in a corner of our upstairs library

Here’s what I’ve read in the last twelve months.

• Everything Happens For A Reason: And Other Lives I’ve Loved, by Kate Bowler. I read it on our car ride to Massachusetts the first time we went up to see the farm. Wonderful, fast, delightful. Soooo good.
• When The English Fall, by David Williams. The journal format perhaps wasn’t the best choice for the story; the characters lacked development and plot didn’t have much nuance. 
• Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart. Excellent writing, depressing story. I love saying the title out loud. 
• Stray, by Stephanie Danler. Good writing, but chaotic. I didn’t like her (the author) most of the way through, which was unfortunate because I suspect she might be pretty great.
• The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson. Took ages to complete, but the themes stuck in my head. (Caste made a much greater impression.)
• A Place For Us, by Fatima Farheen Mirza. Slow, okay, nondescript. (Confession: can’t remember it.)
• Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage, by Anne Lamott. Meh.
• The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa. Slow plot. Couldn’t get into it.
• A Short Guide to a Happy Life, by Anna Quindlen. Took about two seconds to read and made me feel good.
• Little Beach Street Bakery, by Jenny Colgan. Disturbingly trite and distressingly inaccurate, but still sweet and fun. Baker’s porn, I call it.
• Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, by Michael Finkel. Interesting, thought-provoking, well-written. Makes for some great conversation.
• Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. Beautifully written and well done. Not a page turner, but lots of fun to read.
• World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Fun, easy, interesting. (It bothered a friend of mine, and rightly so, that the author uses the natural world as easy props to tell her own story rather than subject matter that stands on its own merit.)
• The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir, by Sherry Turkle. Meh — kinda dry. Skipped all the science.
• A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master”, by Rachel Held Evans. Skimmed parts. Love her voice and integrity. Miss her!
• Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work, by Akilah S. Richards. Refreshing to hear about un/deschooling through the lens of a Black mother. 
• My Broken Language: A Memoir, by Quiara Alegría Huda. Beautiful, lyrical writing. Great perspective and story. I think about this book often. The essay at the end about her female family member’s bodies is utterly spectacular.
• Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage, by Eleanor Henderson. Beautifully written, and kinda nightmare-ish and grueling. How can it possibly be true?
• Taste: My Life Through Food, by Stanley Tucci. Fun and light. He talks about timpano!
• A Good Neighborhood: A Novel, by Therese Anne Fowler. Predictable; no new ideas. Characters were caricatures/clichés. Hardly even bothered to read the end. Only after finishing the book did I realize how it perpetuated racist ideology (and then I got angry). 
• The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller. Beautifully written and fun. A page turner.

If I had to pick standouts, I’d say: Kate Bowler’s book, My Broken Language, and The Paper Palace. What are your top reads of 2021? I’m planning a library run in the next day or two, and y’all know how much I love recommendations! (I’m currently reading Edward Snowden’s book, parts of which make for some great dinner table read aloud entertainment.)

Reference books I’ve used (heavily) but didn’t include in the list:

• On pies: Pies and Tarts, Pie, and First Prize Pies.
• On cheesemaking: 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes, Home Cheese Making (excellent), and The Art of Natural Cheesemaking (game changer).

To the younger two kids, I’ve read Look Both Ways (I enjoyed this interview with author Jason Reynolds), The Inquisitor’s Tale, Out of My Mind (perhaps my fave), The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, The Crucible (the audio), Word Nerd (another really good one), and Johnny Tremain. And last night we started Three Against the Wilderness, by Eric Collier.

For Christmas, we got our traditional updated copy of Guinness Book Records.

We also, last minute, picked up a collection of cutaway books from Costco.

My husband totally geeks out over these.

Happy reading, friends!

This same time, years previous: 2020 book list, 2017 book list, remembering Guatemala, giant sausage and leek quiche, one step above lazy (maybe), tomatoey potatoes and green beans.

Wow! So many of you asked to hear my parents’ little wedding talk! I’m thrilled.

I considered posting the hard copy that my parents shared with me, but what I really wanted was a video of their delivery: measured and quirky (they sing!), it communicates so much. Thank goodness our dear friend Lery had the presence of mind to catch the whole thing on her phone (and then, just this morning, her son Dereck work his techy magic to get you the clearest video possible). Enjoy!

(For those who want the quick version: Marriage is hard, you are so lucky, yay.)

This same time, years previous: a mistake-based education, for my walls, Christmas 2010, windows at dusk, marmalade-glazed ham, lemon cheesecake tassies, a little elaboration.

Planning a barn party in mid-December in Virginia is a little tricky. Would it be 70 degrees outside? Would we have a foot of snow? Would it be pouring rain? Would it be bitter cold with wicked winds? Since we couldn’t know, we braced for cold and crossed our fingers it wouldn’t be too bitter.

We rented (and borrowed) eight propane stand heaters, plus a couple other odds and ends heaters. We had boxes of handwarmers and mountains of throw blankets. Visually, we tried to create a warm, cozy vibe with sofas and a carpet, lamps, straw bales, electric candles, poinsettias, Christmas trees, white table clothes, and yards upon yards of fairy lights. (The hanging ball lights and some of the central lights wrapped around posts and crisscrossing the ceiling were already there.)

Turns out, it’s a good thing we prepared for the cold! The day prior was in the 60s, but the high on Sunday was the low 40s with a brisk, icy wind. The heaters raised the barn’s temp a good ten to fifteen degrees and, even though it was still cold, those who dressed warm and made it a point to seek out the warm spots reported they were quite comfortable.

At about 11:30, guests began flooding into the barn and, soon after, the newlyweds arrived and we all cheered.

At noon, the festivities began in earnest: my son and daughter-in-law welcomed everyone and introduced the order of events.

Her younger sister led everyone in a brief meditation, and my husband and I spoke, too: through tears, my husband expressed how incredible it was to see our children cared for, and surrounded by, such a large community, and I explained the food. And then my side of the family sang I Thank The Lord My Maker, a prayer song that we often sing at our family gatherings.  

This was my first time catering a meal (though it didn’t even occur to me that’s what I was doing until a few days after the event, ha!), and hot beverages and cauldrons of soup — Italian wedding, chili with all the toppings, split pea soup (made by my daughter-in-law’s mother and raved about by many), and sausage lentil — were key in the stay-warm plan. (That last soup was born out of a [foolish] panic that there wouldn’t be enough food, and then I rushed it and the onions didn’t soften properly, so the next day I made another 7 gallons of the soup, this time cooking the onions into caramelized oblivion, and it was perfect. The not-wedding-perfect soup we put in the freezer; my younger son labeled the containers “soup of despair” and “soup of sadness” and “soup of tears” and “soup of shame,” which pretty much summed it up, though he should’ve labeled one of them “soup of rage.”) 

Even though I was pretty darn organized and prepared — aside from that (unnecessary) last-minute soup scramble — everything kinda fell apart in the transition from house to barn. Thank goodness we had two families who agreed to do serving duty! They jumped right into the chaos and carried the party like they owned it. Whenever my husband or I walked into the kitchen area to check on things, we’d be met with, “Everything’s good. We’ve got this. Go.” Their take-charge confidence soothed my rattled nerves tremendously.

During the meal (and at every other free moment), I tried to talk with as many people as possible. Even so, there were so many I didn’t get to talk to which left me feeling a little verklempt — this, I think, must be the curse of a wedding. 

Visiting with my daughter-in-law’s extended family members, learning their names and how they were all connected, was one of my favorite parts of the whole day (and the evening before, too). What a treat to finally get to meet these incredible people! I had so much fun visiting and laughing with them— so much laughing!— bonding simply because one person from their family and one person from our family had fallen in love. Which, when you think about it, feels nearly preposterous. . . or magical. 

Both the newlyweds are the oldest of four siblings (though hers are each a year or two older than mine), and watching all the siblings enjoying each other was special. Afterward my kids were like, “When can they all come over again?” Which was exactly how I felt, too.

After the meal, sharing time.

My brother was the moderator. He opened the time with an altered version of Country Roads that he’d written, sung by my brother and sister-in-law, my younger brother, our uncle and aunt, and two of their boys. I laughed the whole way through, and at the line “seems like yesterday,” I nearly shouted, “It WAS yesterday!” 

^{video credit: my younger brother’s partner}

(Just watching that now, pre-posting, both my husband and I teared up … again.)

A few people had been tapped ahead of time to share something. My son’s mentor and his partner sang a love lullaby, they same one they’d sung to my son and his fiancé when they’d told them they were engaged. 

My parents had prepared a little talk which was quirky and hilarious and brutally honest: about how my son and daughter-in-law are not going to like each other all the time, about keeping perspective in the awful moments when teetering on the pit of despair, and how, after falling in said pit, one goes about climbing back out. They talked about coping with the other’s “revolting habits” and “hateful traits,” and how to deal with the normal romantic crushes that crop up.

Throughout, they quoted famous people: each time my dad held up a sign bearing the name of the person they were quoting and my mom scurried over to the couple to give them a corresponding gift. (I still haven’t seen them yet, but they’re framed something-or-others.)

What a riot!

We weren’t sure anyone would share during the open mic time, but we needn’t have worried. Aunts and uncles, parents, cousins, siblings, and friends streamed forward to give advice and shared appreciation.

My son’s friends talked about the time they built a zipline (and the broken butt that resulted) and about the time my son tied one of them to the clothesline pole with an entire roll of duct tape and then cut him free with a machete.

My daughter-in-law’s siblings regaled us with a hilarious story of a camping trip gone awry that ended with park rangers having to come get them. 

After the sharing, my brother and sister-in-law performed a set of their music for everyone, their wedding gift to the couple who had selected all the songs in advance.

The music was exquisite. Take the Chance made me cry, and then, during Harvest Moon, my son and daughter-in-law surprised and delighted us all by getting up and dancing.

The festivities wrapped up soon after. The temperature was dropping rapidly, some people had long drives ahead of them, and we were all pretty much whupped. We took care of the food, off-loading a whole bunch of it to friends, and went home to tackle some preliminary clean-up (we’d do the bulk of it the next day/week) before falling headfirst into our beds. 

The end.

^{The majority of the photo credits go to my younger son and daughter.}

This same time, years previous: a Christmas spectacle, right now, balsamic-glazed roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts, 2016 garden stats and notes, cheese ball, hot buttered rolls, dancing mice and other Christmas tales, thrills in my kitchen.