Fresh Water for Flowers | Valérie Perrin

“I prefer youngsters to be full of life, annoying, noisy, drunk, stupid, rather than in coffins, followed by people bowed with grief.” (77)

“We push open the door. In the window there are funerary plaques and bouquets of artificial flowers. I loathe artificial flowers. A plastic or polyester rose is like a bedside lamp trying to imitate the sun.” (135)

“The darkness has to intensify for the first star to appear.” (208)

“I had my first garden at nine years old. One square meter of flowers. It was my mother who taught me how to sow, water, harvest. I sensed that it would be my thing. She always said to me, ‘Don’t judge each day by what you can pick, but by the seeds you sow.’ .. this garden is seven hundred square meters.. of joy, love, sweat, endeavor, determination, and patience.” (231)

“I was impatient to return to life after [their passing]. With the main one extinguished, the volcano was extinct. But I sensed branches, offshoots growing inside me. Whatever I sowed, I could feel it. I was sowing myself. And yet, the arid soul that was me was much poorer than that of the cemetery vegetable garden. A soil full of gravel. But a blade of grass can grow anywhere, and that anywhere was me. Yes, a root can take hold in tar. All that’s needed is the tiniest crack for life to penetrate the impossible. A little rain, some sun, and then shoots from who knows where, from the wind perhaps, appear.” (248)


***

3/5. Some beautiful passages, a moving story overall. I cried. But the "love" in this book was just "lust" and that was a huge chunk of the novel.. I couldn't get past all those affairs. If you can look past that part, then, this book is beautiful. 

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!

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.

The Three Mothers | Anna Malaika Tubbs

LOUISE:

   1. “It is time for the honor many quietly pay Black mothers to become as loud as Alberta’s choir, as consistent as Berdis’s love, as strong as Louise’s fight.” (219)

   2.  “Louise was especially strict with Malcolm because he was so much like her. She knew firsthand how dangerous things could become for someone so strong willed, so she did her best to steer his energy and intelligence in the right direction. Malcolm learned more from what he saw in Louise than what she said directly to him. He too demanded what he knew he deserved, and he stood up for himself. She had strict rules for her children because she wanted to protect them, but like her son, she was a rebel who did not let rules restrict her.” (131)

   3. “For Louise, surviving meant never allowing fear to keep you from speaking the full truth, never being afraid of what you might lose in the fight for what was right.” (199)

   4.  “Louise, with her almost century on this earth, would leave an indelible print on the lives of millions, most of whom are still unaware of her name.” (188)

  5. “The mother is the first teacher of the child. The message she gives that child, that child gives to the world. -Malcolm X” (178)

BERDIS: 

  1. “David’s funeral took place a few days later… Berdis was not there. She was attending to her newborn and perhaps already focusing on her new life, free from him. Years later, Berdis’s grandson would describe Paula’s birth as completing Berdis’s solar system, with Berdis in the middle and her nine children surrounding her. He would also describe David’s death as the moment that allowed Berdis’s light to fully shine like the sun. She’s lost both of her parents, she was isolated in the North, away from family, and she was now a single mother of nine at the age of forty-one. She would have to do whatever she could to provide for her children, but she would, as she always had, find a way.” (115)

  2.  “For Berdis, living life to the fullest centered around being able to find love and joy for yourself no matter how hard others tried to take it away from you.” (199)

  3.  “We are all walking in terrible darkness here, and this is one man’s attempt to bear witness to the reality and the power of light. -James Baldwin” (152)

  4.  “I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. James Baldwin” (178)

 5. “…we must do a better job of recording our stories and sharing our truths, not only with our immediate networks but with as many people as possible. It is only a disservice when we hide ourselves, when our children do not know what we have gone through and how we survived it, when we allow others to define who we are.” (218) 

ALBERTA:

  1. “Alberta Christine Williams King is best known for being the mother of the revered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…. Alberta’s work did not stop when she got married, it did not stop when she became a mother, it did not stop when her heart was weighed down by anxiety over the danger her children faced, it didn’t even stop when she buried her sons. Alberta used her family teachings, her own training, her love for her family, her deepest pain, and her desire to educate to touch the lives of others and, by doing so, to live a full life. Loved ones said, ‘Her teachings of unshakable faith and her love for mankind were instrumental in shaping the nonviolent movement which has changed the course of history.’” (183-184)

   2. “Christine would fondly recall such moments, saying, “Every now and then, I have to chuckle as I realize there are people who actually believe ML [as Martin was sometimes called by his loved ones] just appeared. They think he simply happened, that he appeared fully formed, without context, ready to change the world. Take it from his big sister, that’s simply not the case. We are the products of a long line of activists and ministers. We come from a family of incredible men and women who served as leaders in their time and place, long before ML was ever thought of.” (133)

  3. “For Alberta, fulfillment for herself and her children rested completely in their Christian faith and was paired with their pursuit of education in order to better their own situation as well as that of their larger community.” (199)

  4. “It is something like the mother giving birth to a child. While she is temporarily consoled by the fact that her pain is not just bare meaningless pain, she nevertheless experiences the pain. In spite of the fact that she realizes beneath her pain is the emergence of life in a radiant infant, she experiences the agony right on. Martin Luther King, Jr.” (178)

 5. “Rather than standing in awe of Black mothers and simply commenting with deference on their incredible strength, others should stand with them and lighten their burden.” (219)

***

3/5  Fascinating, sobering, inspirational. 

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!

Confessions of a Domestic Failure | Bunmi Laditan

[1] "Does anyone else find it entirely unreasonable that a human being should be required to cook AND clean on the same day? I woke up determined to get my kitchen in a state that doesn't make me shrink with shame... When I was done my kitchen sparkled like it never had before. Aubrey woke up and I honestly felt like an amazing woman and mom until I realized something. I had to start dinner. In an hour, the kitchen would be destroyed. It seemed like a waste of my hard work so I ordered Chinese food, instead." (62)

[2] "I wish parenthood talked about how utterly boring motherhood could be. I felt guilty for feeling it, but.. I was bored. I tried to set Aubrey down on her foam mat, but as soon as her tiny feet grazed the floor, she let out a banshee scream. Like a good servant, I picked her right back up and headed into the kitchen to eat my feelings. ..It only took a few seconds to pop the top off of the industrial-sized tub of peanut butter.. Aubrey begged for a taste. 'Pretty good, isn't it? One day you'll eat your feelings, too, honey.'" (63)

[3] "Sometimes it feels like moms are supposed to be invisible in society. Seen but not heard. We're supposed to quietly and quickly go about our task of raising perfectly mannered, groomed Gap babies who speak four languages before they're six without distracting the rest of the world from their important work." (24)

[4]  "Dear Pinterest, 

When we first started dating, you lured me in with Skittles-flavored vodka and Oreo-filled chocolate chip cookies. You wooed me with cheesy casseroles adjacent to motivational fitness sayings. I loved your inventiveness: Who knew cookies needed a sugary butter dip? 

    You did. You knew, Pinterest. You inspired me, not to make stuff, but to think about one day possibly making stuff if I have time. You took the cake batter, rainbow and bacon trend to levels nobody thought were possible. You made me hungry. The nights I spent pinning and eating nachos were some of the best nights of my life. 

    Pinterest, we can't see each other anymore. You see, it's recently come to my attention that some people aren't just pinning, they are making. This makes me want to make, too. Unfortunately, I'm not good at making, and deep down I like buying way more.  Do you see where I'm going with this? I'm starting to feel bad, Pinterest. I don't enjoy you the way I once did. 

    We need to take a break. I'm going to miss your crazy ideas (rolls made with 7Up? Shut your mouth). This isn't going to be easy. You've been responsible for nearly every 2 a.m. grilled cheese binge I've had for the past couple of years, and for that I'll be eternally grateful. 

Stay cool, Pinterest.

PS. You hurt me.

PPS. I'm also poor now.

Xo

Me" (128)

[5] "Back to the ridiculous parking spaces. Every time I parked and had to squeeze my jiggly post-baby stomach between vehicles it was just another reminder that I'm not where I should be, body-wise. It's hard enough getting out of the house with an eight-month-old who only poops when we're in stores.  

Which led me to..

    Piece of Evidence That The World Hates Moms #2: Public Changing Tables.

Nobody's asking for a Four Seasons-inspired changing room with baby bidets and Egyptian cotton, rosewater-scented wipes individually handed to me by a gloved bathroom attendant, but three days ago I almost gagged changing Aubrey on a sticky, crusty monstrosity with broken straps, soiled with what I HOPED was dried prune baby food. I did my best to clean the biohazard with wipes and hand sanitizer, but really?" (24)

3.5/5. I loved it! It too a minute to get used to the main character, Ashley, but she grew on me quickly. If you haven't ever struggled with depression or complete overwhelm in motherhood, this book may not be the book for you. But, I happen to know that I do, thus, I found this book refreshing and hilarious. Ashley is truly a hot mess, but a relatable, lovable hot mess!

Take note, there is some language and some sexually suggestive material.