At home from east to west

I spent nearly two weeks of December in Virginia with three kinds of family: the one I was born into, the one I married into, and the friends who are close enough to feel like family. I got to see so many of my very favorite people this month, and I'm incredibly thankful.

This visit reminded me of many things I love about my hometown. It was over too quickly, of course, but there was enough time for abundant conversation with my family, snuggles with my baby nephews, reunions with friends, and lots of holiday festivities. In no particular order -- a few of the best moments.

A morning at the Harrisonburg Farmers' Market, where I was staggered by the sheer number of vegetables and fruits still plentifully available from local farmers. This was mid-December, people. All the farmers markets in the Colorado Springs area closed in October and won't reopen until June. My locavore foodie heart cried a little.

Eating Indian food with my best friends and trying to soak up as much love as possible before the too-short night was over. Forgetting my water bottle at the restaurant in Charlottesville, because who can be expected to remember everyday details when you're so full of joy?

Drinking tea with my mother and sister and talking about the shared aspects of ourselves.

Crowding in close with friends and strangers to bless a newly wedded couple.

Crying happy tears at the incomparable joy of singing with The Table, my beloved church.

Group hugs.

Rocking my tiny nephew to sleep while this song played. Wondering what he'll be like when I see him in six months -- a longer time than he's been in the world so far.

Abundant laughter with my extended family.

Board games and Wii dance parties.

Leaving Virginia and returning to Colorado, finding that it felt exactly like leaving home to come home. How lucky I am to have many homes, for it is always better to have too many than not enough.

As 2015 closes and 2016 opens, may you find yourself in the comfort of "home", whatever that might mean.

2015 Reading Update: December

As 2015 is waning, I'm finishing up the reading challenge I've been doing this year. Here's a recap:

January: All the Light We Cannot See (currently on the bestseller list)
February: July, July (had been meaning to read)
March: Love in the Time of Cholera (originally written in another language)
April: Single, Carefree, Mellow (published this year)
May: Song of the Lioness Quartet (re-reading books from my childhood)
June: Will Grayson, Will Grayson (by a favorite author)
July: Fangirl (recommended by someone with great taste)
August: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth (a genre I don't typically read)
September: Eleanor & Park (a book "everyone" has read but you)
October: Beloved (should have read in high school)
November: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (a book my mom likes)
December: The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (chosen because of the cover)

Thanks to my sister-in-law April, who recommended Fangirl and all of Rainbow Rowell's books. I have now become a huge RR fan. I still haven't read Attachments or her newest book, Carry On, Simon, but I've read three of her five and absolutely love them.

Beloved is not strictly speaking a book that I should have read in high school. I don't think I ever blatantly neglected to read something I was assigned. (Well, not until college.) But I certainly had the option of reading Beloved to fulfill one of my many high school reading requirements. Until October, I had never read anything of Toni Morrison's, and that seemed like a shame. So I suppose I modified this category to something like "should have read before now."

I liked all twelve of these books. But my highest, most glowing recommendations go to....

All the Light We Cannot See: I can't say enough about this book. Beautiful on many levels. Completely deserving of its fame. Haunting in the best possible way.
Fangirl: Utterly winning in its believable characters and fresh, un-cliche writing style. One of those stories that will always make me deliriously happy.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves: I have to hand it to Karen Joy Fowler. This book is brilliant. Totally unlike anything I've ever read before, and yet it resounded deeply with my life and thoughts. It's best not to know too much about it before you read it, so just go read it.

I chose The Shadow of the Crescent Moon from the "New Books" shelf at my library (which, by the way, was definitely the most difficult part of this 12-book challenge. I tend to obsessively research authors and read lots of reviews before actually reading a book, so there's a reason I waited until December to choose a book solely by the cover.) This is the cover I chose.

Gorgeous, right?

But just now, in looking for a picture of the cover to show you, I discovered two alternate editions.

                  

Both of which I also love.

Well done, Penguin.

In other bookish news, I also accomplished my Goodreads goal to read 40 books this year. Goodreads made a cute little summary page with some interesting stats:

Total pages: 14,006
Average book length: 350 pages
Shortest book: 182 pages
Longest book: 562 pages

But here's my favorite one.
Average rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars

Now, I was probably more generous than I should have been with a few of my ratings, but I try to reserve 5-star ratings for books that I really love. So if my average is 4.1, I clearly read a lot of good books this year.

What were the best books you read in 2015? Send me your recommendations to add to my list for next year!

Hope

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

I have to be honest: the past few weeks have been hard for me. In light of many recent events, my optimism has taken a hit. Politicians circle each other in endless rhetoric that goes nowhere. Senseless killings are so common that we've stopped reading the news. The world is still run by profit and greedy corporations, even as I see the valiant and critically important work of hundreds of nonprofit organizations. How much more could they be doing if they actually had enough funding and support? What does it take for things to change? How bad does it have to get before we make it stop?

I'm battling hard to keep the faith. One phrase that keeps coming to mind is this: Cynicism is easy. Hope is hard. I can't fall into the cynicism trap.

My worst fear used to be complacency. I don't fear that as much anymore -- I have more fire than ever. Instead, I've been struck by a new fear: that the world actually will never change for the better. But that kind of thinking only leads to more cynicism, which is a force that convinces us not to act. It's a line of thought that persuades us that nothing we do will actually make a difference, and I simply can't stand that idea from anyone, especially not from myself.

Cynicism is easy. Hope is hard.

Last night while reading, I came across a quote which, though spoken by a character in an entirely fictional universe, felt particularly appropriate to this world at the moment.
"What do you suppose [...] the people on other continents, across all those seas, think of us? Do you think they hate us or pity us for what we do to each other? Perhaps it's just as bad there. Perhaps it's worse. But to do what I have to do, to get through it...I have to believe it's better. Somewhere, it's better than this." (Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire, p.422)

That's the way I'm feeling now. In a despairing, broken world, I have to believe that things will change. I desperately need to see the world get better in my lifetime.

I don't have any answers about how to move forward. I know what I wish everyone would do to facilitate change, but it's all been said many times before, so you can probably imagine.

So instead of going on about this, I'll just talk about something I found incredibly beautiful -- because hope is all about finding beauty in the midst of struggle. (Apologies for the moving-car pictures. I hope you can use your imagination a little.)



Here's the thing: I have grossly underestimated the significance of pine trees in the winter.

In the early fall, I was lamenting the comparative lack of Colorado fall colors because there are fewer deciduous trees here than in Virginia. Especially when you head west out of the city toward the Rocky Mountains, everything becomes coniferous.

Last week we were driving to Woodland Park (a little town in the mountains about 20 miles west of the Springs). It had been snowing off and on for a couple of days, and never got warm enough to melt much.

Driving out this way is beautiful any day, but never before had I seen it so striking. Everything -- mountains, rocks, trees -- was blanketed in snow and ice. Hills upon hills of conifers rose up around us until the tops blended into the cloud and fog, a hazy winter wonderland. It was just before sunset, and the sky was a shade of silvery gray that was almost a perfect match for the color of snow on pine trees.

LOOK AT IT.

I hope you can find ways to live into hope today, friends. I hope you can do what you have to do to keep the faith. For me, that's listening to Linus and Lucy while drinking peppermint tea. Soon I'm "going brunching" (as my German housemate would endearingly call it), and later there's a Christmas parade.

Today, let us turn away from the easy road of cynicism. Today, choose the rugged path of hope.