Random stuff on Saturday

Spot the coincidence:  Photo (found HERE) of a trio of puppies in a litter.  Their mom had only three puppies in that litter.

Beginning ~ with a question to himself

Beginning

Is love at first sight truly possible?

Sitting in his living room, he turned the question over in his mind for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

At First Sight ~ by Nicholas Sparks, 2005, fiction (North Carolina), 282 pages

A young couple's love faces the ultimate test when the past disrupts the life and family they've built together.

There are a few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do:  he'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and, most of all, never become a parent.  Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter.  But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds and sets off a chain of events that will forever change the course of this young couple's marriage.

Dramatic, heartbreaking and surprising, this is a story about the love between a man and a woman and between a parent and a child.  More than that, it is a story that beautifully portrays how the same emotion that can break your heart is also the one that will ultimately heal it.

While the novel picks up the tale of Lexie Darnell and Jeremy Marsh that started in True Believer and will delight fans of that novel, it stands on its own as one of Nicholas Sparks's most deeply moving love stories.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Maya Angelou's connection to my town

Fun fact:  Today at lunch, when she saw I had that book below, my friend Alyssa asked me:  "Was Maya Angelou from St. Louis?"  I didn't know, so I googled it and found:  "On April 4, 1928, Marguerite Ann Johnson, known to the world as Maya Angelou, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.  Due to her parents' tumultuous marriage and subsequent divorce, Angelou went to live with her paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas at an early age."  I found this 2017 photo of her childhood home from St. Louis Magazine, HERE.

Today I am sharing quotes from two poems I want to remember from Maya Angelou's 1991 book of poetry I Shall Not Be Moved, that I wrote about earlier today, HERE.

"Human Family" (pp. 4-5):

. . . 

I know ten thousand women

called Jane and Mary Jane,

but I've not seen any two

who really were the same.

Mirror twins are different

although their features jibe,

and lovers think quite different thoughts

while lying side by side.

. . .

I note the obvious differences

between each sort and type,

but we are more alike, my friends,

than we are are unalike. . . .

"Preacher Don't Send Me" (pp. 38-39):

Preacher, don't send me

when I die

to some big ghetto

in the sky . . .

I'd call a place

pure paradise

where families are loyal

and strangers are nice,

where the music is jazz

and the season is fall.

Promise me that

or nothing at all.

Coincidence

You know I notice coincidences, right?  When Alyssa asked the question that started my search, she noticed today is April 4th.  Look up there again.  When was Maya Angelou born?  April 4th!  We were discussing her on her 96th birthday.  She died on May 28, 2014, mere days before I moved to St. Louis.

Lots to think about from famous authors

Best-Loved Short Stories: Flaubert, Chekhov, Kipling, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Poe and Others (Large Print) ~ by Evan Bates, 2004, short stories, 336 pages

Here's a selection of great tales by American and European authors.  Eleven stories include F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace," Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat," Chekhov's "The Lady with the Toy Dog," and O. Henry's "The Furnished Room," in addition to works by Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Willa Cather.

I Shall Not Be Moved ~ by Maya Angelou, 1991, biography/poetry, 64 pages

This memorable collection of poems exhibits Maya Angelou's unique gift for capturing the triumph and pain of being black and everybody's struggle to be free.  Filled with bitter-sweet intimacies and ferocious courage, these poems are gems — many-faceted, bright with wisdom, and radiant with life.

National Walking Day

April 3rd is National Walking Day, so today let's walk!  That way, we join the American Heart Association by stepping out and (maybe) adopting a healthy habit.  Hey, puppy dogs aren't the only ones who need to go for a walk!  And if you've been feeling socially isolated, invite a friend to walk with you.  Do it anyway, because we all need to adopt the healthy habit of taking a walk.

How many steps are in a mile?  I googled to find out.  Based on an average step length of 2-1/2 feet, there are approximately 2,000 steps in one mile.  So that means when my phone recorded 10,452 steps the other day, I had walked over 5 miles.  Wow!

Two books for TWOsday

October in the Earth ~ by Olivia Hawker, 2023, literary fiction, 331 pages

Del Wensley, wife of the most celebrated preacher in Harlan County, tries to mind her place.  Until her husband’s infidelity pushes an already strained marriage to a breaking point.  Clinging to her last hope for self-respect, Del turns her back on the rigid life she’s known.  A coal train is rolling through the valley.  With her eyes wide open to the unfamiliar, and to the freedom she craves, Del takes to the rails.

Rumbling across America, Del is soon drawn into a transient community among outcasts ― and finds a special friend in Louisa Trout.  A nomadic single mother, Louisa teaches Del the ways of the boxcars and promises to help her reach a migrant enclave where Del can learn the skills she’ll need to survive.  But as they move forward together under desperate circumstances, even the closest of bonds threatens to break.

With the Depression taking its toll, Del must gather her strength and faith.  As she carries on toward one unknown after another, her life becomes a fulfilling, sometimes dangerous, and exhilarating adventure.  But no matter the risks, it’s a life that she alone controls.

The Four Winds ~ by Kristin Hannah, 2021, historical fiction (Texas), 464 pages

This powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope is set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.

“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”

Texas, 1921.  A time of abundance.  The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era.  But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak.  Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life.  With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice:  marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains.  Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open.  Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains.  Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa ― like so many of her neighbors ― must make an agonizing choice:  fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it ― the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots.  A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, this book is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

Active April

I haven't posted a calendar from the Action for Happiness folks in a long time.  Having just finished a month of Clean Speech St. Louis, this seems like a good time for me to continue focusing on making our world a better place.  Click on the calendar to enlarge it, and see the words along the bottom that say:  "Happier, Kinder, Together."