A Priceless and Precious Piece of World War II History
I have had the privilege of friendship with the talented poet, Stephanie Peirce for some years now. We met at Goddard College where we were both pursuing our MFAs in creative writing, Stephanie as an aspiring poet and I as a writer of novel length fiction. It was love at first sight (for me anyway!) when I sat in on a poetry group she was in. She was, I fancied, a younger and more talented version of me. We both had the same long, wild mass of hair, though mine was beginning to silver by then and hers was golden. Somehow, though we were on different paths and didn’t see much of each other at school, we began a long distance friendship after graduation, checking in on each other’s writing journey and eventually serving as reader-editors for one another’s manuscripts.
Glimpses is Stephanie’s newest achievement, and it is wonderful! I recommend it heartily, and I am so proud to introduce you to it here.
Glimpses is a slim volume of letters, photos, and commentary that offers precious glimpses into the lives of the author’s paternal grandparents, Catherine “Treenie” Barham Peirce and Chichester “Chit” Tapscott Peirce Jr., who was killed in Germany on February 9, 1945. It tells a compelling story of love and loss, one that is carefully compiled and beautifully rendered. It is an absolute treasure, a gift not only to the memories of Stephanie’s grandparents, but also to the countless lives altered by World War II, and to readers and historians everywhere.
Glimpses will fit perfectly on this shelf!
Stephanie’s first book of poetry, The Bright Dark
Wishing you all ample time to read, to write, to dream and to create–and beautiful friends to share it all with. Love, Lori
I recently had one of those decade milestone birthdays. I am not an enormous fan of birthday celebrations in general, and less so when I am the one in the spotlight. I can’t remember ever being excited about my own birthday, at least not in the way I imagine other people get excited. I guess I really don’t know if other people are truly excited on their birthdays or if it is all performative theatre. Maybe some of each? I know I get embarrassed, especially when I open presents in front of people. I feel like I’m going to let them down in some undefinable way.
My first memory of my own birthday was when I was very young—perhaps three? Definitely no more than four. I was a shy little kid who liked to be alone and sleep a lot. Who knows why. As far as I know things hadn’t yet fallen apart in my world at that point, so I don’t think I was depressed per se. Though disaster was looming, no one knew that yet. Definitely not little Lori. So, I was just a little odd, I guess. Anyway, my older brother, Billy, was the sunny opposite—funny, excitable, energetic. Everything delighted him.
The thing I remember about that early birthday is being shaken out of the soft cocoon of sleep by Billy jumping up on my bed and hopping around whooping, “Sissy, sissy, wake up. It’s your birthday!” I am pretty sure he stepped on me during the process. I reacted the way a fifty-year-old spinster might, groaning and covering my head with my pillow and telling him to go away. It was a story often repeated in the family. Billy was more excited about Lori’s birthday than she was.
Over the years, birthdays never really got more exciting, except, perhaps, for the 18th, because when I turned 18 it became legal for me to drink alcohol in the state of Wisconsin and I was, sadly, very interested in taverns in those days. I was a bit of a lost soul. By the time I turned 21, I was a mother, and so there was little reason or opportunity to celebrate my own birthday. I could instead focus on making birthdays memorable for my son, and then my daughter when she came along a few years later. I enjoyed making their cakes, choosing presents for them, planning little parties. I began taking my daughter to Disneyland every year on her birthday since we lived nearby at the time, and she continues to be a huge Disneyland fan to this day.
Friends
I think it was when I was in my late thirties that my friend Cheryl suggested we start a birthday tradition of meeting somewhere special to celebrate our milestone birthdays, the ones that ended in 0, and so it was that we went to Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort in Utah for our 40th birthdays. We have been friends since we were little girls, and we are only a couple months apart. The once-a-decade birthday trip suited me. No big gatherings. No embarrassing surprises, just two old friends going for nature walks and eating nice food. Perfect!
Friends
This year I had three birthday celebrations! That’s a lot of cake! Not that a lot of cake is a bad thing. I had several days with my friend, Sandy, then several with my friend, Cheryl, and then a little visit with my sister-in-law, Kathy, and some of her family at her new home in Menominee, Michigan. It’s been wonderful. The only thing missing is my kids and grandkids who are far away. Spending time with them cannot come soon enough!
Aunt Lori Gets More Cake?
Dinner at a Wisconsin Supper Club
Birthdays can be a bit like New Year’s in a sense—a time to reflect on the past, celebrate, remember, and look forward—a time to plan ahead. My friends and family reminded me of the good things about reaching this milestone, of the experience and love, of pain, too, but also wisdom. Somehow, over the years I managed to raise two children, put myself through college and grad school, teach wonderful young people, and a few older ones, write several novels (and finally am in the process of getting the third one published), maintained rich and meaningful relationships (but also lost a few), and am experiencing now the joy of watching my beautiful grandchildren as they grow. A long life provides a kind of strength, a strength that recognizes the good, the bad, the hopelessness and the hopefulness—the totality of it all. And I have been all those things at one time or another.
Kitty Bliss
I wish I could say I’ve put all my mistakes behind me, and that I have reached a state of peaceful benign bliss, but I definitely can’t! Just after priding myself on what I considered my valiant composure while under stress, and, in fact, bragging about it, my husband jumped into a swimming pool and got my hair wet. I lost my mind. I shot through the water like an angry shark, whipping and whacking water into his surprised face with an intensity never before seen outside of a hurricane. I was as surprised as he was! Where did that come from?
I guess I still have some growing up to do. I Am So Sorry, Sweetheart!
Sending Love and Blissful Blooms to You Today! And Birthday and UnBirthday Best Wishes Galore!
Lake Arrowhead, California, USA. Photo by Hayley O’Kelly
“A writer finds peace in silence, speaking only to the page, yet the words survive only by stepping into the noise of the world to be seen, heard, and held by others.” ― Lawrence Nault
I have found a great deal of peace in the silent world of writing, “speaking only to the page.” First as an insecure and introverted girl, and later as an adult, writing has provided a safe place for me. A place of comfort and security, and a place to grow.
In my experience the act of writing places the writer in a sacred space both inside and outside of the constraints of normal consciousness. It’s also a place of discovery and healing. Writing has probably saved me from a thousand unknown terrible fates by keeping me grounded, probing, perceptive, and awake. At least it feels that way. Writing has awakened in me a million possibilities, become my friend, my coach, my inward eye. Writing has shaped my existence.
An entry from my journal which was made from an old book owned by a lady named Mary Miller
And so, it with great trepidation that I send my writing into the world. The tension between the safety of my personal writing bubble and the “noise of the world” is immense. Sending your manuscript out has been compared to sending your child to school for the first time (“Sending a book out into the world is a lot like sending your child to the first day of kindergarten. You hope the other kids play nice and that she makes friends”—Mitchell Zuckoff), and having a child has been compared to giving your heart away (“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body” ―Elizabeth Stone). These are apt descriptions of my state of mind as I wait to hear from my publisher.
The contract has been signed, and the editor will soon be digging into my manuscript. This stage feels surreal after a lifetime of reading, writing, studying and dreaming. And years of querying agents and publishers. There’s not much to tell yet, but it looks as though there will be a book with my name on it coming out at some undetermined date in the future. I’m guessing it will be many months from now. I don’t even know if the title I’ve chosen will be used. I can say this, it is a World War II homefront historical fiction novel. It’s set in Lake Arrowhead, California, USA. The protagonist is named Mary Miller. And there are bears.
“In a single week in the summer of 1973, a quiet suburban neighborhood implodes when generations of mystical deceit become too much to bear. Drawn to the web of secrets and lies, the other worldly slivers refuse to be ignored, pushing one family to the brink.” –Slivers blurb
Vicki Atkinson employs her considerable knowledge of psychology, a deep interest in intuition, and a firm commitment to empathy to create a novel about a family in distress in her debut novel, Slivers. The young protagonists share much more than they realize as they struggle to reveal the source of strange supernatural swirls, voices, tendrils, smoke, and more that plague them and their families.
Slivers combines teen camaraderie and adventure with a strong nod to tradition, ancestors, and the importance of unity. It speaks of family ties, and the importance of avoiding self-serving interests. It also offers some resplendent images that I very much enjoyed, such as this one:
“…a brilliant sunburst flooded the room. The legacy box grew and its ornate lid opened, revealing a scroll, unfurling until it filled the entire closet, floor to ceiling. The man in the portrait was no longer there, but his presence remained as he gave a one-word command to the scroll: “Reveal!” The largest family tree they’d ever seen hovered before them, grand and imposing with hundreds of large and small branches, each with names and tiny portraits…”
When you read the book, be sure not to miss the fascinating reveal in the Author’s Notes at the end. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s a bit of Atkinson’s family history she discovered while doing research for the novel. Its relevance really adds weight to the story’s impact.
I’m lucky to have found Vicki Atkinson through my WordPress blog and to have read her riveting memoir, Surviving Sue, which if you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you read. Vicki is a generous writer and friend, one that I am proud to recommend!
Hello, Friends! In between a busy schedule of painting and repairs on our new/old house, Mr. P and I have been enjoying the warmer weather, and particularly the explosion of leaves and flowers on the deciduous trees and in the gardens and on the porches of many of our neighbors. We had one day that was much too hot for me, but so far, only one, so I have nothing to complain about. I am loving the mostly cool and humid spring climate here in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I told my husband it’s sort of like a cool Hawaii—lots of interesting weather changes within a day along with a lush and verdant landscape. It can go from sunny to cloudy and back again in no time.
Menominee River, Piers Gorge, Norway, MI
Our neighborhood consists of a sweet few blocks of century old two-story homes built for employees of the Ford plant that was here at the time, along with a park and a three-story home, called “the clubhouse” used by Ford and other important individuals.
Our deck clearly needs work! Great neighborhood though! Ford Addition, Kingsford, MI
“…Construction on the houses […] in the upper Ford Addition began in mid-May, 1924. Placed 24 to a block and kept in good repair by a crew of men employed by the Ford Motor Company for that purpose, the homes had electric lights, indoor bathrooms and were wired for a telephone. Most had three rooms downstairs, three rooms upstairs and a large cement basement. Some had five rooms, three on the ground floor and two upstairs. The smaller bungalows had five small rooms. Prices ranged from $3,500 to $5,500. A block-and-a-half square situated between Woodward Avenue and Hamilton Avenue was left for a park in the 600 block. In 1928 the park was equipped with tables, benches and garbage cans. A bandstand was erected in 1929, and a concert was held every Wednesday evening during the summer months. A cinder path was added in 1930 and tennis courts were also added [Menominee Range Historical Museum].” https://history.dickinsoncountylibrary.org.
I’m told we have our own little neighborhood parade, that the high school band marches down our street, and that we have a very big Halloween turnout here. The middle school, high school, a little lake, a park, medical clinic, a brew pub, tavern, and restaurant are all within easy walking distance. Nearby there are bigger lakes, the Menominee River, ski hills . . . . just all kinds of wonderful natural beauty. Walking and kayaking are our favorite activities here so far.
It’s fun to watch the rhythms of the place unfold as we begin to find our place here, bit by bit.
Cowboy Lake, Kingsford, MI
Fumee Falls, Quinnesec, MI
Piers Gorge, Norway, MI
Reading News:
My latest reads include
Blonde Dust, Tatiana de Rosnay—loved it!
My Husband’s Wife, Alice Feeney—entertaining
Judge Stone, James Patterson and Viola Davis—entertaining
Broken Country, Clare Leslie Hall—loved it
The Widow, John Grisham—entertaining
The Missing Pages, Alyson Richman–entertaining
My current read is Slivers, by Vicki Atkinson. Vicki is a fellow WordPress blogger and author of the wonderful memoir, Surviving Sue, which I loved. She is a licensed professional counselor with a doctorate in Adult Education and degrees in Psychology. I’m delighted to read her debut novel, Slivers, and will be writing a review soon!
One of my oldest friends called me last week. I’d been having a rough time and had withdrawn in a way that only a very close friend would recognize. I’d still been “in touch” with her, but I was withholding, and she could tell. She called, and I don’t remember exactly what she said, but her voice was soft and patient and expectant. She made it possible for me to reveal my heartache and gave me time to say the things out loud that I hadn’t been able to say.
Dr. Gerald Stein in his post, “Why the Clock is Essential in Therapy (and Relationships)” (https://drgeraldstein.wordpress.com), discusses that making time for “tender issues… can be like a dance, the partners move together as if choreographed…”, and that is what my friend did for me. She didn’t try to stop my tears or give me advice. It was like a dance in a way, or maybe like a prayer. Total acceptance and love.
After a while my breathing settled and we continued our conversation. She told me about “Dayenu,” the prayer and Passover seder song that tells the story of Exodus. The melody of the song is joyous and upbeat, a list of fifteen things God did for the Jews, anyone of which, they say, would have been enough for them. Sefaria Library’s reading of the text begins “How much good, layer upon layer, the omnipresent has done for us. Had He brought us out of Egypt without bringing judgment upon [our oppressors], that would have been enough for us.”
Traditional Seder Plate with Symbolic Foods for Passover- Pexels Free Photos
It would have been enough. Dayenu is a prayer of gratitude, but, she intimated (or perhaps I misunderstood and twisted it to suit my own situation), that sometimes the word Dayenu can also be used as a cleansing release. I don’t want to be disrespectful. But when I think of her saying “Dayenu! Enough!” I feel a little better.
Unlike my friend, I wasn’t raised in any specific faith. Though I believe my divorced parents were given religious instruction, I think my dad more than my mom, they did not, evidently, feel the need to share it with their progeny.
Why not? I’ve wondered. Parsing that is loose. My grandfathers died long before I was born, and one of my grandmothers died when I was a baby. The only grandparent I knew was my mom’s mom who died when I was nineteen. Sadly, I didn’t see her enough, nor know what to ask her about when I did. And for some reason, religion wasn’t much spoken of in my childhood, unless you took the Lord’s name in vain. That was frowned upon, unless Mom was really angry, in which case, she couldn’t be held to account. Dad never lost his temper and never cursed, so there wasn’t a lot of reason, I guess, for him to even bring up sin or religion or God. Anyway, Mom and Dad didn’t live together after I was four-years-old, so I would never be a member of a traditional united family like the ones I fantasized about.
Openverse, New York Public Library (Obviously I had very grand and old-fashioned fantasies about family life–I read a lot!)
I know Dad attended a Methodist church growing up in Chicago, and that his widowed librarian mother was a model of decorum, and that, in the 1920’s and ‘30s meant adherence to social norms such as church attendance. I’m not sure whether Mom was taken to church as a child, but given the times, I imagine she was at least exposed. Her upbringing was less city, less refined than Dad’s. Mom grew up in Faribault, Minnesota with a terminally ill father she adored, a Swedish immigrant who was bedridden by the time she was of school age, and her mother worked many hours a week to support the family. There were eight children, but by the time Mom came along several of them had left home. It wasn’t a farm, so it wasn’t as if the siblings had a reason to stay once they reached maturity, though I believe several of her older brothers helped contribute to the family income.
Both of my grandmothers worked outside the home, which I used to think was somewhat unusual, but now I know women have always worked in all kinds of ways other than homemaking. It just didn’t get reported. Women’s contributions have always been underrepresented in American society. For me, born in the 1950s and growing up in the 1960s and early 70s, it was normal to think that women had always been home. I grew up watching The Donna Reid Show, I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver. Sitcoms regularly featured women as married and caring for husbands and children, even if the woman happened to be a witch, as in Samantha of Bewitched. It was the ideal. Only a rare few Katherine Hepburn types, charming enough, but come on, not really practical, lived independent lives or made money of their own. That’s what we were told. I mean neither of my grandmothers was even allowed to vote when they were young, but they were allowed to work to support their families.
Dad’s father, a Scottish immigrant, died when Dad was four. Dad’s only sibling died at age twelve, and his spinster aunt, a seamstress, lived with them, bringing in an extra bit of income and caring for my dad (now an only child) while his mother worked, so even though it was the Great Depression and the family had experienced horrible loss, between his mother and his aunt, things stayed afloat. Dad was well looked after, educated, participated in church and school activities, and was enrolled in a pre-med program at college before WWII changed everything. Mom, on the other hand, didn’t, couldn’t, get the same amount of attention and help. When would her mother who cooked and cleaned and cared for other people and other people’s children probably for most of the day and most of the night, day after day without reprieve have had the time to take my mom to church?
Mom didn’t talk about it. Both of my parents claimed to believe in God and considered themselves Christian, and I believed them, but it was sort of incidental. God was why you didn’t lie or cheat or hurt others. Jesus was why we had Christmas and Easter. Despite their professed faith, both of them shunned churches and had little good to say about people who attended them. Organized religion, Dad said, had caused most of the world’s problems. Mom was less philosophical. She just didn’t care for their “holier than thou” ways. I was left to find my own path if I so desired, but was never given any formal, or indeed informal, religious education.
It took me a long time, with a lot of detours, to begin to travel my own spiritual path, and I haven’t been exactly good at it, but in my own halting way I’ve touched—not held, but touched, fragments of comfort, peace, and wonder over the years. The ways grace arrived for me are varied. A Lutheran friend. A Jewish friend. A Latter-Day Saints friend. A longing to give something lasting to my children. A church bell, and then another, and another. Calls to worship. Two Presbyterian congregations, one large and one small. One Episcopal congregation, tiny. A community where different faiths worked together. Health scares. Reading. Love. All of these. And Prayer. Something I always did, instinctively. Prayer.
I was surprised to find handwritten prayers in Dad’s bedside table drawer when he died. A nightly prayer list, it appeared. All beautifully written, eloquently phrased personal prayers for me and my brother and our families.
So Dad prayed, too, more than I knew.
Perhaps that was enough.
Thank you for reading, and my hopes for you today are these—may you have enough friendship, enough time, and the opportunity to grow in love and joy in all the ways that fill you.
It’s been two weeks since I left Nevada and one week since I arrived at my new Michigan home. All of these days have been solo; I drove alone, I arrived alone to an empty house, I spend my days here alone. There’s a theme building . . . For now!
The Way In
But husband and kitties will be joining me soon.
The Dreaded Cot(I do not love it)
A Lonely Room (but I love it!)
As an introvert, this hasn’t been particularly tough. I love people, but I also love solitude. I just got the internet yesterday, and that’s fun because now I can write and publish my writing more easily. No TV here yet. No furniture to speak of. I have one little lamp table that fit in my car, a folding camp chair, and a cot. That’s it. Everything else will come in the moving van next week. So, what do I do all day?
I clean and I read. Often, at the same time, by listening to audiobooks using the Libby library App. One of the books I’ve enjoyed so far during this extended period of solitude is aptly The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. It’s a tough book about a tough time and a tough place, but I liked it. Alaska in the 1970s, mental illness, abuse . . . it’s got it all, but it isn’t only that, of course. It’s also a book filled with nostalgia, love, and the awesomeness of nature.
Other books I read either just prior to moving, during the drive, or since my arrival are: We All Live Here, Moyes; Sandwich, Newman; The Secret Book of Flora Lea, Henry; Remain, Spark and Shyamalan; The Missing Half, Flowers and Kiester; and currently, The Island of Sea Women, See. Each book has its merits.
I found both We All Live Here and Sandwich charming and humorous. Both are light, contemporary novels with women protagonists wrestling with life changing events and the love of family.
The Secret Book of Flora Lea took me to one of my favorite historical settings, World War II England, in the countryside and also to London in the 1960s. It’s a delightful book about sisters, families, love, and the importance of stories.
Remain and The Missing Half are mysteries, with Remain being the more entertaining of the two for me. The Missing Half helped pass the time, but Remain’s ghostly love story captivated me at times, including during several memorable scenes that made me shiver.
And now I’m listening to The Island of Sea Women. It’s taken me to a part of the world I know very little about, which I love, because I am learning so much. It’s set in Korea from the story’s beginning in the 1930s and will move through the war years and take me to the present day. It’s about women sea divers (an amazing group of female divers who earn the money for their families while their husbands care for the children), and it’s the story of two friends Mi-ja and Young-sook.
As you can see, I’ve not been alone, not really, for I’ve been traveling through time and place along with the characters created by the authors of these varied and appealing novels, carried away by their stories. It’s a kind of magic really, the way a reader lives both inside and outside of a book—simultaneously in the room, and also somewhere else far away.
I love this line about reading from Stephen Chbosky from his young adult novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower:
“Sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.”
My Family Spelling of the Name Has an “E” at the End: Johnstone. (candle/ image courtesy of scotstee.com)
Welcome to Billings, Montana, where I have hunkered down to avoid driving on the Interstate during one of the many reported snowstorms traveling around the US of late. If I had planned better, I would have chosen a cozier hotel to get stuck in, and I would have paid attention to where my husband stored the ice scraper in my fully packed Jeep, and I would have brought socks. And I should have planned better because Nunquam Non Paratus—Never Not Prepared—is the ancient motto of my family. I was raised under the plaid and the crest and the motto, yet here I am, sockless in Billings, Montana (not exactly sockless, but the pair I had on when I left Austin, Nevada several days ago needs a good washing, which I will give it, in the sink with my tiny bottle of shampoo. That might mean I’m a little bit prepared).
I haven’t driven much since moving to Austin over five years ago, as it is a compact town and I could walk to my part-time library job and to my beautiful historic church. Also, my guy always drives when we go “to town” to get groceries and supplies in Fallon, a mere 112 miles away. Ah, the open road!
As I mentioned in an earlier post though, Mr. P and I have sold our home in Austin and we’re moving to Michigan. Hence my solo interstate journey. Mr. P and his heroic childhood friend will be coming soon with the moving van, but they will be driving tandem (?), I guess, taking turns sleeping and driving and only stopping for gas and food. I left earlier because I am the world’s slowest driver, and I refuse to drive after dark when everything goes all fuzzy and weird, and also, I am not a morning person. So, I don’t get too far within the slow-motion window of light between say, 11 AM and 6 PM (this time of year).
The Kitties Will Be Coming to Michigan Soon!
It was a deeply emotional parting, my leaving Austin. There were library patron visits, homemade cards and cookies, a sumptuous church luncheon, and these amazing gifts (I’m keeping names private as I haven’t asked permission to share):
Book Quilt Made by Dear Friends, My photo
Saint George’s Episcopal Church Original Painting by Dear Friend
Austin Library Original Painting by Dear Friend
Flowers!
A Special Friend Luncheon in Fallon, NV
And now we’ve arrived at the Dreamy Forest Music and Afternoon Spritzers portion of the post, which is a radio station and a white wine spritzer in a plastic glass, but it is lovely, and I feel loved, and safe, and scared and excited all at the same time, because I have left a wondrous place, and I’m off to a new unknown. Wish me luck?
Cake!
Thanks for the Memories!Remember Bob Hope singing that? It always moistens the eyes. We are all so lucky, you know, to have each other and love each other for as long and as well as we can.
Be well everyone, and safe! I am so grateful for your visit. Where are you, in this wild, wild, harsh and beautiful, sweet and mixed-up world? I’d love to hear about it!
“In his witty and thought-provoking manner, Mark Twain once famously said, ‘It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.’” https://www.socratic-method.com
Sometimes, though, truth is not stranger than fiction. And thankfully, sometimes truth is kinder than fiction, too. Recently a friend and I had both just finished books that bothered us in various ways, which isn’t to say books shouldn’t bother us—it’s quite often important that they do—it was just that in the case of these books, the way we’d been bothered had less to do with subject matter and more to do with the marketing expectation that readers would respond positively to the various dastardly deeds of the protagonists, and that, indeed, there did seem to be plenty of readers out there who backed up that claim—readers who “loved” these books (and so maybe by extension that means they loved the protagonists? Maybe?).
I don’t remember the title of the book my friend was referring to; she said it was something about killers who were in love and only killed bad people—sounded like a Dexter type theme, and I know that was a highly watched television series, so I guess there’s an audience for that. I can’t claim to be someone who is above consuming questionable content. I’ve read hundreds of books in most genres and not all of them have been particularly elevating. That said, I have seldom read a novel with a less likable protagonist than the one Marisa Kashino gives us in Best Offer Wins (With the possible exception of Humbert Humbert, the protagonist/narrator of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita).
Best Offer Wins is a Good Morning America Book Club Pick and was published by Celadon Books in 2025. From the book jacket: “…Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief.”
Uh. No. But let me take you back to the reason I read that blurb and took the bait. Coincidentally, on the same day my husband and I were submitting a bid on a house we wanted, Marisa Kashino’s thriller about a woman who will stop at nothing to get her dream house came across my desk at the library. It was a new purchase, and my job was to catalog it and get it ready for patron check-outs. I joked with my realtor that I hoped I wouldn’t become as obsessed with home buying as the teaser on the book jacket hinted the book’s protagonist, Margo, did.
Truth being, in this case anyway, less strange than fiction, I didn’t. Thank goodness. But I did check the book out and take it home to read over the weekend. I’m not normally inspired to write reviews about books I don’t like, but there’s something about this one that pushes me. What that tells me is that I did find it engaging, at least enough to finish it, but that, also, it troubled me. I think I kept reading to see if it would be possible to “root for her even as [I] gasped in disbelief.”
That stage never arrived. The backstory on Margo did indicate she’d had very tough breaks, enough of them, too, and that would normally soften a reader’s judgement and bring her to life in a way that would help the reader to care about her, but Margo’s behavior was so egregious that she remained not only unlikable, but monstrous. And I don’t mean monstrous in the sad way that Frankenstein was a monster because he was a victim and you felt sorry for him. Margo’s kind of monstrous is the carefully calculated kind that lacks any hint of personal responsibility or remorse.
I’m not sure what it says about me that I read the whole book anyway, and that gives me pause. I think perhaps my weird fascination with the book represents a part of contemporary America to me that I don’t understand and cannot accept, but that I still keep trying to fathom. I want people to have homes. I want people to care for each other. I want to love my neighbors as myself.
Each turn of the page offered hope, however slight, that Margo would learn some kind of moral lesson or would offer her a kernal of insight, forgiveness, or redemption, but in the end, there was none. No tenderness. No justice. Just a sad expose of a society where dreams can become as dangerous as despair, and the only thing that matters is the win.
In that way, the book is a success, I guess. A pretty good satire. Excellent social criticism, and social criticism is very much in order these days in my opinion. With Best Offer Wins out of the way, I’m happy to announce that Mr. P and I purchased a delightful home in the beautiful UP—the upper peninsula—in the lovely U.S. state of Michigan. We will be off to a new chapter there soon and leaving the awe-inspiring West and central Nevada behind with love for all we’ve learned and the friendships we treasure. By the way, we accomplished the purchase of the Michigan house without any nefarious activities nor bidding war mayhem. Sometimes, you see, truth is not stranger than fiction, and sometimes it is kinder.
Wishing you all happy days and cozy nights as we move through February and into March. Be Well!
Another goodbye. This old house, the one we have loved and labored over for the past five years, is sold and we are looking for a new place to live, spending countless hours exploring our options. We are moving primarily to get closer to health care, but it isn’t just that. There are many people who fight to remain here, in this isolated little town, even when they clearly need to get closer to a hospital and/or access to a grocery store, a home health care aide, or other support systems, but those are people with roots and years of memories and attachments to the place that I don’t have. They have always belonged here.
Sometimes I think I don’t deserve to belong, perhaps that is why I always wind up leaving. I’ve loved and left too many places. Oh, there’s always been a good reason, but still, I wonder exactly why those reasons always seem to find me so easily, almost as though I’m looking for them. Is it because my childhood was a transitory experience, one where living in different places and going to different schools and always being the new kid was a simple fact of life? I didn’t like it, but maybe I got used to it. Maybe that became my normal. Also, there was an element of adventure there, even though, honestly, the transitions were never smooth and I was perennially ill at ease.
My mom moved a lot before her marriage to my dad. My dad moved a lot after serving in the Pacific theater as a Marine during WWII. When they got together they moved a few times before I was born, and then they remained relatively stable in the town where my brother and I started school while they were together. The rented house on Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wisconsin is the first home I remember. When they split up around the time I was in first grade, all the moving started again, first to an apartment on the other side of town and then we kids were sent to live with relatives across the country. After that we moved several times with Mom and our step dad. By the fifth grade I had lived in Wisconsin, Nevada, and Illinois and had attended five different school districts.
Then they decided to move to Minnesota. We stayed with my cousins there first. Next we moved into a little rental in North St. Paul. I think we were there less than a year, when my step dad came home and announced we were moving again, one more time—the last time—because he had found us a house to buy!
That was the smooth move, even though it meant starting over again in another new school, because it was the one that read like a story with a happy ending. It was going to be the one place we stayed forever. And I walked into that house, so much better than any other house I could imagine living in, and I fell in love. The Winslow Avenue house wasn’t too big, but it was sturdy and freshly painted, with two stories and a fireplace in the living room. It had window boxes filled with blooming red geraniums and a brass door knocker. Elms and maples and pines lined the well-kept lawns up and down the street, and the school was just a few blocks away. I walked to Frances Grass Junior High, and I met my lifelong friend and loved it all. But I was growing up, too fast, and the time slipped away, and I was drawn back time and again to another place, the first place I remembered, and to my father who lived there and to my first lifelong friend.
Lake Michigan Shore, Kenosha, WI- my photo
Meanwhile, the dream house in Minnesota was sold and my mom and stepdad moved to an apartment in Southern California. After that I moved on my own I can’t remember how many times. Minnesota, Wisconsin, California—back and forth. My longest residence was in the beautiful San Bernardino Mountain communities of Running Springs, Lake Arrowhead and Blue Jay, California, a place that I will always love.
And now it’s time to move again. I do love my home and friends here, and my church and library, and the mountains, the beautiful wild mountains and the endless trails. The silence that seeps into my soul. I’m sure moving to a place with nearby health care, groceries, water, trees, and more activities will be good—it’s just so hard to decide on the right place to go, and my heart aches as I can’t move toward my children and grandchildren, only farther away, again.
It’s overwhelming and frightening, and at our stage in life there won’t be much chance for a “do over” if we get it wrong. I think about where my parents ended up, my mom who began her life in Faribault, Minnesota and finished it in a little apartment in Anaheim, California, and my dad who started out in a large apartment in Chicago, Illinois and ended in a small condo in Brookings, Oregon. Were they happy with their choices? What drove them away from their original homes, friends, and loving families? Was it the war? I can only guess. And what called them to the various places they ran to? What wildness, what pain, what longing? Whatever it was, I clearly have felt it, too. Inherited it, I guess.
Old Methodist Church in front of our house, Austin, NV- my photo
Feeling lost and looking for solace this morning, I picked up a book—always a good idea—and I came across the following lines. I found them deeply moving. I hope you find something in them that helps you get through your day, too.
“…We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.” Katherine May, from Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.
LakeArrowheadLadyWriter 
Book Review: Glimpses, Grandfather’s Life During World War II by Stephanie Peirce
I have had the privilege of friendship with the talented poet, Stephanie Peirce for some years now. We met at Goddard College where we were both pursuing our MFAs in creative writing, Stephanie as an aspiring poet and I as a writer of novel length fiction. It was love at first sight (for me anyway!) when I sat in on a poetry group she was in. She was, I fancied, a younger and more talented version of me. We both had the same long, wild mass of hair, though mine was beginning to silver by then and hers was golden. Somehow, though we were on different paths and didn’t see much of each other at school, we began a long distance friendship after graduation, checking in on each other’s writing journey and eventually serving as reader-editors for one another’s manuscripts.
Glimpses is Stephanie’s newest achievement, and it is wonderful! I recommend it heartily, and I am so proud to introduce you to it here.
Glimpses: Grandfather’s Life During World War II | Barnes & Noble®
Glimpses is a slim volume of letters, photos, and commentary that offers precious glimpses into the lives of the author’s paternal grandparents, Catherine “Treenie” Barham Peirce and Chichester “Chit” Tapscott Peirce Jr., who was killed in Germany on February 9, 1945. It tells a compelling story of love and loss, one that is carefully compiled and beautifully rendered. It is an absolute treasure, a gift not only to the memories of Stephanie’s grandparents, but also to the countless lives altered by World War II, and to readers and historians everywhere.
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Filed under Authors, Books, Commentary, Nonfiction, Reading, Relationship, The Greatest Generation, Uncategorized, World War II
Tagged as Book Review, Books, Family, Friendship, poems, poetry, Writing