|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
when in paradise
|
|
|
Hello, friend!
|
WE'VE COME TO THE ISLANDS, Tim and I, along with a collection of other dear friends for fellowship, fun and for heaven's sake, a heavy dose of SUNSHINE during this colder-than-typical winter. Early last Spring we rented a house on Treasure Cay in the beautiful Bahamas, and I have to tell you while the ☀️ ☀️ ☀️ is fully doing her part there is a poignancy to this trip I did not see coming. Hurricane Dorian also visited this island in 2019, and after parking for a while, and wreaking a hellacious havoc via sustained winds of 185 MPH, Dorian departed and left in his wake total devastation. (That is not an exaggeration.) Hundreds of people were unaccounted for; 95 percent of homes were demolished or significantly damaged; the power grid was wiped out and took another year and a half to rebuild.
|
Even these years later, it is a humbling thing to drive across this island where the mark of Dorian is still on full display. It's a study in contrast: heartbreaking devastation nearly everywhere you look, all surrounded by the clean, clear, peaceful blues and greens of the waters that surround the islands here; shells of homes destroyed and abandoned, and shells of homes as they rise or rise again as residents and investors rebuild; a slight few restaurants and stores open and functioning and those that are open providing all these residents (and we visitors) need.
|
|
And the spirit of these people. The spirit of these people who have been through so much and still are welcoming and accommodating and entrepreneurial; who are, of course, happy to have tourists return, and who have made us particularly happy we chose this beautiful island to be our home away from home this getaway week.
|
|
|
I cannot help but think, as well, about our own country in these terrifying and chaotic days. This morning I stood in a shallow surf where again, in poignant fashion, tides crissed and crossed in a way, that to me, was unfamiliar. I looked to the horizon and offered a prayer that goodness will rise; that our constitution will stand; that love will overcome.
|
|
Please let love overcome.
|
|
|
|
I wish you were here with me, to experience this moment of peace on this island and with these people who have suffered so much, who have overcome so much, who are working hard to restore and rejuvenate. Locals and migrants alike, they are people of great faith and I am bolstered as my own prayers mix and mingle and rise to the heavens with the thousands upon thousands that have been prayed right on this land and on these waters since September 1, 2019, and from the beginning of time.
|
|
|
Peace to you, my friend, in these uncertain days. Peace and love be with you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Wedding People, by Alison Espach
|
I love a book that surprises, and this one certainly did! Promo copy reads:
|
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan―which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.
|
|
I thoroughly enjoyed this one on audio! Smart, imminently readable, I highly recommend!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Whale Fall, by Elizabeth O'Conner
|
When I first read of this book, I immediately made note because it is right up my alley. It did not disappoint.
|
In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations.
The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels herself pulled towards them, reckoning with a sensual awakening inside herself, despite her misgivings that her community is being misconstrued and exoticized.
With shimmering prose tempered by sharp wit, Whale Fall tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. O'Connor paints a portrait of a community and a woman on the precipice, forced to confront an outside world that seems to be closing in on them.
|
I read this one on my new Kindle, purchased for travel. It was the perfect book to read on this remote island!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oh lordy I feel seen. Except that I haven't learned a thing. I still can't pack light.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I've done versions of this art practice from time to time, but there's something very appealing to me about a practice that asks so little and yet gives so much.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
from the archives on THE DAILY GRACE
|
|
|
My Top Ten Books of 2024
|
|
It's always fun to look back over the past year to see what you read, what you loved, what reading experiences result in their coveted place on your own favorite books of the year list. Here's mine!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
close you eyes and be here with me, just for a quiet swing in this hammock :)
|
|
|
|
   
|
|
|
|
|
|