Sunday, January 3, 2010
7:22 PM | 
Posted by
Mrs Trewin
It's been a little while now...I think the birthday de-railed me somewhat. it was a marvellous success.
I've finished "Eating Animals" the book (by Jonathan Safran Foer) and can say that it affected me greatly. Not only as a(nother) work of literary greatness but as a real reason for hope and optimism. It was a wonderful read (I knew I'd like it anyway). And consequently, my family and I have really cut down our meat eating (almost nil now) and when we do eat chicken or fish, it's wholeheartedly organic. It's expensive, but worth it. It clears my conscience a little (guilt at eating meat at all) and relieves me somewhat that my carbon footprint is lessened. It's really a very powerful book. Very motivating and inspiring. It's not a suggestion of what to do...it's practically the rule book. It makes me insane that there are climate change deniers and people who think that what they eat doesn't affect the life they lead on the planet we have to share.
I've also gone design blog mad. I'm right in the thick of it and read them daily. it's a very mature and grown-up addiction. I've been in my new "apartment" (no, it's not a "flat" thank you very much) for six months now...and while the finances cannot support a complete renovation, or even a few paint jobs, we're inspired and full of ideas for when there is more dollars to support such endeavours.
Also! Reading a new book (first for the new year) called "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers (you will know him from his work on the 'Where The Wild Things Are' screenplay). I found out about Mr Eggers via a book on teachers (that I have not read but want to) called 'Teachers Have It Easy" (i think it also has a subtitle you can google that for yourselves) and everything I'd read about that book and he, himself, intimated a tone that I know I would respond to - and I am! - in reading this book.
I'm only maybe one chapter in, but it's already addressing a pertinent issue...the death of one's parent/s. My mother is gone. That feels like the most appropriate way to say it. I don't want to say "lost" because that would imply that I left her somewhere and forgot...it's been two years. My sisters and I got our mother's signature tattooed on our wrists for the first anniversary and for this second one (in about 18 days time) we're going to see an exhibition 'Masterpieces from Paris' - post impressionist artworks from the musee d'orsay in France. Our mother was a huge fan of Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin and the like. It will be so her 'thing'. And I've been really missing her lately. Acutely.
But the book is relevant to me at the moment (talk about reading the right thing at the right time!) as we approach the second anniversary of her death and it's almost like acknowledging the giant elephant in the room in your brain. Like wrapping yourself up in elephant blankets to cocoon yourself while you go through it and come out the other side. So yeah. I'm okay today...I miss her but I suppose that while you get used to it a little more everyday, everyday you hate the fact (that she's gone) more and more and cannot do a damn thing about it except get used to it. duh. but you live with the grief and the hatred of the bare facts of it all and go over and over the event in your head and the details (DETAILS!) and the minutae of the worst thing that has happened to you. it's not something you can get over like a break up or a broken leg. you just have to find a shelf on the inner cupboards of your psyche for your grief and sadness. and it gets a little longer between the memory lane strolls where you actually go on an achaeological dig for the artefacts and deliberately feel sad thinking it'll release that sadness and you might feel better. blah, anyway...
Here is to a much better year than the one we just had.
Happy New Year.
xxx
I've finished "Eating Animals" the book (by Jonathan Safran Foer) and can say that it affected me greatly. Not only as a(nother) work of literary greatness but as a real reason for hope and optimism. It was a wonderful read (I knew I'd like it anyway). And consequently, my family and I have really cut down our meat eating (almost nil now) and when we do eat chicken or fish, it's wholeheartedly organic. It's expensive, but worth it. It clears my conscience a little (guilt at eating meat at all) and relieves me somewhat that my carbon footprint is lessened. It's really a very powerful book. Very motivating and inspiring. It's not a suggestion of what to do...it's practically the rule book. It makes me insane that there are climate change deniers and people who think that what they eat doesn't affect the life they lead on the planet we have to share.
I've also gone design blog mad. I'm right in the thick of it and read them daily. it's a very mature and grown-up addiction. I've been in my new "apartment" (no, it's not a "flat" thank you very much) for six months now...and while the finances cannot support a complete renovation, or even a few paint jobs, we're inspired and full of ideas for when there is more dollars to support such endeavours.
Also! Reading a new book (first for the new year) called "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers (you will know him from his work on the 'Where The Wild Things Are' screenplay). I found out about Mr Eggers via a book on teachers (that I have not read but want to) called 'Teachers Have It Easy" (i think it also has a subtitle you can google that for yourselves) and everything I'd read about that book and he, himself, intimated a tone that I know I would respond to - and I am! - in reading this book.
I'm only maybe one chapter in, but it's already addressing a pertinent issue...the death of one's parent/s. My mother is gone. That feels like the most appropriate way to say it. I don't want to say "lost" because that would imply that I left her somewhere and forgot...it's been two years. My sisters and I got our mother's signature tattooed on our wrists for the first anniversary and for this second one (in about 18 days time) we're going to see an exhibition 'Masterpieces from Paris' - post impressionist artworks from the musee d'orsay in France. Our mother was a huge fan of Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin and the like. It will be so her 'thing'. And I've been really missing her lately. Acutely.
But the book is relevant to me at the moment (talk about reading the right thing at the right time!) as we approach the second anniversary of her death and it's almost like acknowledging the giant elephant in the room in your brain. Like wrapping yourself up in elephant blankets to cocoon yourself while you go through it and come out the other side. So yeah. I'm okay today...I miss her but I suppose that while you get used to it a little more everyday, everyday you hate the fact (that she's gone) more and more and cannot do a damn thing about it except get used to it. duh. but you live with the grief and the hatred of the bare facts of it all and go over and over the event in your head and the details (DETAILS!) and the minutae of the worst thing that has happened to you. it's not something you can get over like a break up or a broken leg. you just have to find a shelf on the inner cupboards of your psyche for your grief and sadness. and it gets a little longer between the memory lane strolls where you actually go on an achaeological dig for the artefacts and deliberately feel sad thinking it'll release that sadness and you might feel better. blah, anyway...
Here is to a much better year than the one we just had.
Happy New Year.
xxx
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