What's On Your Summer Reading List?

...the strongest friends of the soul – BOOKS... 

Emily Dickinson

When I was a kid, in small town Austin, Minnesota, I lived for summer. After a harsh winter, I couldn't wait to run barefoot or swim in the neighbor's pool or run through the cold water coming through the sprinkler.

Flower gardens. A warm sun. Picnics. A week at Green Lake in Spicer. The county fair. My birthday. 

Bliss!

I don't recall much before age seven, when memory truly kicks in. Snippets here and there. I do remember when my dad took me to the public library downtown and I got my first library card. It was blue and had many lines, which quickly filled with due dates. 

In summer's beauty, I could ride my bicycle downtown to the library and fill the bike's basket with my chosen summer's fare. The school library always limited me to two books a week--and limited time to choose them. A lone summer library visit offered not only respite from my household filled with three brothers and all their activity. It gave me a place to hide in the quiet.

Perhaps that is why I never notice the quiet now. Noise, yes. Quiet no. 

I have friends who say they keep the TV on for the noise, like having someone else in the house. I can't comprehend that. What goes on in my head is not quiet for a second. I'm a great companion for myself. 

Obviously, I do live with someone. And, when he is home, the quiet only comes if he's reading or napping. I've learned to adjust. I don't mind, as I'm most grateful for his presence. Since he's retired and we survived that adjustment, he's learned what it means when I hold both palms up in the air. A silent and kind Do Not Disturb. 

I respect the same for him when he naps on the couch in the middle of my household chores. Or when he has his morning quiet time or is reading a book or car magazine. Or goes to bed early. 

We co-exist well. 

While he watches something on one of the myriad of choices on the TV, I sometimes join. We usually watch one show together. We've finished  Better Call Saul and five seasons of Fargo. Currently Season Three of The Bear. 

More likely, I retreat either to my ear buds and an audio library book. Or to the bedroom, where with an absence of a television set, I can choose something from my Books To Be Read shelf, and escape into my own world. 

Which is especially nice in summer. When time seems more available; the day much longer. And remembrances of those summer days as a child, reading a book outside while swaying in my dad's hammock, away from the mayhem of a busy household. Hoping not to be discovered.

This summer, I've tackled my To Be Read Shelf, which sometimes creeps onto another shelf as well. Two rows thick. I counted once. Over 35 books. Some have sat there for years. This summer I wanted new books, but coming from depression-era parents, I have something in me that makes me think I need to appreciate and finish what I have and go from there. 

I tackled the shelf. Seventeen books gone. Many I had a hard time starting, but I found if I got a loan of the audio from the library, I could start more easily, with the book in hand. Books that have been sitting on a shelf for more than ten years are often readily available at the library. 

My shelf has whittled down to this. 

With that success, I ridded myself of depression guilt and went on a Summer Reading binge purchase adventure. Here is my new stack which I'm already devouring. 

Do I feel quilty for my purchases? Hell, no. Do you have any idea what those writer's went through to get those books written and published? Plus, how little they will make from them? 

Do you know how much I enjoy opening the pages of a new book? The smell. The knowing I'm the first to turn its pages. The joy of a good story?

Helps that the guilt is easily assuaged when you normally get your books from the library or through an exchange with friends.

So, what's on your summer reading list? For those of you who watch TV, any good suggestions for a new series for my husband and me? We like those with good writing and character development, and, maybe, are a little twisted? 

Happy summer everybody. My hammock calls.

Gender Rules

1. "Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you. The right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass." —Mac MacGuff in Juno
2. 
   
3. Tongue in cheek post. Tongue in cheek. 

My husband and I both just returned from vacations. Separate ones. He attended a stag party, as they used to call them. Eighty men gathering for a week of golf in the desert of Nevada and Arizona. Me? A Hen Party, as some people (not me) say. Twenty-five women on a humanitarian trip to Cuba. 

We both came home different than we left. Me, touched by the resiliant Cuban people in a way I'm still trying to understand and a need for my introverted self to recover from the women chatter. Him --  trophy in hand and testosterone exuding like microwaves from his week of manly talk and camaraderie in a male world. Men. 

I certainly do appreciate that we have these opportunities, but I'm always amazed as I watch my husband. And wonder who the hell this person is when he returns from one of these junkets. It doesn't take long to get him back in shape. I usually listen and rather than going on the attack about male chauvinism and other BS, wait for him to meld back into reality, before joking about the stag mentality that accompanies his return. 

A few months ago, I had a long discussion with a friend of mine, who is gay, about gender roles. We had just been with several other women friends and one was speaking of how now that her son is marrying, she's had to give up the key to his house, upon request.  I'd then talked about the differences of being a boy mom as opposed to a girl mom when our children marry. You might know the old sayings about the mother of the groom. 

Wear beige and keep your mouth shut unless to say, "Oh my, what a lovely idea." 

How hard it is as the girl mom can call whenever and often and has more of an easy in. The boy mom must tread lightly on the couple's life. That where having sons is such an incredible joy, it is heartbreak when we must let them go as they approach adulthood. They love us, but if we don't let them go, they will not be able to have a successful relationship with their chosen love. 

My gay friend took issue with this asking if it has to be that way or if in today's world, we can change those gender roles. 

Hmmm. 

My women's group that I traveled to Cuba with was an eclectic mix of women. Some were moms, some not. Some married. Some never. Some not. Some had stay-at-home mom stints. Some long-term caregivers. Successful careers. 

We were journalists, lawyers, physicians, nurses, teachers, engineers, editors, writers, real estate brokers, social workers, film makers and I don't know all as I never was never able to sit next to all 25 of them at lunch or dinner and hear their stories. 

We were all curious women on an humanitarian adventure to a forbidden land. Which meant the conversations were rich. Discussions of current events, politics, socialism, literacy, poverty, music, dancing, books, children, The future. We learned massive amounts of history, rode in old cars, learned how to salsa dance and make a really good mojito.The essentials while we shared the gifts we brought for the needy people of Cuba. 

Conversation flowed. Never ebbing. Never ending to a point where toward the end, I needed to retreat, as did a couple others of my tribe. Overwhelmed by the depth. Needing time to absorb all that was presented. The chatter eventually too much for this introverted/extrovert. Quiet and contemplation required before diving in again.

Now, I was not privvy to the conversations that went on at my husband's venue. However, having had three brothers and no sisters, three sons and no daughters, I have a pretty good idea as to the depth. My husband said the weather was perfect. He took 2nd place in the Old Geezer flight. My oldest son took first in his. They ate poorly, all the stuff they weren't supposed to eat. Took naps. Some gambled a little. Some a lot. Some not at all. I received thorough descriptions of the golf courses played. The best holes and the worst. You know, all the important stuff. 

I asked what they talked about at dinner or whenever? A puzzled look returned. 

"The usual stuff. You know." 

Yeah. I know. 

I do wish my gay friend, who challenged the gender norms in our discussion, could have been there when this husband of mine, whom she has met several times and likes, came through the door, exhuberant in the waves of testosterone emanating from him. Tell me how you change that! 

In the end, he had his fun. I had my fun. 

We are home. He fixed the garbage disposal. I made dinner. All is well.