BooksIWouldHaveToldMySisterAbout

August is counting down. After the last few cool days, the temperature is rising again. I long for it to be autumn, real autumn. I want to jump forward in time. I want to stay here, in the space where my grief is excusable. It’s that time of the year again. She’s always like this then.

I finish one book and reach for another. (I know, I know, that’s every day.) But sometimes it’s survival, and sometimes it’s pleasurable escape.

I have three interlibrary loans out at the moment. A December Tale (Marilyn Sachs I’ve never read), A Home With Aunt Florry (another Charlene Joy Talbot) and Pauline (Margaret Storey, with a good Victor Ambrus cover, even though it’s covered up by the ILL label.)

I finished The Queen of the Damned last night around midnight and I predict I will start The Body Thief before the weekend is done, but we’ll see.

There’s no wrong way to grieve (yes, yes I know) but at times I wish I could maximize my grief. Cry straight through for three days, get it all out from where it resides in my chest, heavy and light at the same time.

I worry about forgetting things. I look at pictures and realize I never knew the story behind them, and now you’re not there to ask.

I give first library cards to children with varying degrees of excitement and think of all those summer days and Sunday afternoons spent in libraries. How often I would go to the library if I didn’t work there? A question I’ve asked myself over the years, and yet never been able to answer because I’ve always worked at a library. I count up the time, and apparently it’s been twenty-two years. I remember after the interview I went home and fell into one of those deep summer naps, that only ended when Mom woke me up to tell the manager was on the phone, yes I had gotten the job. I’m sorry you had to leave the library to make space for me. In another life (that endless refrain) are we both still working there? Do we share an apartment or even a small house, possibly possible in that part of the Midwest. Do we have even more cats? Do we long and dream of brightly lit cities and spaces that will feel like home someday? Are you alive there?

Would that be worth it to you, alive, but still trapped in Missouri? I don’t know. I think I know, but not for certain.

As for me, I am glad I live in this city you chose by chance and friendship, that I walk to work past train tracks and empty lots filled with green, all the dogs out for their morning news, hipster coffeeshops and small parks where people sit out of the sun, basking in the shade and waiting for autumn.

I can see the moon from my bedroom window, and maybe that’s all I need to know I am home.

Last finished: The Queen of the Damned

Currently reading: The Garnett Girls – Georgina Moore / We Like the Night Life – Rachel Koller Croft

Discuss...

…launched in 1994, is named after Astrid Lindgren. The payload is named after the characters Pippi, Emil and Mio. It was piggybacked on a Russian satellite, named Tsikada and a US communications satellite (FAISAT) and launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia.

These are new things to me, as possibly they are to you too.

I could tell you that I miss you, but you already know that.

Cosmodrome is a great word. Also aerospace. Makes me think of the Aero candy bar, that bubbly deliciously light chocolate that melted so easily on your tongue. I don’t remember if it on my first or second trip to England that I tasted one.

It’s the last hour of work, and I read through a website about Astrid Lindgren’s life, making notes of quotes and bits I liked. Quotes I would have read to you later when we were both home.

Things like: “A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy”.

and ‘Astrid describes herself how it felt to read as a child: “It was something that engaged your entire being, all your senses, sight, smell and touch, more intense than any other event in your whole existence as a child.” A new book was “something almost unbearably wonderful”.’

as well as ‘The school library was full of books and Astrid practically read them all. “I had such a terrible pent-up love of reading that it’s almost strange that when I finally got hold of books I didn’t read myself into the grave.’”

Our childhood was so wonderfully full of books and trips to the library, new books at Christmas. What would we have been if we hadn’t had that? That’s an alternate life I don’t like to think of.

In their later years Astrid and her sisters spoke nearly every day, starting their calls with ‘Death, death, death’, as a way of calling out the most terrible and unavoidable thing, to reckon with death, at the same time as taking the edge of all its sentimentality.”

I still wish for death to be avoidable. You should have been able to avoid it, skipping past it like Elsie Piddock on her fairy hill. You should be out there in the aerospace with all the stars. Maybe you are.

It’s still too far away.

you know this already. I miss you.

Discuss...

It’s the cusp of August. The humidity makes me feel like I’m swimming sluggishly through the summer days, treading murky water to stay afloat. And then there’s the blissfully cool rooms of my apartment where the cats lurk and stay cool. On cooler nights I turn off the AC and open the windows and let them enjoy the scent of the night. Little cats in windows, watching so curiously, the world around them.

It is hard to surrender the nights. The times when I’m when finally home, alone, myself, doing what I choose. Resolved at that point of the day to whatever mood has happened by then. The morning always starts over again. Every single morning I have to claw myself back to civility and level ground and new optimism.

I don’t know how I’m going to get through August. A horrible hot box of memories, every day.

I do know how I’ve been getting through July. IWTV & The Vampire Chronicles have been keeping me going. I have plunged headfirst into loving Lestat, and it’s an extremely pleasurable activity.

I’m trying to remember how much of season one we watched before you died. The first episode?? A few episodes? The whole season? I can’t remember. Mostly I always remember you describing the end of the movie and the way Lestat says, “Oh, Louis, always whining,” with a dramatic flourish of your arm.

Except when I rewatched the movie, I noticed the line was still, not always. I think I prefer your version, or my memory of it.

Anyway, I read the first book and now I am happily enjoying the dramatic, emotional adventures of Lestat in The Vampire Lestat. Trying not to devour it too quickly, but also not wanting to avoid spoilers, as usual. I’m glad there are more books to come. This was the series I needed right now.

Summer is a terrible time to get invested in vampires though. It is far too hot to wear pretty much anything flowing and vampiric. How the heck did they manage it in New Orleans?

….I have just answered my own question, because obviously vampires do not sweat. Do not @ me. That reason alone is enough to accept the Dark Gift, just saying.

We will see how I travel through the August days. Sweaty and sad, probably.

Discuss...

I hate everyone born in August. why should they be out there getting library cards when you’re dead? what right do they have to celebrating? to be here at all?

every day I’m getting further and further away from the last time I heard your laugh.

my therapist once told me the second year was the hardest. now I know what she means. there are other tragedies out there taking up space. the world moves on.

the other night I dreamed of home, and how things used to be. I woke up, grinding my jaw so tightly again like I used to. funny how I didn’t do that when we lived together.

I know what I’m doing, reading thrillers that slip through my mind, books that I don’t die to talk to you about. Even keeping stories at arm’s length. Distractions, but nothing lasts.

I would have had a nice little life if I hadn’t lost you. Never knowing the luster of life with you.

I go to check a word, and the word of the day is elevenses. yes, I know. you’re still there. you can remind me any time. i just wish i could hold you and hear your voice, telling me about anything at all.

August is only three weeks away.

Discuss...

It’s the end of March. Less than three weeks now (by one day) till the tortured poets. Four more months to August. It feels like spring in certain breaths, the freshly rained scent in the air, the damp pavement, little buds slowly opening on trees on my walk to work.

This week has been one of melancholy. I miss you in all the little moments of the day. I want to show you pictures of Jenny, curled up so close to me. I want to stay up late, talking about everything. I want to hear your thoughts, not someone else’s.

Recently I read Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer. It’s about a robot who becomes, well, she becomes essentially. Some parts of it were so frustrating. So many similarities between being a robot and being a woman, and none of them are the good. But her curiosity, her interest in things made my brain spark. That feels like a rare thing these days, and I hate it. I want the spark and I want the follow-through.

I feel like I’m existing in a small blurry cloud with all my senses dialed slightly down. Perhaps this is just how I will experience things now. Still irritated by the screaming kids, still pausing to take pictures of the moon through tree branches. Still eager to start a new book. Just none of it is is completely there. 79%, that feels about right.

When I think of August, it fills me with quiet, aching despair. How does time keep on moving?

I still haven’t finished The Lost Story.

Discuss...

We Used To Live Here – Marcus Kliewer.

This was good, unsettling and creepy. Like with all things I wanted to know more about the slipping in and out of different times, and how that worked and the memories left behind.

The ending, like a lot of life, is sad.

Open Minded – Chloe Seager

Genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed this one. Anytime someone tries to make open relationships palatable for readers at large is a gamble, but overall I think this author did a really good job. Especially of writing both the character familiar with the open relationship as well as the one just starting out with one. Very curious as to whether the author has people amongst their family or friendsgroup with this kind of relationship or past history. Where did you get your information…

A lot of it would have annoyed you, Eames, though. The primary partner bullshit, and the no talking about relationships and “the rules about falling in love.” I suppose that’s unfair, because open relationships and being poly aren’t technically the same thing, but the former just seems very…constrained, which as I find frustrating on paper, I know how you would have felt about it. Still, it was nice to see a semblance of your relationship desires and thoughts in a book.

Dear Hanna – Zoje Stage

This was the followup to Baby Teeth, which I remembered being published, but had never gotten around to reading it, so I borrowed that from the library even though I was fairly certain you had a copy upstairs in your room. One, it was late when I wanted to start it, and two, sometimes it’s hard to be in your room, even though I love it too. I love the skylights and the openness, and being surrounded by your books and possessions. I feel bad, now I know what you’d say and it’s still hard not, I don’t spend more time up there with Jenny, but I do plan on changing that in the future.

Anyway, I did enjoy Baby Teeth, and I enjoyed Dear Hanna, even though I guessed early on the truth about her letter writing. I understood it though, well, obviously. Here I am, writing blog posts to you, long after you’re gone.

It’s not so long though, is it? It’s that in-between time where it’s no longer just last year. Nearly two years. Which seems impossible when I think about putting it into words.

The Lost Story – Meg Shaffer

I just started this at work this morning, and it has that good spark of a book just waiting for the magic to begin. As our pal, Barnaby said. “The best kind of book s a magic book.”

And yet, foolishly, I almost want to close it and not continue. It’s so much easier to just read my way through thrillers and suspense, and contemporary fiction. While I do want to write those, they’re not as built into my bloodstream as magic books. Magic books hurt more even as I want to read them.

Why are these people allowed to be out there in the world writing their stories and getting them published? Why didn’t you get that chance? Why didn’t you get more time?

Anyway, I’ll let you know how it ends. At the moment I am simply enjoying the premise of ‘oh, I like the magic world of Narnia, let’s run with that without any of the religious undertones.’ Because I do still care for Narnia and the children who venture there. Even though I have never even slightly desired to get into Heaven.

I hope that wherever you are in the universe now, it’s interesting and vast and magical. I hope you’re having adventures in another life or form. I hope you get to experience all the things you always dreamt of.

Discuss...

I’m thinking about my books for once. All those unfinished stories. At seventeen I thought I’d be a properly published author by now. Is it a good thing I can’t tell her how things will go? Would it change anything? Would things be different if I could?

I didn’t write at all in January. Oh, a paragraph one afternoon, that didn’t lead anywhere. It was getting harder and harder, putting the words together, so I thought I’d just let them sit. Let them wait. And slowly, far more slowly than I liked, I feel them crawling back from the corners of my mind, wanting attention once again.

I miss the days where I’d write hundreds or thousands of words. They’ll come back, I always said. Usually I’m right about this.

This time though, the words keep knocking against my mind. What’s the point? What’s the point in writing if you’re not here to read it? To discuss it? To explore the possibilities? What’s the point in any of this without you?

And the answer, I suppose, is because there are still others who will want to read my stories, and to talk about them, even though they’re not you… And that I should write for myself as I always have, to put the stories I want to see out into the world. I have to want them badly enough to make them happen, and at times I don’t know if I do. I always thought I did. I want to want them that much. Because, without writing, without creating stories, what am I?

I miss you. It never changes. I miss your voice, your tone, your laugh. Some moments I can hardly breathe for it.

Send me a sign, Eames, that the stories are worth it in the end. Remind me of the magic I once believed in. I need it.

“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.” – Among Others – Jo Walton

‘They tell me everything is gonna be all right But I don't know what all right even means’ – Trying To Get To Heaven – Bob Dylan

Discuss...

We both know they’ve stayed up longer than that. What year was it, I can’t remember, that we left them up all year then added Halloween ones in October so that there was just a mishmash of ornaments and spiderwebs and lights all around the apartment? I know it was the apartment on North. But other than that, I don’t remember.

Speaking of, our old apartment is up for rent again. I saw it on a listing the other night. I wander if the building managers have actually fixed the intermittent leaking from one apartment to another or whether they’ve just fixed it well enough for now. I want to warn the future tenant: once the water came streaming down in the doorways like in a horror movie. water should never drip inside your house like that. there’s probably still mold in the walls. I hope the pigeons still rule the back porch.

And so we moved.

And.

And.

I can’t say you died last year anymore for this is a new year.

Somehow, I made it through 2023. A whole year without you. I hated it. I reached for things that we loved with both hands, trying to hold on to what it was like when you were by my side. I spent a lot on concert tickets and takeout and books, of course. I drank and I read and I thought about writing, but it felt hollow most of the time. I returned to England and saw the sea again. I scattered some of your ashes over Glastonbury Tor and in the sea at Whitby, and a few other places I thought you would like. Jasmine hugged me tight after each time.

Sometimes I think I’ve lost the capacity for happiness. There are moments of contentment and pleasure and imagination. Jenny crawled onto my lap voluntarily yesterday. I watched a sci-fi movie that made me want to work on the Space Lesbians. I have two interlibrary loans checked out, one ready at the branch, and four more in the holds request. (A small attempt to spend less money on books…we will see.)

I’ve been thinking of rereading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn again. It feels like it might be that time.

“People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains – a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone – just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.” – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Discuss...

Yesterday I read Hey Zoey by Sarah Crossan yesterday. It was short enough and the day was slow enough that I was able to do so. I’d planned to start the second book in the Millennium trilogy, having spent a good portion of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day reading the first one. Instead I became absorbed by the woman finding her husband’s sex doll and unearthing her childhood trauma.

You often read a book a day. You were good at that.

I have two interlibrary loans out at the moment, and requests for at least three more. I am making an effort to request weird old children’s books I want to read instead of simply just buying them, but it’s hard at times. If I could board myself up inside my book nook, I would.

But the cats…I know, I know.

I bought two books on grief the autumn after you died. I haven’t read either of them. I requested a new book on a grief called Always a Sibling. I haven’t read that one yet either.

I purchased cases for both our kindles yesterday so I could tell them apart. (and also take them to work and read more easily.) Black for yours, of course.

“Have you read this?” a coworker holds up A Dark Is Rising. “I haven’t read it in years, but.”

“So good.” I chime in.

“I’m putting it on hold.” they say decisively. “I should reread it.”

And then later, the patron came in to pick it up and said her friend was loving it and had recommended it.

Before Christmas I reread A Little Princess, and the fierce love for stories rose up in me again. Why can’t I translate that into writing my own? Why aren’t those as important to my brain when they are literally the only thing keeping me going*?

What is the trick to get my stories to come willingly to the page?

Why can’t this be the kind of grief where I produce something magnificent so everyone knows how much I will always love you?

Two women came in to get library cards yesterday. Newly moved to the city, newly moved in together, clearly sisters. And they were happy, excited about moving in together, you could tell. I was happy for them, but oh so jealous at the same time. Why can’t I go back to then, and keep you safe?

Why is this the reality that will not end?

*and the cats obviously.

Discuss...

I read the new Peter Swanson book yesterday, started in the morning, took a three hour nap, and then finished in the late afternoon. It’s his tenth book, titled A Talent For Murder.

It was a lovely day to spend reading. It rained all morning, and the apartment was dark and cozy. Stretch spent a lot of it on my chest, purring contentedly. Jenny came down to investigate now and then, reminding us that she’s here too. Sometimes they are on either side of me and I can pet them both, and that’s a real accomplishment honestly.

A Talent For Murder features Martha, a librarian who has a cat, came from Missouri and marries a stranger that she then suspects of being a serial killer.

Of course it’s not that straightforward. It never is.

Martha gets into contact with an old schoolfriend who just so happens to be Lily Kinter from The Kind Worth Killing and The Kind Worth Saving. Aka my favorite Peter Swanson character, though Henry Kimball is not too far behind. To be fair though, there’s not many of his characters that I don’t like. Even the murderers are interesting in their own terrible ways.

I reread Peter Swanson’s books every year. Not the same ones always. Sometimes I alternate.

The Girl With a Clock For A Heart (Published 2014) Read: 2016 & 2020

The Kind Worth Killing (2015) Read: 2016, 2018, 2020 & 2022

Her Every Fear (2017) Read: 2018 & 2020

All the Beautiful Lies (2018) Read: 2018, 2020 & 2021

Before She Knew Him (2019) Read: 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021

Eight Perfect Murders (2020) Read: 2019 & 2021

Every Vow You Take (2021) Read: 2020 & 2023

Nine Lives (2022) Read: 2021 & 2023

The Kind Worth Saving (2023) Read: 2022 & 2023

A Talent for Murder (future book! to be published in 2024!) Read: 2023

Bonus: The Christmas Guest: Read earlier in 2023 and will probably read again this month.

I don’t believe these statistics are entirely correct because I’m almost certain I’ve read Her Every Fear more than twice. See also Eight Perfect Murders. On the other hand, I know very well I’ve only read Every Vow and Nine Lives twice, and both of their rereads were this year. They are probably the only two that don’t grab me as much as the others. I don’t feel like the cult in Every Vow is fleshed out enough…or maybe I just wanted more creepy horror! I like the premise of Nine Lives and yet it also frustrates me. The murders don’t seem fair, which is an odd thing to complain about a murder I know, but there you go.

I love each of the others in its own particular way.

I love Hen with her art and her obsessive nature. I always wish things ended differently somehow for Matthew, that he’d somehow get help, even though it’s far more realistic that he doesn’t.

Eight Perfect Murders always leaves me feeling melancholy. I tend to semi- Memento myself about the ending every time. How! How! Because I want it to be different, I suppose.

If you’ve ever seen a really beautiful girl, you just can’t really blame George for falling for Audrey, you just can’t. Similarly you might feel a little unnerved by Harry’s attraction to Alice, his stepmother, but you still get it.

Alice, pale, unsettling, beautiful Alice. And Joan, devious, menacing, intriguing…These two feel more like sisters than Joan and her actual sister honestly. Though obviously they would be a dangerous set of siblings. (Murder siblings…that’s what I would like to see Peter Swanson write next. Just throwing that out there to the universe. I’m a sucker for murder siblings.*)

There is almost always a character I would rather not get murdered, even if I feel they sometimes deserve it. (Looking at you, Corbin Dell.)

But Lily Kinter with her love of nature and animals, Monk’s House, and that buried well…Let’s just say I was very glad to have her back yet again in A Talent For Murder.

There is deep affection for books and reading, poetry and mysteries within all these pages. I find this deeply comforting in spite of all the murder. Also I’ve grown fond of Maine over the years and would like to visit someday.

There is nearly always a cat.

*maybe I should write murder siblings…

Discuss...