This is not the post I started to write yesterday about my morning run.  THAT one is about half-way done, but I’m scrapping it in favor of writing about what I did AFTER the run.  I want to write this because I want a record what I did on March 6, 2010, long after this exact date fades into the fog of memory.

Saturday morning started with a run, but the 5-mile morning run was a warm-up exercise for the rest of the day.  I went out at 6:15 in order to get a few miles in before I had to get myself dressed and organized to head to south Denver for a presentation at the Inverness Hotel.  Since I don’t dress up often, this process probably took a lot longer than it would for regular people.  But I digress; the Colorado Language Arts Society was holding their Regional Spring Conference and I was on the books as a co-presenter with my favorite teacher of all time, Tim Hillmer.

Here’s a picture of us at the conference, looking totally professional and beautifully coiffed:

At the conference, me (Lara) and Tim

Tim was my 6^th and 7^th grade Language Arts teacher.  I was 11 years old in 1984 and it was his first year teaching (I had no idea, all adults look old to kids and I figured he was old too).  My family life was turning upside down after a horrible incident of domestic violence, and my parents were going through a hideous divorce that dragged our family through the entire gamut of the legal system.  Meanwhile, Tim was navigating the hell of being a first-year teacher in a basement classroom with a crazy shop teacher that liked to tell “female jokes”.  After three weeks of school the 8^th period class had an uprising.  They stood on their chairs and yelled “We’re going to get you fired!”  That was his impetus for throwing out the worksheets and starting us on a curriculum of creative writing that changed the way I learned and wrote. I wrote 10 or 12 stories from various perspectives and genres, and played with the format of poetry.  I adored writing stories.  When my family life was tumultuous and I could barely function in school, I went to his class and wrote.  Writing kept me anchored to the “here and now”, when life all around me was falling apart.

When I left 7^th grade we lost contact. And then 25 years later, I saw his name in the Daily Camera, our local newspaper.  He was going to be the keynote speaker for a Relay for Life Cancer Rally at Monarch High School because he has prostate cancer.  I emailed him, he wrote back, and we met for coffee shortly thereafter.  Through many conversations and cups of coffee, we meandered our way back to those two years that we were in class together and started “studying” the teacher-student relationship.

That’s the basis for the presentation we gave yesterday.  We used our teacher-student relationship as a way of illustrating the usefulness of putting ONE teacher-student relationship “under the microscope and examining what works, what doesn’t work, and what strategies might be tried”.  We emphasized that it isn’t realistic for middle or high school teachers to try to study all 150 students that blaze through their classroom each year, but that there is merit in looking at one or two students and figuring out how they look at giving feedback, how they can encourage more writing, and most importantly, how they can build trust, the most essential piece of all.

We each read a few original pieces we’ve written, and wove the written essays/stories into the narrative.  We jumped through time here and there, offering memories from 25+ years ago, lessons learned since then, and then spoke about the present time.  I thought I was going to be nervous because I don’t normally care for public speaking, but it actually wasn’t bad at all.  Tim and I practiced our presentation several times, and even used our spouses as our first “live audience”.  We’ve talked so much about the material, and examined it in such minute detail, that I was not so much worried about forgetting something as I was about talking too much and going over on time.

When I was a kid, Tim Hillmer created a safe place in school for me to write.  I became a writer under his guidance.  I left school, grew up, had kids, and did a lot of living.  He left the school where we met, had kids, wrote two books (The Hookmen and Ravenhill), and continued as a teacher.  His health took a turn for the worse and he stopped writing.  As we were reconnecting he asked if I was still writing; I told him about this blog.  He told me that I was the basis of two characters in his book Ravenhill, and that our time in the classroom together solidified how he now teaches writing.  Our friendship and connection deepened, and as we discussed writing a memoir about our parallel lives during those pivotal two years, I started opening up even more as a writer.  He wanted to write, but something was always in the way.  Now, maybe as a part of the process of preparing for this presentation, he is ready to delve into writing again.  At the conference yesterday he honored me deeply by saying “This has come full-circle.  I’m writing now, again, because of you.”  The teacher teaches the student, the student teaches the teacher.  Full circle.  The circle of life.

Thoughts are still swirling in my head about this.  It was a fabulous experience, presenting to a group of Language Arts teachers about my favorite subject with my favorite teacher.  I am in utter awe of the work these teachers do, and the curiosity they bring to this conference in order to share ideas and wisdom.  To have been a part of that was an utter joy and privilege.  Thank you, Colorado Language Arts Society, for allowing me to be a part of your conference, and THANK YOU to each and every teacher that shows up, day after day, ready to teach.

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, the sequel

The Hunger Games is set in futuristic North America in a country called Panem.  Life in North America is over as we know it.  Panem has a center of operations called The Capitol and twelve outlying districts that are titled merely by number.  Each year the Capitol requires two tributes, or sacrifices, from each district to participate in the Hunger Games.  Every name of every boy and girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen are put into a lottery, and a boy and girl from each District are chosen at random to participate in the annual televised fight to the death that required viewing for all citizens.

The story is told from the perspective of Katniss, a sixteen year old girl living with her mother and twelve-year-old sister in District 12.  Her father was killed in a coal mining accident several years ago, and Katniss is now the sole provider for her family.  She feeds her family by hunting illegally in the woods beyond the wire fence that keeps residents from escaping from the District.  When her sister’s name is drawn in the lottery, Katniss immediately volunteers to take her place.

I first heard about this book from a friend who clipped a review by Lev Grossman about The Hunger Games and the sequel book, Catching Fire, from Time Magazine’s September 7, 2009 issue.  The idea that struck me most in that review was the last three lines: “Kids are physical creatures, and they’re not stupid. They know all about violence and power and raw emotions. What’s really scary is when adults pretend that such things don’t exist.”

In this incredible novel, violence and power are central in the lives of all citizens.  The Capitol holds all the power and the citizens of each District live within the prisons of their cities.  People are left to starve to death or are routinely killed for such actions as killing a deer for food or trying to run away.  Medicine is scarce and even the baker’s family eats the stale food that doesn’t sell.  Children in District 12 live in fear of losing a parent in the coal mines, because without a provider they are doomed to starvation.

When Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Hunger Games, she is joined by Peeta, a boy who she barely knows.  Within a few days of the lottery drawing, Peeta declares to the world that he has always loved Katniss, and suddenly the fight to survive the Killing Arena becomes a game of cunning, violence, love, power, and skill.

Suzanne Collins takes us into a world where things are exactly as they seem; corrupt, unfair, destitute and violent.  Nothing is sugar-coated and at least everyone knows where they stand.  Through Katniss, the reader discovers that there is a piece of personal power that can be wielded in a world that seems bent on the destruction of dignity, friendship, compassion, justice, and love.

I wasn’t sure if this story would be difficult to stomach and hesitated to begin reading once I bought it from the bookstore.  After several weeks of psyching myself up, I quickly discovered that I couldn’t put this book down, and read it even during meal times.  The on-screen romance that Peeta and Katniss purport is strangely non-erotic and entirely believable.  They realized that romance was what the viewers in the Capitol wanted, and they conspired to deliver, realizing that their performance bought them good-will and gifts from sponsors.

I hesitate to categorize this book.  Is it Adventure?  Romance?  Suspense?  Young-Adult?  Truthfully, it is all those things, which is what makes this such a good read.  Young adults will love this, but adults will enjoy this as much as they enjoyed the Harry Potter and Twilight series.  Suzanne Collins joins the ranks of J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer in understanding what kids innately know; the world is a scary, violent place, and no amount of reassurance from parents will change that fact.  She dives head-long into this post-Apocalyptic world, and invites the reader to experience the raw human emotions of greed, violence, power and will to survive.  The world is just as it seems; bent on destruction.  The question is; who will be the winner?

This lovely book just came out in paperback, which means that the general public will start reading this in droves.  Or, you can do what I did and borrow it from the library.  Now that I’ve read it, I would absolutely consider buying it because it’s going to be one of those books that I pick up again and again, if only to read certain passages or watch the skill in which the author describes a scene.

 The book follows Edgar as he matures into a teenager.  He’s born without a voice, utterly mute.  He learns to sign at an early age, and even signs to the dogs that his parents breed.  The story mainly follows Edgar, but there are chapters that allow the reader to peek inside the minds of the other central characters, which includes Edgar’s dog, his “soul mate” Almondine.

 A tragedy spins Edgar’s life off the steady comfort he’s always known, and thus the real motivation for the story draws breath.  There’s an Oedipal twist that doesn’t become fully fleshed out until the very end, which keeps the reader hanging. 

I’ll admit that it took about half the book for me to get really involved.  I couldn’t tell where it was going at times, and wasn’t paying close enough attention to the book to remember what I was supposed to be paying attention to.  Something “clicked” midway through though; that “ah-ha!” moment allowed me to finish the book in a single day.  Would that I had understood the complex Shakespearean parallels when I started reading, this story would have been vastly more understandable.  At book club one evening, Jacqueline spoke at length about the parallels of this tale to the characters of Claudius, Oedipus, and Gertrude.  Her interpretation and explanation really helped my understanding.

Now that I’ve read it, the last few chapters are repeatedly playing through my mind.  It’s a story of love, on so many levels.  Love for the dogs, love for breeding, love of an idea, love of people and understanding of the fallacies of life.

I’m trying desperately trying to not give away the ending, or even the gist of the story.  This is a fabulous book to lose yourself in; you won’t regret it.

Rating: Great

It’s been an up-and-down week.  On Monday I posted about my funk.  And boy, was it a funk.  I walked outside for an hour and a half with Kirby before going to pick up the kids, just because I couldn’t stand to be inside and still.

Monday night I went to Book Club and mentioned a book that I wanted everyone to read, “Between Me and the River”, by Carrie Host.  (I wrote a review about it a few weeks ago).  I am absolutely passionate about this book because, even though it’s a memoir about her cancer experiences, it’s really a book about LIVING.  There’s no other way to put it.  The author, Carrie Host, is a vibrant, passionate, totally conscious person who is living every day with as much love, humor and intensity as she possibly can.  She doesn’t write a “poor me” book filled with cynicism, complaints, and gory details of ghastly procedures.  She writes about being a Mom, being protective of her children, and finding the courage to resist the metaphorical river that can threaten the emotional stability of anyone when an unexpected “undercurrent” pulls you beneath the surface.

I tried so very hard to convey this to my group and was completely frustrated by the utter lack of response I got. What, another book about cancer?  NO.  A book about living.  Two different things.  Could not be more diametrically opposed. The group was reluctant, at best, to read this book given that we are all mothers and don’t want to seriously contemplate our own deaths.  I kept saying “This is not a book about death.  It’s a book about LIFE.” 

I don’t know if this comes across in my writing, but I am a pretty intense person when I’m passionate about something.  And Monday night, I was intensely passionate about this book and everything it stands for.  I finally gave up trying and walked away in a fit of frustration, and left shortly thereafter, crying.  I didn’t sleep much at all that night. 

Tuesday was no better.  I emailed and spoke on the phone with several members of the book group and found out that no one held my intensity against me.  J  I suggested that we skip this book, given that I have so much enthusiasm for it and there is so much reluctance by everyone else.  By Tuesday night I was emotionally drained and slept a beautiful eleven hours. 

By Wednesday morning I was ready for a good long run and enjoyed an easy 10 miles before I went to a coffee meeting with a prospective employer. I won’t say anything more about that now, except that the meeting was fantastic and I walked away more excited than ever about the potential of the job I’m in discussions about.  If this goes the way I think it will based on yesterday’s meeting, this is going to be huge.  Absolutely huge.  When that happens, I promise I’ll spill the details.

Anyway, back to the morning:  When I got back from the run the phone was ringing.  It was Sarah, a member of the Book Club that I hadn’t spoken with on Tuesday.  She, too, had been reticent to read the book.  She called to tell me a story.

While her kids were in school on Tuesday, she went to the Boulder Bookstore to get our February reading selection; Benazir Bhutto’s “Reconciliation”. The Bookstore did not have it in stock, so she perused the shelves and came across “Between Me and the River”.  She picked it up and examined the cover and author’s photo thoroughly before sitting down to read a few pages.  An hour and 40 pages later, she realized her parking meter was about to expire, so left the store in a hurry to get her kids from school and take them ice skating.

While ice skating, she saw a silver car pull up to the ice rink.  A beautiful woman got out and called to someone on the ice rink.  “Amory, Amory!”  Sarah’s attention was caught because “Amory” is the name of Carrie Host’s husband.  Well, long story short, the woman was Carrie Host and the man and boy on the ice skating rink were her husband and son.   

Sarah was blown away by Carrie’s book, her voice, her passion as a mother (so many of us can relate to that) and her unending humor and vibrancy.  When she met Carrie, she stood there thinking, “This beautiful woman is absolutely brimming with life. Carrie doesn’t need US.  But WE need her.”  And that’s the essence of the email Sarah wrote to the book group.

Late Wednesday evening Carrie and I spoke on the phone (she has graciously agreed to sign a copy of her book for a dear friend of mine, and we’ll meet for a quick breakfast on Friday morning).  How can I say this?  Carrie’s energy is amazing.  She’s more ALIVE than three quarters of the people walking on this planet.  Some people you can just talk to and feel energized by them.  She’s one of them.  I had a hard time sleeping last night because all this good juice was still running through me.

Can I just say that you NEED to read this book?  Just take my word for it.  Please.  Reserve your judgment and buy this book, sit down, and just read it.

And thus, three fun filled days in the life of Lara came to an end.  Two lows, followed by an incredible high.  This year is going to be amazing, I can feel it.

Between Me and the River, by Carrie Host

I blogged about the books sitting on my shelf recently.  This is the first book I’ve finished and reviewed.

Between Me and the River, by Carrie Host

This amazing memoir is one of the first non-fiction books published by Harlequin, the publisher that is well-known for churning out steamy romance novels.  I applaud the publisher for recognizing the power and beauty in this story.

I finished this book several days ago and am still reeling from the raw force of this understated memoir.  Ms. Host was diagnosed with carcinoid cancer, a “cockroach of cancers” that doesn’t respond to chemotherapy and can only be surgically removed.  Even then, the cancer will ultimately return.  It’s a cancer that has no happy ending.  I didn’t know this fact going into the book, but as I read further and further, I was comforted to remember that this book is a MEMOIR, which means that Ms. Host lived to tell the tale. 

This is a book about a woman who is diagnosed with cancer.  But it’s much, much more.  It’s a story that spans several years of her dealing with the crushing blows of cancer, surgery, and living the details between those moments.  It’s a story of a woman who wonders about the meaning of life and who ultimately answers it. 

Time and again, she feels like the “River” is claiming her, sweeping her away from her stable life, the husband she loves and the three children she adores above all else.  She learns to swim the emotional current that often appears as black as the unlit sky, and how to get out of it again.  She learns to let go of some things, and to grasp others with an iron grip.  It’s a story of allowing oneself to experience love in all its ferociousness, tenderness, and beauty.

I cried through so many parts of this book.  My emotions were shredded by the incredible honesty Ms. Host expressed.  She doesn’t hide behind irony or cynical humor.  She opens the door to her heart and invites the reader to float with her through the emotional “River”; the vast undercurrents, the rocks that lie beneath, the rapids and shallows that threaten to pull you under at every blind turn.  It’s a ride into the unknown that is utterly worth taking.

I absolutely, 100% recommend this book to anyone who is willing to look beyond the confines of the physical into the deep abyss of the emotional, spiritual, and unknown landscapes that have yet to be explored.  Ms. Host faces her certain death by carcinoid cancer by continuing to live each moment, each month, as if it’s her last.  I feel challenged by her honesty and truth to see if I can live with the same recognition of the gifts and love that I have.

Rating:  Excellent

Bill and I were in Las Vegas recently for the Rock n Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon (read my Race Report). While walking around the Strip and taking in the sights we ran across Bauman’s Rare Bookstore in the Palazzo. As bibliophiles, this store was the epitome of “awesome”. We saw First Editions of Huckleberry Finn ($12,000), M*A*S*H ($1,250), The Hobbit ($75,000), and my personal favorite, The Outsiders ($3,800). The Outsiders is my very favorite book, ever.  I read it in 5th grade and felt an irrational affinity to Pony Boy and Johnny.  If you feel like buying ”The Outsiders” for me, ask me for my address and I’ll send it to you, no questions asked.

There’s never enough time to read. I can walk into any good bookstore and find about six books that I want to read. An Amazon gift card is a perfect present, an ideal present. Be sure there’s about $200 on the card, if you will. I’ll have it spent in no time.

I have a stack of books that are just waiting to be read. And I’ll get to them ALL, it’s just a matter of “when. Here’s what’s on the shelf, in no particular order.

Between Me and the River, by Carrie Host. She’s a Boulder, CO author writing a memoir about living through cancer. She uses the metaphor of the river throughout her book in a way that is accurate, intense, and brutally honest. I’m half-way down at this point, and am plowing through this.

Precious, Based on the Novel Push, by Sapphire. This has been made into a movie, which I really want to see, but I want to read it first. The paperback is available at Costco right now for $8.49.

The Disciple, by Stephen Coonts. This is his latest book, and looks like a great thriller. I haven’t read much by him, but all accounts say this is worth it.

Stones into Schools; promoting peace with books, not bombs, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, by Greg Mortenson. This book is by the author of “Three Cups of Tea”, one of my favorite books of all time. This topic is near and dear to my heart, and I applaud the fact that he realizes that education girls is the way to peace. I would love to work with this project, I believe in it that much.

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. I have no idea what this is about. I bought it because I loved “The Prodigal Summer” and “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”. She’s an author at the top of her game and I’ll read anything she writes.

Ceremony, by Leslie Marmom Silko. The back of the book says “Ceremony is the greatest novel in Native American literature. It is one of the greatest novels of any time and place. I have read this book so many times that I probably have it memorized. I teach it and I learn from it and I am continually in awe of its power, beauty, rage, vision and violence.” – Sherman Alexie. Do you know Sherman Alexie? Brilliant author in his own right. Check him out.

Lost Horizon, by James Hilton. This is the first paperback ever published. The author had an idea and got an advance, then spent the advance and had nothing to show for it. So he holed himself up in a hotel room and wrote this in a week. It’s now heralded as a classic!

Reconciliation; Islam, Democracy, and the West, by Benazir Bhutto. This is not her biography, but the book she wrote shortly before her assassination. My book club is reading this for our February book. Bill read this about a year ago and raves about it, and it’s been on my “to-read” list ever since. Thank God we’re reading it in Book Club, so I can finally get to it!

The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. This is what the movie “The Hours” is based on. I haven’t seen it and nope, haven’t read the book either. Seems strange, doesn’t it? Anyway, it’s on the list and I’ll get to it very soon, I promise.

Gourmet Rhapsody, by Muriel Barberry. This is the second book by Ms. Barberry; her first is called “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” which is a brilliant novel told from the perspective of the concierge. I adored “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” because of the sheer intelligence of the prose. I had to keep a dictionary close by, and that is NOT usual.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. A Young-Adult novel, this was reviewed in Time magazine recently. The reviewer says that this book explores the effects of war and violence on those who are coming of age in a way that doesn’t flinch from the very human desire to participate in those activities. I was completely intrigued by the review and rushed out to buy this book. I didn’t buy the sequel, Catching Fire, as I wanted to read the first one before I committed to reading the second.

The Assassin, by Stephen Coonts. Another great thriller, which is what I need to mix up my reading material.

Not pictured:

The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski . We’re reading this for our December/January book in Book Club. It’s fabulous, and I’m about half-way through it right now, though set it aside to read “Between Me and the River”. I’ll get back to it shortly, as I’m cruising through the memoir.

Fool, by Christopher Moore.  I’m a theatre geek and this is theatre prose.  Bill’s reading it right now.  We’re a sight to see at night when we’re settled into bed with our books; he’s laughing out loud at “Fool”, and I’m sniffing and tearing up at “Between Me and the River”.  When we’re done, we’ll trade.

They say it’s good to have diversity in your portfolio; I think that’s true across the board in just about every aspect of life. Friends? Don’t have friends in only one group, because you’ll slowly outgrow them. Flowers? Too much of one kind gets boring, even though they’re beautiful by themselves. Clothes? Imagine having twenty pairs of jeans and twenty white t-shirts. Bored yet? Yup. And this is why I have a lot of different things to read.