"My Salinger Year" by Joanna Rakoff

The title is what made me want to read this novel. I originally thought it was fiction; however, that is not the case. It is a memoir, the story of Joanna, a girl trying to pursue her dream in the literary world during the late nineties. While living in New York City, she takes a job as an assistant to the literary agent for J.D. Salinger. As she spends her days in a stuffy, under technically advanced office she begins to question herself as she answers the copious amounts of fan mail to Salinger. Her professional and personal life are brought into question as she discovers her own bold and liberated voice.

I loved the brutal honesty of the literary world in this novel, especially at the brink of the 21st century. It was a time where everything was about to change and you had to decide which side, the past or the future, you were going to be on. I also loved Rakoff's portrayal of Salinger's works. I have read Catcher in the Rye a couple times, though none of his other novels. I am now even more curious to read Franny and Zooey than I was previously, just to form my own opinion of the book. Rakoff raises many questions concerning the life you want to live. These are many of the same questions that I have and continue to ask myself. Anyone who claims to be a writer could relate to this story in some way, I know I did.

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Quotes

I know, I said reflexively, but I didn't. I didn't want to be normal. I wanted to be extraordinary. I wanted to write novels and make films and speak ten languages and travel around the world.

Writing makes you a writer,” he’d told me. “If you get up every morning and write, then you’re a writer. Publishing doesn't make you a writer. That’s just commerce.

She’d never spent entire days lying on her bed reading, entire nights making up complicated stories in her head. She’d not dreamed of willing herself into Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre so that she might have real friends, friends who understood her thorny desires and dreams. How could she spend her days—her life—ushering books into publication but not love them in the way that I did, the way that they needed to be loved?

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I'd always considered myself dark and heavy. A chubby child, burdened by sorrows: my own, those of my family, my plagued, storied race. But that instant, something shifted. Was it possible that Don was right? That the world perceived me in a manner entirely different from how I perceived myself? Was it possible too, that one could be complicated, intellectual, awake to the world, that one could be an artist, and also be rosy and filled with light? Was it possible that one could be all those things and also by happy?

So we’re all doing a pretty good job not revealing our emotions, right? But if you can’t reveal your emotions, how do you go on? What do you do with them? Because, you see, I keep crying at odd moments.

He surrounded himself with fools - the broken, the failed or failing, the sad and confused - so that he might be their king. Which, obviously made him nothing but the king of fools.

And then a strange realization arrived: the me who talked to Salinger--nervously, about poetry--was the actual me. Though he still didn't know my real name.

Salinger was not cutesy. His work was not nostalgic. These were not fairy tales about child geniuses traipsing the streets of Old New York.
Salinger was nothing like I'd thought. Nothing.
Salinger was brutal. Brutal and funny and precise. I loved him. I loved it all.

That letter, written in dithering girlspeak, espouses nothing but love for Lane, so much so that any reader--except Lane--would suspect the lady doth protest too much. And indeed once Franny and Lane are seated at lunch, Fanny cannot--absolutely cannot--stick with Lane's program. She can't pretend she cares about Lane's paper on Flaubert. Though she doesn't express it this way, the world strikes her as filled with phonies--with egos, to use her term--and she can no longer go along with the enterprise of pretending this isn't so, of pretending that her professors are geniuses, that anyone who publishes in a small magazine is a poet, that bad actors are good. She can, in short, no longer participate in the world, with its web of socially constructed lies. She's dropped out of the play in which she's been case as the lead. She's stopped doing her reading for class. She's done. Done with everything except the little book she's been obsessively reading, The Way of a Pilgrim, in which a humble Russian peasant wanders the land trying to figure out how to pray. His answer--which Franny has adopted for herself--is the Jesus Prayer, a simple mantra, which she repeats over and over, trying to synchronize it with her heartbeat, as per the pilgrim's instructions. If you have read the story, then you know: This is not a story about Christianity. Franny's adoption of the Jesus Prayer has less to do with Jesus than with her desire to transcend her own troublesome ego, to stop the superficial thoughts and desires that plague her. To be her authentic self. To not be the person the world is telling her to be, the girl who must bury her intelligence in her letters to Lane, who must compromise herself in order to live.

Maybe you, like me, identified so strongly with Franny Glass, upon first reading, that you wondered if Salinger had somehow--through some sort of bizarre, science-fiction-style maneuver--tunneled into your brain. Or maybe you, like me, found yourself sobbing with recognition, with relief, that there was someone else who had felt such exhaustion, such despair, such frustration with everything, everyone, including yourself, your inability to be properly nice to your well-intended father, or your inexplicable ability to shred the heart of the man who loves you most. Someone else who was trying to figure out how to live in this world.

To read Salinger is to engage in an act of such intimacy that it, at times, makes you uncomfortable. In Salinger, characters don't sit around contemplating suicide. They pick up guns and shoot themselves in the head. All through that weekend, even as I ripped through his entire oeuvre, I kept having to put the books down and breathe. He shows us his characters at their most bald, bares their most private thoughts, most telling actions. It's almost too much. Almost.

There was something about that modest advance, that initial rejection, that soothe me. Salinger had not always been Salinger. Salinger had once sat at his desk, trying to figure out what made a story, how to structure a novel, how to be a writer, how to be.

She needed this wedding—this perfect, minutely orchestrated wedding—to shout, This is who I am. To tell us all that she was not that girl who’d tried to kill herself freshman year, the girl who developed an unhealthy obsession with her poetry professor junior year, the girl who had baffled psychiatrists and mystified her parents, for she had once been so perfect, so good, so obedient.

The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.

Wait, wait, and you'll see. It gets easier once you're no longer graded, once you have to access your actions for yourself.

Here's to a love of books!

Happy Reading!

Garden State and The Idea of Home

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Garden State has been one of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember, which is when it was released in 2004. It was the beginning of fall semester my sophomore year of college, the perfect time for this movie to greatly impact my life. I mean come on, haven't you ever wanted to climb construction equipment and scream at the top of your lungs into an "infinite" abyss? I know I have.

Andrew Largeman walked through life in a dazed brought on mostly by the numerous prescription drugs he believed he had to take. However, after the death of his mother and a weekend back in his hometown without said prescriptions, he is inspired to find out what life is really about. He reconnects with old friends and meets a girl, Sam, who shows him the passion life holds. Largeman begins to discover that it is okay to feel, even if that is pain. Slowly, he finds the courage to open up his heart to feel all the joy and pain of the infinite abyss that is life.

There are many themes and motifs in this film that have gripped me over the years; however, there is one that really got to me when I watched it again last week. The idea of home is something that has really made me think lately, especially since we moved across the country six months ago.

Before I dive into this concept any more let me share with you the scene that proposes this question of home...

*********

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

Sam: [cuddles up to Andrew] Maybe.

*********

I lived in the same house from the time I was just over a year old until I went to college. That comes to about 17 years in the same house, surrounded by the same people (with few exceptions) and the same town. I knew who I was and who I was suppose to be there. I was comfortable and safe. I never really thought to question life much further than that. 

I went to college only an hour away. I still felt safe, though not as comfortable. There were new people, new places and new expectations. 

I met my now husband my junior year of college. At this point, I had a pretty good handle of life in my new place. Meeting Stephen was a comfortable extension of that season. I could still go home when I wanted and I still felt safe.

It was the December of my senior year (2006) that my parents sold their house, the one I grew up in, the only one I knew. I had been with Stephen over a year, and we had recently gotten engaged. I was so glad that he was there when this significant change happened. I didn't think it was that big of a deal that my parents sold the house, I mean I hadn't lived there for over three years. Nonetheless, it was still home. It was harder to let go of than I realized it would be.

The best part about the timing of the sale is that we got to experience one last Thanksgiving dinner in that house with Stephen's and my family together. My nephew was just born four months earlier and we all got to spend the weekend together in the house that I grew up in that meant comfort and safety. It was one moment that really sealed Stephen and my relationship together. It fused the past with the present and brought together strangers to make them family. It was a beautiful moment.

I remember walking through the house that weekend and really looking at everything. I always loved the way that living room was laid out because it had great big spaces. My bedroom was where I went through so many teenage struggles and time trying to figure out who I was.

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This is a quote from One Tree Hill, but it is about home and also has great meaning for me when it comes to the idea of home.

When they sold the house, I was afraid I would lose all of that, something I had never lost before. It turns out, I didn't lose it. Those moments were still in my heart and they always would be. That was the beginning of trying to define home for me.

After that house was gone, my parents as well as Stephen and I continued to move around from city to city and apartment to house for several years. My parents had five different addresses in as many years. Stephen and I moved from Clemson to an apartment in Florida then to an apartment in South Carolina. It wasn't until we were pregnant with Zoey in 2009 that we bought our first house. We stayed there for five years. I was so excited to give Zoey what I had, a house to grow up in and feel comfortable and safe.

Last summer we received an amazing opportunity. Stephen had a job offer in Seattle, Washington. Now that was the farther away than I could really even imagine in that moment. Our home was in that house, surrounded by our friends in that small town. I loved it there. However, there had been several indications over that previous year that there was something more for us out there. We listened to the call and moved our entire family from a large three bedroom, two bathroom house in the suburbs into a small two bedroom, two bathroom apartment in the city. And now, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I miss our friends, and sometimes I miss the space, but it was a move that truly brought our family together in a way I couldn't have imagined before. It also showed us what was important and that wasn't all the stuff that filled the space.

The idea of home has changed for me a lot over the years. For so long, I thought home was a place. However, that is not true. Home isn't a place at all, it's a state of mind. My family is my home. When I moved out of my parents house and eventually began to live with Stephen, he became my home. When we had Zoey, my family was my home. Now, even though we are thousands of miles from our extended family and our familiar friends, home is still here. It's where I come to feel safe.

I wanted to give Zoey comfort and security, but I now realize that Stephen and I give her that even more than a house or a town would. We have set off on a great adventure where we have all learned and grown thanks to our new surrounding and adventures. The security is still there, only in a new way, based entirely within the people who I love.

Home is an idea that you create for yourself. I long to hold that up for Zoey to see. Home is not a place to miss, it is a feeling of being loved, accepted and secure. Wherever you go in life, know that home is waiting for you among those who you love and who love you. Home is never very far away.

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Below is one of the many great songs on the "Garden State" soundtrack called "Let Go." It is the finale of the movie and became an inspiring song for me in the years after this movie's release. The phrase "there is beauty in the breakdown" changed the idea of suffering for me to be a state that has the potential to make you better not perpetually worse. It is during the darkness that you can not only find, but also appreciate the light.

"Let Go"

by Frou Frou

Drink up baby doll

Are you in or are you out?

Leave your things behind

'Cause it's all going off without you

Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy

These mishaps

You bubble-wrap

When you've no idea what you're like

[Chorus:]

So, let go, let go

Jump in

Oh well, what you waiting for?

It's all right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

So, let go, let go

Just get in

Oh, it's so amazing here

It's all right

'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

It gains the more it gives

And then it rises with the fall

So hand me that remote

Can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow?

Such boundless pleasure

We've no time for later

Now you can't await

your own arrival

you've twenty seconds to comply

[Chorus:]

So, let go, so let go

Jump in

Oh well, what you waiting for?

It's alright

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

So, let go, yeah let go

Just get in

Oh, it's so amazing here

It's all right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

[Background sounds]

[Chorus:]

So, let go,

Jump in

Oh well, what you waiting for?

It's alright

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

So, let go, yeah let go

Just get in

Oh, it's so amazing here

It's all right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

In the breakdown

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

The breakdown

So amazing here

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

azlyrics.com
******

Here's to the idea of home and the life you create for yourself!

Cheers,

"3x5" by John Mayer

I'm not sure exactly when or how, but ever since I can remember I have processed life through a lens and a notebook. Zoey described what she was doing the other day like this: "I'm taking a picture and then writing down the journey." I was slightly taken aback by this philosophy from my five-year-old, but soon realized that I do the same thing.

I love to take pictures to remember all the little moments in life and then write down the journey. I've done it for as long as I can remember. And for the most part, I enjoy it. However, sometimes, I get lost behind the lens and forget to be in the moment. I forget to actually experience what is happening to me. As a result, I find that sometimes I look back on moments in my life and feel like they happened to someone else.

I try to live more in the moment and put cataloging the time on the back burner until the event is actually over. That does make me delayed in writing things down sometimes, but I find that I remember more because I experience it more passionately in the moment.

When I need help remembering to live in the moment, I go to music. John Mayer's "3x5" was one of the first songs I began going to during these times. I've been struggling with this concept again lately, so I wanted to share my inspiration to be present, every moment of everyday.

"3x5"

by John Mayer

I'm writing you to

catch you up on places I've been

You held this letter

probably got excited, but there's nothing else inside it

didn't have a camera by my side this time

hopping I would see the world with both my eyes

maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm

in the mood to lose my way with words

Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy's cliche'

And strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky

are next to mountains anyway

Didn't have a camera by my side this time

Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes

Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm

in the mood to lose my way

but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes

it brought me back to life

You'll be with me next time I go outside

just no more 3x5's Guess you had to be there

Guess you had to be with me Today I finally overcame

tryin' to fit the world inside a picture frame

Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to

lose my way but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes

it brought me back to life

You'll be with me next time I go outside

no more 3x5's

just no more 3x5's

2014...My Year In Books

I love Goodreads. It is a Website dedicated to books and it is the only I can keep track of all the books I read. Now, I realize how much of nerd I am, but even I was surprsied when Goodreads presented my year in books (a list of all the books you read in one year). I have read 86 books this year. I'm wondering if it is possible to read too much? No, the answer to that question is no you can never read too much.

I love reading, it is a passion. Like writing, reading is not simply something that I do, it is who I am. Getting lost in the words of a story is as natural as breathing and I couldn't imagine life without it.

I share with you now a link to my list: [CLICK HERE]

I don't want to bore you with all 86 books I read this year, but I was thinking it would be fun to make a list of the Top 10. It is difficult for me to choose only 10, but I want to give a worthwhile list of what I consider the best (and I'll lump series together so that helps.)

10. Safe Haven by Nicolas Sparks

This was a delightful story about the courage it takes to break free from abuse and the ability to love again. I love so many of Sparks stories, but this was one that just made my heart melt.







9. Paper Towns by John Green

Green has really come onto the literary scene as a power house writer. I love that his stories whisper to us that ordinary life is extraordinary. Paper Towns is a beautiful coming of age story, where it is okay to take the time for find out who your really are. Often that knowledge is discovered in ways that you would never dream. This is one of two of Green's novels that made it onto my Top 10 for this year.








8. Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts

Roberts is another author that I just can't get enough of. I've read more books by her than anyone else I believe. She has a way of bringing that special moment in relationships into focus and making us all believe in true love over and over again. Chasing Fire is a story of great passion. I think that is what I loved about it so much. Everything these character encounter is met with this overwhelming force that only those who risk their lives on a daily basis can understand. It is a beautiful love story that showcases the true passion that life can hold.





7. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

I actually can't believe it took me so long to read this novel since it is quite the classic. However, I picked it up on our vacation in New England and I couldn't put it down. It is a timeless story of the power to create your own ending. It is full of magic, companionship and the choice to become who you want to be.









6. Chosen by Ginger Garrett

This is one story that took me completely by surprise. Chosen is the tale of Esther (from the Bible) and how she became the King's wife. This has always been one of my favorite stories from the Bible because it is about the courage and boldness of a woman who would save her people, the Jews. Garrett really brings this story to life in a passionate way. It really brings out the prestige of becoming a wife and what that really means to the woman the King chose. It also showcases the conflict and animosity housed by those under the King's command. Since Garrett is not afraid to bring honest history into this story, you can really see how courageous Esther really was and what she went through to become the hero we know her as. She did something only a brave woman could have done, something that she was put in a place such as this just for one moment where she had the opportunity to make a true difference. This was such a great telling of Esther, it made me fall in love with the story all over again.

5. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

This book was a recommendation from a friend and it was a great one. This is another coming of age story of a girl who learns that she is the key to another world. I love this story because of the encouragement to be exactly who you are, who ever that may be, and the power of friendship.









4. Protector of the Small Quartet (First Test, Page, Squire and Lady Knight) by Tamora Pierce

This is another series recommended to me by a friend. I loved this series so much. It is definitely a Young Adult novel that is geared for an average of age 10, but I still got so much out of this story It is about a girl who desires to be a knight, something unheard of in that day and time. However, she is dedicated and strong and overcomes all odds to become who she wants to be. I love how much Pierce covers in this story. She speaks of overcoming diversity, protecting those smaller than you, bullying, friendship and confidence. I love this tale and I can't wait to share it with my daughter.




3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

This is a very popular book now and was made into a movie this past summer. Honestly, it is worth the hype. I was hesitant to read this novel because I try to steer clear of sad stories that I know will make me cry. However, I was glad I read this one...and yes, I did cry. Green creates characters that we can relate to, interactions that I would have with my friends. He makes an unimaginable situation seem real and raw and honest. I fell in love with these characters, who found strength in each other when they were at their weakest. There are just so many quotes and memorable scenes from this one that it is hard to forget.





2. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I tend to read a lot of romance novels and teen fiction, but this was a story that I am glad I encountered. After finishing this novel, I have told my husband, brother-in-law and anyone else who will listen that they have to read this story. It is about a young boy who goes to an academy to become the next commander of the army's fleet; however, his story is so powerful I can't even describe it accurately. You just have to read it, but you will be glad you did.







1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Now this is a novel that I will not soon forget. It is the story of a German family in the early years of WWII. I imagine Zoey will be reading this in English class in High School, at least I hope so. There are so many wonderful elements in this story. The best part, it is narrated by death. I mean, there isn't a better perspective in my opinion, especially in the years of war. There are many literary devices at work in this novel, but more importantly it is a tale that is impossible to forget. This is one that stays with you long after you close the cover. Even now I get chills as I remember some scenes. (This is saying a lot because the reason I tend to re-read many books because I have a hard time remembering the details after time has passed.) This is one novel that I believe everyone should read one day.




Those are my Top 10. There are happy ones and sad ones, but all of them are memorable to me for one reason or another.

I also love to re-read books. I've re-read several this year that I did not include in the Top 10 list. However, if it is good enough to read twice (or more), I believe it is worth mentioning.

1. The Hunger Games Trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins
2. Divergent by Veronica Roth
3. A Light in the Attic and Falling Up by Shel Silverstein (I read these two with Zoey and it was a great way to end our days together.)
4. The Three Island Sisters Trilogy (Dance Upon the Air, Heaven & Earth, and Face the Fire) by Nora Roberts
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
6. The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
7. The Host by Stephanie Meyer
8. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
9. The Mortal Instruments Trilogy (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess) by Cassandra Clare
10. The Giver by Lois Lowry

That is my year in books. Honestly, one of the things I am looking forward to in 2015 is creating a new list of books read in one year. I want to at least read 50, but we'll see how that goes. 

What books have you read lately that stood out to you? Also, if you are on Goodreads, look me up, I'd love to experience the magic of books with you!

Happy Reading in 2015!

2015 Reading Challenge

I love to read and reading challenges. I found a really cool one to work on this year. My goal is to read (at least) 50 books this year so this will be a fun way to do it.

POPSUGAR put out an ultimate reading list this year with a wide range of books that span eras and genres instead of assigning specific books. I am looking forward to trying something new. And like always, I will keep track of my reading list in Goodreads if you want to try and keep up.

They have an awesome graphic that you can get HERE.

I'm looking forward to working on this list. I would love for you to join me in this challenge! Let me know in the comments if you do!

Connect with me on Goodreads and Facebook!

Happy Reading!