addie is telling her own story of redefining her faith after evangelicalism and Church let her down, she writes in a way that tells me more of my own story.
I also picked A Circle of Quiet, by Madeleine L’Engle, from the shelves of Caleb’s grandma’s house in Tennessee. I just finished this book, and I think any woman who has even the slightest itch for writing in her fingertips will eventually find this book. I love this book as much for the state of the book as for the words inside. I held this book with two hands as a I read the yellowed-pages, so as to keep pages two through ninety-four from falling in my lap, and the cover is scotch-taped together. Caleb’s grandma’s handwriting is in the margins, and I hold a bit of history in my hands as I read. There’s no substitute for a great book passed on from another person who loves book (and who is willing to underline the parts you need to pay attention to for you).
For the first time ever, I’m reading some poetry, and drowning a bit. In a good way. I don’t know how I ever got to be 31 years old and no one ever told me about Mary Oliver. Thirst, and Why I Wake Early are keeping me company throughout the day, and I’m going through some of Frederick Buechner’s writings in the mornings. I love Listening to Your Life enough to wish I had his some of his books in the original.
I think I’ve managed to even start to put myself to sleep, so now we can unequivocally say that writing book reviews is a truly terrible idea. But there you have it: the self-indulgence of a blog knows no bounds. As this post fully testifies.