Rainbow

One time when Syd was little, we went out to eat with friends, including another kid of Syd’s age.  Syd’s friend was unusually quiet while they were coloring and his mom asked him about what was going on.  He said he was being a yellow crayon because yellow crayons don’t show up.

I have spent a lot of my life being the yellow crayon.

I can give lots of reasons for my yellow crayon-ness.  I was raised female, for one, by a pretty seriously traditional mom.  I have a fear of abandonment, which makes me somewhat conflict-averse.  And there are plenty of times that I seem more yellow crayon-y than I am because in many circumstances I have no strong opinion on what to do or what to eat or where to go; I like lots of things and am easily pleased.  I don’t plan on changing that last part.

It is time, however, to experience more of the rainbow.  Sometimes I need to show up.

Deep breath.

I am appalled at the hate and violence running rampant in our culture right now.  I am tired of reading about murders and rapes and hate crimes.  People should not be dying because of their color or creed or orientation or gender or gender identity.  People should not be killing each other over those things.  People should not be inciting people to violence over those things.  I am not a particularly politically-minded person, but there are candidates out there pushing agendas that are flat wrong and I will not be silent and let that ride.

That’s the negative side.  I will also be showing up for the positive side.  I want to stand up for love, for kindness, for inclusion.  I want to stand up for the common good, the bigger picture.  I believe in both knowledge and wisdom, science and the stuff that is beyond science.  I stand for a clean environment, personal responsibility, and societal good behavior.

In practical terms, maybe not that much will be different.  I will still love people whose opinions differ from mine; I just may be a little more forward with my differences.  I will show more colors, but I don’t intend to scribble over anybody else’s colors.  Maybe I will look good as a rainbow.

What I read, summer 2016

Time for another book post.  I had an efficient summer of reading, finishing 38 books.  I blogged about a bunch of them already on my fitness blog, so you can peek over at recessphysicalfitness.blogspot.com if you want to know about these books:

The Boys in the Boat

Rolfing

Dirt

The End of Overeating

How Learning Works

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Our Pristine Mind

Capture

Play

Resilience

The Martian

Looking Deep

Becoming A Supple Leopard

The Emotional Life of Your Brain

(I am lazy, so I am not linking to all the books.  Y'all can go plug them into Amazon or seek them out at your local store yourselves...)

I read twelve books intended for kids.  Eight of those were the original seven Harry Potter books, plus Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  I also re-read Little Women and Little Men and a book of mostly-new-to-me short stories by Louisa May Alcott.  The amazing Rick Riordan continues his streak of books I wish I had written with his latest entry into the Percy Jackson-related universe, The Trials of Apollo.

In the sci-fi/fantasy category, I read Philip K. Dick’s Radio Free Albemuth, which I enjoyed maybe mostly because of its portrait of Berkeley.  R. Scott Bakker came out with a new book, The Great Ordeal, which made me realize I had missed the second book in the series, The White-Luck Warrior.  It had been so long since I read any of his books that I started that particular series over, by reading The Judging Eye first.  While the books are well-written, I did not ultimately enjoy them.  They felt like a series of horrible violent scenes that added up to a bleak and unhappy universe.  After visiting the House on the Rock, I felt the need to re-read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which was equally awesome the second time.  Morgan Llewellyn’s Druids was perfectly entertaining, but not a book I need to keep or read again.

I read a few mysteries.  I continue to enjoy Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher books, finishing Away with the Fairies this time around.  In my used-book buying in Wisconsin, I selected Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews, which was worth significantly more than the 99 cents I paid for it.  It was smart and hilarious, as well as clever.  Rex Stout’s Three Doors to Death came from the same batch of used books and kept me well-entertained on my flight home.

Which brings me to the regular fiction.  The Prague Cemetary was the only one of Umberto Eco’s novels I had not yet read.  It makes me sad that there will not be more of them.  It runs along the lines of Foucault’s Pendulum in that texts are created and interpreted in ways that Borges would appreciate.  No one makes a conspiracy theory like Umberto Eco.  Also, he knows pretty much everything.  I was happy to see that Don DeLillo had a new book out, Zero K.  His way with language blows my mind.  I don’t care what he is writing about; I want to read it.  This means that I enjoyed reading the book, even though it is, again, about death, this time through the lens of cryogenics.  Finally, I read Sue Monk Kidd’s historical novel The Invention of Wings about the Grimké sisters and their work in abolition and women’s rights.  It was beautifully written and inspiring.

On to fall reading!!!