Barbara and Me

You know that game where you can choose three people, living or dead, famous or not, to invite to your simplyfabulous dinner party? It is ridiculous how much pleasure I derive from this exercise. I love dreaming about the guests, where they would sit, what questions I would ask them, and what their answers might possibly be. Have I mentioned that I absolutely LOVE that game? My guests tend to shift and change based on what I'm reading, thinking, or learning about at any given time. Sometimes it's a blend of the famous and the beloved, like my surrogate grandfather and Harry Truman (because I would have LOVED to see the two of them talk), or Gandhi and Chris Rock. What would that look like? Princess Diana and Kate Middleton. (I KNOW. I am embarrassingly starstruck by princesses and am a more than a little bit embarrassed to admit this). Nelson Mandela and the entire cast of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. (They would not understand each other at ALL. Insert immature giggles here).

There is one person that has held the third place in my imaginary dinner party for almost twenty years running. The questions I want to ask her never change. And I always can count on her for interesting conversation with a polite Southern drawl and a pointed, yet gentle, intellect. (See how fun this is when you invent characteristics for people from their public persona?)

Barbara Kingsolver has been my imaginary dinner guest, my writing mentor and (imaginary) friend for a very, very long time. For years and years and years. She just doesn't know it. YET.

animal dreams

We met during Animal Dreams. What an introduction. In a summer where I was reading some seriously weird stuff to fulfill an undergraduate literature requirement, this book was different. I fell HARD. Exquisite in its construction and character development, and laser focused on the plight of migrants and the relationship between native and non-native cultures, Barbara had me at hello. Animal Dreams is a love story so beautiful, poignant, and memorable, that it is a part of me nearly twenty years later. Heady, beautiful stuff for my nineteen year old self. A beautifully constructed story with a side of social justice? Right up my alley.

I was converted and turned into a verifiable Kingsolver evangelist. My need to read her work was insatiable. To date, I had not yet read the work of a contemporary, ALIVE writer who wrote with such intensity, authenticity, thoughtful and elegant construction, and, for lack of a better (or even a real) word, rawness than Barbara.

Then I found Pigs in Heaven. And then The Bean Trees. More more more more more. Barbara knows, I'm a greedy little friend. So she happily keeps feeding this beast.

HighTideInTucson

To my utter delight, I discovered that she also wrote ESSAYS and nonfiction. Hooray and hallelujah, my favorite genre! I read High Tide in Tucson in one sitting and reread it nearly every year. Civil Disobedience at Breakfast? Hilarious and heartrending and as real as the sun.

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And then came The Poisonwood Bible. Her masterpiece, in my opinion. That book is so richly drawn and vividly imagined, and perfectly circular in its structure that it left me breathless upon completion. This was the book that cemented Barbara's place at my table forever and ever and ever.

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Don't EVEN get me started on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction piece that chronicles her family's transition to complete consumption of only locally grown food (I think coffee was the only thing given a pass). That book transformed my thinking about food, family, cooking, and farming. It informs decisions I make at the grocery and guides me as to how I choose and prepare food (Most of the time. I do love me some Fritos). Occasional junk food notwithstanding, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle taught me to be thoughtful and mindful about agriculture and its precarious sustainability.

Barbara characterizes herself as a storyteller-scientist. I also think she needs to include teacher. Without fail, whether reading her architecturally structured fiction or her delightfully informative non-fiction, she leads her reader into a moment of transcendence, to a moment when what you knew before gets upended, and you will never look at that aspect of the world in quite the same way again. It happened for me in Animal Dreams, in High Tide in Tucson, in The Poisonwood Bible, in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in Prodigal Summer. (She and I had issues with each other during The Lacuna. I got over them).

It also happened in her newest book, Flight Behavior.

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One dreary morning nearly one year ago, I was listening to NPR when I heard the news. I was in a low, low place. I felt trapped in the vortex of infant and toddler care with no end in sight. Several of my dearest friends had moved away, and I was feeling sore alone. I had literally been tethered to my little nursing man, who would not take a bottle, for MONTHS, and my soul was feeling beleaguered and heavy. I could hardly read anything more intellectually taxing than People magazine before getting interrupted or falling dead asleep. I felt like my intellect was atrophying.

But this news! This news made me stand up straighter, it helped to reawaken my foggy, sleep-deprived, postpartum brain, and gave a glimmer of hope to my worn out soul. Overly dramatic? Perhaps. But try telling that to this girl a year ago and see what kind of response you get.

THE NEWS: Barbara Kingsolver had a new book coming out and was going to do a reading at the National Cathedral in a week. IN A WEEK! And come hell or high water, I was going to be there. My real life dinner party moment had actually arrived.

In the week between the news and the event, I listened to every radio interview she gave on Flight Behavior, read every review, and ordered my copy. The tickets were waiting at will call. I was ready.

After running late and getting horribly lost, I finally arrived at the majestic cathedral, met my waiting friend Cristina, and hightailed it into the sanctuary to listen to Barbara herself read from the novel.

As imagined, her voice in person was melodious, with a delicious Southern lilt. She speaks slowly, thoughtfully, with great care, whether she is reading from her work or answering a question. Words seem to matter very much to her, and it seems as though they are thoughtfully considered before they leave her mouth.

Cristina and I sat, mesmerized, listening to Barbara's soothing tones as she read the opening scene from the novel. The protagonist, Dellarobia, sets off up the mountain in too-tight boots to meet her "ruination." But, instead of a tryst with her erstwhile lover, Dellarobia discovers something that will ultimately, utterly transform her life. The reading was, in a word, exquisite.

Then it happened.

The dinner party moment.

I was the last person called on to ask Barbara a question. I ACTUALLY GOT TO ASK HER THE QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN BURNING WITHIN ME FOR YEARS! I couldn't even believe my great good fortune.

The Breathless Question: "In reading both your fiction and nonfiction over the years, I have noticed how circular and architectural in structure your books are. Can you explain your writing process? How do you go about crafting your pieces?"

Barbara's Response:

"First of all, thank you so much for noticing that. I try to create my books in a process similar to that of an architect."

Here's me, inside my head, screaming, I KNEW IT!!!!

She then launched in to a delicious explanation of her writing process, which was everything I had imagined and more.

And then she thanked me again for asking. I was so filled up with joy that I floated back to my seat. Cristina and I beamed at each other and deemed the response perfectly exquisite.

Then just like that, the reading was over and we were invited to line up to get our books signed. The line was instantly enormous; snaking from one end of the cathedral to the other. The hour was late, the baby was hungry, and I was filled up. So, we walked to the front of the line, I snapped a picture of my friend Barbara, and drove home after a full and very satisfying dinner with one of my favorite guests.

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Trudging Toward Thanksgiving

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For me, one of life's greatest joys is waking up to an idea. Truly, deeply, fully waking up.  Especially when that idea is one I've been acquainted with my entire life, but its layers and depths and nuances I have not yet fully explored.   And you know what else I find absolutely delightful?  In the midst of that awakening, you suddenly  encounter the idea absolutelyeverywhere.  Books.  Magazines. Newspapers.  Radio.  Blogs.  From your best friend's lips. In your children's words.  I'm absolutely getting hit over the head with this.

The idea in question?

Eucharisteo.  Grace.  Thanksgiving.  Joy.

In the heart of a difficult season two autumns ago, my sweet friend Kara handed me a book.  She told me she thought that the time might be right to read it.

She said the content might be difficult at first, with everything that was currently swirling around us.  My 63 year old father, who had suffered from early onset dementia for nearly ten years, was dying from recently diagnosed cancer.  I was 17 weeks pregnant with a much desired fourth baby after a heartbreaking miscarriage of twins.  This baby's ultrasounds kept showing that there were some potentially scary abnormalities, which required regular testing and monitoring.   At a routine prenatal exam, I was diagnosed with an enlarged thyroid that needed to be biopsied as soon as possible.  I was teaching a full course load with one new prep at two different universities.  And my three boys each had their own specific struggle that needed my careful attention:  academic issues, emotional upset, developmental concerns.  As I navigated the needs at work and home and traveled frequently to be with my parents, I became robotic, using tunnel vision as a coping mechanism.  I was numb.  I was also exhausted.  Depressed.  And very, very overwhelmed.  On a rare quiet afternoon, I opened the first page of the book Kara thoughtfully gave me and read the opening vignette, which chronicles a raw, honest, lyrical description of the aftermath of a horrible accident that took the life of a child.  I very quickly shut that book with a loud clap.  

As it turned out, I was so not ready to read this book.

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One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, with its placid, stunning cover, sat on my nightstand for the next 18 months.  Staring at me.  I stared back and said not yet not yet not yet.  I was not ready to face whatever this book had to teach me.

I had a lot of healing to do.  Little did I know that if I had picked up this book sooner, my healing would have been hastened.

The book opens with Voskamp, in her unique, lyrical, literary style, exploring the idea of how one can remain faithful, hopeful, and joyful in the midst of immense grief and sorrow, or even in the midst of the monotony of everyday life.  As a Christ-follower, she struggled with how to reconcile God's enduring love and the joy that follows with the terrible circumstances that she had faced in the past (the accidental death of a toddler sister) and present (the deaths of two young nephews).  This led to doubt, grief, depression, and a struggle for her very faith.  Finally, a friend asked her the question that changed her life:

What if you wrote down a thousand things that you love?

Voskamp accepts this dare from her friend and starts scratching down a Gift List.  It is a list of what she calls the "everyday common" that fill her with gratitude.  Her list begins with these:

1. Morning shadows across the old floors
2. Jam piled high on the toast
3. Cry of blue jay from high in the spruce

She continues scrawling down her gifts as she encounters them, on an open notebook in her farmhouse kitchen, the backs of envelopes, and small notebooks she begins to carry.  And as she develops this practice, a habitual practice of gratitude, her life and her faith are transformed.

One Thousand Gifts is unlike anything I've ever read, due to Voskamp's unique voice.  It is beautiful and complicated, like reading poetry in prose form. Her style seems at times to be circuitous and rambling, but she deftly brings all disparate pieces into union at the conclusion of each essay.  Voskamp writes like a painter paints, with lines such as "Autumn comes quietly to wed the countryside.  The maples all down the lane blush and silently disrobe."  The essays take the reader on Voskamp's journey to understand Eucharisteo--grace, thanksgiving, joy-- through wrestling with Scripture, motherhood, anxiety and depression, the hectic pace of modern life, and the crippling injury of a child.  It left this reader breathless with the beauty of her words, her mind, her heart, and her faith.

As the wise Brené Brown says, "Gratitude is a practice."  It's not necessarily natural.  Complaining is more my speed, but I've started the hard work of eucharisteo:  grace begets thanksgiving which results in joy.  And as someone whose constant state these days is a barely suppressed, low-level irritation, I find myself softening into gratitude more and more.  This makes for a more peaceful momma, even in the rough moments, and ultimately, a happier home.

I think that practicing gratitude may be the great lesson of my life.   It is something to be learned, rehearsed, used.  And here is my new realization:  I once thought that gratitude is a disposition, like optimism or introversion.  It is not.  It is something that you cultivate.  I have learned that in order to live the life I feel called to live, I can and must cultivate gratitude.  This includes gratitude for the big things (my marriage) and small things (a hot cup of tea),  and for the "ugly beautiful" things (like the opportunity to mediate an argument between the boys or the quiet introspection that loneliness brings).  Eucharisteo is following me everywhere.  I can't crack a book, go to a lecture, watch a movie, or talk to a friend without gratitude being the overriding theme.  I guess it's true what they say:  when the student is ready, the master appears.

Thanksgiving, in every situation, and every circumstance, is an idea, a practice, a relationship that has been a long time coming for me, and will likely be a lifelong challenge.  But gratitude for gifts given, large and small, bring a change of perspective, a new worldview, and ultimately, JOY.  Choosing thanksgiving, like choosing to love, mends relationships, opens hearts, and for me, helps me to better know God.

I've started my gift list.  (Believe it or not, there's an app for that!) I've reached 129 gifts in three weeks time.  Make that 130.

I'm on my way to one thousand.  And beyond.

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Because picking up a pen isn't painful and ink can be cheap medicine.  And I just might live.

 -Ann Voskamp

Voskamp's work can be found here, including her project,  Joy Dare.