2022 in Books

2022 was a tough year, and reading, like everything else, felt harder than it usually does for me. Still, reading also saves me, always. My list isn't as long as I would have liked this year, but here it is.   

All American Boys, by Jason Reynolds and Brandon Kiely 

Every English teacher probably knows about this one, or they should. I used it in literature circles with a social justice focus and my students really loved it. 

The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich 

I loved this book so much. I can't say that I think it's Erdrich's absolute best (I wouldn't suggest this as an introduction to her work), but the story was so timely and weird and poignant and warmly funny and heartbreaking all at once. Tookie is such a fabulous character. And it's a book-lover's book, to be sure. I also know that part of my love is that this story is set in a real place I hold dear to my heart. All the stars for this one.

These Precious Day, by Ann Patchett 

This is everything I absolutely love about Ann Patchett -- talk about a book to hug. I always enjoy her fiction, but I LOVE her essays. I started it on the way to Portland on a February Saturday and finished it when we returned home the next night. It sparked something in me that had felt a bit dull lately -- maybe the desire to write things, a hunger to read great sentences. Not just to finish a book because I set some arbitrary reading goal.

 

Still Life, by Sarah Winman 

I loved everything about this book, and it's one of the best of 2022. Absolutely worth owning in hardcover. 

"So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes careless. And in unsuspecting moments, the pain catches and reminds one of all that's been missing. the fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfill and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit, Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity." 

The Visit, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt 

I taught this play to my seniors in the spring, when their focus was at an all-time low. They had fun with it. 

 

The Forgotten Girls, by Sara Blaedel 

A difficult student recommended it to me and I mostly read it because it gave us something to talk about.

American Street, by Ibi Zoboi 

Another one I read because I used it in lit circles with my sophomores. I enjoyed it, loved the main character's voice, and I'd read more from this author. 

The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be, by Brian Doyle 

I read this during Lent and passed it on to one of the most important people in my life. Brian Doyle remains the writer I turn to when I need to breathe and read beautiful sentences. 

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 

One of the most immersive books I have ever read. I'm in awe of what Jeffers manages to do here; it's both expansive and intimate, and the narrative voice is pitch-perfect through every moment, every historical shift. I let this sit on myself for a few months before I picked it up; at nearly 800 pages, I felt I had to read it at "the perfect time." That time, for me, fell over Spring Break and COVID in my house, but I was hooked from the first page, and I think it would have kept its hold on me in any season. 

Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel 

If you haven't read The Glass Hotel, read that one first -- I like it even better than Station Eleven -- and some of the characters in that novel appear in this one. Sea of Tranquility works as a standalone novel, but the experience was richer for me because I had that context. And this novel is a beautiful work of storytelling. The thing I can't quite shake is that the structure is very similar to Cloud Atlas without the same level of care. I loved the time travel, and the concept works well in this book, but there was no change in "voice" moving back and forth through time. David Mitchell did amazing things with language in his novel, and I wish Emily St. John Mandel would have given some attention to the way language changes and evolves when her characters are separated by centuries. But that's a tricky thing to do well, and maybe she was playing it safe. It's just a thing I noticed that took me out of the story itself -- but just a bit. This is a writer who excels at world building, and I still wholeheartedly recommend this one. 

Very Cold People, by Sarah Manguso 

Sarah Manguso is a gorgeous writer and I loved nearly every sentence of her debut novel. It won't work for everyone -- it's a fragmented storytelling style, a life revealed in a series of moments -- but I think that's what life is anyway. Very nearly five stars, but the ending was a bit too abrupt for me. I don't mean unresolved, it just felt like a sudden transition that didn't quite work. (I still loved it, absolutely still recommend it.) 

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown 

This belongs on the shelf next to Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, and Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew G.I. Hart. I read it in one day. 

Dog Years, by Mark Doty 

I love Mark Doty's poetry, but I can't even be objective about how much I loved this book. I love dogs and I love beautiful sentences and deep meditations on love and grief with moments of sheer delight and gentle humor and joy and tenderness. I set aside my copy for one of my closest friends, but if he doesn't return it, I might need to buy another copy, because it's the kind of book I would pick up before bed for a bit when I need to immerse myself in this kind of love when the world feels terrible. 

A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir With Ravens, by Laraine Herring 

I haven't stopped thinking about this since I read it. The story is about so many layered things -- grief, illness, loss, healing, reckoning with the past -- and the language and structure work so beautifully. I don't want to try to explain much more than that, but this was a powerful, immersive reading experience and I can't recommend it highly enough. 

The Girl From Widow Hills, by Megan Miranda 

Pretty fun First Day of Summer read (especially because our first day of summer was cold and rainy). 

Bewilderment, by Richard Powers 

I bought this because I loved The Overstory so much a few years ago, but I let it sit for a long time after reading a few decidely lukewarm reviews. I should have ignored them. This novel is more personal than The Overstory, but it has the same reverently beautiful writing and "sorrowful awe" (I don't remember where I read that phrase but it's exactly right) that I love about Richard Powers's work. Set in a time parallel to ours or in a frighteningly familiar world not far into our future, this reads a little like science fiction but captures the beauty of the natural world more tenderly and eloquently than almost any writer I've read. It also broke my heart. I almost think Powers went for the easy ending, but it might have been the only ending. 

Companion Piece, by Ali Smith 

How could I not love this? Like the Seasonal Quartet, this is brilliant and inventive, playful and pointed. Can any other writer speak to our present time so immediately while also transcending it? 

Trust, by Hernan Diaz 

This is one of those special novels that pulls me in so completely -- in this case, it's the language and the inventive, intricately structured plot -- even though the subject, on its surface, isn't one that grabs me. (A rich investor in the early 1900s? Meh.) The storytelling is utterly sublime, though. If you find it a slow burn at first (I didn't; I actually loved this immediately), stick with it. What a wonderful reading experience. 

We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays and Artwork from Grown-Up Readers, edited by Marisa Crawford and Megan Milks 

This is required reading for anyone who grew up reading the Baby-Sitters Club, especially in the 80s or early 90s. 

The Anti-Racist Writers Workshop, by Felicia Rose Chavez 

This is geared towards folks who lead creative writing workshops, but as a high school English teacher, a reader, and a writer, I found SO MUCH value in this. My copy is heavily annotated and underlined and I want everyone who teaches writing in any capacity to read this. 

Heavy, by Kiese Laymon 

Stunning writing on a sentence level, powerful story, and required reading for all of us on so many levels. It's a book about everything and we all need it. 

A Flicker in the Dark, by Stacy Willingham

This is the kind of book I want to read when I need to clear my head and be entertained for a day, and it delivered. Note: I never try terribly hard to figure out WHO DID IT because this is just pure fun for me, and I like to just roll with it. That said, I had opinions about this one from early on, and I was wrong. However, it still wasn't surprising. Whatever. It was fun, and I'd read her books again over a weekend or on an airplane for sure. 

Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries, by Rick Emerson 

This is required reading for anyone who read Go Ask Alice, Jay's Journal, or any other of the diaries Beatrice Sparks "discovered." (I would add It Happened to Nancy. I read all three of those books many times between the ages of, oh, 12 and 15.) Rick Emerson was also a guest on the podcast "You're Wrong About" and that episode prompted me to cancel my hold at the library and just BUY the book. No regrets. 

Crying in the Bathroom, by Erika Sánchez 

I loved I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, and I love teaching that book so much. I also love Sánchez's poetry. But her style doesn't quite work for me as a memoir. That said, there's a lot to appreciate here, and I still recommend it. I read it in two sittings and handed it right to my daughter. 

To Paradise, by Hanya Yanagihara 

I think Hanya Yanagihara is brilliant, but both The People in the Trees and A Little Life were traumatic reading experiences (for very different reasons), so I wasn't sure I was up for another one. This book is unlike both of those, and I loved it for its structure -- it's really three separate stories that "speak" to each other across time -- and the stunning prose I expect from this writer. I admit I became a big bogged down in the middle, and I needed to take a break for a bit; it's a heavy book, literally and figuratively, but I loved the first and last sections. (The ending was a bit too much like the ending of The Handmaid's Tale for me, though, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's not that I mind ambiguity, I just felt like Margaret Atwood already wrote this scene.) 

 

The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen 

This took me a long, long time to read -- but only because I took a long break. Which, in hindsight, wasn't the worst thing. For me, this wasn't a book to rush through, even though it held my interest (indeed, I read the last half in a single weekend). It's brilliant and important and I honestly have no idea how to review it beyond five awe-struck stars. (If you've ever read anything about the Vietnam War, you need to read this. If you've read nothing about it, you need to read this.) 

The It Girl, by Ruth Ware 

This is the type of book I like reading at the beginning of the school year, over that first weekend when my brain can't handle much besides a cozy suspense novel and a glass of wine. This sort of scratched that itch, but I admit this one was a bit of a slog for me until close to the end, and it took me a bit longer than I would have liked to read. 

Lucy By The Sea, by Elizabeth Strout 

I love Lucy more with each book, and this one was so tender. And so unmooring. Elizabeth Strout perfectly recalls the uncertainty and upheaval of the early days of the pandemic, and reading about it only two years later was nothing short of surreal. She also captures so poignantly the human need for connection in a country becoming increasingly divided. 

All Good People Here, by Ashley Flowers I'm a devoted Crime Junkie, so I had to read this one, and it was fun. 

 

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver I love Barbara Kingsolver, a lot, but her books are really all over the place for me. This one might be her best, though, and at the top of my list for 2022. It deserves every accolade. Read it. 

The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty 

I'm not sure the ending quite held together for me, and the main character was a bit too much Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but that wasn't enough reason to knock it down a star because this book was such an absorbing, propulsive read. Fantastic way to kick off winter break. (There are plenty of reviews out there if you're interested, but I think this is a book best enjoyed without knowing too much about it.) 

 

Lean Fall Stand, by Jon McGregor 

This book opened on the ice in Antarctica, during a storm. But where it led after that was an unexpectedly tender story about the importance of communication and how we share ourselves with each other. McGregor's prose delivers everything I love about his writing, and this was a perfect way to end 2022. 

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. 

I included this in my 2021 list because I started it in 2021, but I finished it in 2022, and this is the year I taught Baldwin in my IB lit classes again. I came to James Baldwin rather late in my life and I'm still discovering him -- but teaching his essays to my juniors requires that I think beyond what personally resonates for me, too, and this book sets his work in the context of our own. I have so much more of Baldwin to read. 

Note from last year, which still applies: I don't usually include audiobooks, because they're not my favorite. It's not that I don't consider them "real" reading (I absolutely do!) but they don't work for me in the same way; I can't fully appreciate the language and craft of stories I really love when I can't see the sentences. But that's not to say that I don't enjoy audiobooks in my own particular context: extended time on the road, and occasionally, on my daily walks (though I prefer podcasts for those). Here are my audiobooks for 2022 (only four, as I usually listen to podcasts instead of books): 

The School for Good Mothers, by Jessica Chan 

Everyone loved this, and it's a worthy read, but I felt like it was trying to be like The Handmaid's Tale without providing context I really wanted. (What happened leading up to the world being like this? I'd believe it wholeheartedly if the novel just recounted the last few years or whatever, but I wanted to see it a little more clearly.) 

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, by Linda Kay Klein 

Pretty compelling for any of us who grew up with 90s Purity Culture in our churches. Even more mainstream and even progressive denominations (ELCA, anyone?) were subject to this sort of brainwashing, not just what we see as the ultra-conservative Christians. 

Mercy Street, by Jennifer Haigh 

A timely and compelling story with abortion rights at the center. Yes, I think you should read it. 

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, by Matthew Perry 

I canceled my hold on the library book in favor of the audiobook (read by Perry himself) on a road trip. Oof. I'm glad I listened to it instead of read it. 

 

As always, I've already started a list for 2023, and I'm looking forward to the Most Anticipated Books of 2023 from Lithub and The Millions in the coming days. If you've made your way through my list, I assume you're reading your way through your own. And I believe reading matters, so: love and solidarity, Friends.

I do know what it means to be grateful

Well, it's been a minute.

I realized just now that I've only written two entries here in 2022, and only a handful since this time a year ago. I've never abandoned this space for so long. Although that's not accurate, either; sometimes we all just need to go quiet for awhile. It's easy for me to post a little brain-dump, a snapshot, a moment when it's social media, but frankly, I've had no idea how to approach this little corner of the internet -- how to write about the last year for an audience. I've wanted to, because I believe in telling the truth about our own lives and I think we should all embrace that particular act of bravery in whatever fumbling, messy ways we can, but I also know that all the stories weighing on my heart are not necessarily all mine to share, either.

Motherhood is wild. When my babies were delivered to my chest I couldn't imagine a love more all-consuming than what I felt for them in that new, raw moment. I had no idea that raising young adolescents and teenagers would break and expand my heart beyond anything I could have envisioned when I could still meet all their needs with a hug, with a snack, with a distraction or a bath or a bandaid. Even when I was delirious with exhaustion, even when I stood bleary-eyed in a shower at two o'clock in the morning rinsing off a child's vomit, even when I cried into my hands with frustration after a battle with a stubborn toddler at the end of a hard day and felt I was failing at the thing I thought should just always come naturally, there was always a solution: bedtime rituals, or an extra nap, or antibiotics for an ear infection, or whatever. Something. There was always a baby book nearby. If your child does this, try that.

Sometimes I'm nostalgic for those days, but I wouldn't return to them, either.

These days are hard in ways my new-mama self couldn't have prepared for, but also, the joy and moments of deep contentment and gratitude are everything I always hoped for. These people in my house? They're good people. They're my favorite people in the universe.

*

Teaching is wild, too. I only wrote a few entries here last year, and they are almost too painful for me to read.

One of my rituals at the beginning of a school year is to browse through old journals, to revisit and remember my first day of school as a first-year teacher, as a third-year teacher, as a fifth-year teacher excited to have a baby, as a ninth-year teacher pregnant with her second and a tenth-year teacher nervous about the changes in her school. I love the entries I wrote in the years when I took on the role of MYP coordinator, when Kailey and I sneakily painted my classroom in August, when I visited my classroom on a hot day in late July just to poke my head in, just to visit the space, just to remember that this, too, is home. 

I filled an entire paper journal last year, and the entire journal is too painful for me to read. I've tucked it away for a time when I'm a little less tender. I wrote here a handful of times, and it's hard to read that, too.

*

Some folks stop writing because they think they need to catch up after a long silence. I don't believe that at all. I believe in beginning again, from wherever you are.

So here's where I am: it is a Sunday evening in late September. The days are still so warm, and we haven't had any rain, but the nights are blessedly cool, and the mornings are crisp. The shadows spill across our backyard a little earlier. I'm so ready for the rain to return.

Suzannah is at Open Gym because she is already thinking ahead to basketball season, even though it seems the soccer season just started -- yesterday we all attended her Saturday game and took the dog and cheered for the girls on the dry field in the warn September sunshine. A couple of her teammates from her years of rec soccer play with her now, and a couple of them play on teams for other high schools. Those little girls are so grown now. And even when those girls find themselves playing against each other now, my heart just swells for all that they are becoming. As for mine? She's balancing a heavy academic load with sports and clubs and marching band and I wring my hands and worry a bit but mostly I'm just so thankful for where we are in this moment, which is so much better than where we were in so many moments last year.

Isaac is building something with his enormous Lego set, completely content and absorbed, and my heart swells to watch him, too -- still my little guy, still so unselfconsciously himself at home, willing to lose himself in creative projects. In a few minutes he'll scamper off to his room to play Roblox on his computer, and in an hour or so, I might coax him out to help me make corn bread for tonight's chili dinner. He is still so sweet, and he is absolutely the funniest person I know, full stop. He chose early-morning jazz band over cross country this year, and since he is still doing Tae Kwon Do, I think this is enough for a twelve-year-old. But I admit it: I'm a little sad, too, because one of the things that brought this mama so much joy last fall was watching my boy run, to see him quietly pleased when his teammates high-fived him. But it doesn't mean he can't ever do it again, and I don't want him to lose the joy in anything he happens to be good at just because his mama is the one who wants it more.

Maybe next year.

*

Last night I spoke to one of my very best friends on the phone when he texted and asked if I could talk, and our conversation wrapped itself around my heart and reminded me to nurture what really matters. Another story that isn't mine to share, but the gratitude for the people I love? I can share that. I've spent this entire weekend just thinking about how lucky I am to have landed exactly where I am, all those years ago. How could I have predicted all that followed? The folks who raised and mentored me in this work. The folks doing the work with me now. The babies I've been blessed to raise myself. My friends and colleagues who have taught and continue to teach my daughter. The community in which I live and work. 

I don't know what it means to return to normal, but maybe we have something to learn from that.

I do know what it means to love what I do. I do know what it means to love the folks who are figuring this out with me. I do know what it means to love where I live. I do know what it means to be grateful.

It's late September, and tomorrow I will show up for my fourth week in a new year. I haven't found my groove yet, but I'm grateful all the same.

The Day After

Tomorrow, the day after 19 children were murdered in an elementary school on a Tuesday afternoon in May, I will walk into my classroom knowing that what I had planned is irrelevant. 

I don't know how many times we've had to do this -- walk into a classroom after a mass shooting and fumble our way through. No, literally, I have no idea how many times. Too many. 

All over social media, folks are asking this absurd question: How many children have to be murdered before we do something? It's absurd because we already know that there is no number. If twenty children weren't enough in 2012, twenty aren't enough ten years later, with all the murdered children before and in between. 

The question is absurd, because this isn't something that randomly continues to happen to us. America has chosen this. It is our horror and our shame, and there is no bottom to it.

This will be my nineteenth post specifically tagged with "Guns in America." Nineteen children, so far. The number keeps climbing. 

Tomorrow, I will go to school and grapple with what it means to be a teacher and love students in a country that does not value our lives. Just like every other teacher in America. We're not okay.

This afternoon I texted back and forth with one of my beloved 2018 babies, who was my student and TA during her senior year when seventeen people were murdered at school in Parkland, Florida. Our school building back in 2018 was a nightmare to secure -- so many points of entry, so many unlocked doors -- but at the same time, my classroom had two doors. I knew we could run out one and be outside; the other would take us into an inner room that led to other classrooms, other spaces to hide, other spaces to escape through.

Rachel remembers thinking that she'd run to my room or to the science room, because there were more of those back rooms.

"I imagined every scenario," she said. "How fucked up is that?"

But I did, too. All the time. I remember a sophomore asking me, "What would we do?" And I told them. We talked through how we'd get out, where they'd run, where they'd hide if they couldn't run.

I've posted this conversation before. It went like this:

"But what do you do?"

"I do my damndest to make sure he doesn't get to you."

"You just stay and get shot? That's messed up. We'd stay with you."

"No. You don't."

Look, I'm pretty fucking pissed that's part of the job description, too. But it is. It just is.

Anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to school the day after a mass shooting where nineteen more babies were slaughtered at school in America. Tomorrow I'm going to go to school and teach in a country that keeps choosing this. And I'm going to talk about it with my kids, because they'll want to. I know them that well by now. My fifth period is going to have a lot of feelings and a lot of questions, and I'll tell you right now that I don't give the remotest of shits that I've been directed to administer the district reading test.

Not long ago, one of them asked, "If we had to get out of this building, how would we even do it?" Our new school is a building ready for violence. In a lockdown, classroom doors lock automatically from the inside and hallway doors seal us inside our corridors. I suppose this should make me feel safe; instead it makes me feel trapped. We haven't actually even had a fire drill since October or something, and even that wasn't so much a drill as it was our too-sensitive smoke alarms tripping every time some kid vaped in a bathroom. When that happens now, they cancel the alarm and tell us all to stay in class. We have no idea what to do in a real emergency anymore. Last fall when we tried to evacuate our three-story building, everyone poured out one entrance, slowly, heading to the football field. I know where my daughter is during every period. Once, she was in weight training; the door was likely open already. Once, she was on the third floor, and my heart drummed madly in my chest. I don't think we even got everyone out of the building before those of us on the field were herded back in.

So I don't know that I'm going to have any answers for them, but I owe them the space to ask and to talk if they want it.

I'm a mama and a teacher and I exist in a perpetual state of terror and grief and rage and hopelessness. I'm grieving hard tonight. And the rage at our apathy and our inhumanity continues to build.

If you're not a teacher, know that we are not okay. Spare us platitudes and prayers without action. It might be possible for you to go to work tomorrow and carry on like normal, even if you're grieving, too (because I know so many of you are also working through terror, grief, and rage) but it's not possible for us. What that looks like in each classroom depends on what our kids need. But even if our kids need us to create a sense of normalcy tomorrow, please know that it's not normal, it's not okay, and so many of us still feel that we're going at this alone, in a deep, lonely darkness. And I just don't see that changing.

On having a dog again

I read somewhere a long time ago that sometimes the silences in our journals can speak as loudly as our words. I know what they've meant in this space. It has just been so difficult to write here. I'm filling the pages of another fat leather journal, though, because that is one thing I have to do to keep breathing in and out every single day.

Other things help. Cherry blossoms. The warming spring air. Birdsong early in the morning. The pure joy of having a dog again.

I was born a dog person; I wasn't raised one. My parents were farm kids who didn't believe animals belonged in the house, and they remained unmoved even when I left tearstained letters for them to find explaining why I should have a dog and insisting that they wouldn't have to take care of it at all.

Eventually, I was allowed to have fish, a parakeet, and two turtles. I loved them all. I took what I could get.

I remember stopping at a pet store in Great Falls with my mother and grandmother one afternoon when I was young; it was a shop located in a larger shopping center. They usually had puppies you could scoop up and snuggle. (This, of course, was long before I knew anything about puppy mills or that you should never buy a dog from a pet store.) I sat down next to a bin of puppies -- I think they were shelties -- and cuddling them. They licked my hands and my tears dropped onto their fur. I just ached to bring home one of those dogs.

As a consolation prize of sorts, after we drove my grandma back to the farm two hours away, my mother took me to a neighboring farm to look at a pair of kittens, and we would bring one back. It wouldn't be a kitten to live at our house, of course. It would live at the farm, outdoors, maybe occasionally in the garage. But it would be "mine" -- as mine as a kitten could be a hundred miles away.

As it turned out, the neighbor had two kittens. How to choose?

"Take them both," said the neighbor. "Bring back the one you don't want to keep."

I firmly believe that no one, not even my mother or grandmother, can return a kitten. So for the next couple of years, I devoted every moment at the farm to them, and then, when one of them had kittens of her own, I spent hours one June morning coaxing them out from hiding in one of the outbuildings. We spayed and neutered those babies, something that generally wasn't done with farm cats, and I loved them until they, too, vanished -- as all farm cats do at some point. 

When I was in eighth grade, my Christmas gift was a kitten of my own to keep at my parents' house -- or the promise of one. I didn't find my perfect kitten until that spring. She was free with a purchase of a bag of cat food at some pet shop in town. ("Free," my father still scoffs years later.) Molly was a long-haired beauty and a spirited little gal. She mostly lived in the garage, despite my attempts to sneak her into the house. Outside, she rarely ventured beyond our yard. I loved her fiercely, and she entertained us all. (Once, she stalked a deer through our backyard, and we watched, fascinated, as she wiggled in the grass and then pounced, swiping at its hind leg. The deer bounded a few feet away and looked at her with an expression that can only be translated as "What the fuck?")

I loved everything about my cat. But even then, when I imagined my life as an adult, I saw myself with a dog.

"I'll get you a dog when you get your own place," my dad told me. He made good on that. When I graduated from Concordia and secured my apartment in my new home state, I secured a dog as well. I picked up my pug the day after I moved into my new apartment. She was my first baby, the deepest comfort during those lonely first weeks in a new city. She brought me nothing but joy for fourteen years. She ushered me into adulthood and shared it all. 

She was the best gift anyone had ever given me, and her loss left me bereft. I didn't know how to be someone without a dog. I didn't want to be someone without a dog.

But we had young children, and Matt was still commuting to Seattle every day. Our life was comfortably, sweetly busy. We had routines and activities. I wanted a dog again, very much, but I also wanted our next dog to be a family dog. My son was just about to start kindergarten, and no one was interested in helping pick up dog poop. I didn't think a new dog would get the attention she deserved.  And so it was, for a good long while.

My son, as it turns out, takes after me. He has always deeply loved animals, and I suspected that he would be the one to nudge us towards bringing a dog into our family again. I was right. He was more subtle than I was, but early in the fall I asked him if he'd like to get a dog. Like, for real. And the earnestness in his eyes when he nodded his yes cut straight to my heart. I would not keep my son from having a dog.

So we started planning. I wanted to take our time, to learn about the process of adopting a dog from a rescue instead of a breeder, to think about what would best fit our family. I follow a pug rescue on social media and have for a long time because I will forever love pugs with my whole heart, and as I told Matt, "I know pugs. We have dealt with every single possible pug issue!" I ticked them off on my fingers: the breathing trouble, the ear infections, the sensitive skin, the yeast infections, all the UTIs, the luxating patella, the terrible teeth, the eye problems...

Matt suggested that I was not making a great case for adopting another pug. I grudgingly agreed. Blondie was a perfect dog for a new teacher in a new city living alone in a new apartment. However, she played dead at the sight of her leash, and we knew we needed a dog with some energy. I walk miles every day; Matt goes on daily runs. We wanted a hiking buddy. We wanted a dog who would chase balls in the backyard. We learned how to navigate Petfinder, and we decided that we wanted a young female dog but not a puppy. Medium size, but not small. Mixed breed, preferably short coat. Housetrained. Good with kids and preferably other dogs. We didn't care if she wanted to chase cats since we plan to never have one.

We didn't want to commit to adopting a dog before our annual trip to Leavenworth; I didn't want to bring home a dog and then immediately board her. But I sent an inquiry about a dog that caught our eye while we were eating bratwursts and pretzels at Munchen Haus, and we received a reply right away. She was available for a meet and greet, and if that went well, a trial adoption. Her current foster family also happened to be professional dog trainers, so they were doing an excellent job of reinforcing basic manners and commands.

The director of the rescue organization told me that she was a "high energy dog who needs a fair amount of exercise" and that she would need "consistency."

"We can absolutely give her that," I replied.

The rest, as they say, is history. It was love at first sight. 

"She's kind of a lot," I said in a text to Shonda after our meet and greet, "but so am I."

"That is the most accurate thing you've ever said," she replied.

*

I knew my boy needed a dog. And while I just always assumed that at some point I would have a dog again, I didn't realize how very much I actually needed a dog again, too.

*

This year has nearly broken me. This is not hyperbole, and I still don't know how to write about it in this space. Much of it isn't really for public consumption anyway. What I can say is that in twenty years of teaching, I have never imagined leaving the classroom the way I have this year. Not in a tearful end-of-a-bad-day, heat-of-the-moment kind of way, but in a sustained "What would an off-ramp from this career even look like?" kind of way. Because it hasn't been about a bad day or a bad class; it's been about a broken system and an utter lack of support, a lack of capacity. And some of that lack of support is personal, or it feels that way.

I still struggle to find the words to explain this to folks who aren't living it. And for the first time in my career, I've read ugly comments from folks who have always claimed to support teachers, some of whom are close to me. Those have hurt. They won't break me; this is bigger than that. But in a year that is by far the loneliest and most traumatic year I have ever experienced, they still hurt.

I won't leave teaching because I see a comment by a friend or family member on social media, though, and I won't leave because of their silence, either. I won't leave teaching because I have a year of tough classes (or I'd definitely have quit ten years ago, after I spent a year with the two meanest classes I've ever taught -- and don't think I didn't consider it). I won't leave my school to work at a different one. Last week reminded me that I am exactly where I belong and deeply lucky, too. I have support there that I couldn't imagine anywhere else. If I leave my school, it won't be for a different one -- it will be for a different path. I'm not there yet. But the fact that it's a thing I can even say is something.

How can I explain this? How can I tell you how much I love this life? How can I convey my absolute belief that there is no finer way to spend a human life than this one? I love being a high school English teacher with every breath I take. I will never, ever regret it. And when I leave it, I don't want it to be after years of bitterness. I've seen too many folks retire that way, and that won't be me. I want to teach until I recognize that it is my time to leave, and I want it to be with grace and love. Whatever that means. Whatever that looks like.

*

You might wonder how any of this is connected. I don't know if I can explain that, either. All I know is that my heart has been badly broken this year by things I cannot fully write about in this space, and I have felt more desperately lonely in that heartbreak than I have possibly ever experienced in my life. (Maybe my teenaged and young adult self would disagree; I have thought of her often lately.) And I also know that bringing a dog into our home again has been the best thing to happen to our family in a very long time. She doesn't actually fix anything; she's a dog. Her job isn't to fix things. She just loves. I wake up before dawn without even the slightest temptation to hit the snooze button (I usually wake up before my alarm anyway because I am wired that way) because I know that the first thing that will happen in my day is that I will be greeted by this rush of doggy love and energy. My dog throws herself into my arms and licks my face and we go outside together. It's spring and the birds are singing, even in the pre-dawn darkness. I love that moment. I love it.

Tonight, as I write this, I'm watching my son and my dog romp in the backyard. He throws her toys and she runs and runs and she is just pure joy. This is what it means to exist in the moment, and the moment is joy.

My son and I walk her in the afternoons after school. Yesterday morning, after eating Matt's banana walnut waffles, we walked her more than five miles through the streets of our neighborhood, with the cherry blossoms and views of Puget Sound. Watching my son walk his dog on a Saturday morning is pure joy. This is love. This is what it means to just exist on this earth on a Saturday morning, listening to the birds, teaching our dog not to chase bunnies and squirrels, and to just...be.

I honestly don't know what the future holds. I am terrified and heartbroken and furious a lot of the time these days, because the world is a terrifying and heartbreaking place, and people I love or who I believed loved me and my children are complicit or silent in the face of that terror and heartbreak. I don't know how to navigate that. I don't know how to navigate my loneliness as a teacher right now, and I sure as shit don't know how to navigate my loneliness as a parent, when I can't share exhausting yet somehow cute stories of toddler tantrums and get the "I've been there, Mama, hang in there!" responses.

So anyway, for now, I can wake up in the early morning dawn and take my dog outside and breathe in this sweet spring morning air. I can walk miles around our neighborhood with my son and our dog. I can throw a ball for her and laugh as she races around the yard, as she leaps and jumps and runs and just exists as a body in joyful motion. And in the evenings, she curls up like a croissant on her bed in the family room and rests, and when Isaac and I kneel next to her she lays her head on our thighs and we pet her head and scratch her ears and this simple thing brings me peace I haven't experienced in a very long time.

2021 in Books

2021 hasn't been much better than 2020, but I read some great books. My beloved college professor and advisor Joan Buckley said, "We read to remind ourselves of our humanity." I think that matters. I'd say now more than ever, but it has always mattered.

This year's list:

Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie
I read this in 2017 but I reread it this year because I added it to the IB Literature curriculum, paired with Antigone. This one absolutely rewarded rereading.

Jack, by Marilynne Robinson
I read this slowly, appreciating the return to the world of Robinson's Gilead (though this novel is set in St. Louis, not Iowa), this time to tell the story of Reverend Boughton's wayward son and the woman he loves. Like the other novels, this is a story of ideas rather than plot, but no less engaging (to this reader) because of that.

I love Robinson's fiction and her graceful prose, but I wouldn't try to read this without the context with the others. Even though I read Gilead years ago and my memory of specifics is less than perfectly clear, I was glad to have a little context.

How Much of These Hills Is Gold, by C Pam Zhang
I read this in two days. It's so interesting to read the reviews of others who claim they couldn't get into the story, which just goes to show how reading experiences can differ; I was hooked from the first sentence and found it both propulsive and deeply immersive, and Zhang's language is a wonder. It reminds me a bit of Téa Obreht's Inland in that it takes us to the American West -- but not in any way we're used to reading about it. Instead, Zhang elevates the stories of a Chinese immigrant family as they search for home in a land that is hostile to their culture and identity. I hesitate to say more about it, because so much of the magic, for me, happened when the story took a turn I didn't expect. The structure worked brilliantly, the characters were so compelling, and at every turn Zhang added a layer of poignant surprise that, in hindsight, was the heart of the story all along.

Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson

“Choose not to look, however, at your own peril. The owner of an old house knows that whatever you are ignoring will never go away. Whatever is lurking will fester whether you choose to look or not. Ignorance is no protection from the consequences of inaction. Whatever you are wishing away will gnaw at you until you gather the courage to face what you would rather not see.”

When I read The Warmth of Other Suns years ago, I knew it was one I would forever recommend to everyone. This isn't true of all the books I love, or find powerful or moving or beautifully written; reading experiences differ, blah blah whatever. I love a lot of books I wouldn't necessarily insist my mother or boss read immediately.

The same is true of Caste, only more urgently. I want everyone to read this. I love Wilkerson's writing: smooth and engaging without ever assuming her readers already know what she has to say. I read this because I loved her previous book, yes, but I also know I have a lot of anti-racist work to do, and this book made me look at race in this country in a way I honestly never really had: through the framework of a caste system. It knocked me flat, but not in a way that will shut down readers who most need to read this (which is...all of us in the dominant caste). This is essential reading.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, by Deesha Philyaw
Oh, this is just so good. I have my absolute favorites (as I usually do, in any story collection, and this is what makes the entire book tricky to rate), but they're all good. Read it. Read it.

Concrete Rose, by Angie Thomas
I loved everything about this and I read it in a single day. Thank goodness for Snow Days.

Read this after The Hate U Give, but read it. I love -- LOVE -- authors who show us their characters in a different light, from a different perspective, who take a supporting character from one story and let them take the stage in another. Madeleine L'Engle was a master at this. Tana French did it with the Dublin Murder Squad. And Angie Thomas does this with Garden Heights, the setting of The Hate U Give, seventeen years earlier. She doesn't miss a note.

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama
I read this a bit at a time for a long time, switching between the hardcover and audiobook. I love hearing his voice; I also love his writing voice. This book is dense but reads smoothly, and it's well worth the effort. I'll read the next installment when it comes, but I think it's going to be difficult, knowing where the country went in 2016. The contrast is still unbearable.

Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine
I picked this up at Powell's last year, pre-Pandemic, and I realized that it's part of a trilogy -- that it belongs with Citizen: An American Lyric (which took my breath away five years ago) and Just Us: An American Conversation, which I bought as soon as it was published.

So I read it today. In a single day, almost a single sitting, just like Citizen. Rankine writes in that "unsettled territory" between poetry and prose (I can't remember where I read that, but that's what it is) and she does it brilliantly, weaving in mental health, pharmaceuticals, loneliness, culture, and politics that capture yet also transcend a very particular moment in America. Brilliant.

Who Will Be a Witness? Igniting Activitsm For God's Justice, Love, and Deliverance, by Drew G.I. Hart
Add this to the list of books I want every Christian to read, especially those who seek to move from being an ally to being a co-conspirator. I appreciate the mix of history and theology, as well as the necessary challenge to look at the way the church has often upheld white supremacy and shift to practicing "Jesus-shaped" justice.

A Year of Mr. Lucky, by Meg Weber

"I always feel like too much, except when I'm afraid I'm not enough."

This is a beautifully honest memoir about being human, vulnerable, and strong -- I believe that telling the truth about our own lives is some of the most important work we can do, and Meg Weber does this with fierce courage. (I've been incredibly lucky to write with Meg for the past several years, and she's the real deal.)

Long Bright River, by Liz Moore
This character-based mystery is more about the family dynamic, class, and the struggles of opioid addition than the mystery itself; it reminded me a bit of Tana French.

The Prophets, by Robert Jones, Jr.
I've been thinking about how to write about this devastating, beautiful, brilliant novel and I just don't know what to say that will capture how powerful it is. This novel soars. The characters, even -- especially? -- the secondary characters. The structure, which manages to tell an epic story from multiple perspectives but propel the reader forward. The sentences.

The author makes no secret about drawing inspiration from James Baldwin and Toni Morrison (among many other brilliant folks), and while he doesn't write "like" them, I think his work belongs alongside theirs. Still processing.

Infinite Country, by Patricia Engel
I read this book in a day, and I kept pausing to say to my husband, "This is just so good and so important and I want you to read it right now." Patricia Engel tells an immigration story that is both intimate and epic. The structure and pacing are perfect, the characters fully realized, and on a sentence level, it's just beautifully crafted. I can't believe anyone could tell this much story in under 200 pages. And this story does what the best stories do -- it humanizes what we try to "other" with our labels, political discourse, assumptions, biases, ignorance, and fear. Engel slips us into the perspective of a young couple trying to make their way in the world, their Columbian-born daughter raised in America, their American-born daughter coming of age in Columbia, and the brother between them -- all trying to survive, all trying to find their way back to each other, all grappling what it means to call a place home when your heart is somewhere else.

Milk Blood Heat, by Dantiel W. Moniz
I started reading and couldn't put this down. When I finished one story I immediately wanted more. I love everything about this book -- Moniz writes so beautifully and viscerally about girlhood, the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters and husbands and wives and siblings, and the intimate physicality of lived experience. So, so good.

Verge, by Lidia Yuknavitch
This book feels sort of impossible to rate. I think Lidia Yuknavitch is brilliant, full stop, and one of the bravest writers I've read. If you've read her other works and agree with me, or if you've enjoyed writers like Kelly Link and Carmen Maria Machado, read this one.

Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Fun and deliciously creepy gothic novel. Lots of fog, mysterious and sinister characters, a great big gloomy house, and a spunky protagonist determined not to let any of it scare her before she saves her cousin from some malevolent yet undefined force. This would have been a fantastic Halloween read, but I appreciated this literary escape over Spring Break, too.

The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
Another reread (this one from 2016), because the district gave me permission to teach it this year. It's brilliant. Colson Whitehead is everything.

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, by Aubrey Gordon
I absolutely love Aubrey Gordon, and I think EVERYONE who has either been hurt by or perpetuated toxic diet culture and anti-fat bias, even inadvertently (which would literally be ALL of us), needs to read this. And I'm specifically eyeing...some of you whom I dearly love.

I also highly recommend the podcast "Maintenance Phase," hosted by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes. I'd listen to them talk about literally anything (Hobbes also hosts the podcast "You're Wrong About," which is also fabulous) but this one focuses on "[debunking] the junk science between health & wellness fads, and decode their cultural meaning."

Read the book, and then check out the podcast.

Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam
Quietly unsettling, beautifully written story about race, class, and the end of the world. I couldn't put it down.

Grounded, by Jon Tester
Jon Tester is a senior United States Senator from Big Sandy, Montana (near my own family's origins) and he still manages his farm full-time. I LIKE HIM SO DAMN MUCH and reading this sort of broke my heart. I wish it made me feel hopeful, because if anyone can communicate with Americans of differing beliefs, it's him. (I fall a little left of him on most things, for the record, but his story and his beliefs resonate hard with me. I wish everyone in my family would read this.) It was also interesting to read this at more or less the same time I read A Promised Land.

The Push, by Ashley Audrain
This reminded me a lot of We Need To Talk About Kevin, with a more nuanced and true portrayal of the darkness of new motherhood.

Detroit Fairy Tales, by Elisa Sinnett
Elisa Sinnett has written a love letter to a place without romanticizing it. She honors her roots without minimizing trauma. She writes about what drives human behavior -- class, family, sex, race -- without losing sight of the ways in which we are all messily human. I loved every single sentence of this book.

The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans
This collection of short stories and a novella is brilliant. It's about, oh, everything. And it's just about perfect on the sentence level. Pretty much everything I want in a work of literature, and also, I couldn't put it down. Sometimes I like short story collections because I feel like I can read them while I read other things. Read a story here, with my morning coffee; read another one before bed, maybe while I'm also reading a novel. But this collection was so immersive; I read it straight through.

I know I haven't said anything specific about the stories themselves, but if you care about imaginative storylines, compelling characters, and beautifully crafted sentences, read this.

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive, by Jane Allison
Well, this book definitely reinforced my stance that I never want to live in a house that is too much for me to take care of on my own as long as I am able-bodied, and I continue to be unimpressed by the classic capitalist idea that we're supposed to want to upgrade and upgrade and accumulate more stuff and take up as much space as possible in the world and then someday downsize again, or whatever.

This is an engaging, well-written memoir, and I appreciate Land's voice in a larger conversation about poverty. I really appreciate the way she dismantles so much of the "bootstrap" narrative so many of us were raised with. I think it's important to remember, though, that this is one woman's story, not a work of research, and I think that basic fact gets lost in a lot of discussions of this book. This is not to diminish Land's experiences at all, but it's hard to read this without thinking of how her (real) poverty is temporary, and how her whiteness affords her privileges that are not accessible to many folks in similar situations. I wish she would have hit on that a little harder, but again, this is a memoir. I also think she leaves out some important pieces of her story (there are so many things I have questions about, things she skims over but clearly impact this story in profound ways) but I also know she doesn't owe me that, and the omissions may very well be intentional. I still recommend this one. (I read this before I watched the Netflix series. Which is also good...but it's incomplete.)

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, by Dawnie Walton
This novel deserves every single accolade. It sings, it soars, it provokes. The oral history form works beautifully, and Dawnie Walton writes voice unlike anyone I've read. I think the audiobook would be fantastic, but as someone who also loves beautifully written literature on a sentence level, I cherish the hardcover. (Buy a hardcover so you can hug it.) I absolutely loved it.

How the Word Is Passed, by Clint Smith

“I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion…I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know…but nostalgia is what you want to hear.”

I make no secret of my love for Clint Smith, and this book is one I want literally everyone to read. I learned that he originally conceived of this project as a book of poetry, one in which each poem would address a different Confederate monument he visited. For the record, I think that would have been a brilliant collection. But this book soars as both an important and immersive history book and a stunning work of literature on the sentence level; Smith writes with a poet's ear to language. I read this one straight through, marking every chapter, unable to put it down.

My "blue-ribbon" high school education (and all the years before and many since) had some gaps, to put it mildly. We need this book.

Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
I absolutely love this book.

It wasn't written for me or my understanding (and likely that will apply to you, too).

Read a little about the book, maybe.

Let the poetry break you a bit. Laugh out loud sometimes (because it's also funny sometimes). Let it break your heart, too, make you think, make you wonder. Be willing to do a little work to understand, or try. Be open.

Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds
I don't love all YA novels-in-verse but this one leveled me with the power of its language -- the economy of it, the power, the care given to rhythm and sound.

I finished it and immediately handed it to my teenaged daughter. I want more copies in my classroom. The story itself is powerful, but the writing sends it soaring.

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom, by Bettina L. Love
I want every teacher teacher to read this.

I had the phenomenal privilege of hearing Dr. Love speak this year, and in my journal I wrote, "I want every teacher to hear her. Actually, every human." That's exactly how I feel about her book.

The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo
Retellings of well-known stories don't always work for me, but I couldn't pass up the story of The Great Gatsby told from Jordan's perspective. Jordan as queer, adopted, and Asian -- I'm here for it. Right before I picked this up, I had a conversation with a friend about the value of "American Literature" courses in high school, and I said that the only way I would ever want to teach a class with that title again is by focusing on whose stories weren't told in those red hardcover anthologies so many of us marched through. But that's a larger conversation.

Anyway, maybe the premise is ridiculous -- there is also magic, demon's blood (demoniac) added to many, many cocktails, and cut paper figures that come eerily to life -- but Vo's telling of this story is transformative and it works beautifully. I suppose it could stand on its own, but I think I appreciated it so much more more because I've read Fitzgerald's novel many times (and I can't deny that I love it, mostly for the cadence of his sentences). Vo perfectly captures the essence of Fitzgerald's story and the way he can draw a reader so fully into a moment, but her command of language is also very much her own, and I was completely enthralled from start to finish. I knew what was coming, but I couldn't put it down, and with Jordan at the center the story soars in a dark and dreamy new way.

The Shadow King, by Maaza Mengiste
This book is stunning, and it's also the best war novel I've ever read, telling the story of Italy's second invasion of Ethiopia. Most war novels relegate women to the margins, if they are present at all; they are flimsy plot devices, or sexual objects, or props. This novel centers them; women have always been there.

The characters are all multifaceted, complicated, and human. The writing is gorgeous at the sentence level and brilliant in the bigger picture -- structure, plot, theme. I couldn't put it down, but I also wanted to read it slowly. It's a nearly perfect novel.

Things We Lost to the Water, by Eric Nguyen
This is a story of Huong, a refugee from Vietnam, who arrives in New Orleans with her two very young sons in 1979, and the novel follows their lives through the next few decades, ending with Hurricane Katrina. I wanted to love it -- the motif of water is (clearly) an important thread, and the novel grapples with the themes of memory, loss, belonging, and how we find and define home (one of my favorite literary themes). But I wanted more from each of the characters' stories -- so much potential for development. Still, this is one I'll keep in my classroom and happily share.

Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead
I loved this book more than I can put into words. Finely honed at the sentence level, perfectly paced and plotted, and characters I can't stop thinking about. It spoke to my soul in ways I can't articulate yet. Definitely one of my favorites this year.

Local Woman Missing, by Mary Kubica
I know I listen to too much true crime, but this irritated me so much. At the end I both wanted to laugh and throw the book at the wall. The multiple perspectives also didn't work for me because the voices all read exactly the same to me -- I'd have lost track of who was talking (the little brother of the missing girl, one of the missing women, the woman next door, etc.) if each section wasn't clearly labeled with a name and "NOW" or "ELEVEN YEARS AGO." On the positive side, it was a FAST read (started it at dinner, finished it after breakfast the next morning, did NOT stay up all night breathlessly turning pages) and I did finish it, because in spite of myself, I wanted to know what happened.

Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy, by Gholdy Mohammaed
Another absolutely essential book for educators.

The 57 Bus, by Dashka Slater
I'm excited to add this to my sophomore curriculum.

This is the summary from goodreads.com:

One teenager in a skirt.
One teenager with a lighter.
One moment that changes both of their lives forever.

If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight.

This is a story that fosters empathy and understanding, elevates marginalized voices we need to hear, and, yes, reminds us of our own humanity. I hope.

Behind Closed Doors, by B.A. Paris
So this isn't great literature, but I couldn't put it down and the ending was pretty great. It's exactly what I needed to read over Labor Day weekend after the most chaotic return to school I've ever experienced (fully in-person after 18 months AND in a brand-new building). Glad it was a library book because it was no Tana French, but no regrets.

Somebody's Daughter, by Ashley C. Ford
Ashley C. Ford is a beautiful writer, and this memoir is one I'll recommend (and add to my classroom shelves).

It's a different story than the one I thought I was going to read -- maybe that's a marketing issue, but there were so many places where she brushed over stories I wanted so much more of, especially in her adulthood. But they're hers to tell as she wishes, and this is still a complex, nuanced, important read.

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan
This strange, dreamy, devastating, beautiful book cut straight to my core.

I love this quote from Damien Cave's review in The New York Times: "If there is hope in 'The Living Sea of Waking Dreams' — and in interviews, Flanagan has said there is — it may be found in that simple admonition. Look extinction in the face and find meaning in what we have left. Human failure cannot be solved when we’re scrolling, lost in our dreams, or when the air is tobacco brown. What we see, stream and share will never matter as much as the lives and landscapes we can observe, contemplate and touch."

The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris
I picked this up because it was getting a lot of literary buzz and it was categorized (by some) as a "thriller," which is what I'm often in the mood for in the fall. But this book defies easy categorization. It's not really a thriller -- at least not the fun, read-in-one-sitting kind of books I indulge in over the weekend when I'm stressed -- but it also doesn't read (to me) like a "dark comedy" or one reminiscent of The Devil Wears Prada, which is how it's marketed. It's much deeper than that, and the writing is so much more than I usually expect from my fun mystery reads. Maybe that's actually why this isn't the book for some folks. I suppose it's a slow burn in terms of "thrillers" (although the writing and characterization had me hooked from page one, and I didn't want to put it down), but I trusted this writer from the beginning, and when I understood where she was taking her readers I wanted to go back and reread parts just to appreciate how skillfully she steered the story. I suspect I'll be thinking about this one for awhile.

A Slow Fire Burning, by Paula Hawkins
Fun in the way Paula Hawkins's books are. A good way to spend a vacation day. Probably it's predictable, but I never try too hard to solve the mystery when I'm only spending one or two cozy, chilly afternoons with a book. (I think I like Ruth Ware better, but both writers are ones whose books I happily check out of the library when they're available.)

Filthy Animals, by Brandon Taylor
I think Brandon Taylor is a brilliant writer and I loved his novel Real Life last year. These stories are also well crafted and beautifully written, but they didn't hold me like his longer fiction. I enjoyed the book every time I picked it up to read a story, but I never felt compelled to go back to it, and in the end I read the last three together so I could add it to my 2021 list -- I'd almost forgotten I was reading it at all. I wonder if I would have been more drawn to it if it had been a collection of distinct stories or a novel-in-stories featuring Lionel, Charlie, and Sophie instead of a mix of stories featuring those characters and a few that seemed entirely disconnected.

Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead
Five stars because Colson Whitehead is a genius. I would probably not have been drawn to a novel described "a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s" -- sounds fun, but my reading list is long -- except that Colson Whitehead wrote it. I know I need to go back and read his earlier work, because the versatility of his writing is astonishing. The characterization in this story is phenomenal, as well as the brilliant evocation of a particular time and place. And it turned out to be exactly the book I needed to read to take me out of my own particular time and place, at the moment.

Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen
Listen, I know we're supposed to hate Jonathan Franzen, and despite the fact that The Corrections is a book that lingers with me sixteen years after I read it, I was ready to be done with him myself after reading Purity (which wasn't an awful book, but I thought, you know, I don't need to be loyal to this writer). But when I read the synopsis of Crossroads, and when I picked it up in a bookstore and skimmed the first few paragraphs, I bought it. And when I sat down to read in earnest, it grabbed me exactly like The Corrections did, and I really, really loved it for all the reasons I loved The Corrections and there you go.

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
I'm including this in my 2021 list because I'm closer to the end than the beginning. I came to James Baldwin rather late in my life and I'm still discovering him -- but teaching his essays to my juniors requires that I think beyond what personally resonates for me, too, and this book sets his work in the context of our own. I have so much more of Baldwin to read (and more is definitely on my list for 2022), and I'm glad to have this book alongside me as I do.

The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles
I'm also including this on my 2021 list even though I haven't quite finished, although I still might by tomorrow night. I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one after absolutely loving A Gentleman in Moscow, which remains one of the most immersive, satisfying reads of my life. This one, I am happy to report, lives up to my expectations. Absolutely wonderful characters, beautifully crafted sentences, and a story I just want to curl up with forever. It's been perfect for our snow days this week.

Note: I don't usually include audiobooks, because they're not my favorite. It's not that I don't consider them "real" reading (I do!) but they don't work for me in the same way; I can't fully appreciate the language and craft of stories I really love when I can't see the sentences. But that's not to say that I don't enjoy audiobooks in my own particular context: extended time on the road, and occasionally, on my daily walks (though I prefer podcasts for those).

Here are my top audiobooks for 2021:

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century, by Maureen Callahan
My favorite true crime podcast let me to want to learn more about Israel Keyes. Why didn't we ever hear about Israel Keyes? He's terrifying. He also probably killed someone wherever you live, by the way. And he spent plenty of time in Washington state (as do most serial killers, it seems), so I continued to be amazed that I haven't either been murdered or tripped over a human femur on one of my walks.

Anxious People, by Fredrick Backman
I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. As in, I might actually buy it just to have a hard copy to hug. I listened to the last 90 minutes on a 6-mile walk, tears streaming down my face the entire time. I recommend this book to literally everyone.

An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones
I think I'd have appreciated this a great deal if I'd read the physical book, but it worked well as an audiobook too. I loved the characters' voices, the structure, and their story. It was heartbreaking and tender even at its most painful moments.

Beartown, by Fredrick Backman
I'm currently listening to this one after a couple of short(ish) road trips over winter break; I have a bit left. It's powerful and intense, and the storytelling is what I've come to appreciate form Backman. I pretty much recommend his books to anyone, audiobooks or otherwise.

As always, I've already started a list for 2022, and I'm looking forward to the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 from Lithub and The Millions in the coming days. If you've made your way through my list, I assume you're reading your way through your own. And I believe reading matters, so: love and solidarity, Friends.

Friday nights are different this year

Three years ago, on a weekend when I desperately needed the comfort of nostalgia, I ordered The Baby-Sitters Club Retro Set -- the first six books of my beloved childhood series, the one I gave away decades ago when I thought I had well outgrown them. The books arrived in a pale blue tin case, with the original covers. I appreciated the satisfying heft of it. And then I tucked it away.

*

Last weekend, I wanted to curl up with Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead's new book. I've been looking forward to this since the Millions Most Anticipated list came out. I think Colson Whitehead is one of our most brilliant, most versatile writers. But while The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys are phenomenal and important works of literature, I am absolutely here for a novel described as "a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s." That's what I want right now. Sign me up.

*

Friday afternoons have always been sacred. I leave school full of energy, full of love for my job and my students, full of optimism, full of absolute certainty that my job is the best there is. Friday afternoons are when I feel the freedom of the weekend stretching before me, so I do not feel conflicted in any way about indulging in a few hours of reading after changing immediately into sweatpants. Sometimes I go for a walk or a jog first and soak in a bubble bath. Sometimes I skip it. But there is always a book and comfy clothes, followed by a cozy dinner and Family Movie Night. 

In the early days of our marriage, before we had kids and when Matt was still working in West Seattle or Kirkland, I liked to go to a local coffee shop on Friday nights in the fall and read on a cushioned corner chair as the afternoon turned to dusk. I read Fingersmith by Sarah Waters on a dark October afternoon, sipping a huckleberry mocha. I thought of that moment yesterday as I drove home through the rain; it's one of my coziest reading memories. The coffee shop is closed, now. And anyway, driving to it requires commitment I can't muster at the moment.

Last weekend I tried to read Harlem Shuffle, but my brain couldn't process it. I couldn't process Colson Whitehead's perfect sentences, couldn't process the story I'd wanted for weeks - one as far removed from my own life as I could get.

I picked up the Baby-Sitters Club instead.

*

Fridays are different this year. I leave school feeling defeated and exhausted in a way that is deeply unmooring for me. I'm not used to this. I'm not used to this sadness, this anger, this diminished energy. The pervasiveness of it all. The aloneness of it all.

I wrote a lot about remote teaching last year; it was the strangest word I'd ever done. There were glimmers of pure magic from my students that somehow, somehow, reminded me that all was not lost. But it was so much work with so little of the joy.

There is undoubtedly more joy this year; I end every single day with it, truly. My seniors have no idea what a gift it is for me to be in person with them. And I tell them that often, but I don't tell them that they are the reason -- sometimes it feels like the only reason -- that I keep breathing in and out. I don't tell them that, because it's an unfair burden to place upon a kid. They have enough burdens of their own, and I truly believe that they should not feel like they need to be a teacher's source of emotional support. When we develop these relationships with kids, it can be easy to forget that, but I also believe it's critically important. I'll cry on my last day with my seniors, but they also need to trust that I won't fall apart every time we talk about something difficult. (I teach literature. We talk about "difficult" a lot. And they need to feel safe doing that.)

But where, then, does that support come from? Because I have never in my career felt so low, or so utterly isolated. 

It's been a long time since I could tick off literally all the boxes on the "High-Functioning Depression" test. Years. And for a long time, I've felt pretty good about my ability to manage it. But now the coping skills I've developed after years of learning how (with a lot of help) are fracturing, and it is all I can do to hold it together at school, where there is absolutely no place for me to feel anything. No place, no time, no room. No space for me, really. It just is not there. So I swallow it back. And who the hell cares, anyway? Everyone has their trauma right now. We're all traumatized by teaching, and some of us have other things going on, but there is nowhere I feel like I can go with that, so here I am, typing alone at my table while my children sleep, or sneaking back into my office space when everyone has gone home and I'm waiting to collect a child from an after-school function, or driving in my car after I drop off another child at school, or having a panic attack in my bathroom at home because that feels like the only space for me right now.

I don't need advice. I know. I just need a space. A place. So I guess I'm taking it here. As for the rest? Well, life goes on. It always does.

I don't say that flippantly. Please believe that.

*

I read all six BSC books last weekend, straight through.

As much as I wanted to be Claudia, I'm more of a combination of Mallory and Dawn, I think. Always writing in a journal, a little klutzy -- I have tripped over my own Danskos and torn my jeans at school too many times to count -- and prone to moping under a tree. But also organized, mostly vegetarian. Too sensitive and easily annoyed. Practical. Fearful. But mostly perfectly okay being herself.

Reading those books felt like wrapping myself in a weighted blanket. That kind of comfort -- I needed that. I finished the first one and started the second (Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls). I thought I should stop then, ration the books a bit, but I couldn't make myself care about anything more than submerging myself in The Truth About Stacey and Mary Anne Saves the Day.

What does it mean to be a teacher, a mother of a teenager, a mother of a sixth-grader, muddling through school after a year-and-a-half of remote learning? How can these books speak to me where I am right now? Why do I want nothing else than to pull a blanket over my head and retreat into this world of novels written when I was in fourth, fifth, sixth grade?

But it's what I needed. I read the first, the second, the third. I read all six, all in a row.

If I were in a different state of mind, I would write entire essays about reading the BSC books again in 2021. As it stands, I'm grateful to tuck them back into their tin and maybe browse the internet for copies of the Super Specials.

Life goes on, as it does.

But tonight, I'm carving out this little space that's mine, where for a minute it matters, where I can try to catch my breath after losing it in so many secret spaces.

I picked up Harlem Shuffle again last night and read for awhile. I'm ready to keep going this time, I think. At least there's that.

October, finally

Two weeks ago I sat at my dining room table, writing to the sound of rain. This is the sound I wait for, every September. The rain was fleeting, but it soothed the edges of my frazzled nerves.

I went for a run after school today. I'm oddly energetic on Friday afternoons, especially on Fridays when I end with a class that never fails to fill my cup. I was in a strange headspace; this week has been particularly hard. But I left school feeling good and wanting to move in the cool sunshine.

It cools off at night now; we still sleep with a fan, but I don't kick away the covers. One night this week I was cold enough to wear socks to bed -- what a lovely feeling. Sunny days aren't oppressive, the way they feel in late August, with our matted lawn, crisp and colorless. The leaves have begun to turn, and they are beautiful. I love the bursts of color on sunny Saturdays in October; this year, I know they'll make me miss our weekend soccer games. 

I missed them last year, too, but I missed a lot of things last year. 

*

These days, our morning routines go like this: Suzannah and I are up early, before the boys. She starts the coffee maker, which Matt has set up the night before, and she drinks one cup with her breakfast. Milk, two teaspoons of sugar. I'm never hungry at that hour, and I don't like to drink coffee quickly, so I simply shower and dress, and the two of us are out the door before dawn. I drive through my favorite espresso stand before we get to school; I discovered them twenty years ago, when I used my lunch break to rush back to my apartment and take my new pug puppy out to potty on the scrap of lawn next to the stairs. In those days, I ordered a black and white mocha and drank it on my way back to school. Now, I stick to Americanos, sometimes black, sometimes with a splash of cream.

On the days when I take Suzannah to school, we park in the teacher lot and walk in together. She gives me a quick hug and heads off towards the Commons area or to hang out with her friends in a patient colleague's classroom, and I walk up the stairs to my new office, where I have extra morning planning time. I've been on a part-time contract since she was born, so I'm not required to be here at this hour -- but Matt and I decided to choice Suzannah into my school, so we share the responsibility of transportation. The extra time feels lovely right now. I'm a morning person by nature, and those extra hours in a quiet space mean it's easier for me to leave my laptop at my docking station at the end of the day. Last year, I never really succeeded at establishing a boundary between work and home, because I taught my classes through that screen at the center of my house.

On the days when I take Isaac to school -- the privilege of a position that is still technically part-time -- we can all sleep just a little longer, or at least we're not as rushed. Matt doesn't need to make himself presentable before he rolls out of bed to drive her to school, and he doesn't need to worry about snagging a spot in the teacher lot -- my school is still under construction, and parking is at a premium. When I go in later, I park behind the football field, nowhere near the entrance that is closest to my classroom. Or any entrance, really. I walk along the track, then up a long paved path to the back entrance next to the health clinic, and then I cross the Commons area and make my way to the stairs that lead to the second floor, where I share an IB office and a classroom.

But it's okay. A year ago, we didn't go anywhere. We drank our coffee and ate our breakfast and logged onto our computers in different rooms of our house. As much as I loved wearing my favorite gray sweats underneath whatever reasonably professional look I managed to put together on top, those gray sweats weren't worth it. As much as I loved having some really sweet time with my family, knowing that it was an unexpected gift -- after all, my kids are not at ages when I would expect to see so much of them, and I really loved it -- it wasn't the natural order of things, and I know how much they need to be with their peers (and please, no one needs to lecture any teachers about this). But I won't write about that here tonight. I tried to write about it a year ago, when I was still trying to justify my paycheck to friends and family who didn't seem to think I deserved it.

I haven't found my sweet spot yet, not at all. I counted it as a victory that I found my teacher mailbox in the main office all by myself for the first time last Friday, without Kailey holding my hand (though she did cheer me on, and I choose to believe it was not entirely mocking). I can make copies now. But I haven't found my groove, that place where I'm actually ready to greet students at my door because everything they need is printed and ready to pick up (and they know the routines to do that) or displayed on a screen (which is now a fancy new Smart Board). Kids haven't had to ask permission to pee in a very long time, so I haven't been consistent with hall passes. We have a system now, but everything, all of these really basic things, are an evolving process. I have to remind kids all day long to wear their masks correctly, which is the only issue I haven't encountered before, and it's the one I care about most right now. Usually, all it takes is eye contact and tapping my own. But it's unmooring, to say the least. All of it. Learning to be human together again. To read each other's signals. To constantly evaluate risk, and maintain that essential connection at the same time. It all matters so much.

This is what it means to be back in a classroom full-time. It's too crowded, of course. I'm no stranger to over-crowded classrooms; my first of teaching, I had 42 students in my first period class. But during a pandemic, when we have to provide seating charts for contact tracing, full classrooms bring a different level of anxiety. The first time I stood in front of a full class, I found it difficult to breathe, and it wasn't because of my mask.

Speaking of which: teaching through a mask isn't my favorite, but it's infinitely better than teaching through a screen. I'm watching schools in other parts of the country -- and, this week, a private school in my own state -- close because Covid is tearing through their classrooms, and my anxiety rises. My anxiety rises, and so does my anger. My whole body thrums with it. I am so grateful to live in a state with a mask mandate, because it is the best chance we have of keeping kids in school without putting them at even more risk. I'm furious at folks who think that doing this tiny thing is giving into "fear." I'm furious at folks who think that protecting vulnerable members of our community is an imposition on their personal freedom, that we should expect them to "stay home if they're scared." As if we should render them invisible. As if we haven't already. 

Right now, I just want my son vaccinated. Sometimes I think it will be a miracle if he can avoid quarantine until then. I found myself murmuring in the car two weeks ago, Please let him just get to run in his first cross-country meet. And please just let him not get sick. Sure, he'd probably be fine, right? But look, this mama has already experienced what it's like to have a healthy child suddenly hospitalized at Mary Bridge Children's, with a pediatric nephrology team taking care of him. 

Is that what it means to "live in fear"? 

We were lucky. We were so lucky. And on a normal weekday, we waited for hours in the ER for a bed. I would be so terrified to need any sort of hospital care now, when we can't assume a bed will be available at all. Washington is taking on transfers from Idaho. My home state is rationing medical care. My best friend who works for a clinic in Minnesota reports that they're struggling to find open beds for non-COVID patients.

Most healthy children don't suddenly go into kidney failure, but some of them do. Don't come at me with your statistics, especially if you're too precious to wear a mask for twenty minutes inside a grocery store. I think a measure of our humanity might just be our willingness to wear that stupid mask to protect someone else's child. That's the only sort of world I want to live in. So I'm pretty depressed these days.

*

Anyway, my son managed to escape quarantine before his first cross-country meet last week. And my greatest fear was not, honestly, that he would get sick -- because he is incredibly conscientious about wearing a mask and because we are lucky enough to live in a district that requires them. I just know that he needs these experiences, these connections, and I want him to have them.

He ran hard, with absolute determination, and he took third overall and first for his school. Yesterday he shaved something like forty-five seconds off his time; he threw himself against the fence, panting and red-faced but clearly pleased after he crossed the finish line. He did not get any of this from me. I require a tremendous amount of validation from for huffing around my neighborhood for awhile. I was highly allergic to P.E. and running the mile until P.E. classes were no longer required. Listen, I was the kid vomiting at the side of the track because I really wanted that stupid A on my report card. (I'm told P.E. doesn't work like that anymore and I am so glad.) 

Cross-country is a perfect pandemic sport, and perfect for my high-energy son who is very active but has zero interest in "organized" sports. I watched him run, and then I watched him bounce up and down and cheer for every single teammate until they crossed the finish line. This is what it means to be part of a community. Toxic individualism tells us that our "personal freedom" is what we should fight for, instead of the greater whole. But we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

*

I've tried to write here so many times in the last two weeks, since the afternoon when I sat at my table, listening to the rain. I don't know how to tell all the stories that matter right now.