Book Review: Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty

Welty has a way with words that is unlike any other American author. Delta Wedding is one of those “typical” Welty books that delivers passages that you have to reread several times because they are so evocative of time, place or spirituality.

DW is set at Shellmound, the Fairchild’s plantation in the Mississippi Delta, aka cotton country. Laura McRaven, a cousin to the Fairchilds’ travels by train from Jackson to Fairchild and is both overwhelmed by her huge family of cousins, aunts and uncles, and lured to be accepted by them. Laura’s mother had recently passed away, and she expects to be treated special as a result. Other than her first greeting by her Aunt Ellen (the matriarch of this enormous family) she is pretty much left to fend for herself. Sometimes this proves too much for her, but by the end of the novel it seems that Laura fits right in with the rest of the Fairchilds.

One theme in particular that I liked about the book is that of the view of the outsider. Laura is an outsider who both wants to be inside and remain outside. She likes her “special-ness” by being an orphan and not being part of the Fairchild clan, but she desperately wants to be part of something grand, and the Fairchilds seem like a good place to start. Ellen, who married Battle Fairchild, is from Virginia and is seen as snooty even though she is thoroughly in love with the people around her. Welty does such a wonderful job of showing someone who is so overwhelmed by her life that she can’t seem to react with enthusiasm—it’s as if she’s a piece of drift wood in the Yazoo River. Then there is Troy Flavin who is the bride groom of the story. Not only is he from another part of Mississippi where there are hills, but he is the overseer for the plantation—he is doubly outside. He looks different than everyone else, too. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see the world from Troy’s perspective other than in the few statements he makes about his mother and her quilting.

I enjoyed reading DW, though I have to admit I wished it were a little shorter. I felt myself being overwhelmed by the huge cast of characters. I still don’t know how many children Battle and Ellen have, and I found myself wondering who some minor characters were upon their reintroduction to the story. That said, Welty has such a talent for a turn of phrase or for the absurd, that I found myself laughing out loud and thoroughly enjoying this book.

Too much!

Too much work to do, not enough of me to do it!

I promise better blogs after tomorrow when things should be calmed down...

A Response to Yesterday's Comments

I never knew Grandma Blackmon, but I can see her talking to herself outside while doing a chore because that's what I would do if I were alone and had some free time to talk to myself. Showers/baths are the best time to talk to yourself because you are usually alone (i.e. no one else in the room or bathroom with you) and you can cover it up, mostly, with the sound of the water and splashing. Clearly not so when I was a kid, but then I didn't think anything of my imaginary friends as being any other than my real friends, only I could control them better.

Another thing I really like to do when alone is sing and dance. When I was growing up I would put on my mom's "At the Hop" records and twirl my baton and pretend I was leading the band through Los Angeles or San Francisco. I was something in my beautiful glittery costume (usually represented by my knit t-shirt and shorts with a scarf wrapped around my neck).

One day--here in MS--David was working late, the girls were at a friends, and I was in my sewing room piecing a new quilt. Life could not have been better. I could talk to myself, sing and dance, and sew! My room is big and has a tile floor, so sliding around and doing the groove thing is really encouraged. I was having so much fun that I did not hear David walk in the door, nor did I notice him standing there watching me until I did a particularly klutzy twirl and stopped facing him and almost died of embarrassment. He told me to carry on, but somehow I simply couldn't.

"Self," I said...

Do you talk to yourself? Outloud? Do you ever leave yourself a voice message to remind yourself to do something you know you'll forget if you don't call? Do you ever e-mail yourself and say "Do X by Monday or else!"

Do you talk to yourself by name? I encourage myself by saying "Ok Leslie, you can handle this problem...just get in there and kick ass." But I don't usually say "Leslie, how are things today?"...but when I think about it, I don't really call most people by their names unless I'm trying to get their attention or make sure that they know I'm talking to them, so I'm not likely to do that with myself.

Do you answer yourself? Ask a question and reply as if you were the "other" person in the conversation? This is usually how I write, btw. I "say" it in my head and my critical reviewer says "that's pretty good, but try it this way" and then I reply "well, I liked this turn of phrase" and then I finally get it right after talking it through--silently of course.)

How do you end these conversations? The girls were laughing at me a few weeks ago when I left a message for myself at work and said "Bye." A conversational convention based on greeting and salutations doesn't work when you're talking to yourself. You can't say "hello self" and have that make sense unless you're schizophrenic...so saying "goodbye" to yourself doesn't really make sense either.

Tired!

So tired today. Did not sleep well last night at all. Please keep those ideas coming for future blogs you'd like to read...for today it will be an explanation of why I'm so tired. Which I know will be funny at some point. (probably about the same time I care that that was a sentence fragment!)

It started about 11:30 when I was falling asleep and heard a car alarm. It eventually went off, so I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep but I had that uneasy feeling you get sometimes, so I went to check things around the house--looking out the front door I saw that our house was wrapped/rolled/tp'd (whatever you call it, it's apparently a Hattiesburg HS homecoming tradition) last night. That annoyed me to no end. I woke David, showed him, and then we both went back to bed where I stewed for a good long time.

Finally went to sleep, woke at 3:30 with the feeling that A snuck on the computer yesterday afternoon (and she would have had to figure out our password in order to do that) so I let my imagination go crazy and had them both leaving the play last night and going around town and wrapping other people's houses and basically being stupid. So, by 5 when I realized I wasn't going to get to sleep unless I had a plan, I got up, checked the computer and saw that A had indeed been on the computer Monday--both her internet history and file properties showed it--and I was PISSED. Then I get back in bed, feeling righteous that I caught her, planned out the conversation we'd have this afternoon and actually started to relax when I realized that today is Wednesday, and Monday would have been two days ago, not yesterday, so she didn't get on the computer illegally, and then I was awake again and kicking myself for being such an ass in my head...

I know I drifted off again somewhere in there because I woke up when David came to tell me it was 7. So, now I'm exhausted after having only about 3 hours of sleep.

Nothing...

...at all going on around here except work and more work. Creativity is kind of murky...any ideas I should write about?

Motivation

Motivation is a funny thing. Sometimes you can't get motivated to do anything and then something will light your fire and suddenly you're working hard! A couple of recent motivators in my family:

• Going to Europe has motivated me to get to the gym--so much so that I went 5 days in a row! I won't go tonight or tomorrow because I have class, but I WILL be there on Wednesday at 4:30. For our itinerary, see Rick Steves Family Europe Tour.
• My children were motivated to clean their room with the promise of a new mattress. It was done within an hour. Amazing considering where they started.

Dream Theme #5: Going back to School

I often dream that I have to go back to Teague High School to pick up some credit that I inadvertently didn't get when I was in high school. Ironically this is usually an ENGLISH class that I missed out on becauseI was in band or something else crazy like that. I argue with the administration telling them that my 2 degrees in English should count for something, but they always make me go back and take this one class.

Dream Theme #4--Getting Married

I ofen dream of getting married--and not always to David. Sometimes I dream about the idea of it--I'll be getting married next week and I have all this stuff to do. Sometimes I dream that I'm walking down the aisle, and I don't know who is at the end of it. Sometimes I'm getting married to someone who is not David and I'm trying to figure out how I tell them that I'm already married and how I tell David that I'm getting married to someone else. Last night I dreamed that I was getting married to someone who was getting married to someone else who was marrying someone who was marrying my husband. It was this totally convoluted process, but we could do this "legally" because marriage was "one-way". I married someone but they didn't necessarily marry me. It was very confusing and I was actually kind of happy to wake up!

Dream Theme #3: Extra Rooms/Perfect House

I have had this dream ever since I can remember. I will go into a door of my house and find that it hides behind it a whole new set of rooms that are perfect. Spacious, airy, light, wonderful. I am so delighted to discover this part of my house/apartment that I never knew existed that I bounce around and look up and down and plan how I'm going to keep it clean and pretty. And the funny thing is that usually during this dream while I'm walking around in wonder, I think to myself, "isn't it a shame that I didn't know this was here until now...how I could have been using these rooms!"

I'm usually a little depressed when I wake up after one of these dreams. I was so full of wonder and hope that coming back to reality--a place where there aren't hidden rooms--is a little sad. Sometimes, though, that little hint of discovery and excitement lingers after I wake up to keep me motivated and excited all day.

Dream Theme #2: Tornadoes

I used to have this dream all the time--just about every night. In its hey-day I might have had two of these dreams a night. Now it's down to about once a month at most.

The basic premis is that I am somewhere away from home and then this huge tornado threatens our building. I am in charge of getting everyone to safety, and I don't always know where that is. The panic and frustration that ensues is usually very scary. Just in time the tornado either dissipates or turns another direction. I have never been hit by the tornado.

Dream Theme #1: Losing Teeth

I have dreamed about losing teeth since I can remember having dreams. In these dreams it may be as simple as losing one tooth--it falls out and I think "oh, no, I've lost a tooth" and keep going with what I was doing--or as horrifying as losing all my teeth one by one, crumbling in my mouth and almost choking me to death. These occur very infrequently but I always wake in a panic that is equivalent to waking to a burning house--full-on body sweats, heart pounding, etc.

These dreams are always terribly realistic. I can feel my tooth in my hands or mouth. I can see everything, smell, talk to people, etc. It usually happens when I'm doing my normal everyday activities, adding to the realism.

About 6 or 7 years ago, though, I started recognizing the dreams for what they were WHILE I was dreaming, and would say things like "geez, I used to dream about these things all the time, and now it's real." Recently when I've had the dream, though, I'll respond by saying "thank goodness this is only a dream because this would really suck." When I can respond that way, the fear and horror of my teeth falling out goes away and I'm able to sleep normally again.

Update

1. Discovery Day was indeed a day of discovery. The kids discovered that dorm rooms are "really small but worth it for the experience of having a bad roommate." David and I discovered that our idea of traveling is opposite of the kids' idea of traveling: impending problem for our trip to Europe this summer.

2. Acting on insight #2 from above, we had a talk with the kids where they discussed what they liked to do in traveling (E shopping and seeing touristy sights, A going with her plan and seeing stuff--touristy and not). Getting lost, driving around to see what's interesting, waking up one morning to discover what we want to do--not on their list (and all that's on our list). So, we were right, and decided on a compromise of Rick Steve's family Europe trip. We'll see most of the places we were going to go anyway, with an added eastern France and Austria. Plus we'll spend the last couple of days there going to the Loire Valley in France and seeing the chateaux. I think we're all looking forward to our trip now--the kids because they'll be more secure and less worried that we'll never find our way out of our lost-ness, David because he won't have to drive all the time, and me becuase I won't have to worry about whether David is tired and what the kids are thinking as they're chewing their fingernails.

3. We paid our 1st three quarters of 2006 taxes yesterday. There is definitely a dis-incentive to working hard and earning extra money.

4. I'm reading Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding. I love Welty a lot, but she slows you down. You feel like you really do have to read every word in order to see all the beauty she sees. I'm loving it--this may be my favorite book of hers yet--but it's slow-going and I probably won't have a book review for another week! I know, shocker when I was chunking them out there at a rate of one or two a week!

5. Last but not least, Saturday on the way home from Starkville, we saw the most beautiful sunset and cloud formations. It had me captivated for almost 2 hours. Unbelievable feathery clouds looking like they were on fire from the sun. Then the clouds formed a bowl above our heads in little puffs of cotton and looked like a flower opening with the sun as its stamen. It was something else.

Dreams next entry...I just felt the urge to update since it was such an insightful weekend.

Discovery Day

Tomorrow my girls and one of their friends will go to Mississippi State's "Discovery Day" where they get to learn about the university and all of its programs and other cool stuff that perspective college students want to know. Their desire to go there has stemmed from the fact that MSU is actually recruiting--sending letters, flyers, announcements and the like. Hopefully they'll come home with a burning desire to do really well in school...

Reproduction Quilt

Book Club Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

I almost did not read The Other Boleyn Girl because I had started reading Wideacre by Gregory and was so offended by the sexual depravity of the main character that I had to put it away. A friend had loaned the book to me, and I tried to return it to her explaining that I just couldn't read it because of the bad experience of the first book. She urged me to keep it and read it anyway because "it really is a good book." So, I started it on the plane on the way home from visiting her, and she was right.

I really enjoyed looking at the relationship of Anne Boleyn and Henry VII from the perspective of a sister, Mary, who is overlooked and mistreated but loved nonetheless. I thought the opening of the book with the beheading was very well-written and certainly takes you to the time and place where simple misdeeds can mean your life.

The family's lack of regard for Mary's desires in her life was sad. I wanted to go smack her parents for basically prostituting their daughter for their own financial and political gain.

My friend's feelings on the book is that Anne's character was a little overdrawn--she was TOO much of everything: beautiful, manipulating, sexual, etc. That didn't bother me, however, because it was clear from Henry's infatuation with her that she would have had to have been TOO much in order to lose her life.

I'm very interested to see what the book club thought of OBG. I enjoyed it enough to stay home an extra day getting over a sinus infection so that I could finish it. I know one other person didn't like it...

The Pinebelt Quilters Quilt Show

To see the local paper's slide show (and audio) of the quilt show this weekend, click this link.

Hope you enjoy. I don't know how long the link will be active, so go soon!

The Weekend

I hope everyone had a good time. I did. It was nice seeing my parents and talking to my nephew who amazes me every time I see him. He's a solid kid--hope he keeps on track.

We went to the Pine Belt Quilters Quilt Show which was really nice. There were some beautiful quilts. I did not take my camera, but trust me that the quilts were gorgeous.

We also played two games of "pocket canasta"...the girls won the first time and we let the boys win the second time :)

Other than that, we talked a lot and ate some yummy food (we'll have chicken wings all week!).

Thanks Mom and Dad, for coming down. We enjoyed your visit!

Musica Fabulosa

When we lived in College Station there was a Spanish radio station called "Musica Fabulosa." My Spanish teacher was the DJ in the evenings and his radio name was "El Maestro Romantico" which roughly translates to "the love teacher" but means something more along the lines of "romance expert." Not only did he play romantic Spanish songs, but he gave relationship advice to callers. It was fun to listen to while I had a mild ability at understanding Spanish.

That's a long introduction to say that I've been driving a lot the past two days and have listened to lots of music. I have two new-ish CDs which I absolutely love: Rascal Flatts's "Me and My Gang" and Pat Green's "Cannonball." Flatts have outdone themselves on their current CD (it's been out since April or May, but it just hit me about 2 weeks ago how GOOD is really is). Not one single song on the album makes you want to fast forward through it; in fact, I've wanted to rewind and listen to many of the songs over and over and over so that I can memorize them and sing along. My favorite (and this is hard to figure out) is "What Hurts the Most" which is actually released on the pop charts, but is a fabulous song, and very difficult to learn to sing. I think my mom would like "Ellsworth, KS, 1948" because it's about a woman who has Alzheimers and is living in 1948 when she was first falling in love. But all of the songs are really wonderful and I can hardly get enough.

I bought Green's CD less than a month ago and I listened to it over and over and over when I first got it. David even asked if we could listen to another CD because he was getting a little tired of it. Again, all of the songs on this CD are really top-notch. Back and forth my CD player went the past two days listening to these songs. It's made some really boring driving more tolerable.

What are y'all listening to these days?

I Just Love Surprises!

Especially when said surprises come totally unexpectedly (thus the surprise part, I guess) from someone who I would never dream would send me a surprise...but I truly enjoyed my African Bush Tea sent to me by Mma Romatswe who was in Wimberley, TX, recently scouting out a messy situtation involving Billy Bob Thornton and some rogue bananas.

So, Thank you Mma Romatswe (or may I call you Precious) for my delicious tea that I enjoyed after my teenagers went to bed. I hope it will help me solve my problems, too!

Book Review: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

I love Cather’s work, and The Song of the Lark may be the best one of her books I’ve read yet…Death Come for the Archbishop has been my favorite of her books for so long that I may not be able to supplant it, but SoL is excellent.

The story revolves around the growth of Thea Kronberg into the artist that she is. We begin with her as a child around the age of 10. Her friends are adults and misfits in the town. We don’t hear about her interactions with kids her own age nor really about her being a child at all. What we learn about Thea in the beginning of this book is that it is evident to everyone who knows her that she’s gifted, but no one can agree about what--piano, acting or singing. She knows, but she keeps her secret carefully guarded.

She begins to blossom when she is sent to Chicago to take lessons from a renowned piano instructor. It isn’t until she mentions, almost on accident, that she sings at funerals that her piano teacher discovers her true musical gift—she has a phenomenal “instrument” (as it is often referred). She then switches teachers to a voice instructor and has to play accompaniment to his other lessons in order to pay for her own lessons. She is discovered by a rich cad-about who falls in love with her and worries that she is suffering under the pressures of being an accompanist to her rigid instructor. He sends her to his ranch in Arizona where she “nests” and comes into her art and her self.

The section in Panther Canyon is so well done that I could read it again and again. I finished it feeling the anticipation of what was going to happen to Thea when I turned the next page—was she going to become the artist she was destined to become or would she fail because of some poor decision or accident or simple poverty? Would she be able to accept her gift and learn to live with it, or would she reject it because it could never meet her ideal.

The last section of the book has Thea returning to New York after spending years in Germany discovering her art. She is singing in opera after opera—a different one every night it seems. She is different characters in different voice ranges and truly shows her artistic abilities both in acting and singing. The critics and public are impressed with her, and her old friends are as well. We finally get her reunion with her early friends, and they sit back and watch as the Artist Becomes.

SoL is such a beautiful book. There were passages that I want to keep in my mind forever. Sections of such perfectly written prose evoking such perfectly poignant thoughts that it drives home the images and reality that Cather was trying to create. I wish I knew more about opera so I could understand more of the symbolism of Thea’s different characters, but even so I can “get it” that she’s done something amazing in the end.

What does it take?

What does it take to wake us up? Three school shootings in a week have left six girls, one principal, and two sick gunmen dead. Communities across our nation traumatized as a result.

Last year, our new superintendent proposed a fence surrounding the Hattiesburg High School because of several fights resulting from drop outs returning to campus and stirring up trouble. The fence would limit access, and, of course, exits; it would symbolize to those teenagers "prison" and further infringements on what they perceive as their freedoms. But adults are usually willing to overlook teenagers' complaints about such things becuase they "know best." However, the neighborhood surrounding the school did not want the fence because it would block one block of a street that they like to use so that they can avoid Hardy Street, a main thoroughfare in Hattiesburg. Convenience in travel is more important than the safety of our children.

Shame on us for listening to this argument! Shame on us for not doing everything in our power to protect our children from bullies that are too weak or sick to handle their own problems so they take them out on people that are defenseless!

General Update

I feel like nothing is going on in my life, but really, there are lots of things to update, so today's entry will serve as a "news" day:

• Oliver Kitty is doing fine after his surgery. He no longer flinches when we rub our hands down his back. He looks awfully funny with a big patch of fur shaved on his backside, but the incision is very clean and is healing nicely.
• I've been basically sugar-free for 4 months now. What that means for me is that I do not have anything that looks like dessert even if IT is sugar free (jello, pudding, ice cream, etc. will inspire me to desire Godiva). It's been tough, because most days I long for a piece of cake or cookies. But, I'm doing fine because it's easy to make a decision--can I have that slice of cheesecake that is calling my name? no? Well, that sucks, but it's better for me that way. I will eat jelly in my biscuits, scones from Starbucks, and things like that, but nothing that has more than 20 grams of sugar per serving.
• The party this weekend was a lot of fun. We had about 20-25 people show up, most of whom stayed for about 2-3 hours. It was loud, people were laughing, a big portion of our wine, beer, and food were consumed, so I know it must have been fun! I know I had a great time, though hosting a party puts pressure on you to keep moving around and making sure everyone is happy and enjoying themselves even when you are really enjoying this conversation you're having. No one played games, so I've learned that maybe that's not something to put out. One really cool thing is that one of our attendees is the person who lived in the house 2 people before we moved in (we bought it from her dad who had rented it to someone else after she graduated from high school). She was in awe at how different the place looked. Seeing her face made all the trouble and expense we've been to painting and renovating worthwhile!
• E is grounded for two weeks. Things went downhill while cleaning up on Friday afternoon, and she ended up throwing a box of kleenexes at me (though she claims she just threw them...didn't intend for it to be in my direction...).
• My parents are coming to visit next weekend--yeah!

I think that's all my news. If I come up with something else, I'll add it!