April Books

I read seven books in April. I got totally sugared out on the Kindle Unlimited clean romances, so I turned back to some more tried and true faves that I already own. My fiction books were all re-reads, but I branched out into new territory on the non-fiction, and struck GOLD. I savored Untamed by Glennon Doyle and Bittersweet by Susan Cain. Wow. They captured many nebulous thoughts and feelings that I've had and converted them into beautiful descriptive language--pure alchemy. 

Fiction: these were all re-reads so I didn't re-summarize them. Suffice it to say that they were good enough for me to re-read. 

1. *Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay
2. *Cinder by Marissa Meyer
3. *Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
4. *Royal Date by Sarah Wilson
5. *Royal Chase by Sariah Wilson

Non-fiction:

1. Untamed by Glennon Doyle: a collection of essays on life, relationships, parenting, love, and everything in between. Phenomenal book. I loved her insights. I was hesitant to read this book when it first came out 2 years ago, uncertain about the language and thoughts it may contain, but I finally took the plunge and I'm so glad I did. Glennon Doyle is a divorced mother of three who married former pro soccer player Abby Wambach. Her insights on being true to yourself and listening to the voice within aligned surprisingly closely with my religious beliefs about the influence of the Holy Ghost. She called it the "Knowing." Some of the essays lean a bit deeper into moral relativism than I prefer, but I was able to see past that to the poignant insights scattered liberally throughout this whole beautiful book. Wow. I especially loved her insights on parenting and relationships. 
2. Bittersweet by Susan Cain: This book was so meaningful and interesting! It helped me understand the appeal of more serious/sad stories/shows/experiences, and appreciate them more. The "bittersweet tradition" is to transform pain into beauty. Susan Cain is an agnostic scholar who found a "sense of the divine" when she started studying bittersweet, aka the center of our mortal experience that so directly connects us to God. She writes so poignantly about what it means to be human.

Quotes from Untamed by Glennon Doyle-- it was incredibly hard to narrow my 53 highlights down to these, and I could totally write an essay about each and every one of these passages. (My comments are in italics.) 

"Sometimes being brave means letting everyone down but yourself."

"Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist. What a terrible burden for children to bear—to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear—to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate, too. Because if we show them that being a martyr is the highest form of love, that is what they will become. They will feel obligated to love as well as their mothers loved, after all. They will believe they have permission to live only as fully as their mothers allowed themselves to live...When we call martyrdom love we teach our children that when love begins, life ends...What if a responsible mother is not one who shows her children how to slowly die but how to stay wildly alive until the day she dies? What if the call of motherhood is not to be a martyr but to be a model?"

--Amen! I need to read this every Mother's Day and beyond.

"Human qualities are not gendered. What is gendered is permission to express certain traits."

--This is so true. Let's just be humans and let each other express ourselves freely in our own way!

"We don’t have to have answers for our children; we just have to be brave enough to trek into the woods and ask tough questions with them."

"What if parenting became less about telling our children who they should be and more about asking them again and again forever who they already are? Then, when they tell us, we would celebrate instead of concede. It’s not: I love you no matter which of my expectations you meet or don’t meet. It’s: My only expectation is that you become yourself. The more deeply I know you, the more beautiful you become to me. If someone tells you who they are, consider how lucky you are to be graced with that gift."

--Yes! Individual worth is not connected to or dependent on actions; it is inherent. Nothing we think, say, or do can alter our worth to be greater or less than it is.

"Good art originates not from the desire to show off but from the desire to show yourself. Good art always comes from our desperate desire to breathe, to be seen, to be loved. In everyday life, we are used to seeing only the shiny outer layer of folks. Art makes us less lonely because it always comes from the desperate center of the artist—and each of our centers is desperate. That’s why good art is such a relief."

--I love this insight about art!

"A person is ringing my doorbell. I run out of my office to find my children also stunned, frozen, and waiting for direction about how to respond to this imminent home invasion. We stare at each other, count bodies, and collectively cycle through the five stages of doorbell grief: Denial: This cannot be happening. ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO BE IN THIS HOUSE ARE ALREADY IN THIS HOUSE. Maybe it was the TV. IS THE TV ON? Anger: WHO DOES THIS? WHAT KIND OF BOUNDARYLESS AGGRESSOR RINGS SOMEONE’S DOORBELL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT? Bargaining: Don’t move, don’t breathe—maybe they’ll go away. Depression: Why? Why us? Why anyone? Why is life so hard? Acceptance: Damnit to hell. You—the little one—we volunteer you. Put on some pants, act normal, and answer the door. It’s dramatic, but the door always gets answered. If the kids aren’t home, I’ll even answer it myself. Is this because I remember that adulting requires door answering? Of course not. I answer the door because of the sliver of hope in my heart that if I open the door, there might be a package waiting for me. A package!"

--HAH! This is me, minus the swear words. My favorite passage in the whole book.

"Courage says, “I will not let the fact that I cannot do everything keep me from doing what I can.”"

Quotes from Bittersweet by Susan Cain-- again, it was tough to choose from the 54 quotes that I highlighted in this thoughtful, thought-provoking book.

"“bittersweet”: a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired."

"Most of all, bittersweetness shows us how to respond to pain: by acknowledging it, and attempting to turn it into art, the way the musicians do, or healing, or innovation, or anything else that nourishes the soul...if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward each other. This idea—of transforming pain into creativity, transcendence, and love—is the heart of this book."

"...it may be more useful to view creativity through the lens of bittersweetness—of grappling simultaneously with darkness and light. It’s not that pain equals art. It’s that creativity has the power to look pain in the eye, and to decide to turn it into something better...Nor must we be great artists in order to view our own struggles as objects of creative transformation. What if we simply took whatever pain we couldn’t get rid of, and turned it into something else?"

--Another excellent art-quote!

"How do we get to the point of seeing our sorrows and longings not as indications of secret unworthiness but as features of humanity? How do we come to realize that embracing our inner loser as well as winner—the bitter and the sweet—is the key to transcending them both, the key to meaning, creativity, and joy?"

"The young delude themselves that the music will never stop playing. So it makes sense for them to explore rather than savor; to meet new people rather than to devote time to their nearest and dearest; to learn new skills and soak up information, rather than to ponder the meaning of it all; to focus on the future rather than to remain in the present. Poignancy, for the young, may be touching, but it can feel irrelevant to the daily act of living. All these youthful activities are wonderful, of course, in an expansive, life-building way. But when you know, really know, that you won’t live much longer, your perspective narrows—and deepens. You start to focus on what matters most, stop caring so much about ambition, status, and getting ahead. You want the time you have left to be charged with love and meaning. You think about your legacy, savor the simple act of being alive."

--This is one of the most bittersweet paragraphs in the whole book. 

Quote from Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay:

"It was one of the most warm-feeling, broad-smile, deep-belly-sigh days ever." 

--This is how I felt after reading both Untamed and Bittersweet. And when I spend time outside with my kids. And when I go on walks with my husband.