Tag Archives: the narrative project

The Monday Book: SQUARE UP, 50,000 MILES IN SEARCH OF A WAY HOME by Lisa Dailey

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The guest review this week comes from Kristi Lyn Reddy, an alum of my first group with The Narrative Project. She reviews a non-fiction offering by Lisa Dailey

“The notion that bad things happen in threes is bullshit.”

Square Up is the perfect mix of travel, family and personal growth, processing grief and self-reflection intermixed with the unexpected during travel, keeping the reader turning the page to find out, what next?

Author, Lisa Daily, reels you right in referencing multiple family member deaths over a short period of time as ‘The Glitch’. Initially feeling as though she may be making light of a very difficult and personal process, grief, I quickly found myself appreciating the annoying whine which can follow loss after loss in a person’s sharing their story, being left out. Instead, Lisa takes you on a journey complete with an itinerary that is researched but left open to chance and availability due to the not always available albeit free or low-cost perk of being a military family. Flexibility, patience, and acceptance, whether packed, purchased or stolen, are needed on this family trip.

Lisa, her husband, Ray and there two sons, RJ and Tyler, set out to travel the world after years of research and planning, just as her personal world seems to be crashing all around her. Ray fears Lisa is not emotionally prepared for the uncertainty a trip like this can entail, while Lisa fears her ability to continue with life at home for exactly the same reason. Passports in hand, backpacks on, the four board a flight to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu. Not a bad way to begin an around the world adventure. From there they travel to Guam, Okinawa, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia including Kuala Lumpur and the Cameron Highlands, Hanoi (and other cities), Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Nepal and Ghana. Ea

Each stop the reader is brought into the culture, the experience, and the family journey both physically and emotionally. Moments of uncertainty are lightened with laughter over mistakes, assumptions and flaws in the plan. Ray’s fear of embarking on a journey at the wrong time, coupled with Lisa’s fear of not going, gives way to the fear of coming home – back to life as we knew it, all the while, opening the way to grieve and heal, making room for growth.

Through ups and down, including flights delayed, language barriers, hotels – should we say, motels, in ‘red-light’ districts, unforeseen and even undiagnosed illnesses, Lisa opens her mind, heart and emotions to The Force, present circumstances, and trust – in herself and her Square.

Sunset, Sunrise

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sea-sky-sunset-8101My friend Jenny got told she should go home and make peace with herself and God. Since she already was, she came home, opened her door, and said, “Come say goodbye.”

Jenny had the kind of cancer that made it dangerous for her to have visitors, but being a gregarious person, this rankled during her time. We sent a lot of FB messages while she was fighting off the body invaders. When she knew it wasn’t going to work, the invites went out, and we all went.

Jenny died while I was on a plane flying from East Coast to West. When I touched down in Seattle for a writing retreat, the first thing I got was a text from Jack saying she had left us.

And a reminder that he was going to our friend Destiny’s wedding reception that night. After living through a great deal of trauma, Destiny had found a guy who wanted to look after her and her two children; her life was about to turn, on the same day Jenny’s turned the other way.

Jenny was saying goodbye, ready to go, excited almost to think about what would happen when she met God and what her physical body and spiritual soul would turn into. On one of two visits I got in before the end came, Jenny took a sip of coffee and said, “I wonder what happens to us when we die? Do we disappear or turn into something?”

Her sisters froze. We looked at each other. All I could think was You’re about to find out, but you can’t tell us after you know. That’s part of the plan.

Destiny’s first husband’s death was a community gossip tragedy, but she’s the one who knows what it feels like to lose a guy who’d been fighting for years to reclaim his own life. And who knows what it feels like to love again. The community judgement she faces for either husband is irrelevant, and she knows it. She doesn’t say much.

Sunset, sunrise: two women with stories locked inside them, a story they can’t tell for different reasons. Unlocking the stories, giving voices to those whose stories are inconvenient, or indicting, or scary for the rest of us: that’s what I came to Seattle to be part of. It’s a writing retreat for women telling their stories, some in first person, some couched in fiction. The stories are inconvenient, indicting, and scary. And wonderful.

The world feels dimmer without Jenny in it, the world feels happier because Destiny and Ira got married. The world tilts at an incredible pace, and sometimes we can’t write fast enough to keep up with it.

Sometimes we can, though. And we should. Chronicle the sunsets, chronicle the sunrises. Find your voice and use it.