Literary Discoveries

When I am feeding Kaitlyn, I often read. Since she often takes a long time to eat, and since she's still eating often through the day, I've been reading a lot lately! Here are a few things I have discovered (or re-discovered) in my reading recently:

Andre Norton- I like her writing! It's fun. I picked up a couple of free ebooks by her, a while ago, and read them last month. There's nothing earthshattering about them, but I definitely enjoyed them. This week I went and downloaded several more free ebooks. I'm sad that the Witch World series isn't available free. (It might or might not be available in ebook format; I didn't really look at the stuff I would have had to pay for...) That's the only Andre Norton that I've read any of, and it was a long time ago that I read it, and I don't remember anything. But I'm enjoying the random books I did find. Classic sci-fi-- brainless and entertaining.

Rudyard Kipling- I re-read Kim recently and was reminded of why I like Kipling. He's bound by some of the perspective of his time period, with which I don't always agree, but he's a good and interesting writer. After reading Kim last time, just a couple of years ago, I went and found a bunch of Kipling's short stories and read them. I might have to go re-read those now. Did he write any other novels? (I should know this, and I could look it up, but I haven't yet.)

Jules Verne- I finally read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea recently. It's the first thing I've actually read by him. And I was unimpressed. He started out with an explanation of how the Nautilus worked, complete with the math of surface area versus water pressure; it was far too technical for my taste. Then the majority of the book was purely a half-fictional tour of the world's oceans, with long lists of fish and plants... I also didn't particularly care for the main character, from whose perspective the story was told. Not that he was a bad person-- he just wasn't an interesting one, either! The book just didn't turn out to be my style. Does anyone know if Verne's other stuff is better? I'll be happy to try Around the World in 80 Days or Journey to the Center of the Earth if either is more fun, but not if they're going to be the same as this one.

Ken Follett- I don't know anything about his earlier work, but I read the first book in his recent historical fiction series about the 20th century. The book is Fall of Giants, and it covers the lead-up to World War I and the war itself, from the perspective of several families in England, Germany, Russia, and America. I found it very interesting and also entertaining. The characters' stories were compelling in themselves, and I learned a lot of history too. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the 2nd book in the series at some point.

Anybody have suggestions for me? I'm especially interested in things I can find for free in ebook format; my Kindle is by far the easiest thing to read from while I'm nursing. I'm open to new or classic authors, or to books I've forgotten about and should re-read! :)

Why did the chicken...

Kaitlyn and I walk around our neighborhood almost every day. We see or hear quite a number of animals. Dogs bark at us from behind fences or from the ends of their chains. Stray cats watch us-- warily or imperially. We hear birds chirping and occasionally a rooster crowing. All very normal. The other day, however, we experienced a new one.

We were a few streets away from home. Just as we entered the shade of a couple of close-together houses, a chicken dashed out of a yard ahead of us and paused, clucking. ("Do you hear that, Kaitlyn? That's a chicken!") I slowed down, expecting that it would either... well... cross the road... or else turn back and run away as we got close. Instead, as we came by, the chicken turned and began to run along next to us! I watched it, confused. It was running with its head thrust forward and beak a little open, clucking regularly but quietly. I had no idea what that meant; I have had no reason to study chicken body language in the past. (I can say, though, that chickens who wish to keep their dignity should not run. They look ridiculous.) I didn't know what it would do if I veered toward it. Run away? Or come peck my feet? Being uninterested in the risk of having a chicken attack me, I kept going quite straight and at a regular pace, feeling amused and slightly nervous.

A few yards further down, we came to the end of the shade of those particular houses. As Kaitlyn and I rolled on into the sun, the chicken slowed down, then stopped. Once we were beyond it completely, it turned around and began heading back in the direction of the house it came from. Evidently we weren't worth a trip into the heat of the sun.

I'm not sure whether the chicken was feeling territorial and running us out of town, (DO chickens feel territorial? I mean, I know roosters do, but hens?) or whether it was looking for attention and interested in coming home with us, like a stray puppy in a story. (DO chickens look for attention?) But since then, passing by that yard again, I heard clucking that sounded like multiple chickens. So who knows? Perhaps on some future walk, I'll get to find out!

A Small Battle

Yesterday I had a hard morning. Kaitlyn got up fairly late, so I got to sleep in with her, which was nice. But then she didn’t go back to sleep, even briefly, all morning. She was awake and happy, then awake and cranky. She wanted to eat every half hour but wouldn’t quite settle to eating a full meal. Halfway through the morning, she spat up hugely, all over me and herself and the bed we were sitting on. I managed a small breakfast mid-morning and finally got a shower during her first (short) nap at 11. When Kaitlyn cried, I was finding myself staring at her without any idea what to do, feeling like crying myself. By 12, I was tired, hungry, frustrated, weepy. Kaitlyn was eating again. I knew that we had things to do in the evening, and I was anxious about that. How on earth was either of us going to handle going out later if we continued to have a wakeful and cranky day? I just wanted her to nap for real so that we could both recover, reset, and have a better afternoon. I was trying to stay calm so that Kaitlyn wouldn’t pick up on my mood and get crankier than she already was, but it wasn’t working.

And at that point, a small argument went on in my head. I realized that I wanted to talk to somebody, or at least reach out and vent a little—I wanted to be heard, and for somebody to know that I wasn’t ok. My first thoughts were of people in the US, but that was more depressing, since it would have been the middle of the night there if I had tried to call. Then I was thinking of people in Manila, and my mind was suddenly arguing back, telling me why I shouldn’t text. “Seth’s probably teaching. You shouldn’t text him during class!” “You always text her! You shouldn’t be a burden.” “You hardly know her. Are you really comfortable sharing this kind of thing?” “If you text them, they’ll feel like they have to fix it for you! You’ll add stress or guilt to their day! You shouldn’t do that.”

For a while, I listened. However, fortunately, a good friend here told me recently (quite specifically and with force) to get in touch with her and others when I was having a bad day—not to behave as if I’m alone, because I’m not. I remembered this advice, and I began to recognize that those other thoughts were not what I needed to listen to, that they were not true. I composed a text. It still took a few minutes before I could get myself to send it, but I did—to several different people, just to reach outside the four walls of our house and be heard and prayed for.

The afternoon was much better. Kaitlyn did nap, we both recovered, and she was a sweet and happy visitor when we were out in the evening. And after I had a rational brain back, I was thinking about that little battle I had in my mind as I was sitting on the couch nursing my baby.

I know that at the moment I am dealing with ‘baby blues’ some of the time, and that my emotions (specifically the depressed ones) are speaking a lot louder than usual. If I hadn’t had the recent memory of that conversation with a friend, I probably would have just sat there and done nothing but cry. And I thought of friends that I know who have dealt with (or still deal with) ongoing depression or anxiety. They must be very familiar with that mental argument that I faced in such a limited way yesterday, and it must be very easy to lose the battle, when it keeps on coming back and back and back… I understand a little better now, I think. Perhaps I need to say out loud, specifically, to some of them “Email me, or call the Magic Jack and leave a message, when you’re at a low point. Even if you don’t really want me to do anything (or you know I can’t), or you’ve called me every day that week, or you don’t want to disturb me, email anyway. Call anyway. Reach out and be heard and be prayed for.” Regardless of what our emotions say, we’re not alone, and it’s good to behave accordingly!