Beginning ~ with a fatal accident

Change of Heart ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2008, fiction

In the beginning, I believed in second chances.  How else could I account for the fact that years ago, right after the accident — when the smoke cleared and the car had stopped tumbling end over end to rest upside down in a ditch — I was still alive; I could hear Elizabeth, my little girl, crying?  The police officer who had pulled me out of the car rode with me to the hospital to have my broken leg set, with Elizabeth — completely unhurt, a miracle — sitting on his lap the whole time.  He'd held my hand when I was taken to identify my husband Jack's body.  He came to the funeral.  He showed up at my door to personally inform me when the drunk driver who ran us off the road was arrested.

Those are the first lines, and here's the publisher's description of the book:

One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next, she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart.  Now her life is a waiting game.  Waiting for time to heal her wounds, waiting for justice.  In short, waiting for a miracle to happen.  For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises.  The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world.  In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him.  Now, he has one last chance for salvation, and it lies with June's eleven-year-old daughter, Claire.  But between Shay and Claire stretches an ocean of bitter regrets, past crimes, and the rage of a mother who has lost her child.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Kindness ~ four quotes

TWOsday ~ banned books week

Thanks, Bookfool, for reminding me it's Banned Books Week.  Here are TWO books that have been banned that I really enjoyed reading.  Click on the titles to see what I've said about these books in other years.

Little Black Sambo ~ by Helen Bannerman, 1899

Banned in Japan (1988–2005) to quell "political

threats to boycott Japanese cultural exports."

The Lorax ~ by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Suess Geisel), 1971

Banned in the Laytonville, California School District on

the grounds that this book "criminalizes the forestry industry."

Beginning ~ with never a war

Four Ways to Forgiveness ~ by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1995, science fiction

"On the planet O there has not been a war for five thousand years," she read, "and on Gethen there has never been a war."

I found this book in a box I was unpacking in my new apartment.  One of the joys of moving is finding books (and occasionally other things) that I don't remember ever seeing before.  I don't think I bought this, so likely it was a book in a free bin at a used book store.  I would have picked it up because I think Ursula K. Le Guin is an excellent writer, but I don't remember this particular book at all.  Here's what the book, published nineteen years ago, is all about.

At the far end of our universe, on the twin planets of Werel and Yeowe, all humankind is divided into "assets" and "owners," tradition and liberation are at war, and freedom takes many forms.  Here is a society as complex and troubled as any on our world, peopled with unforgettable characters struggling to become fully human.  For the disgraced revolutionary Abberkam, the callow "space brat" Solly, the haughty soldier Teyeo, and the Ekumen historian and Hainish exile Havzhiva, freedom and duty both begin in the heart, and success as well as failure has its costs.  In this stunning collection of four intimately interconnected novellas, Ursula K. Le Guin returns to the great themes that have made her one of America's most honored and respected authors.

All four stories are set in the future and deal with the planets Yeowe and Werel, both members of the Ekumen, a collective of planets used by Le Guin as part of the background for many novels and short stories in her Hainish Cycle.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Practice meditation

One of the steps of Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path is to practice meditation.  Having taught religions of the world at Chattanooga State Community College for nearly a decade, I'm aware of that as I learn to meditate with a group of people from my new church.  And then I ran across this section (from page 38) as I was reading a book I recently bought from the library book sale.  The narrator was in China to adopt a baby girl and was traveling in a small group of families.

As the group moves through the site, I keep thinking of the people just arrested outside the Forbidden City.  They were arrested for meditating.  Actually, they were arrested for being members of a group deemed a "cult" by the Chinese government, as most religions have been. ...

Just yesterday I meditated in the shadow of the Great Wall of China, and today I will do so within the walls of the Forbidden City.  I will practice with a delicious sense of subversion, knowing that no one can stop me, and in a spirit of solidarity with those just arrested.  I do not close my eyes as I usually do, to remain unobtrusive, and yet a young man in military uniform stops talking with his comrades and watches me as I stand away from the group, looking out over the courtyard.  Something about me has alerted his attention, but as I am doing nothing that can be deemed inappropriate, he loses interest and begins talking again with his friends.

As my breath slows and my focus of attention shifts from the outer world to the inner world, I can still see everything that surrounds me, but also, at the same time, can see with my inner vision.  Never before have I experienced this, to be fully aware of the external world simultaneously, without effort.  Perhaps it is this place, I think, this void, that produces a type of heightened perception...

How odd that people can be arrested for meditating.  And yet it's something that Buddhists and Christians and people of other religions and no religions do.  This is something else I need to erase from my mind when I breathe deeply and relax into meditation.

Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China ~ by Beth Nonte Russell, 2007, memoir (China)

Steeped in Chinese culture, Forever Lily is an extraordinary account of a life-changing, wholly unexpected love.

Friday Five ~ thinking "beach"

This morning (12th)

RevKarla brings us today's Friday Five, which she calls "Random."

1.  If you could sneak away anywhere this weekend, right now, all expenses paid, where would you go and what would you do?

Except for the fact that this is the last day they'll be there, I'd join my twin daughters who are vacationing together this week at Orange Beach, Alabama.  Their photos (texted and on Facebook) show they're having a grand time, reading, watching the sun come up, and painting with watercolors.

Yesterday morning (11th)

2.  What is for lunch today?  (RevKarla says, "One of the very first FF I ever played asked this.")

Lunch is over, and I had beef pot roast.

3.  Along that first-FF-RevKarla-ever-played theme, what are you wearing today?

I'm wearing my "retirement uniform" of jeans, tee-shirt, and comfortable slip-on shoes.  When I went out (see #4), I added a long-sleeved denim shirt because it is only 58*F today at mid-afternoon in St. Louis.  My daughters seem to be wearing swimwear in this photo from a couple of days ago.

Day before yesterday (10th)

4.  Along the Today Theme, what are you doing today?

I took two neighbors to the library and and grocery store.  We live in a high-rise for seniors, and neither of the women has a car.  As I said in my earlier post today, "I not only still drive my car, but go at least weekly to the nearest library."

5.  Along the random theme, what is your favorite scent, and why?

Back in February, I told you Friday Fivers about the scent of hyacinths taking me back to my sandbox in my grandmother's back yard, so today I'll think about the scent of the ocean along the Gulf Coast where my daughters have been frolicking.  Do they look 54 to you?  Maybe it's just my "motherly eyes" seeing them more like four or five years old.

Sunrise three days ago (9th)

Beginning ~ with a late-night knock on the door

The Cat, the Vagabond, and the Victim ~ by Leann Sweeney, 2014, mystery (South Carolina)

Visitors don't often knock on my front door at eleven o'clock at night.  But my friend Allison Cuddahee from the local no-kill shelter had called me in a panic to ask a favor.  She arrived thirty minutes later bearing a gift.

I may be becoming "the library lady" around my new apartments.  It's a place for seniors, and many of them no longer drive.  I not only still drive my car, but go at least weekly to the nearest library.  I got this book for one of the ladies on my floor, but I may have to read it before I give it to her.  Don't worry — she still has one or two I got her last time, plus the six or seven delivered to her from the U-City Library the other day.  And I'm a fast reader.  Here's a summary of the book from the back cover:

When Clyde the cat travels two hundred miles back home only to find his former owner dead, the story makes national news.  While everyone seems eager to tell Clyde’s incredible tale, someone needs to step up to care for him.  Because the media attention is creating chaos at the local shelter, cat quilter Jillian Hart agrees to foster the loyal orange tabby, hoping his location is kept secret.  But while the media circus around Clyde continues, Jillian learns the real story behind his owner’s death — he was murdered.  Why would an eldery man already dying from a serious illness become a murder victim?  As the local police search for an answer, Clyde makes another escape.  Jillian is drawn into the case when she finds Clyde has returned to his home again — and he’s found another body.  When the motive behind these murders is finally revealed, Jillian understands Clyde is in danger of becoming the next victim, and she must help find the killer before the claws really come out.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.