August: ironweed & stories
Hello, friends!
It is August, and the ironweed is blooming around here. The air has felt a little different the last few days, like fall is starting to push summer aside. My sage is still producing an incredible amount, and the garlic chives are about to burst.
In personal news, I am done (DONE!) with my MLIS! (You probably all know this already, if you’re here, but I’m not quite over it yet.) I’m going to be starting a new supervisory position at my current library at the end of the month, and it’ll be challenging and exciting.
I think we’re all wrestling with the awfulness of the world right now and I don’t have anything new to offer there. Every time I try to look at my main facebook or twitter timelines, I end up feeling dreadful: helpless and angry and grief-stricken, but none of them in a productive way. I don’t know how to contend with the darkness except to try to keep going. I hope you can find your way too.
So: I’ve been reading and writing and knitting. I made blueberry squares recently and they were lovely: a sweet yeasted dough and a thin layer of blueberries with sugar and cornstarch on top. I’d like to make them again and add some lemon and spices. I always add lemon to blueberry muffins when I make them. That little bit of tartness gives the berries and the batter the perfect summer feeling.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I’m drawn so much to certain authors. Ursula K. Le Guin, for instance, and Diana Wynne Jones. Why does their approach to story resonate with me so much more than, say, Patrick Rothfuss? It’s partly that they’re better at seeing women as people, but that’s not all of it. Even the early Le Guin, when she was still trying to figure out how to write as a woman (as she would & did say herself), hold power for me.
Maybe it’s something about the expansiveness of the writing. I don’t feel hemmed in, as I do by the story choices in a lot of popular white guy fantasy. Even the worst DWJ has a feeling of play, almost of camaraderie, between the reader and the writer. There’s some kind of openness to the surprise of a story that translates into excitement for me. I love the sheer weirdness of Hexwood for this reason.
Anyway, if you have any thoughts on the subject, I’d love to hear them! I’m in the middle of rereading Deep Secret right now, and I think it’s not quite as much my favorite as it used to be, but I still adore Maree and Rupert. I do love a competent, buttoned-up nerd who’s shaken out of their routine by a chaos agent. My biggest complaint about The Merlin Conspiracy is that it’s all Nick and pretends the other characters don’t exist any longer.
All right, I think that’s about all for this month. I hope you find a little sunshine and a little strength.
Maureen