Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake ~ by Anna Quindlen, 2012, memoir, 208 pages, 10/10
Quindlen writes about a woman’s life, from childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, using the events of her life to illuminate ours. Considering and celebrating everything from marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, parenting, faith, and loss, to all the stuff in our closets, Quindlen says for us what we may wish we could say ourselves. As she did in her columns in the New York Times and in her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life (2000), she uses her own past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages. She mentions marriage, girlfriends, stuff crowded in our heads (like memories of work, home, appointments, news, gossip, plans) so that our heads are not only full, they’re overflowing."
Quotes to remember:
1. ". . . reading . . . books and poetry and essays make us feel as though we're connected, as though the thoughts and feelings we believe are singular and sometimes nutty are shared by others, that we are all more alike than different." (p. x).
2. ". . . it's sometimes more important to be nice than to be honest." (p. 32).
3. ". . . Donna was my best friend, what my daughter calls her bestie, what is now referred to as a BFF, or Best Friend Forever." (p. 34).
4. "One study of college students showed that both men and women valued friendship, but they were deeply divergent when asked what friendship entailed. Guys thought it meant doing things together, women that it meant emotional sharing and talking. Another study showed that while stress produced the old familiar fight-or-flight response in men ― or, as we women often think of it, lash our or shut down ― it produces what the researchers termed a tend-or-befriend effect in women. When things go wrong, they reach for either the kids or the girlfriends. Or both." (p. 35).
5. "Asking why is the way to wisdom. Why are we supposed to want possessions we don't need and work that seems beside the point and tight shoes and a fake tan? Why are we supposed to think new is better than old, youth and vigor better than long life and experience?" (p. 41).
6. "My mother was a housewife, a rather reserved person with a sweet nature . . . But the truth was that once upon a time my mother had been someone else. . . . I know this because of the drafting table in the basement. . . . Apparently for a short time after high school my mother worked as a draftsman ― that's what she said, draftsman, not draftswoman ― at General Electric." (pp. 43-44).
7. "How did I forget for so many years about my mother's drafting table? Where did it go?" (p. 49). (MY NOTE: My husband had a drafting table at home, which I used for drawing illustrations for a book. One of my daughters wrote for an assignment in third grade that "my mother doesn't go to work, but she works for a man . . ." Yes, drawing the illustrations to be used in his book.)
8. Eldest children are often much more understanding of the need to be alone; I am an eldest child, as is my husband, a marriage of two executive-function humans that I sometimes joke should be outlawed by Congress." (p. 78).
9. "My grandmother used to recite a little ditty: A son is a son till he takes a wife, but a daughter's a daughter the rest of her life. I always thought it had ominous undertones. When my father demanded that I quit college to care for my mother when she was ill, I occasionally made bitter comments about the tradition of Irish Catholic households sacrificing their daughters for the greater good. But it wasn't just my father, and it wasn't just the Irish, and it wasn't just then." (p. 134).
- On TWOsday, I wrote about having to replace my laptop, HERE.
- Wednesday's Word was "whew," HERE.
- Thursday's Thoughts were about the herstories of women, HERE.
- Friday's "book beginning" was about the history of civilization, HERE.
- Saturday Stuff was puzzling, HERE.
