Hamnet | Maggie O'Farrell

    She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange.  She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married. She grows up, too, with the memory of what it meant to be properly loved, for what you are, not what you ought to be. 
    There is just enough of this recollection alive, she hopes, to enable her to recognize it if she meets it again.  And if she does, she won't hesitate. She will seize it with both hands, as a means of escape, a means of survival. She won't listen to the protestations of others, their objections, their reasoning.  This will be her chance, her way through the narrow hole at the heart of the stone, and nothing will stand in her way. (49-50)

Over the next while, she observes him carefully, in the manner of a doctor watching a patient.  She sees how he cannot sleep at night but then cannot rouse himself in the morning. How he rises at midday, groggy, whey-faced, his mood flat and grey.  The smell of him is worse then, the sour, rank scent soaked into his clothing, his hair.  His father comes to the door, shouting and bawling, telling him to stir himself, to put in a day's work.  She sees how she, Agnes, must remain calm, steady, must make herself bigger, in a way, to keep the house on an even keel, not to allow it to be taken over by this darkness, to square up to it, to shield Susanna from it, to seal off her own cracks, not to let it in. (158)

Agnes lifts her chin a little higher. There is no disgrace, says the straightness of her back.  There is no problem in our marriage, says the proud, outward curve of her middle.  There is no failing in the business, say her husband's shining boots. (176)

She presses the muscle, presses and presses, as if she might draw juice from it.  She senses mostly noise, at first: numerous voices, calling in loud and soft and threatening and entreating tones.  His mind is crammed with a cacophony, with strife, with overlapping speech and cries and yells and yelps and whispers, and she doesn't know how he stands it, and there are the other women, she can feel them, their loosened hair, their sweat-marked handprints, and it sickens her but she keeps holding on, despite wanting to let go, to push him away, and there is also fear, a great deal of fear, of a journey, something about water, perhaps a sea, a desire to seek a faraway horizon, to stretch his eyes to it, and beneath all this, behind it all, she finds something, a gap, a vacancy, an abyss, which is dark and whistling with emptiness, and at the bottom of it she finds something she has never felt before: his heart, that great, scarlet muscle, banging away, frantic and urgent in its constancy, inside his chest.  It feels so close, so present, it's almost as if she could reach out and touch it.
He is still looking at her when she releases her grip. Her hand nestles, inactive, inside his.
"What did you find?" he says to her. 
"Nothing," she replies. "Your heart."
"That's nothing?" He says, pretending to be outraged.  "Nothing? How could you say such a thing?"
She smiles at him, a faint smile, but he snatches her hand to his chest.

"And it's your heart," he says, " not mine."
(265)

I am dead:

Thou livest;

... draw thy breath in pan,

To tell my story

--Hamlet, Act V, scene ii

(215)

***

5/5. I'm in awe that anyone could write something so stunning and tragic. One of my top 5 favorite books. I promised no spoilers on this blog, so I won't say more. But WOW, wow wow.

If you've read this book-- did you feel the same? Let's chat!

The Birthday Book | Ann Druit, Christine Fynes-Cliton, & Marjie Rowling

 ✨”What comes through in this volume, above and beyond the wealth of down-to-earth ideas and suggestions, is a sense of the real meaning of birthdays: how they are milestones on a journey in which each of us, with our precious and different gifts, increasingly gets to grips with life and hopefully- unfolds our full potential.” (vii)

✨”It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.” Adlai Stevenson (viii)

✨”You have no birthday because you have always lived; you were never born and never will you die. You are not the child of the people you call mother and father, but their fellow-adventurer on a bright journey to understand the things that are.” Richard Bach (1)

✨”I woke that day feeling unusually terrible, not just plain terrible but fancy terrible, terrible with raisins in it. Oh yes, it was my birthday.” Dorothy Parker (13)

✨”There will come a time, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, when such a celebration will change, will be moulded by the passing of years, and will eventually need to be relinquished to take its place in the many-coloured patchwork of family memories.” (44)

***

5/5. A Fabulous resource for birthdays. Magical and simple and sweet.

Early Riser Companion | Elizabeth Antonia

Note, these are additional quotes I found inspiring. The original five can be found on my instagram page, @yourstrulykait !

This is the season of childhood

And as swiftly as Spring turns into Summer

Summer to Autumn, Autumn to Winter,

the season of childhood will end. 

But for now

WE ARE HERE.

Wake up and greet the day.

Ready or not, there is a little one

waiting for you.

Good Morning,

Early Riser. 

(11)

This, for me, is the great juxtaposition of motherhood: the pure love, the expansion of the heart; and the simultaneous longing for freedom, for sleep, for time, for whatever else feels sacrificed on the altar of raising small humans. 

(109)

We need symbols of light during these dark days.  Fill your home with light. Fill your heart with light.  When faced with obstacles, keep going.  If something is making you feel bad, change it.  Each little light that shines against the darkness helps someone get through. 

(121)

For the record, around these parts the tooth fairy brings two silver dollar coins and a crystal. 
(39).

We are growing alongside our little ones.  We have the honor to witness the littlest and biggest facets of their lives unfold... In creating a sanctuary of home, an intentional place nurtured in private for each family member, our children experience respite and stability.  A place to pause and dream.  This held space will be felt by them on a cellular level, and they will carry it out into the world when they are ready.
(13)

(On Chores)...Rushing through them says to them, "I am doing the dishes. I am sweeping the floor. I am folding the laundry. This is MY chore to do, not yours.  Do not interrupt my important work." And in a couple of years, they begin to believe it. "This is your chore Mom, not mine." 
Can you involve your child in one new thing today and explroe how it makes them feel? Make a list of things you need to do around the home, and designate a day for each (rather than tackling all at once). 

(44-45). 

Together, we created a short book with our bedtime routine detailed and would read this on the couch before we began our evening rituals.. Our children love stories that clearly relate to life. 

(158)

***

5/5. Elizabeth Antonia has written and compiled a masterpiece. I now want to slow down, raise my kids with intention, and create a beautiful life with them.

Simplicity Parenting | Kim John Payne, M. ED

Simplification is about stripping away the distractions and clutter that monopolize our attention and threaten our connection.  It's about giving kids the ease to become themselves and giving us the ease to pay attention. 48

"The process of simplification... restore(s) a more natural balance, one where the "everyday" has a place and time expands.  Where distractions don't overwhelm connection, and the rituals we share are small promises made and kept, every day." 340

If, as a society, we are embracing speed, it is partially because we are swimming in anxiety.  Fed this concern and that worry, we're running as fast as we can to avoid problems and sidestep danger.  We address parenting with the same anxious gaze, rushing from this "enrichment opportunity" to that, sensing hidden germs and new hazards, all while doing our level best to provide our own children with every advantage now known or soon to be invented.  This book is not about hidden dangers, quick fixes, or limited-time opportunities; it is about the long haul. The big picture: a reverence for childhood." xvii

While your daily life may seem like a radio bandwidth full of static, simplification allows you, with much more regularity and clarity, to tune in to your own true signal as a parent.  I think you'll find it very gratifying to feel your inner authenticity develop as you bring more awareness and attention to your relationship with your children.  And with this process comes more opportunities to see deeply into who your children are becoming. xx

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears. 35. 

"I'd like to make a recommendation directly to parents, especially those who, like Annmarie, are often fretful: Reduce your exposure to media, and particularly media news.  .. I am suggesting, parents consciously say "no thanks" to media overexposure.  ..Media that can exploit our deepest, most primal urge to protect our children.  We need to live with confidence, to parent with a sense of strength and openness, and, perhaps most of all, with a sense of humor.  The primal urge to protect is our cortisol spigot; I'm suggesting we not invite it to be turned on so easily and so often." 244-245

Young children are very busy.  Their evolution in the first ten year of life-- neural, social, and physical-- makes what we do as adults look like standing still. 76

Does sleep do something, besides mark the time between periods of wakefulness?  Does childhood do something, other than mark the time until adulthood?  ... As a society, we seem to be asking the same questions about childhood. What purpose does it serve?  Can we speed it up?  Can we better prepare our children for adulthood by treating them more like adults?  I worry that we'll understand the "purpose" of childhood by seeing, increasingly, what people are like when they've been rushed through theirs.  And I don't think that will be a pretty picture. Childhood has its own mysterious processes, its own pace.  When we ask children to "keep up" with a speeded-up world, I believe we are unconsciously doing them harm.  We are depriving them of exactly what they need to make their way in an increasingly complex world: well-being and resiliency.  Quite simply, a protected childhood allows for the slow development of identity, well-being, and resiliency.   16

It's strange how we look for meaning everywhere, as though it will be "new," not something that we already know and constantly have to remember, renew, and reclaim as our own.  20

As parents, we must not become "harmony addicted."  It's tempting to hope that every day might be a sort of "rainbow experience" for our children.  Wouldn't that be nice? If only we could suspend them in sort of a happiness bubble. But they need conflict.  As Helen Keller noted, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet."  Children need to find ways to cope with difficult situations; they need to learn that they can.  34. 

Children love to be busy, and useful.  They delight in seeing that there is a place for them in the hum of doing, making, and fixing that surrounds them.  104

A wonderful counterbalance to "entertaining" children is to involve them in a task, in the "work" of family life.  Home is the environment a child will know best, and they need to affect their environment through their own efforts.  As small beings they can feel like inferior, passive observers of all that happens around them.  A sense of industry-- of busyness and purpose-- counteracts feelings of overwhelm.  And isn't it easy to feel small and inconsequential in a world so awash in information, so threatened with issues such as global warming?  Children who grow up as little doers, making Christmas breakfast and participating in the chores of daily life, will already have an inner gesture, a posture toward competency, activity, and autonomy.  105

When your child seems to deserve affection least, that's when they need it most. 61. 

Isn't it tempting to jump in with a solution? Absolutely tempting to quiet their quivering little chins and dry their eyes, with a fail-safe, can't miss solution.  But to do so consistently says "I'm in control of your life" and "I know how you feel."  We aren't.  And we don't, really.  And while it may seem a comforting thought to "know how they feel," it also denies them their own feelings. 146

"Do you love the time you live in?  We project a general sense of optimism to children when we talk less (with them) about things they may not understand, and definitely have no power to affect." 259

Before you say something, ask yourself these three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?  And I would add: Will it help the child feel secure? 251

"Quite simply, don't talk too much to children aged nine or younger about their feelings. ..

Emotional intelligence can't be bought or rushed.  It develops with the slow emergence of identity and the gradual accumulation of life experiences.  When we push a young child toward an awareness they don't yet have, we transpose our own emotions, and our own voice, on to theirs.  We overwhelm them.  For the first nine or ten years, children learn mainly through imitation.  Your emotions, and the way that you manage them, is the model they "imprint," more than what you say or instruct about emotions.  268, 270

Children are such tactile beings.  They live so fully by their senses that if they see something, they will also want to touch it, smell it, possibly eat it, maybe throw it, feel what it feels like on their heads, listen to it, sort it, and probably submerge it in water.  This is entirely natural.  Strap on their pith helmets; they're exploring the world.  But imagine the sensory overload that can happen when every surface, every drawer and closet is filled with stuff?  So many choices and so much stimuli rob them of time and attention.  Too much stuff deprives kids of leisure and the ability to explore their worlds deeply. 28-29.

An overemphasis on toys co-opts and commercializes play, making it no longer a child's natural world but rather one that's dependent on adults, and the things they provide, to exist. Our generous impulses can also go awry.. ..What started as a generous desire to please and provide can assume its own life.  It can become addictive, feeding our own needs rather than our children's. Overworked and under-nurtured, we parents sometimes use toys, or stuff, as a stand-in for relationship. Our kids' joy fills an empty space within ourselves. We may be feeling disconnected, tied up in our many responsibilities, distracted by all that we have to do. A fast way to "connect" with our kids-- and surely "fast" is better than "not at all"?-- is to give the something new. We buy toys with a degree of compulsiveness, that children pick up on. What does it say to them? As the mountain of toys in their room grows, it also speaks. It speaks as loudly as advertisements, and its messages are the same, I believe, as the ones Mary Pipher identifies. What comes through to our children, loud and clear, is "Happiness can be bought!" and "You are the center of the universe! 78-79

You have to step up and believe in what you are doing and do a little bit of it every day. 308

REVIEW: Obviously, I could not choose just five quotes. I LOVED this book! It was a revelation for me, at a time in my life when I needed it most.  It greatly calmed me, invited me to step fully into motherhood, and has given me a clear vision on to what I want to strive for as a parent in our family life. 10/10!