Susan

What I'm Reading Now...
I am now reading Annie Dillard's //Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.// This is a book that I was very popular with the writers I studied with during the 1980s. I guess I never read it because I always thought it would be rather dull. Maybe it was that it was about nature (nature writing did not appeal to me at the time), or maybe it was the word "pilgrim" in the title. Anyway, I was put off by it. Yet I find I have read bits of the book when the chapters have appeared in anthologies -- and I loved them. So I have finally come back to reading the whole book, as someone who has grown to admire Dillard's writing over the years. Also, Jan and I have talked about teaching a book together with the seniors next year, and this is one of the books we discussed. Maybe it will be an option for summer reading for AP English, where we concentrate on nonfiction more than in other classes. (October 18, 2010)

This is the second week in a row that I've forgotten my book at home. I am now reading //Pilgrim at Tinker Creek// by Annie Dillard. I have read essays or chapters by Dillard before -- she is great with description, especially of nature, and she has a spiritual bent. We read her essay "Terwilliger Bunts One," which is from her memoir //An American Childhood//, in AP English. I have also read an essay about weasels in another anthology -- and I think the essay comes from //Pilgrim at Tinker Creek//. Anyhow, what I've enjoyed most so far are her descriptions of various creatures in nature -- one was a bug that sucked all the juice out of a frog, another was the mating habits of a praying mantis (which involved biting the head off its mate), and the last was an absolutely devastating description of a moth that hatched too early in a classroom and became deformed because it was stuck in a jar. The latter will stay with me forever, I think. (Nov. 12, 2010)

I am still reading Dillard's //Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.// The chapter I'm in right now is called "The Present." She is really referring to time, to present consciousness, to experiencing the moment deeply and fully, with an awareness of all that surrounds us. It is also, I think, a play on words. By experiencing nature as it surrounds us, as we breath the air and feel the damp of the ground and smell the growing flowers and mud, as we listen to the hum of insects and trill of birds, as we settle under a tree and are sheltered by its breadth...by experiencing these things we are given a present of the present.

I am also reading -- at home -- a book called //Rapt// by Winifred Gallagher, which is coincidentally about paying attention, and about how what we choose to pay attention to shapes our lives. (Dec. 3, 2010)

What I've Read...
//Unaccustomed Earth// by Jhumpa Lahiri. I have read her earlier collection of stories, //The Interpreter of Maladies//, and her novel, //The Namesake//. A friend read it and raved about it, so I pulled from the pile on my "to read" shelf. Coincidentally, this week I saw that Andrew was reading the same book. (Sept. 15, 2010)

I finished this collection of stories over the Columbus Day weekend. The last story was one of those that takes your breath away. I could see so many themes and elements coming together in the last three stories which were connected. Also, I came to understand the meaning of the illustration of a bracelet floating in rough water that was on the dust cover of the book. I don't want to give it away, but the stories were just breath-taking. Two children of Indian parents who had immigrated to the U.S. describe their childhood and young adulthood; both are connected to the death of the young man's mother from cancer. The third story, in the third-person (at first) tells the story of when these two childhood acquaintances meet again as adults in Italy. The stories weave together so many things about love and loss and letting go... Just beautiful. (October 18, 2010)

Because I left my book at home last week, I read a summary of some education articles that Ray gave me -- and learned about how to build trust in a school community. Today I will read an old copy of the //New York Times Magazine: The 9th Annual Year in Ideas// from December 13, 2009. I just now read about "[|The Counterfeit Self,]" in which Marina Krakovsky describes a psychological study in which participants are found to be more likely to cheat if they see themselves as "fake" (they are asked to wear "counterfeit" designer sunglasses). This raises some interesting questions for when we see ourselves as not quite up to the expectations held out for us in school or otherwise. Are we then more likely to undertake whatever means necessary to get ahead, in order to pass as something authentic? (November 12, 2010)