As many of you know, I've been writing for many years. If you'd like to check out my Author page on Amazon, here is the link:
Amazon.com: Paula M. De Angelis: books, biography, latest update
As many of you know, I've been writing for many years. If you'd like to check out my Author page on Amazon, here is the link:
Amazon.com: Paula M. De Angelis: books, biography, latest update
Friday afternoon
I'm reading A Peaceful Retirement, the last book of the Fairacre series of books, written by Miss Read. I've read the first two books in the series--Village School and Village Diary, and now the last two--Farewell to Fairacre and A Peaceful Retirement. Miss Read is the pen name for the author Dora Jessie Saint, who lived from 1913 to 2012, and who, like her character Miss Read, was a schoolteacher and headmistress for Fairacre School. The interesting thing is that the name Miss Read serves as both Saint's pen name and as the author's main character. Miss Read the author was married and had a child; Miss Read the schoolteacher is unmarried and firmly decided to remain that way, despite being pursued by two suitors. Since Saint was a schoolteacher herself, one can imagine that she drew on her school experiences when she wrote her books. Fairacre, a fictional village, depicts village life in all its glory and problems; gossip is what connects the townspeople and it spreads like wildfire despite the best efforts to contain it. If you are looking for anonymity, you won't find it in a small village, where everyone knows about the doings of everyone else. The books are dated; the first two are from 1955 and 1957, respectively, and the last two from 1993 and 1996, respectively). They depict an era when social media, smart phones, computers and the like did not exist. And when you read the books, you don't miss their absence. People managed their lives quite well (or not so well) for hundreds of years without being glued to their phones 24/7.
I love Miss Read's world, like my mother before me. I especially like the last two books in the Fairacre series, and I probably should read the intervening books. Perhaps I will if I get the chance. But I've gotten a real chance to immerse myself in the Fairacre goings-on, and I've enjoyed them immensely. Miss Read the schoolteacher is a shrewd observer of human behavior and the books are peppered with her short reflections about life, love, marriage, spinsterhood (as the state of being unmarried was referred to back then), school, children, their parents, getting older, getting sick, and death. The nice thing is that she doesn't dwell morosely on any of the sadder events in life; she comments on them and moves on. The townspeople are closely connected to the land and to the seasons, and she comments on both as well.
A Peaceful Retirement especially is filled with laugh-out-loud humorous situations and comments. Miss Read retires from school life after almost forty years of service, and many of the villagers have (well-meaning) advice on how she should use her free time. Her retirement starts off well but she has to learn to fight to preserve her free time. You can't get perturbed when reading about some of the village types; they exist everywhere and have done so at all times in history--the well-meaning busybodies, the complainers, the nitpickers and naggers, the doomsdayers, the drunkards, but also the truly caring people, the optimists, the ambitious people, the hard workers, the kind people, the churchgoers. I don't know if the books have ever been filmed, but they should have been. They would have been wonderfully entertaining.
I'm very glad I stumbled upon these books after all these years. As I wrote about in a previous post from March of this year (A New Yorker in Oslo: Odds and ends and updates (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com), my mother used to read these books when we were children in the 1960s and 70s. She seemed to truly enjoy them. So thanks are in order to Early Bird Books who send out daily emails with great deals on Kindle books; the Miss Read books have been among them. I have purchased a number of books in this way; some of the books are available for less than two dollars. You can't beat that price.
Charles Bukowski wrote this poem about rising early versus sleeping late.....
Throwing Away the Alarm Clock
In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I just choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to our world.
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor
people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with
what you wanted to do anyway.
No one wants advice - only corroboration.
We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we
get it.
Time is the only critic without ambition.
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is
to think you control it.
The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most
important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he
knows it is not true.
I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of
amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
I am currently reading The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil by the psychoanalyst and social psychologist Erich Fromm. Published in 1964, it describes his view of what he calls the syndrome of decay and its opposite, the syndrome of growth. The syndrome of decay is comprised of extreme forms of the following: necrophilia (love of and fascination with death); narcissism; and incestuous symbiosis. When these are combined to excessive degrees in a person, he defines that person as evil. Hitler is his primary example, but he also lists others--Caligula, Nero, and Stalin, among others.
He writes:
There are other examples in history of megalomaniac leaders who 'cured' their narcissism by transforming the world to fit it; such people must also try to destroy all critics, since they cannot tolerate the threat whcih the voice of sanity constitutes for them.........we see that their need to find believers, to transform reality so that it fits their narcissism, and to destroy all critics, is so intense and so desperate precisely because it is an attempt to prevent the outbreak of insanity. Paradoxically, the element of insanity in such leaders makes them also successful. It gives them that certainty and freedom from doubt which is so impressive to the average person. Needless to say, this need to change the world and to win others to share in one's ideas and delusions requires also talents and gifts which the average person, psychotic or non-psychotic, lacks.
In other words, political leaders who behave like this have a desperate need for their followers to share in their beliefs and delusions. They are never cured of their narcissism, and it's doubtful that they understand that they are narcissists. They simply mold the world around them to fit their brand of it. Their followers reward these types of leaders for their lack of self-doubt (total self-assurance, arrogance), their solipsism (self-centeredness--they are the centers of the universe), and their xenophobia (in this context, fear of anyone who doesn't share the leaders' beliefs, also parochialism, insularity, intolerance).
Sound familiar? Look at some of our current world leaders and would-be leaders. Again I ask, how did we get to this point? Perhaps the better question is why. Why did we get to this point? Why do so many people want to abdicate personal responsibility in order to follow these types of leaders, to become little more than toadies? I can only conclude that following such leaders is preferable to thinking for oneself and to taking charge of one's own life. It's easier to place one's decision-making in the hands of someone who promises you complete and utter security and certainty (a fantasy), who promises you the past (also a fantasy), and who promises you that nothing has to change--lack of change and growth. Lack of change and growth is important to those who do not want to focus on personal development or bettering themselves, which involves change and growth.
Fromm's book is worth reading. He's a good writer who can take complex ideas and clarify them for his reading public. When we were young adults, his book The Art of Loving, was very popular. I remember reading it then, but I never ventured further with his other books until now. Reading The Heart of Man is helping me to understand the current political situation. It may not provide solutions, but it's good to know what we're dealing with and what's at stake.
At 93, Teaching Me About Possibility - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Richard Morgan wrote this article for the Modern Love section of The New York Times. It was published on December 22, 2023. I ran across it today and found it to be a wonderfully-written and touching article about a middle-aged man living in New York who decides to really get to know his grandmother who lives in England. It is their story and he tells it beautifully. There are so many little points that are made that will stick with you, especially the points his grandmother makes. The importance of kindness is one. The importance of trying is another. Looking at the world as full of possibilities is yet another. A wise woman, his grandmother. You'll enjoy reading about them both.
His grandmother tells him one thing during one of his visits:
“Age,” she told me once, “is just another bother attempting to convince you of the impossible in a world absolutely blooming with possibilities.”
I absolutely love this. No matter how you interpret the definition of 'possibilities', and I know it's individual for each person, it is such a freeing statement, as statements coming from a place of love and kindness always are. Lovely, reminding me of a flourishing garden. It says that despite getting older, there are always possibilities for so many things--new travel adventures, new hobbies to pick up, new books to read (or write), new music to listen to, new people to meet. And so on. We don't stop living when we get older or old. Yes, there are more physical limitations, but one can still enjoy life to the fullest. It's about getting up every day and being grateful for another day of life. A day full of possibilities.
I saw this online today and it resonated with me, despite the sadness contained therein. Whether it's growing old(er), becoming ill, becoming tired, wanting to give up--it is a blessing if those roads that people end up going down are shared with those they love, if those who love them want to join them on their journeys. That is not always the case for all. And it might be good to remember that we ourselves can let go of the people we used to be. Sometimes we hang onto them for dear life, thinking that we have to remain a certain way, when in truth we do not. Sometimes the people we were no longer serve us. We do not have to be accountable to the people we were in our twenties, thirties, forties, and so on. We can let go of them and be who we are in the present. Best to come to terms with who we were in order to embrace who we are now. Because now is all we have.
To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they're too exhausted to be any longer. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out, to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.
~Heidi Priebe (from her book: This Is Me Letting You Go)
I saw this quote on social media today and thought it was worth posting. It was written by Victoria Erickson.
Those of you who read my blog know that I am a poetry lover. I appreciate poetry in all formats--rhymed, unrhymed, haiku, song lyrics, experimental--the list is endless. As long as the emotions expressed are pure, that's all that matters to me. And there is something about poetry that brings out pure, raw emotion, in a way that no other form of writing quite manages to do, in my humble opinion.
This poem by Clarissa Pinkola Estés provides food for thought in an increasingly crazy world. I love the imagery--souls that are lit can light other souls that are struggling. Beautiful and kind thoughts......
You Were Made For This
🌊 Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Out there alone
Apropos my last post about doubt--I wrote this poem many years ago. The italicized paragraph describes a woman who has 'chosen' not to pursue her dreams because the man she is with cannot keep pace with her and is angry about that. My guess is that there are many women who do this to keep the men in their lives placated.
One
of Many (Portrait of a Lady) (apologies
to Henry James)
How did I not discover Mary Oliver sooner? Well, no matter. I have discovered her now and am immersing myself in the beauty of her poetry. Most of what she writes about resonates with me. The last poem I've included here, Hum, is about bees, and for those of you who follow my blog postings about my garden, you know that I too have written about the bees, those marvelous little creatures that keep it all going.
Why I Wake Early
------------------------------------------------
Song for Autumn
--------------------------------------------------
It's been six months since I stopped working. Six peaceful months of not having to answer to someone else. Six months of reorganizing the way I look at my life and what I want to do with my free time. I don't think there was ever any doubt in my mind that I wanted to focus full-time on writing. So far that seems to be working out well. I just submitted a poetry collection (in Norwegian) to a publisher here in Oslo and am hoping for a positive response. If they don't want to publish it, I'll self-publish it as a Norwegian e-book and then I'll self-publish the English translation on Amazon. I've already translated all the poems into English so it's ready to go at any point. This poetry collection is entitled Movements Through the Landscape (Bevegelser gjennom landskapet in Norwegian).
I've also finished writing my garden book as well as my book about growing up in Tarrytown NY. I started the latter well over ten years ago, but what with working full-time, personal challenges and other obligations, it's taken a while to finish it. Now I need to find a publisher for this book as well. I'm thinking about self-publishing my garden book. I tried to get a literary agent interested in it last summer but no go. The publishing world can be as elitist in many ways as the world of academia that I happily left behind. Once you get your foot in the door as a published author, your books continue to get published even though they may not be anywhere near as good as your last one. But that's life. As my friend's father used to say, don't let the turkeys get you down. Good advice. Another piece of good advice for building self-esteem and believing in yourself is to stay off social media. It's just a time-waster and a negative spiral that will drag you down. I'd cancel my social media accounts without any problem except that I have enjoyable contact with a number of American friends and family and I'd miss that. We'll see what time brings.
Here's to a productive 2022 for every creative soul I know. Creativity is hard work but it's incredibly rewarding, no matter what type of creativity it is.
I found this the other day online and it resonated with me. Wendell Berry is a well-known American poet who is a firm believer in the importance of man's connection to the land via small-scale farming, and who lives that belief. You can read more about him online here: Wendell Berry - Wikipedia
I loved this poem and wanted to share it with you.
Philip K Dick was an American science fiction writer whose life, despite being a short one (he was born in 1928 and died in 1982) was a prolific one in terms of his literary production--44 novels and about 121 short stories according to Wikipedia. A number of popular movies are based on his books/stories: Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and Total Recall (based on We Can Remember It For You Wholesale). What struck me when I read about his life was how little money he earned as a sci-fi writer, since that type of literature was not considered mainstream. It was so unfair that he should have struggled in his lifetime to make money when after his death his stories were made into profitable films. He lived long enough to see only one of his books, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, approach the movie screen as Blade Runner; Dick backed Ridley Scott's vision for the film but died shortly before its release in 1982 (source Wikipedia). But that is the inherent nature of an indifferent universe, which does not care a whit whether a writer (or anyone for that matter) succeeds or not.
I am currently reading Dick's novels and have finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Flow My Tears,The Policeman Said, and Ubik. I've purchased two more--A Scanner Darkly and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, as well as a collection of his short stories. Stanislaw Lem, who wrote Solaris (one of my favorite sci-fi novels and movies) was a big fan of Ubik. I've written about Solaris in another post: A New Yorker in Oslo: The Martian Chronicles and Solaris (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). While I was reading Ubik and Flow My Tears,The Policeman Said, I had the same sorts of feelings as I had while reading Solaris. The first feeling is that I was in the presence of genius, but an otherworldly genius. His imagination knows no (human) bounds. The second was that I had truly been transported to another world, that I was living in that world. It's almost as though both Dick and Lem really lived the experiences and worlds they wrote about. Perhaps they did, even if just in their own minds. I'm not sure how Lem lived his life, but it is well-documented as to how Dick lived his. He was a drug user for most of his life; his choice of drug was amphetamines and he wrote while under the influence of speed, but he also tried psychedelics. He apparently made several suicide attempts and was preoccupied with the topic of mental illness. His stories make you understand the profound possibilities for mind expansion, fragmentation of the mind and thereby fragmentation of one's reality. I can understand that this might hold appeal for certain writers interested in exploring alternate realities, the workings of the mind, and the nature of the world around us and of the universe. Dick wrote at a time (1960s and 70s) when America was undergoing an upheaval of all the norms of society up to that time. The Vietnam War had completely unsettled American society. Psychologists such as Timothy Leary (born around the same time as Dick) were proponents of the use of LSD to treat different mental illnesses as well as to foster mind expansion in the search for personal truth. Leary received a copy of Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Dick was also a fan of H.P. Lovecraft (another favorite author of mine) because Lovecraft managed to convey in his sci-fi horror stories the sense that his stories were real. I read a collection of Lovecraft's stories over a year ago, and they still haunt me to this day. His writing grabs a hold of you and won't let go. It gets under your skin. I feel the same way about Dick's writing. I can recommend this link if you'd like to read more about Dick's interest in Christianity after he had a terrifying vision of what he was told was the devil: When Philip K. Dick turned to Christianity | Salon.com.
Although the Old Testament is not considered to be literally true, it nonetheless presents some interesting divine pronouncements, one of which is “And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die". Adam and Eve were warned against doing this. The implication is that they did not really know evil up to that point; the Garden of Eden was heaven. But they were curious as to what might happen if they did eat the fruit from this tree, egged on by the devil in the shape of a snake. I have always interpreted this passage to mean that humans would face the divine and the anti-divine head-on with no filters and that would mean that they were dead. To do so while living would split their minds apart and probably kill them. Are psychedelic drugs the fruit that could be consumed in order to reach that knowledge? If humans reach it, do they face good or evil or both? What if they cannot handle it? What if it renders them insane? I think there is something to this, but I wouldn't go down that road myself to find the answers. The reason is that I've read and seen too many sci-fi/horror novels and films that deal with such themes. Best to leave them to the realm of fiction. Even though many of these books and films are unsettling and haunting, they provide themes for reflection, which is always a good thing. I'm looking forward to reading more of Dick's works.
As many of you know, I've been writing for many years. If you'd like to check out my Author page on Amazon, here is the link: Amazo...