Reverb 10: Day 3

The prompt for today for Reverb 10 is: Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (textures, smells, voices, noises, colors).

I would have to say I felt most alive during my graduate school graduation ceremony. The ceremony itself was hot, especially under the weight of our dark blue gowns combined with the bright lights shining on us. It was also boring, since they let everyone and their mother add their two cents in about what it means to graduate and "head out into the real world". The sound system was squeaky and I was nearly blinded as everyone's family members snapped picture after picture. By all accounts, I probably should have hated it.

However, I remember having the sudden realization that I was done. And it was like a giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders. For the first time since I was 15 years old, I would now only have one full-time job instead of either two jobs or a full-time job and school. It nearly brought tears to my eyes to think that I would now be able to experience free time for the first time in 13 years (though I am still working at being able to just relax). I could read whatever books I wanted instead of those that were assigned. I could come home from work, cook dinner and watch television if I wanted to. I could sleep in on weekends and even take vacations. And after three years of class, I now had earned a master's degree.

It was an incredible feeling.

Reverb 10: Day 2

The prompt for day two of Reverb 10 is: What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing--and how can you eliminate it?

I loved this prompt because the truthful answer came to the surface immediately: me. I get in my own way. I am the problem.

I don't make the time to write, which is often the case of so many people who want to be published authors. I have to make writing a priority or I will never advance in it. Unfortunately, when other obligations and procrastinations pop up, this is often one of the first things to go. Could I live my life without spending time watching competing chefs, the Kardashian sisters and a high school singing group on tv? Sure. I could also stop surfing the web for books and clothes I don't need at night. And get more sleep so that I am not too tired when I get home from work to do a little writing before bed. So I need to just do it.

One of my goals in 2011 is to eliminate the noise, clutter and distraction so that I can set aside dedicated time to write. If I make a date with myself and block off the time in my calendar, it will happen. A good first start is getting back into daily journal writing. So thanks, Prompt #2, for giving me goal #1 for this coming year.

Reverb 10: Day 1

I've very much wanted to get back into blogging on a regular basis, so with that in mind, I decided to participate in Reverb 10. The purpose of Reverb 10, in the creators' words, is "to reflect on your year and manifest what's next." Each day in December, a prompt with be posted and I will respond to it here. If you would like to participate, you can sign up here.

The prompt for today, December 1st, is:

One word. Encapsulate the year in one word. Explain why you are choosing that word. Now, imagine it is one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

The first word that came to mind for 2010 was completion. I completed my master's degree--after three years!-- in May. Jesse and I completed the long-distance portion of our relationship (hopefully forever!) when he moved down to DC in the spring. We moved in together and completed making a home together. I feel more settled and calm. While I know it is a never-ending process, in so many ways, I feel much more complete than I did at this time last year. It's a great feeling.

The word that resonates most for me for 2011 is movement. Both the literal and figurative kind. I'd like to find physical activity that I like and want to do often. I want to get back into a regular yoga practice. I need to move forward on figuring out what I want to do professionally, or at least the next couple of career steps. I want to learn to value micromovements , as well as the slow, gentle, be-good-to-your-body-and-soul-type movements, in all areas of my life and see the beauty in them instead of simply obssessing over the large ones that may produce quicker or more visible results.

Revelry Review: Great House

This was one of those novels that is so good, you need to wait some time before telling others about it. It requires a bit of internal processing before you can verbalize that way that it affected you. It is one of very few books that I ever wanted to go back and read more than once, if only to revisit the way the beautiful prose made you feel. This is a novel that I wish I had written myself, especially since I have always been interested in its main themes. I highly recommend that you read Great House by Nicole Krauss.

Not wanting to give anything away, I will say that Great House is a novel made up of several people's stories, all of which revolve around a single desk. The stories intertwine as the reader is carried along a journey through many years, many countries and many lives. It explores themes of loss and memory, as well as people's relationships with each other, with history and with time.

The prose is so beautiful that at times I found myself reading and rereading lines, each time having them take my breath away. One quote I liked in particular was, "We search for patterns, you see, only to find where the patterns break. And it's there, in that fissure, that we pitch our tents and wait." She also writes that the characters "bend...around the shape of what they lost, and let everything mirror its absent form."

Unlike The History of Love, which is another of Krauss' fantastic works, this novel is a not as optimistic and rather quietly reveals the tragic melancholy, longing and loneliness that each of its characters has lived. You can read reviews of Great House here from NPR or here from the New York Times. It is no wonder why the New Yorker named Krauss one of its "20 Under 40" writers to watch this past summer.

On being a healthy foodie.

I love to cook. Love it. I find it meditative and relaxing. There is nothing I love more than making sure my boyfriend (and friends, family, etc.) is well fed. I also like the challenge of finding a new recipe and creating a great meal or dessert from scratch. There are so many dishes that I still want to learn how to make, from spinach empanadas to homemade pies. I think these are great skills to have. However, I hate having delicious sugary desserts or an overload of calorie-heavy meals in my apartment because I will eat them.

Luckily, my boyfriend also likes to eat lots of veggies and healthy meals, so that helps. I may start trying my hand at things like homemade granola bars or veggie-filled stews instead. I think my problem is that it makes me grumpy that I can't cook, bake and eat like a "normal" person. Portion control is not something that comes naturally to me.

How do you balance being someone that loves to cook and bake with someone that wants and needs to get healthier and lose weight? Has anyone else experienced these same feelings? Does anyone have any good healthy vegetarian recipes or resources they can share?

{Photo credit: Lara604}

Back.

Other than a few book reviews and some delicious dishes, I have been mostly absent from this blog for a few months now. The reason is that in August, I somehow managed to injure my back. I have three degenerative discs and one that is bulging. I've been completely out of commission since then, unable to even do so much as go for a long walk. I've been depressed and eating badly as a result.

So, after three months of this, I decided that when so much is out of my control, I need to take back control of what I can. I've started Weight Watchers again, this time with a focus on portion control and eating good, whole foods (rather than the obsessive, crazy points counting I did the first time). I lost 3.8 pounds in the first week! Once I get back from New Jersey this weekend, I am going to try yoga (even if I have to lay in child's pose for an hour) and get back to working out little by little.

There will still be book reviews here and a lot of yummy food, but I am hoping to get back to my original intent for this space: a place to discuss all aspects of a well-lived life, beginning first and foremost with self-care.

Weekend Eats

Channa masala, brown rice, green beans and whole wheat naan. I got the recipe from Eat, Live, Run. It was spicy and delicious!

Then, to celebrate my favorite month of October AND a three- day weekend, I tried my hand at these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They are light and cake-like with a subtle hint of pumpkin and spice. Perfect!

Revelry Review: The Weight of Heaven

South Asian Author Challenge: Book 4/5

When I first read the synopsis of The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar, I have to admit I wasn't all that excited. I had heard she writes beautiful fiction about Indians and Indian culture, but a book about two Americans who go to live in India? I was skeptical at best.

Turns out Umrigar can do it all. The story opens after Frank amd Ellie's young son has passed away. Their fragile state and complex emotions have been slowly eating away at their marriage. Then Frank accepts a job offer to go run an American company in rural India and they both see this as a chance to start over. While Ellie falls in love with the country and the locals, Frank's job continues to provide obstacles and frustration as the workers complain about low wages and the townspeople become enraged that the company is taking their trees for its own profit. Frank spends his free time with the son of their housekeepers, Ramesh, who fills the hole that the loss of their son left. However, it isn't long before Ramesh's own parents are unhappy that Frank and Ellie are treating him like their own child.

The plot has several twists and turns (with a final sucker punch of an ending). The reader is led into a world that is driven by misunderstandings, both cultural and personal. Overall, this is a beautiful novel with complex and dynamic characters who will linger in your mind long after you've read the last page. I can't wait to get my hands on Umrigar's other works.

Revelry Review: Room

When you are a book addict like me, it is not often that you come across something completely unlike anything else you've ever read. Room by Emma Donoghue is such a book.

I've seen many reviews of this book. Not only has it appeared in the fall book preview section of nearly every magazine I read, it has also been written up in the New York Times and The Washington Post, not to mention just about every other national paper. Donoghue herself has been interviewed all over the web, including here and here. Needless to say, the hype surrounding this book left me a little wary. Could it really live up to the expectations I had?

Yes, yes it could.

This is the story of "Ma" and her son, Jack. They are both being held hostage by their captor in a small room. In fact, Jack, who celebrates his 5th birthday in the beginning of the novel and whose voice is used to tell this story, was born there and considers it his home. With a small skylight as their only window to the area that Jack simply calls "Outside", they have created their own world inside "Room". Jack sleeps in "Wardrobe" at night, in case a man known only as Old Nick comes. His Ma goes to great pain to give Jack what she can given her circumstances, but little by little the reader is exposed to just how small their world really is. Without giving much away, their lives suddenly expand beyond the confines of "Room" and they are forced to leave familiarity behind and deal with "Outside" head on.

I admit it took me awhile (at least 40 pages) to adjust to reading a book that is narrated by a five year old who has only ever interacted with his mother in a tiny room. In fact, I nearly stopped reading. However, Jack's voice is this novel's genius. Even given that this sort of crime has appeared more and more in the news in recent years, I had never even considered many of the psychological and child development issues of people who have experienced what Jack and Ma have. The mental scars of their experience linger long after they have become physically free.

Audrey Niffeneger, the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, said, "Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence to horror and horror into innocence. Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days." I couldn't agree more.

Fall Book Preview

One of my favorite things about fall is that the book industry seems to pump out all of its big, juicy reads just in time for purchasing for the holidays (or, in my case, pre-ordering every last one of them!) Here is a preview of some of the books coming out between now and December that I am oh-so-very-much looking forward to:

Room by Emma Donoghue. This one actually comes out today and yes, it has already been delivered to my Kindle. This novel was seemingly inspired by the Josef Fritzl case, where he kept his daughter locked up in their home. A summary of the Amazon.com review: Jack, a 5 year old boy, has lived his entire life in a single room with his mother, visited only a nighttime by a man known as Old Nick. It is the only world he has known, but it is a prison for his mother. When their world suddenly becomes larger than the four walls they are used to, the consequences are "piercing and extraordinary".

I am very excited not only for this one to be released (October 12th) because also I will be hearing Nicole Krauss talk about her new novel, The Great House, at 6th and I Synagogue on October 18th. I adored The History of Love so I have been anxiously awaiting her next book. From the Amazon.com review: "The novel consists of four stories divided among eight chapters,
all touching on themes of loss and recovery, and anchored to a massive writing desk that resurfaces among numerous households, much to the bewilderment and existential tension of those in its orbit, among them a lovely American novelist clinging to the memory of a poet who has mysteriously vanished in Chile, an old man in Israel facing the imminent death of his wife of 51 tears and an esteemed antiques dealer tracking down the things stolen from his father by the Nazis."

David Sedaris writing animal-themed stories. Need I say more? Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary is due out on September 28th.

The Poets Laureate Anthology is the first anthology to gather the works of all 43 poets laureate. I will be attending a reading from this book that will include Billy Collins and Kay Ryan on October 6th. The English major dork in me has been overjoyed since I first heard about this book and the event!

You didn't think I would forget to include some cookbooks, did you?? Baked Explorations, the sister cookbook to Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito's first cookbook, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, is headed to a bookstore near you on October. Both cookbooks provide new takes on classic desserts. I loved the first one-what's not to love about a root beer bundt cake and black forrest cookies??--so I am hoping that this one will prove to be equally as delicious.

Appetite for Reduction: 100 Fast and Filling Lowfat Recipes by Isa Chandra Moskowitz is due out in early December. Every recipe she writes has turned out to be utterly delicious, so my kitchen and I are awaiting this one's release.

I love Colleen. I love her podcasts. I love her outlook. I hope I also love her new cookbook, Color Me Vegan, which is also due out in December.