Readers and Authors

Please support your favorite books and authors. The review can be short, and if that feels too hard simply rating a book and giving it four or five stars helps greatly too. This makes a great difference in the life of an author.

 

As much as we prefer buying books at our favorite local independent bookstores, and online indie stores, the big 'A' (and you know who I'm talking about when I say the big 'A') has a giant hold of the market, and people DO read the reviews there, before they head to a local bookstore to purchase. If you are on Goodreads head over there to rate your favorite books too. I know it takes time, but do consider giving a bit of your time to support the books you have enjoyed reading. Think of it as reader community volunteer work time you are giving. That's what I do. 

A great big thank you to everyone who has written a review, or has given a rating to my books. I sincerely appreciate you.

Writing, Reading and Soup

“I’d love to be a writer, but I just don’t have the discipline,” people tell me. I know what they mean: neither do I. If I had to write the way some people think it is done—with “discipline” by sitting down at my writing desk at the same time every day and for a specific set of hours, then I would not have a long list of published work to my credit. Instead, I write within the nooks and crannies of my life. Every day I weave a few hours of writing time into my days and nights. Before dawn, after a morning walk, at night when the house grows quiet, driven not from discipline—but by tenacity and a passion to write. 

 

When my rough-draft stories line up on the page, heart-centered, and I begin to feel productive, I look forward to getting back to my writing after doing whatever else the days and nights ask of me. I have been braiding writing and life together for more than four decades. In years past, when I was employed, I needed to write before or after my job. Now I have more freedom. But I don’t have enough liberty write full-time because I have been given the gift of a very full life with beautiful family. A newly retired partner searching for his rhythm. Young grandchildren in their prime, bursting forth on the scene. 

Meanwhile, I’m finding my new writing rhythm tucked between coming and going. Back and forth from my home near the sea, to our family’s home in the mountains. All winter the rain, hail and heavy wind have often kept me indoors. It is my favorite writing weather. It’s also my favorite soup weather, and it’s board game playing weather for the kids waiting for me to join in, with our dear dogs and cats tracking in mud and cat litter, and all of the family people all about, working, playing and resting at home. 

Even with all of this “indoor” to-ing and fro-ing taking place all around me, I carved out space to write two essays that have been accepted for publication. Big smile. 

Yesterday the pot of 15-bean soup I made was hot, spicy and downright sincere. I doubled the recipe and changed it up a bit, because that’s the way I cook. It will taste even better tonight and I’m pretty sure it could win a medal at the State Fair. 

 

Two pounds of 15-bean dried soup mix. Any brand will work, toss out the seasoning packet. Diced onion, celery, carrots, garlic, chicken broth, tomato sauce, New Mexico chili powder, cumin, oregano, fresh ground black pepper, cayenne, and bay leaves. Cooked in my instant pot. I served it with fresh baked cornbread. 

What I have not been able to do for a long time is take a “Reading Vacation.” Although I read all the time, also within the nooks and crannies of my life, a couple of times each year I like to go on what I call a “Reading Vacation” with a day or two set aside for the sole purpose of reading for hours at a time. I began this ritual when my kids were small, when the shape of my life was built around the needs of others, and I had to be creative in carving out time for myself. Back in those days my reading vacations were short, sometimes only for an afternoon. I'd hire a sitter, and hibernate in my bedroom, reading. 

 

Now, as if by magic, I have been returned to the way things were back when my three kids were growing up. And yet all winter I have read many books. I re-read The Way to Rainy Mountain and House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday. I read both books years ago and needed to hear his words again. I also read more fiction than usual. The Seed Keeper, West With Giraffes, Jumpstart the World, A Different Kind of Gone. 

 

I favor memoir, with a keen interest in adoption memoirs, and read A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung, I Would Meet You Anywhere by Susan Kiyo Ito. Also, Autumn Song: Essays on Absence by Patrice Gopo, which reads like memoir, and while it's not about adoption, it carries my favored themes of race, identity, place and home.

I enjoyed all of the books, however, I Would Meet You Anywhere might be my favorite memoir of all time. It's beautifully written, and I also share much history with the author. We don’t know each other, yet we have lived experience in common, and friends in common. I read the book feeling as if we were sitting at the kitchen table together talking. Autumn Song left me feeling the same way, like being united with a long-time friend. 

“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading—that is a good life.” 

 —Annie Dillard

We are heading into the season I love best. Cool and steady, dependable

Winter arrived early here. We’ve had days of rain and yesterday the low was thirty-eight, with a high of fifty-eight. Soup weather. At night I hear the waves in the distance pound the shoreline. Winter beach grows wild. High tides claim the sand, fog and wind are my steady companions. Up on the mountain, a twenty-minute drive from here, frost glistens in gentle sunlight. On my morning walk through the redwoods, I zip up my jacket, and enjoy the chilly shade, and the freedom of being without a hat, without sunglasses. Patches of soft sun find me as I traverse the path, and I feel the warmth for a few moments, and then on the next stretch of the road, above me the trees are so tall I can barely see the sky. 

We are heading into the season I love best. Cool and steady, dependable. Around these parts there is strong identity with either the beach or the mountains. Folks near the sea are beach oriented, and on the mountain where I spend much time the culture is all-mountain identity. I’m both ocean and mountains, and the mountain part of me is strongest. 

 

It occurs to me that I have always been a border person, half this and half that.

 

At the moment, I have a winter root vegetable soup simmering, and I can't put the book I’m currently reading down. 

What have I been reading? Just finished “In Love” by Amy Bloom. It was a staff favorite at my local bookstore, and I agree. And last week I fell in love with “The All of It” by Jeanette Haien. 

Truth, Beauty and Taco Soup

Although I read all the time within the nooks and crannies of my life, a couple of times each year I go on what I traditionally call a “Reading Vacation.” I began this ritual when my kids were small, when the shape of my life was built around the needs of others, and I had to be creative in carving out time for myself. Back in those days my reading vacations were short, sometimes only for an afternoon. I'd hire a sitter, and hibernate in my bedroom, reading. 

Now my babies are all grown. But even without kids to care for, it’s easy for any of us to claim no time for reading: harder to look at what we’re doing instead, and why all of it is presumed to be more worthy. Some people really do work double shifts, or are otherwise without access to read. But many of us are lucky enough to do some things for fun. Reading for me is one of those things. Besides, when I don’t read enough, I get a gnawing sense of dis-ease. It’s an appetite that isn’t sated by other things. 

 

First, I block two days off on my calendar and refuse to make any commitments. Next, I pick out a book from my reading list. On day one, I tidy up loose ends around the house, just enough to keep things stable, and then I make a big pot of soup, a double batch, and it will taste even better on the second night. 

While my soup simmers, I get comfortable and start reading. For two days reading will not be in the background, but the centerpiece of my life. 

Think mystery, not mastery. I will tend to any emergency that might come up, but I won’t make any unnecessary phone calls, read email, or go on social media. I will read, and take breaks, go for a walk, or gaze out the window on rainy days. A short nap perhaps, and then a return to reading. For two days reading is my practice, my mediation, and my highest priority.

On a recent Reading Vacation, I read a memoir recommended by a close friend, Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett, and I could not put the book down. I felt myself a part of her writer-world, imagined my way into her early writer years at Sarah Lawrence, as one of her friends, dreaming myself back, what if I had applied for Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony? And why didn’t I apply? I was in reading heaven, and when the book ended the journey led me to Lucy Grealy’s memoir, Autobiography of a Face. It was heavy, but I’m glad for the insight gained, as I’m the mother of a son who dealt with the aftermath of childhood cancer, chemo and radiation, but that’s another story. 

I love reading memoirs, and recently I also read Finding Freedom by Erin French. But sometimes I turn to fiction. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, The Vanishing Half  by Brit Bennett. And with my focus still centered on home, rooting in, organizing, decluttering and décor, this summer I read Making Space, Clutter Free by Tracy McCubbin, and it might be the best book I've read yet in this genre. 

Finally, reading is good citizenship. Once you start reading one thing leads to another. There are diverse book clubs to join, along with the Goodreads community online. Usually, I learn something to carry back into my worldly life. If you ask me, that’s reason enough to make Reading Vacations high priority. 

 

Sometimes, I have the luxury of having a Reading Vacation alone, with the house all to myself. It doesn’t happen very often. After dinner, the long evening of midsummer reading stretches ahead of me. In the morning I wake up aware of a breeze coming through the wide windows, sunlight washing the walls, and hear the red shoulder hawk and cormorants answer their daily song. I make a cup of coffee, grab my book, and dive back into reading. It gives me the sensation of traveling, in community, on vacation, and far from my worldly responsibilities. 

When my Reading Vacation day ends, when the question of dinner comes up, I look forward to my already made, ready to heat up, hearty bowl of soup. 

 

Taco Soup 

1 pound ground turkey, 1 small onion, chopped. 2 cloves garlic, minced. 4 cups chicken broth. I 15-oz can of beans (Bean Trio, a mix of pinto, kidney and black beans), 1 15-oz can diced fire roasted tomatoes, 1 cup fresh or frozen corn, 1 4-ounce can chopped green chilies, cumin and chili powder. I like to mix a blend of New Mexico, Chipotle, Ancho chili powder. 

 

Sauté the turkey, chopped onion, and garlic in a large soup pot. Add chicken broth, beans, tomatoes, corn, chilies, cumin and chili powder. I like it spicy, so I add a lot of chili and cumin. Simmer the soup for at least an hour. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with warm tortillas, fresh cilantro, grated cheese or sour cream (optional) and plenty of salsa.

At Home on the Mountain

A soft mist fell this morning, the sky looks silver-blue in this light, and the wind has cleared. The redwood trees are still, nothing is moving across the mountain. 

Growing up in the kitchen. In our family my daughter's kitchen is the place to be. The days we gather and the time we spend cooking dinner is greatly important because it’s just about the only time we have together after our separate work and school schedules, community volunteer agendas, house chores and yard work duties. Not all of our meals are complicated. Yet the days when we cook from scratch, gives us more time to focus on gratitude. The dogs are at our feet, watchful, my grandkids help chop, mix, stir, then dash off, lost in play, and return to the kitchen. We clear the days clutter off the table, sit down, eat slowly and savor every bite. 

 

Sunday. We are making tomatillo Soup, with chicken bone broth, sliced, peeled and roasted carrots and sweet potatoes, fresh lime juice, roasted garlic, sea salt, a couple of heaping handfuls of fresh spinach leaves, and fresh picked tomatillos. The summer garden has faded, but we still have tomatillos clinking to spent vines. The tomatillos will be husked, diced, roasted, made into a thick salsa, then added to the pot of soup. We make a triple batch of soup. Enough for both families to have a meal, and plenty to go into the freezer for another day. At the table we garnish the soup with chopped cilantro, Serrano peppers and diced avocado. But first the soup will simmer on the back of the stove. 

 

While the soup simmers, we make enchiladas with the tomatillo salsa, and fish, fresh caught Wahoo, barbecued. I fix a big pan of New Mexico-style, stacked enchiladas, along with a pan of rolled enchiladas to go into the freezer to eat next week. 

 

Monday. Today I am at home in my small place. A pounding all-day rain urges me to settle down at my desk and meet pending writing deadlines. At noon I want a cup of tea and while the water is boiling, I check my email, and receive good news. My manuscript has been accepted for publication by a university press I greatly value. 

Outside my window I hear waves, half a mile away, pounding the shoreline. The air is heavy with eucalyptus, and I hear the cormorants in the lagoon. They have become more active with winter, riding the ragged ocean tide all afternoon, diving under the surge, fishing for their dinner. In the evening they come home to the lagoon to rest. 

 

When late afternoon rolls around, with my work completed, I have the freedom of knowing we have the enchiladas for dinner. After its rest in the fridge the flavors have melded and it will taste even better. I can round out the meal with a green salad, freeing me from cooking, offering time to read. Currently I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass. Taking my time. Reading one chapter, then closing the book and stepping outside to feel my feet growing up from the ground and let my thoughts float on air currents. I feel the rain falling on me. Then I duck under the porch roof, and listen to beautiful rain dropping on the thirsty drought ridden ground.

 

Next week we will gather on the mountain again, to make a big pot of Winter Minestrone Soup, with pancetta, carrots, celery, butternut squash, garlic, thyme, tomatoes, spinach, chicken stock, cannellini beans, pasta, good olive oil and freshly grated Parmesan for serving. 

 

Now that I’m dividing my time on this good earth in two spaces, days at home near the ocean, and days in the mountains, I belong to both the land and the sea. And I’m discovering something has wholly shifted for me. It’s my newfound understanding of home. 

Home. It serves as both origin and return, as haven. Security, and as a platform for collecting, organizing and utilizing the things we maintain and express ourselves. I need, appreciate, and love, having a central dwelling, a place to hang my hat, a stable home to return to, and a fixed address to call my own. It’s the thing I desperately missed after we moved and stayed in the trailer while we searched for a new home to call our own. Not having a home of my own was hard for me. But I had shelter, a safe, comfortable, place to sleep. All of my needs were met. But I could not enjoy it fully. Too much time was waisted trying to find things that were packed up. 

My plan was to have just the basics in the trailer. Just what we needed. It didn’t work out that way. All of the “what if I need this” items got mixed up with the necessary stuff. Instead of calm, I felt chaos. 

 

Now that I'm settled into my new home space, I have a grand view when I look back. It was all of my many boxes and boxes of belongings, the furniture stored, the stacks of stuff I had no permanent place to keep. I was not craving my own home near as much as I longed for a place to keep, use, and display all of that stuff. 

Yet now that I have released at least half of that stuff, if not more, of all those things, I feel a freedom as wide as the sky. My new home currently houses only needed items, and the things that bring us great joy. If something is going to live here, it must be an important part of the tapestry of our lives, instead of something that takes up valuable space while waiting to see if we might need it eventually. 

With less, I’m finding my center of gravity, coming to terms with myself in a new stage of life, in a new landscape. Finding myself feeling more at home, paradoxically, after letting go. 

 

These days when I pack up my overnight bag, instead of the great big carry-all, I once required, now everything I need fits inside a small tote bag. 

 

My thoughts return to the mountain. Yesterday leaves from the acorn tree blew in the wind, yellow and orange, blending with redwood giants. After my afternoon walk, I stood on a carpet with forest green fallen branches at my feet mixed with muddy earth. My shoes caked with the land I frequent, and carry within.

Winter Beach

The tunnel of winter is settling over my life, ushered in by that great official delude, the end of daylight savings time. If it were up to me California would stay on standard time all year long. The only thing good about sunlight petering out before the afternoon is done, is that I can move freely outside without a hat and without sunscreen. But since it’s not up to me, I only vow each winter to get my soup-making vegetables chopped before I lace up my tennis shoes and head outside for an afternoon stroll. 

A high tide will roll in soon. The ocean grows wild off-season, waves pounding the shoreline, claiming the sand, crashing over the rocks. With sunlight fading, my thoughts turn to the moon, a waning crescent now. Pinpointing changing seasons, ebb and tide. 

 

No matter what the clock might say, at my house dinner time falls soon after sunset and soup-making is a category of cheer I especially enjoy in the winter after the daylight stealing incident. 

 

Tonight, I’m making a pot of autumn vegetable soup with late season San Marzano tomatoes plucked from spent vines in our family garden, along with farmer’s market zucchini, carrots, butternut squash and sweet potatoes—red garnet, orange Covington, purple Murasaki. Celery, onion, plenty of flat leaf parsley. I season the soup with Herbes de Provence, and it simmers in a rich chicken broth I’ve pulled from the freezer. 

 

Winter is also the best time for re-reading. Along with the collection of new books I’ve gathered, The Hidden Lives of Owls, Braiding Sweet Grass, Reasons to Stay Alive, Crying in the H Mart, Beautiful Country, The Vanishing Half. I will also pull old favorites from my shelves, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Gathering Moss, Tending the Wild, and spend time with stories that leave me feeling as if the author has invited me over for a long chat at her kitchen table. I also favor memoirs and essay collections so intimate I imagine myself leaning over the shoulder of the writer, feeling her thoughts. As winter deepens, I will reread pages from Crazy Brave, Claiming Ground, SafeKeeping, H Is for Hawk. 

 

In the past I have always read one book at a time. When I’m finished with one, then I begin another. Yet now that I have a much smaller home to maintain, without any yard work, less household chores to do, and with few friends living nearby, I have more time for cooking and reading, and I’m making up for those lost years when I had little free time to read. Lately my new pattern is to have two books going. Something informative, deep learning, mind expanding, or soul stretching, and a mood catching book, inspirational or a quirky niche topic that grabs me. 

I don’t always succeed at managing to keep two going. Often, I get swept away and read one or the other all the way through to the end. This is what I thirst for, I realize, is for my reading life to have a natural balance, with an easy unforced rhythm, like soup-making. 

 

When my potatoes are sending pale feeders out into the world, a lone onion remains, the garlic is at the end of a long skinny empty braid, and the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator is full, with freshness dwindling, I gather the goods, and get to chopping, the scents and flavors drawing me in.

I’m pretty fanatical about emptying the fridge before grocery shopping again and starting over. A quick inventory found leeks, and my thoughts began to hum to the tune of potato leek soup for tomorrow. But then I saw we had plenty of basil and zucchini, and the next thing I knew I was transported, and began making plans for Ina Garten’s Zucchini Basil Soup, with good olive oil, fresh ground nutmeg, Parmesan and red pepper flakes. There is a bottle of good dry white wine, for the recipe-required 1 cup for the soup, and a glass for me to sip while the soup simmers. 

 

I’m both settled in, and not settled into my new home space and new community. With everything all around me starting to feel familiar, but not yet intimate, reading and soup-making keep me feeling connected, grounded, centered, while I am beginning to root in, while this new landscape teaches me who I am.

The Moon in Pisces with an Appetite Rising

The sun is high and the days are long. A flock of crow gossip noisily above and a dragonfly is hovering over the birdbath, shimmering with almost iridescent light. In the summer dinner time always sneaks up on me by surprise, catches me unaware in the middle of doing something else. 

But today I’m thinking about dinner even before I’ve had lunch. I'm making the pinto bean dish I collected in Taos the day my friend Luke arranged for me to have my astrology read. It’s one of my favorites, being hot, spicy and down right sincere. 

I probably would not have thought to seek out an astrology reading, and it turned out to be wildly fun when my friend set up the appointment and sent me off. 

Rosemary, the astrologer, had silver hair reaching almost to her waist. She opened her bright blue door and I walked into her sunny kitchen. Her cottage floors were made of used brick and the natural pine cupboards were snug and the doorways were low. 

Open shelves housed baskets of dried oregano, dill, sage, and canning jars filled with apricots and cherries. Fragrant basil spilled out of a clear glass container, a clump of freshly picked cilantro sat near the sink and she had a pot of pinto beans simmering on her coal black stove. 

“I want you to see this Yod. It's forming a star, a parallelogram, by the way it is happening between two nodes and a trine and it’s rare.” The words flowed from Rosemary like clear water from a mountain stream. She handed me a tan paper with my astrological chart hand drawn, in careful script and we sat down together at her kitchen table. I settled into an oak armchair, propping my elbows on the table, listening with a hungry mind. 

Luke and Rosemary were close friends and when I was with her I had one of those feelings as if I'd known her for years too. We talked for hours about astrology, herbs, medicine plants, healing and the helper plants that aren't strong enough on their own and must be used with other healing plants. And we talked about different ways to fix pinto beans. 

The day ended with me gaining a better understanding of the way the planets shape my life. I’m an Aries, with an Aries-Cancer chart type. Sagittarius rising, with a Pisces moon. Most important of all is that I'm a Yod person—it means I should expect the unexpected, which comes as no surprise. 

Everything Rosemary explained about my astrology chart rang true and took me home to who I am. It was like water returning to the riverbed...  and I also had a sudden inspiration to cook. 

My Favorite Pinto Bean Casserole 
About 2 cups of pinto beans 
A small amount of cooked chicken, diced – optional 
1 cup of cooked brown rice 
A few dollops of sour cream, to bind 
1 can (15 oz) of yellow hominy, or you can soak dried hominy
A yellow and red bell pepper, chopped 
Onion, chopped 
2 or 3 garlic cloves, chopped 
3 large tomatoes, chopped 
Fresh or dried oregano 
New Mexico chili powder 
Cumin

There aren't any exact amounts of anything added, because that's the way I cook. Use your own cooking instincts based on if you like it hearty or lean, spicy or mild. I like it hearty and spicy.

In a large skillet over medium heat sauté peppers, garlic, onion in olive oil until tender. Add tomatoes, chili powder and cumin, cook 5 minutes. Take the skillet off the stove and add other ingredients, along with a little bit of sour cream. Stir to blend. Put into a casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 35 or 40 minutes. And if you make this in the summer, like I'm doing today, turn the fan on high and open the window wide. 

I like to serve this with sliced red serrano chiles, green onion and cilantro on top, along with with a salad. 

Peppermint sun tea is brewed and chilled, and today I have simmered an extra large pot of pinto beans, plenty to make a bean soup later in the week, to eat along with a loaf of crusty sourdough bread. It's a wonder-fully filling dish in which the main ingredient is the star. The bean soup is amazing after the beans rest in the fridge. I will top it off with a salsa made with fresh picked tomatoes. 

Then I make a mental note to call Rosemary. She had mentioned a few astrology books I might want to read, and I want to hear more about my yod.