Tag Archives: literature

TS Eliot in Mexico

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T.S. Eliot wrote my all-time favorite poem, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. (In fact, it’s one of a handful of poems I Iike; I’m just not into poetry.)

Returning from Mexico, it was another Eliot piece on my mind, though: “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” It’s from Little Giddings, and the quote gets lifted all the time from its context. Eliot was kinda wrapping up his career at this point; he’d been sick, World War II was raging, and he was simultaneously taking stock of himself and humanity.

Which is what the Wayfaring Writers trip to Mexico did for me. I reconnected, plugged back in, found some words, found some ways forward, sold a book (out in 2025, more forthcoming once we’ve finished the work), and took stock.

Mexico is a good place to do stock-taking. The pace is slower, the connections to its roots longer. It reminded me a little of Appalachia, except the whole country is more connected to itself. It’s an old, old country; they hold onto things, complex simultaneous concepts, and the examination of said complexities doesn’t seem to be rocking their foundations quite the way it is here in the States.

We were sitting in the courtyard of a private house in a small village not far from Oaxaca City, learning to cook a traditional meal from scratch. We roasted cocoa beans, pounded avocado and grasshoppers together, rolled tortillas, went to the community mill. And as we sat in the courtyard, enjoying our communal lunch, one of the hosts said, “this is the real Mexico. Who needs Cancun when you can have this?” He gestured at the expansive blue sky, the distant green mountains, the gold-green-grey near fields, now fallow for winter and parched in the dry season, an occasional cactus flower dotting bright yellow or blue into the scene.

I was telling a friend about washing dishes in the open sink in the courtyard, and my awareness of the difference between “charming” the first few times and “hard work” that would likely come after a thousand or so of such washings. Water is rationed in Mexico, although Oaxaca has a good water table and most private homes, like this one, have wells. Still, the washers were careful with water: clean without waste.

My friend said “it would take so much longer that way,” and I thought, not longer, more different value on time use. That’s kind of the way Mexico does things. They’re not trying to stuff so much in that they need to shortcut some of the simple stuff, the zen moments. When the women who had taught us to cook did the dishes, it took two of them about fifteen minutes and they rattled non-stop conversation in Zapotec punctuated with laughter.

Doing dishes is about having clean dishes, sure; but it’s also about the fifteen minutes you spend laughing with a friend. It’s not taking longer; it’s a different set of things than we value in the States.

Since coming home, I’ve found myself on the Mexican mindset. There’s time, this can happen later, this can happen sooner, everything doesn’t have to happen all at once. Enjoy the moment; it’s not just about finishing, it’s about the doing.

I like having a dishwasher. But I also like having friends to laugh with. When it’s all “faster, harder, more” to accomplish something lasting here in the US ethos, fifteen minutes might seem like a waste of time that could be spent answering emails, sending texts, editing a chapter’s punctuation. But it sure didn’t look like anything was getting wasted, watching those two women get it done, laughing all the way.

The Monday Book – Reproduction by Louisa Hall

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Guest review by Janelle Bailey, avid reader and always learning; sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes grandbabysitting, sometimes selling books

Reproduction by Louisa Hall

Reproduction by Louisa Hall

Again, I seriously struggle to understand how books come to me exactly as and when they do such that they intertwine with and connect so completely in coincidental ways with my own life. It is not always as crazy as it is with this one, but this is a rare gem.

I can tell you that it was Wednesday, September 27, when I was working at my still newish job at an independent bookstore, when I visited at length with a customer, the two of us conversing at length over snippets of conversation interspersed among her browsing the books and my tending to other customers. It all began with my welcoming her and her sweet little dog (I still know his name), and us then sharing sort of leveled-up knowledge and understanding of books and authors and more. The end result–I have no recollection of what she may have purchased–was my having this title and another written on a scrap of paper, as they were the two books she’d most recently read.

I proceeded to put both titles on hold at my local library, and when this one became available, I added it to my to-read stack and near the top–well, left of my shelved short stack–and kept thinking that it was “truly next,” as I was eager to return to my conversation with this now friend and report, at her request, my thoughts about it. But for a bit, more pressing–book club, due sooner, etc.–titles took precedence.

At face value of the book’s title alone, this topic is one with which I am quite familiar, having successfully reproduced and nearly completely non-eventfully, five times. I often think–and usually with much marvel as well–about how gratefully awed I am by my body’s having handled this all so very well. Given that all five of mine are now adults and wishing to live very independently (more independent from me than pleases me, quite often), I find myself in a position to be trying on this new mature identity that doesn’t have me leading with that fact or role, when meeting new people these days. It’s a process, though, and for sure! Being a “mom” is truly all I ever wanted to do with my life, and then it became all that really mattered to me for the past thirty years since I first got to call myself one. But as I said, those girls…err, young women…are often determined to distance themselves from me, so I find myself trying to figure out who I am…newly and now.

All of that reproduction set me up–every single one of those five successful pregnancies led to the (re)production of another female–not only for exponential, as I’ve always hoped–numbers of grandchildren, but now includes continual and even more complex concerns about their own reproduction–including their rights, health, and so much, much more.

That Reproduction‘s cover flap reveals it to be a “genre-defying novel” had me fully engaged, as soon as I began reading it.

My first fondness came at mention of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a long-taught, long-favorite classic, and a book I discussed just days before with a student while substitute teaching. That the main character–or Hall, it isn’t completely clear–was planning to write a book about Mary Shelley was fascinating to me and that thread of connectivity throughout the book valuable.

The next connection was reference to author Tove Jansson and then very shortly later to Jansson’s Moomins. My heart was fully engaged for my fondness of and connection to Jansson; at this very moment in time a former student’s full collection of Jansson books is housed in my bedroom. I’ve had the box for more than two years, possibly…my slow reading of those slowly interspersed with other books. And my learning of Jansson’s Moomins traced to a very specific conversation in a Stockholm kitchen belonging to my cousins, the Finnish wife, C, of my cousin, H, telling me about them while simultaneously packing our picnic lunch and teaching me about haloumi…if I recall accurately.

Additionally and next, that someone very close to my heart had endured a “molar pregnancy,” as experienced by the book’s main character was consoling, in some ways.

But that wasn’t all of it. The next length of the novel addresses the main character’s horrible hemorrhaging after delivery of her daughter and all that traumatized her in those scary hours. And that was so specifically similar to what I experienced less than a week before my starting to read this book with my own daughter’s second delivery. How does all of this happen in and with one book that I am so divinely steered to read?

This would suffice for all of the relevant reasons I was enthralled, all the while, with this book, but for the crazy fun of my reading life, there is yet one more marvelously amazing layer to my own story with reading this book: and that is that, on my Facebook post of my “Here’s what I am reading right now” post last Friday morning, a dear treasure of a long-time AP Lit. teaching-met and AP Lit. Reading-established friend, who lives in Florida, commented that she used to babysit Louisa Hall, herself. Oh. My. Word.

I will simply keep listening generously to those steering me toward the books, taking direction as I always have from the usual places–awards, short lists, gut feelings about new publications, trusted authors, etc.–and additionally be forever grateful that my opportunity to work in the bookstore has become rewarding far, far beyond being paid to talk about books and/or sell them to others. Rather, it has also introduced me to smart, avid, and discerning readers, galore…and I’ve made many, many new friends of this very best kind: fellow readers.

Oh! Were you expecting to read about the book?

It’s likely to fall somewhere between triggering and satisfying in that “feeling seen” sort of way for a number of women who have endured similar difficulties with miscarriage and other pregnancy and/or delivery, post-partum concerns. And it does provide a certain amount of relief and satisfaction, too, for those of us who have had successful pregnancies and deliveries.

It does not read like fiction, given the similarities between the voice of the main character and Louisa Hall, herself. I wonder if it could be called “auto-fiction,” allowing for Hall to blend her truths in with other potentially fictional angles for these stories to take. There is lots to be learned and understood in reading this good book.

Come back next Monday for another book review!