my kind of day

today I spent the day in my Jammies ...

reading The Turn of the Screw by Henry James ...

because my 15 year old asked me to ...

he just finished reading it ...

for no particular reason, just because it sounded interesting, it's a ghost story, he bought it awhile ago and hadn't gotten around to reading it yet, take your pick ...

he wanted to discuss its ambiguousness ...

a very nice way to spend the day ...

yep ...

having "grown up" kids is good for this mom's heart.

what a beautiful mess

This is the mess that I woke up to this morning... and yes it was a beautiful mess and it made me smile. For you see, the mess was created last night with my oldest daughter. The daughter who I haven't seen very often since she moved into her own little apartment a month or so ago. She stopped by last night though and we talked as we always do which then led to us watching a couple of episodes of Julia Childs, The French Chef from the PBS website because of course we have been talking about Julie Powell and Julia Child and French cooking and France and blogs among so many other things.

A few months ago I had shared with her about Julie Powell's blog of her journey cooking Julia's recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Then I read the book based on the blog and shared that too and I was so excited when I learned about the new movie coming out based on the book and also on Julia's book, My Life in France which I just finished reading. One day while shopping at Whole Foods, Kate, was given a coupon for two free tickets to a sneak preview of the movie and called and asked if I wanted to go with her. Uhmmm.... yes! We had such a nice time and both loved the movie.

And so it was natural for us to talk all things Julie and Julia last night and decide rather late that since neither of us had eaten supper, well, we would try our own version of Julia's omelets which we had just watched on the computer. Kate made the best beschmel (cheese sauce) for them and they turned out wonderful even if we didn't get the hang of the wrist flicking part (but hey Kate did a great job using the scramble with a fork method).

All this telling leads up to why this all made me smile this morning. Going through menopause right now, I am left at times with an empty feeling that no longer will I hold a little one in my arms or chase after a toddler. But I am still blessed. Blessed now in a different way but one as equally rewarding in having adult children. Children who I can share things like cooking Julia's omelets with and for that I am so grateful.

So thank you sweetie. Thank you for growing into such a beautiful young woman who I am proud to call my daughter and who I love spending time with always! And .... what are we cooking next? :)

Note: This picture is from a week or so ago when she finally received her diploma in the mail... her BA in English that she earned and walked for last May... the Magna Cum Laude BA she worked so hard for!

a book and a story

What better and more appropriate way for me to resume posting with something written about a book... about a story... for books and stories have been a part of my life, a part of what happened in between for, well, for always.

Every once in awhile, a book will, in reading, become such a part of you that it will take your breath away. Last night this happened to me. The book ... Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart.

It involves a mystery and young love, but mostly it spoke to me, personally, as a story about a young girl learning to live with the loss of her mother. I say personally because with every page, I became Katie, and she, me. No matter that I am 49 and she is 16. No matter that Katie's loss is recent while mine happened almost 17 years ago. Katie's words were mine the day I lost my own mother to cancer and at times still are.

Reading my borrowed copy from the library, I found myself breaking my #1 rule. I couldn't help myself. I have so many pages "dog-earred", it will take me quite awhile to copy into my book journal the lines that for me just had to be recorded. There were so many words, and I was afraid I would lose them if I didn't mark them in some way, right as I read them. And I couldn't lose the very things that made me feel as if someone understood...understood the darkness in losing the very center of your life to something so hideous and sinister and yet also understood the light that begins to shine little by little.

There is so much good in this book. So much for young and older readers.

The language is pure poetry and touches in unexpected ways.

I am writing this post as a way to thank the author, Beth Kephart. Thank you for such beautiful prose, prose that speaks directly to the heart. Thank you for sharing this book with others, like myself, young and old. But mostly, thank you for understanding.

I end this post with a quote from the book:

"Things disappear and vanish. That's the fact. Before you're ready for them to go, they go, and after that all you can do is keep the idea of them bright inside yourself."