I'm a big fan of Leslie Jamison's writing ever since I read her Empathy papers. Also, love House of Sand and Fog, and enjoyed meeting Andre Dubus at the recent Writers in Paradise conference. A gifted teacher and generous man.
I believe the Yiddish proverb, "Tracht Gut Vet Zein Gut" Think good, it will be good" predates "The Secret" by a long shot. :) I'm sending out good thoughts on your behalf from the Boston front!
Thanks for this thought-provoking read! I really enjoyed the music at the beginning and the Leslie Jamison piece. The story makes you feel as if she's unravelling something behind the events, to reach a new level of understanding. She had so much insight about everything that was happening, and such welcome honesty about herself, that I somehow expected her to wrap it up in a neat bow at the end with a new solution. I was a bit disappointed at the end because it felt a little abrupt, as if I'd fallen off of a really good ski lift while enjoying the ride. The storytelling was also so vivid that I didn't want it to end. It really feels like a "chosen" story, as the best fiction does, with every word lovingly chosen, every image carefully framed . I look forward to seeing other examples of her work.
As for the power of good attitudes or superstitions, they may not always have a purely rational justification, but they still seem to work sometimes! That may be why many people never quite give them up. Taylor Swift springs to mind. She swears by the number 13 -- her "lucky number" and also the day of her birthday. It pops up everywhere in her success story. Yet she never leaves everything up to that number alone; she puts in lots of hard work., like you. For people who do that, "thinking good thoughts" probably helps.
When things don't work out somehow, we can consider the possibility that everything happens for a reason, even if we can't see it at the time, as with your pandemic book. Perhaps it was "meant" to be born with the momentum of the one that came after. The Leslie Jamison piece might be even be pointing implicitly toward a point of view like that. I feel as if the story of her experience is driven by something authentic within herself, which may not fit within everyone else's idea of how life should unfold. It sounds as if eventually, she just had to be true to that, instead of all the norms she had been trying to live up to, about when/why to marry, or how to stay in her marriage, sell her book, and become a truly "perfect" mother. Instead, because of who she is, she found she needed to move forward according to her heart.
Hopefully your new book is doing that too, following its natural momentum and coming out at its own best time, now. From being in your classes I get the sense that you probably think "good thoughts" as part of breathing, but you do also ground the big picture with useful realism. That's the best way! Thanks for sharing the wonderful quilt of reflection in this piece.
I'm a big fan of Leslie Jamison's writing ever since I read her Empathy papers. Also, love House of Sand and Fog, and enjoyed meeting Andre Dubus at the recent Writers in Paradise conference. A gifted teacher and generous man.
I believe the Yiddish proverb, "Tracht Gut Vet Zein Gut" Think good, it will be good" predates "The Secret" by a long shot. :) I'm sending out good thoughts on your behalf from the Boston front!
Thanks for this thought-provoking read! I really enjoyed the music at the beginning and the Leslie Jamison piece. The story makes you feel as if she's unravelling something behind the events, to reach a new level of understanding. She had so much insight about everything that was happening, and such welcome honesty about herself, that I somehow expected her to wrap it up in a neat bow at the end with a new solution. I was a bit disappointed at the end because it felt a little abrupt, as if I'd fallen off of a really good ski lift while enjoying the ride. The storytelling was also so vivid that I didn't want it to end. It really feels like a "chosen" story, as the best fiction does, with every word lovingly chosen, every image carefully framed . I look forward to seeing other examples of her work.
As for the power of good attitudes or superstitions, they may not always have a purely rational justification, but they still seem to work sometimes! That may be why many people never quite give them up. Taylor Swift springs to mind. She swears by the number 13 -- her "lucky number" and also the day of her birthday. It pops up everywhere in her success story. Yet she never leaves everything up to that number alone; she puts in lots of hard work., like you. For people who do that, "thinking good thoughts" probably helps.
When things don't work out somehow, we can consider the possibility that everything happens for a reason, even if we can't see it at the time, as with your pandemic book. Perhaps it was "meant" to be born with the momentum of the one that came after. The Leslie Jamison piece might be even be pointing implicitly toward a point of view like that. I feel as if the story of her experience is driven by something authentic within herself, which may not fit within everyone else's idea of how life should unfold. It sounds as if eventually, she just had to be true to that, instead of all the norms she had been trying to live up to, about when/why to marry, or how to stay in her marriage, sell her book, and become a truly "perfect" mother. Instead, because of who she is, she found she needed to move forward according to her heart.
Hopefully your new book is doing that too, following its natural momentum and coming out at its own best time, now. From being in your classes I get the sense that you probably think "good thoughts" as part of breathing, but you do also ground the big picture with useful realism. That's the best way! Thanks for sharing the wonderful quilt of reflection in this piece.
Thank you Melissa. It was such a pleasure having you in my class again.
That was a really good class! A great bunch of people. Lots of inspiration. Thanks so much for everything you did to make it move so well.
Sending ALL THE GOOD WISHES your way! And congrats on the great new news about the KWLS workshops you're lining up. Go, Katrin, GO!!!!
House of Sand and Fog a top ten here, too. Wishing you good luck, Katrin!