"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Sunday Salon -- So much crying

Sunrise with tip of Mt. Rainier from Eatonville, Washington

Weather: Cold and clear. Temperatures at night are below freezing.

So much crying: Last week I spent just about every day crying, often to the point of feeling crummy probably from dehydration. Why so many tears? Good question. I am not sure. I have some theories ---
  • Grief is For People -- I read this memoir by Sloane Crosley, who is devastated due to the death of her friend by suicide. For some reason I was not prepared by how hard this book would hit me, causing me to think of suicides of former students and the tragic death of a family member. I cry a lot when I read but not usually this much. This book about grief was clearly one of my crying triggers. 
    • A favorite quote: "And then because I cannot call you home, I call it [grief] home. I open my eyes and in a flash it come back to me, zipping itself to my edges, bobbing between my fingers. It's made a real life for itself here. Oblivious to its own power, it snores sweetly on my chest, this outline of a woman whose time has not yet come."
  • Sandwich by Catherine Newman -- the next day I finished this little gem which caused me to laughed continuously," as author Ann Patchett said, "except for the parts that made me cry." The ending was especially poignant thinking about how the mother parents her adult child right up to the time of death. So sweet and so touching. 
    • Favorite quote: “And this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel. To say, Same. To say, I understand how hard it is to be a parent, a kid. To say, Your shell stank and you’re sad. I’ve been there.”
  • "Kimberly Akimbo" -- Last Sunday Carly took me to see a play, "Kimberly Akimbo", in Seattle. It is about a girl who is aging very, very fast due to a genetic condition and at 16-years she has  probably just about lived to the limit of her life span. But she wants to be normal, to go on adventures, to experience life. Carly and I sat next to each other, both of us crying. I felt like sobbing but somehow kept myself from completely falling apart. We went out to dinner after the show and both of intentionally chugged glasses of water to ward off that icky dehydration feeling.


  • On reflection I wonder if my many tears are a symptoms of something else. Even though I went through menopause YEARS ago, I wonder if what I am experiencing is partially hormonal. When one cries during commercials on TV there has to be some reason, right? Or what about the low-grade depression I seem to be experiencing due to the upcoming presidency of Trump. I still can barely watch the news or read anything political. About the only channel I can trust for my political news is Comedy Central. I can only stand the hear the bad news with a joke. I don't plan on watching the inauguration on Monday, but I will have my TV on all day set to QVC or Comedy Central, so his ratings will go down. (Tiny acts of deviance.)
  • Oh, and the death of Jimmy Carter. He was really, really a fine man. His tributes make me cry for what we have lost. 
  • Beauty -- unusual sunrises and sunsets (see photos above and below) this week and set me to crying for joy. Below is the sunset we saw in Seattle after we left our show. It was so bright it looked like the sky was on fire.
Sunset over Elliott Bay as viewed by the Seattle Convention Center.

Books finished this year so far:
  • The Red Address Book by Lundberg-- a book club selection.
  • The God of the Woods by Moore -- a mystery set in the Adirondacks. Don and I listened to the audiobook together. It has a ton of characters and kept up us guessing to the end.
  • Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley -- a memoir. See note above.
  • Sandwich by Catherine Newson -- a novel. See note above.
  • The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan -- a nonfiction journal about the author's experiences bird watching in her backyard.
Currently reading:
  • The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty. A classic. 40% complete. Print.
  • The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. a favorite author. 66% complete. Audiobook.
  • Sense and Sensibility by Austen. Part of the Austen25 project. My intro post here.
Blog posts:

Not all tears, there is this --

The grandsons went up the Space Needle today with my daughters. Mt. Rainier is in the background.

My daughter said they spent a lot of time laying on the glass floor of the Space Needle.

...and photo-bombing sisters taking selfies.


-Anne


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