I think I’ve found the secret to my reading groove.
I love to read, but when I’m stressed, it’s easy to find myself using less helpful activities to fill my time (doom-scrolling through Instagram reels immediately comes to mind). I’ve created reading goals in the past, but then it feels like a goal or task I’ve failed at. It becomes homework, but the point of reading is for the joy (and, yes, sometimes the learning, too). What I’ve done instead is created a system where I’m always keeping a story nearby and easy to access. I’ve been listening to a book on audio from Libby and been reading another book on my Kindle. The secret, for me, is to have the books be completely different while I’m reading them. For example, I’m reading a fluffy romance book with ALL the tropes on my Kindle and working on a memoir that explores the history and culture of Native Americans as my audiobook. Generally, I’ve been splitting up reading a heavier nonfiction book with a fluffy romance or family drama book. I love the feeling of learning something new, but I also love turning off my very busy brain and just enjoying some “friends to lovers” action.
Usually my drives are filled with phone calls home to my mom to talk about our days. However, living in Guam means that I’m 14 hours ahead, and my afternoon drive is her very early morning. So, my afternoon drive has become dedicated to my audiobook. My boyfriend has had some late nights at work lately, so cooking dinner has been my audiobook time as well. It can be lonely living in a new place that is so far from home, but it’s nice that I can take stories with me wherever I go.
My Kindle book is perfect for my early mornings on the weekends. I’m not great at sleeping in late, so I can spend time quietly reading my book without even needing to turn on a light. I do prefer physical copies of books, but with the move, it’s been easier to have digital and audio copies on hand. A big shout out to the Libby app that lets me use my library card wherever I go for digital and audio copies!
Here’s a glimpse into what I’ve read lately:
The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland
Disability advocacy and health are two topics that fascinate me. My father and brother both have incurable health conditions, and having grown up with news of doctors visits and hospital stays, I carry the stress and grief and uncertainty that words like “incurable” carry. I, therefore, find it interesting to read about others with unexpected or unusual health conditions that challenge them and to learn about the ways they’ve met and faced their own obstacles.
Andrew Leland’s memoir is as much a story of his own journey towards blindness as it is a broad history of blindness in our past and current society. I find the “advocacy” portion that he writes about at such length frustrating and enlightening. Something many people forget is that disability is a spectrum, and people’s abilities and independence vary from person to person and day to day. Leland articulates so well that we carry the assumption that all people who are blind have no sight at all and that we judge people if we don’t think they’re “disabled enough” to be using tools like a cane. This then translates to shame and guilt for using resources and tools that should be helping people to feel more confident and independent. Leland writes of how he struggled to use his cane because he still had some sight, but he struggled in the dark and with his peripheral vision. He felt he wasn’t “blind enough” and would be judged by the people around him. Yes, strangers did show judgment, but he was also able to navigate with far less fear and uncertainty.
I also feel like the battle for accessibility services like audio description services shows that a one-size-fits-all approach can never be fully effective. Some people want to hear about the colors and get a really immersive description of the scene. Some people want just the basics. A compromise still leaves some unhappy. Is there a perfect solution…no. Could things be better…yes. I think it’s important to have the people being supported have the most input in the services that support them. Who better can say what the community needs than the community itself!
I also like that he highlights that accommodations for disability actually more broadly help the general population. For example, curb cuts make navigating streets easier for people with mobility challenges, but they also make it easier for cyclists and families with strollers. As I’ve taught with Of Mice and Men for years, our society is a far more accessible and fair place than it has been in the past, but there is still so much that can be done to uplift and support people with disabilities. For example, creating more job opportunities is so key to fostering feelings of independence and dignity and lifting people out of poverty. As it stands now, if you receive Social Security Income for disability, you cannot have more than $2,000 in your bank account or you will not qualify for your benefits. However, the rate of unemployment for the blind is so high that the support is necessary for many to survive.
For the most part, I really enjoyed Leland’s memoir. However, I found that he could spend too much time philosophizing, and I would have liked to hear more about his own journey as a husband and father. His worries about his own identity as a blind man and if he was “blind enough” could feel a little off-putting at times, especially after a doctor told him that he could expect to have sight for years to come and his response was not as joyful as would be expected.
Rather appropriately, I listened to this as an audiobook and felt it was a great format for the narrative!
Sandwich by Catherine Newman (with spoilers)
I love a messy family drama, and a dramatic family story that takes place in a Northern beach town was the cozy entertainment I was craving. Spanning the length of one week, it follows a family’s vacation and the memories of Rocky as she explores her relationship with her husband, two adult children, and elderly parents. In many parts, the novel had the bittersweet feelings that made it an emotionally fulfilling book. Rocky looks back with retrospective fondness on the years she felt stressed, exhausted, and generally impatient with as she lived through them. She loves her friendship with her grown children, but she also longs for those fleeting moments of their childhood and toddler years. The vividness and lyrical quality of her memories were relatable and made my heart ache for the fleeting nature of childhood. However, not all of her reflections are so positive. Rocky carries a secret from her husband and children, but it is not so secret from the reader. While it is good for Rocky that the revelation is not a dramatic and, in the grand scheme of the narrative, consequential moment, it is disappointing for the reader that it doesn’t carry more repercussions and conflict.
The book is ultimately an exploration into motherhood in all of its good and all of its difficulty. I think the framing of moments was particularly strong. While in the moment the children’s sandy fingers and crankiness was an obstacle, reflecting on it years later, Rocky wishes she could relive those days. There is such a mentality that “the better days will come” that we can miss the “good days” while we’re in them. There is an urging to find joy and relish our present and the people we are with, knowing that those moments are all too short.
As an adult child living away from my parents, who I consider my best friends, I feel that grief of growing up. I feel that ache of sadness knowing that time together is precious. It made me homesick for family vacations.
The decisions of the characters are often regrettable, and the conversations around the preciousness of life were disappointing regarding the choices the characters made. It ultimately let me down how two major characters chose not to have their children given that the family’s love was such a pivotal part of the story. I understand that Newman wanted to show the complications of exhaustion and stress in postpartum motherhood, but I still wished Rocky had chosen to lean on the support of her husband and say yes to her pregnancy. I love when characters courageously say “yes” to unexpected pregnancy (Ready or Not by Cara Bastone immediately comes to mind) and lean on their communities, and I wish this happened more often in literature and media.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, but I feel like the second half lacked some of the necessary emotional impact. A sudden death, an abortion, and a wedding all were crammed into the final chapter without the space and depth I felt that they deserved to give an appropriate closure to the characters we had become intimately close to.
Outside of the books I’ve been:
Cooking: Because Guam is so far from the continental United States, I try to utilize as many ingredients that are local to Guam as I can. Lately, I have used a lot of eggplant, bok choy, and sweet potato tips in my cooking. One of the local dishes I’ve reproduced at home is tinaktak, a super easy weeknight dinner. I used this recipe from our local grocery store chain as a base but have continued to make tweaks and modifications to the seasoning. Turmeric and black pepper have found their way into many of my dishes for their anti-inflammatory properties.
Watching: After a binge watch of Lost, I’ve been enjoying watching Gordon Ramsey’s Hotel Hell. It’s a little embarrassing to say, but I’ve also been very entertained by the first episode of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. If my show is reality TV and dramatic, it’s making me happy at the moment.
Wearing: I’m still on the hunt for flats for work that are both comfortable and durable. I love the comfort of Birdie’s, but I found that they’d get pretty worn down at the end of the school year. This year I’m trying Allbirds, and they’re comfortable, but definitely getting a rough treatment from the rainy season. Because of the daily downpours, my flats have found their way through many, many puddles. They are machine washable, so I’m going to see if they recover after a little care this week. Similarly, I’m trying to find a pair of casual sneakers that are water resistant (or waterproof) to get through all of this rain. If you have any recommendations, please send them my way! I miss my Hunter rainboots (that were so necessary to get through Williamsburg’s frequent downpours), but they were too bulky to fit in my luggage.
Listening: I’m an obsessive listener when it comes to music. When I find a song that I like, I have it on a loop for a solid hour while I’m lesson planning or grading. Lately, some of those songs have included:
“Congress Reel” by Tophouse
“Devil’s Dance Floor” by Flogging Molly
“Jesse” by Charles Wesley Godwin
“I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” by Taylor Swift
“Florida” by Taylor Swift (featuring Florence + The Machine)
“Feathered Indians” by Tyler Childers
“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” by Luke Combs (I did not expect to like Twisters as much as I did)
“Pink Skies” by Zach Bryan
“Oak Island” by Zach Bryan
“Sarah” by the Derina Harvey Band
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