Swing Time
Feb. 12th, 2018 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisnewdayIn little more than a week, I have to read a 500 page novel, called Swing Time, by Zadie Smith. Anything with a deadline, these days, usually has to do with one of the two book clubs I belong to although, these days, that seems to be narrowing towards just one, the Thursday AM Book Klatch in Liverpool.
After the last one, though, I thought I might take some time off. We'd just read and discussed Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, and I was emotionally exhausted.
That meeting had taken place about a week after the first anniversary of my wife's passing and we had just attended the one-year service which is an Orthodox tradition. Which was almost more than I could handle, in addition to the all too vivid memories of her decline and passing.
To be fair, I guess the religious services might've been a comfort to someone who was a "true believer," unlike what it was for me: just one more thing to focus and intensify the sadness that I was already feeling.
On the other hand, my book club experiences, at either venue, hadn't been much to write home about. Either as a distraction from grief or as something to share with my astute online friends who at least understood the reasons for my disappointment.
Even so, I'd still been considering it. It was, after all, one of the few things in my life that put me in touch with other adults, in anything resembling a social setting. And so, this afternoon, I drove across town to the B&N to pick up the book.
Very briefly, it's about two girls of color who are living different lives in the same disadvantaged neighborhood in London and only meet and become friends because their mothers, for very different reasons, have enrolled them in the Saturday dance classes being held at a local church.
Suddenly, as I began reading, it occurred to me that this was very like the circumstances, many years ago, when my two oldest daughters were enrolled in dance classes at the neighborhood parochial school they were attending. An event which, oddly enough, led to some of the happier moments of my entire life.
Because, from those classes, the girls eventually moved to the performing arts studio where I would later become the technical director and, along with them, experience a legitimate, small-town version of, well, show business.
But that, like so many others, is a story for another time. Because, you know, I've got 500 pages to read in a little more than a week.
Just, maybe, wish me luck. And not the traditional broken leg, because I'm no longer in "the business..."
LPK
Dreamwidth
2.12.2018
After the last one, though, I thought I might take some time off. We'd just read and discussed Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, and I was emotionally exhausted.
That meeting had taken place about a week after the first anniversary of my wife's passing and we had just attended the one-year service which is an Orthodox tradition. Which was almost more than I could handle, in addition to the all too vivid memories of her decline and passing.
To be fair, I guess the religious services might've been a comfort to someone who was a "true believer," unlike what it was for me: just one more thing to focus and intensify the sadness that I was already feeling.
On the other hand, my book club experiences, at either venue, hadn't been much to write home about. Either as a distraction from grief or as something to share with my astute online friends who at least understood the reasons for my disappointment.
Even so, I'd still been considering it. It was, after all, one of the few things in my life that put me in touch with other adults, in anything resembling a social setting. And so, this afternoon, I drove across town to the B&N to pick up the book.
Very briefly, it's about two girls of color who are living different lives in the same disadvantaged neighborhood in London and only meet and become friends because their mothers, for very different reasons, have enrolled them in the Saturday dance classes being held at a local church.
Suddenly, as I began reading, it occurred to me that this was very like the circumstances, many years ago, when my two oldest daughters were enrolled in dance classes at the neighborhood parochial school they were attending. An event which, oddly enough, led to some of the happier moments of my entire life.
Because, from those classes, the girls eventually moved to the performing arts studio where I would later become the technical director and, along with them, experience a legitimate, small-town version of, well, show business.
But that, like so many others, is a story for another time. Because, you know, I've got 500 pages to read in a little more than a week.
Just, maybe, wish me luck. And not the traditional broken leg, because I'm no longer in "the business..."
LPK
Dreamwidth
2.12.2018
no subject
Date: 2018-02-13 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-14 12:09 am (UTC)