Memories Stirred by Ashburton

I remember coming back from lunch and how, as I entered the lift, several patched gang members came leaping down the stairs, followed by other, differently, patched men. The lift doors shut, and when they opened again on the first floor, more men faced off with knives, between me and the office door. I froze, couldn’t move or speak or push the lift button – I just froze. The office door opened, and the small, greying, assistant director said, “Get the hell out of here, or I’ll suspend your benefits.”

I remember the desperate young mother who called me a “fucking pakeha bitch” when I wouldn’t give her instant money, asking her to fill out a form first.

I remember the day the order came to never give our names to anyone, after a fellow worker received viciously abusive phone calls at home, and things thrown at her house, while she and her children hid, frightened, waiting for the police to arrive.

I remember the weeping, abandoned women. And the elderly widow who, never having been allowed by her now deceased husband to handle any money, was found living with piles of unopened, unpaid bills, no electricity, discovered when a neighbour reported her for fossicking in rubbish bins for food. 

I remember the doctor who told me to stop talking about suicide, to pull myself together, and to stop upsetting my mother or he’d send me to Tokanui and “make damn sure you get electric shock treatment.” I remember feeling totally abandoned by the whole world.

I remember, later, working as a nurse aid at Tokanui, chatting to the pleasant couple weeding the gardens who I later discovered were there  for having killed their infant son while driving the demons from his soul.

I remember the influx of weary women at the end of the school holidays, who had used up all their stores of energy, and just needed to sleep.

I remember the delusional, the depressed, the displaced.

I remember the sadness, the anger, the despair, of those who, for whatever reason – circumstance, chemical imbalance, loss, inability – were unable to participate in the riches of Godzone.

I feel the enormous grief of those who have lost family, friends or workmates in Ashburton. I feel the deep desperation of a man whose life has gone so terribly wrong. I cannot blame anyone, but we are all responsible.

August Reading

Novels

Delicious! by Ruth Reichl
I'm so glad I read Garlic and Sapphires before I read this book, as I may have found some of the characters unrealistic if I hadn't recognised them from Reichl's memoir. It's a fun romp though the world of restaurants and food publishing, with a bit of history and love thrown in. I did enjoy it, and again I am pleasantly surprised by Reichl's ability to change genre. As someone who wrote for magazines, both her memoir and this novel could have been bitty but although her chapters are a bit more defined than those of many fiction writers, her books are tied together well. I'm looking forward to the next book.

The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton
 My son, Greg, lent me the first two books of a series ages ago. I have struggled with them for the silliest of reasons - they are physically large books, and I find it difficult to get comfortable when reading them! It is a science fiction adventure trilogy, but not of the easy kind where everything is explained. There are number of different main characters in different places, and even different times, who are all converging on the same central event / place. It's often difficult to know who a chapter is about for a while, and the second book, which I have only just stared, does not pander to the reader by having a chapter or two catch-up and reminder. It's a very involved story, makes the brain work hard, and I am enjoying it thoroughly.

The Tea Chest by Josephine Moon
Another book of a woman stretching herself and growing, along with a couple of other women who join her on her journey, whilst exploring their own journeys. It is about Kate who is left a half share in the business she has been working for, and how she grows the business along with herself. The setting is unusual - several tea shops - but there is not much real detail of tea growing, processing, blending and so on, which I would have found interesting. Quite well written, fun, but somewhat unlikely circumstances and twists throughout, some of which I found irritating, as they felt like lazy shortcuts to explain things. A pleasant enough winter-by-the-fire read.

The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
Alan runs away from his 100th birthday celebrations at the old folks home and becomes involved in a ridiculous series of events, the telling of which is intermingled with the stories of his life - equally ridiculous. Despite the totally unbelievable nature of his life and adventure, they are only unbelievable if you stop to think about them. While involved in the book, it is all feels just wonderfully true. 

This book was lent and recommended to me by a woman around 70. I'm 62. My young, male, 20ish friend came to visit and pounced on it, having read half of it and loved it, but he hadn't finished it because his 50ish father hadn't completed it either, so wouldn't let him take it away. I can't imagine any reader not enjoying this book. I totally recommend it. I think it would be especially good to read aloud to a friend who also likes books - I was wishing Steven or Jeff still lived at home so I could read aloud with them. It is now out in movie form but only in a few cinemas, and not in Hamilton, so I guess I'll have to wait for it to come out on dvd.

Memoir

Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl

This Reichl book is another memoir, this time about her childhood and younger life up until she went to work as a restaurant critic. Although it is memoir, she says:

"Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual. In some cases I have compressed events; in others I have made two people into one. I have occasionally embroidered. 

I learned early that the most important thing in life is a good story."

It is, in fact, another brilliant story.

Non- Fiction (unfortunately)

Dirty Politics: How attack politics is poisoning New Zealand's political environment by Nicky Hager

I've only managed to read 60% of this book so far: I can only read little bits at a time, because I find it so upsetting. However, I read a little every day because I think it is a must read for everyone in the country. I especially think that National Party supporters should read it, because beyond the actual dirty tricks that are exposed, it also reveals the truly horrible attitude of a small (I hope) number of of right wing people who have been manipulating the National Party in ways that would appal the majority of National supporters. Sadly, many won't read the book, brushing it aside as a left wing smear campaign. Having read what I have, if I was a Nat, I would be getting myself very involved in the party, doing my best to clean out the corruption and the ugly immorality display by Cameron Slater and his cronies. I am Green through and through, but I have friends who always vote National and they are good people (albeit, misguided, in my opinion) who would read parts of this book with as much horror as me. Despite not having finished the book yet, I'm writing this now in the hopes that people may read it before they vote. Essential reading.

SADness Easing

Yesterday I just couldn't shake the SADness, although I wasn't falling all the way down. The first thing that started the uphill climb was getting a text from Nick and Izzy asking if we were doing anything, and then, as we weren't, they came out to sit by the fire and chat, and look at the moon, and be in the country peacefulness. It was just the kick-start I needed, and this morning I decided to be a bit proactive. I discovered something a while back, when I was working through John Kirwan's book, All Blacks Don't Cry, and website about depression. When I was depressed and people said, "do something you like doing, to cheer yourself up," it made no sense to me because when I am depressed, I don't like doing anything. Through JK I discovered that what I actually need to do is, 'do something I enjoy doing when I'm not depressed, even though I don't feel like it at this time.'

So I grabbed the camera and went for a walk around outside on this glorious sunny, wind free day.

 We discovered the kettle has been leaking, so after a couple of days of drying out, Mac is finally turning the slab of macrocarpa into a bench top!

 Such lovely wood.

 The ducks make me smile just because they are, well, ducks!

 The rhubarb hasn't died off this winter: the stems are shorter and thinner, but they have kept on growing.

 Snow drops are possibly my favourite spring bulbs.

 The tagasaste is buzzing with both honey bees and bumble bees.

 The magnolia which was a land warming gift from my friend Margaret, is finally flowering.

 Dew covered spider webs are always breath-taking.

 The hyacinths re a bit stunted this year, but still fragrant and beautiful.

 

 And who could fail to see summer in this glorious incarnation of joy?

 Mac was ploughing up a new potato bed, and I got stuck into the vegetable garden, so that when it's time to sow and plant, the beds will be ready and waiting. Gardening works for me in so many ways: just connecting to the earth, but also, the anticipation of harvest, the physical hard work, the sounds of birds and bees all around, the sense of usefulness, of purposefulness.

There's not much to eat at the moment - loads of parsley, a little silverbeet, pak choi, beetroot, miners' lettuce and carrots. But soon there will be lots to choose from, I hope.

Then, tired and sore from the digging, I watched as the light faded from the day. I'm still not out of the woods - but I can see the light over the mountain.

SAD

It's winter. I haven't coped quite as well this year as I did last year. For the last six weeks I had to really work hard not to fall into the chasm: if I am not constantly aware and actively keeping my eye on the path, I tend to wander just a bit closer to the edge. Spring is here - maybe - the end of winter is here, anyway.

It's been harder for a number of reasons on top of winter darkness. Financial worries. Friends drifting away as they move to different places, get involved in new relationships, new jobs, new interests - or just tucking themselves away into their own problems. An old amalgam tooth was disintegrating and, perhaps as it's been a long time since this happened, I failed to notice that part of my misery was the particular type of depression that always accompanies the leaching of mercury into my body. (A depression accompanied by deep anger.) Then more financial worry from having to visit the dentist.

And then the death of Robin Williams at age 63. I'll be 63 this time next month. If he couldn't make it through, can I believe that I will?

There's been so many wonderful writing about depression since Robin's death, and so much that I strongly relate to.

“No, see, I don’t necessarily want to KILL myself...I just want to become dead somehow."

I knew that the thing that stopped me actually committing suicide during the half dozen times I really wanted to, was the thought of the family and friends who would suffer if I did so, and the thought of the person who discovered my body, especially after I got to know someone who found her father shut in his idling car with a hose from the exhaust.

I've been doing a lot of thinking as I read all these people talking about their experiences and understanding of depression. I suddenly realised it wasn't just that I cared about other people that stopped me, it was that I realised that I have never considered myself as deserving of having my feelings matter. As a child I was smacked for being angry, sent to my room when sad and told to be quiet if I was happy and dancing around singing or such like - "what have you got to be so happy about," I remember my mother saying once. So I've just discovered that I have this underlying belief that I don't have the right to be depressed enough to kill myself.

When I heard that Robin Williams had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, my initial reaction was jealousy. In my worst times I have often wished that I would be diagnosed with some ghastly disease, so that it would be okay for me to commit suicide, because no one left behind would feel guilt for not doing something / enough to help me. How's that for sick?

So the next step in healing myself has become clear: I need to be able to have feelings of any kind without guilt, without thinking I don't deserve to have feelings. It's ridiculous that whatever I feel, guilt overwhelms it. Guilt because I don't deserve it. Guilty for thinking about suicide. Guilt for being depressed. Guilt for being sad. Guilt for not wanting to do things. Guilt for feeling proud of something I've done. Guilt for loving people 'too much'. Guilt for being happy.

No one should ever feel guilt for feelings. Sometimes the way we act in response to those feelings may be deserving of guilt. But not the feelings themselves. I want to reach a point where I can accept that I am entitled to my feelings, even the suicidal ones. I hope I never reach a point where I actually do kill myself, but I'd like to stop feeling guilty for feeling.

July Reading

Fiction

Snake Ropes by Jess Richards
I heard of this book when a woman, whose blog I follow, reviewed it:


From blog by Catherine at Still Standing On Her Head

Jess Richards was born in Wales and grew up in South West Scotland. The setting of the book is a mysterious island somewhere far to the west of Scotland. The inhabitants have long been isolated. Their only visitors are the mysterious tall men who come from the mainland to trade for fish and for the women's craft work, being careful not to disturb the culture of the islanders too much. The story is told in the voice of two young girls, Mary who is an islander, and Morgan whose parents have settled there from the mainland, after fleeing something dark in their past. If I had to label this book with a genre, I would say "magical realism". Morgan can talk to the dead, and the myths told by Mary's grandmother become tangled in the story so that it is not quite clear what is myth and what is real.

It's a stunning book, highly imaginative, unlike anything else I have ever read. I highly recommend it. 
 
I agree. It is a strange but compelling book! It is classified as fantasy, which I guess it is, but is nothing like anything I have read before. I won't say I liked it but I couldn't abandon it either. I haven't decided whether I'll read her second book, Cooking with Bones, which sounds from the title as if it is even creepier!

The Cornish Knot by Vicky Adin

The Cornish Knot is the story of Megan, a widow of 12 months who receives her great-grandmother’s journal written a hundred years ago. She embarks on a journey to trace her family tree, discovering secrets and finding herself immersed in the world of art. She follows the footsteps of her ancestor from Cornwall via Italy to New Zealand.This is the first of a series, The Past Finders, which will all be about 'history, family, love and renewal'. It's an easy read, not badly written, and well researched. However, it is somewhat unrealistic in its unfolding of the story, for the sake of drama - in a real life situation, the story would have unfolded in a much less orderly fashion story-wise, but way more logically in terms of a woman travelling the world to trace her predecessors.

As I say, an easy read, good for a journey, or for curling up with when you are sick, or like me, suffering from a sore back.


Memoir

Garlic and Sapphires by  Ruth Reichl

 I'm a vegetarian. I don't much like restaurants, especially the posh ones where the food has been artistically arranged on the plate - I get creeped out at the thought of all the fingers involved in arranging it - and I have never read a restaurant review. I also have a horror of big cities. However, a woman I met recently, and who I, so far, really like, mentioned Ruth Reichl, and one of the ways I like to get to know people is to read books they recommend. Well, I'm hooked! I'll be finding more of her books for sure.

Garlic and Sapphires is a memoir about Reichl's years as the restaurant reviewer for the New York Times. It is based around some of her reviews, but is about her discovery of sides of herself that she didn't previously know about, as she develops disguises so she can visit restaurants without getting the special treatment that recognition brought. She writes so well that her descriptions of food that would have me gagging even if I was 3 tables away, make me salivate. She is incredibly funny and insightful, and I can't wait to get my hands on another of her books - I'm looking forward to some cold, wet days in front of the fire!

Today Next Year

A writing prompt asked: What was there about today that you will enjoy remembering in a year's time?

Not the woman

complaining

that the council want her

to either chain up her dogs

or build a secure fence.

 

Not the man

complaining

that the bench seats and tables

outside the chippie shop

aren't clean enough.

 

Not the woman

complaining

the concrete path

to the jetty

is in the wrong place.

On this bright

yellow and blue

mid-winter's day

I smile at small boys

dropping rocks

into the sea

with a satisfying splash.

I smile at the curve

 of the blue footbridge

leading the women

pushing strollers

following toddlers

over the water

to the playground.

 

I notice the leaves

of opportunist

self-seeded plants

sprouting from the top

of the broken palm tree:

like a comical toupee

on a balding man.

 

There's a shiny

 black and chrome

better than new

nineteen forties car

parked outside the cafe,

a chance to chat

to one, no longer a stranger.

The dog runs into waves

the boy follows

foaming water fills his boots

and, nearly mine.

Gulls run along the sand.

There is laughter and barking,

shells and driftwood.

If this day next year

is as cold and wet and dark

as one expects in July,

these will be the memories

I will take out to enjoy,

to taste, to smell,

to relive in front of the fire.

Connections

lemon zest
lime juice
hot drinks
for winter days

honey mixed
with memories
of summer,
hay rides
and shearing sheds

of saxophones
and cool jazz
and long black
barely restrained
wild ringlets

memories and connections
and almost no-one left
to understand them.

Before the Concrete Sets

I have been following Twisted Stitches and Hazelmade and Katwise and loving their clothing for quite a while. Today I discovered that Katwise also has a blog. With crazy writing, and pictures of her crazy clothing and crazy house and crazy buses, and I know that if I hadn't become, in childhood, a terrified-of-being-different, boring, jeans and black t-shirt kind of person who has aged into a boring, grey, fat old woman - this is the sort of person I wish I could have been. Not in quite the same way, because I was never a Grateful Dead fan, but colourful and colour-filled and fearlessly me. Too late now - I'd look a complete dork if I wore clothing like that and danced around singing (badly)and shit.

I wish I had learned to play music. I wish I had learned to sing. I wish I had learned to dance. I wish I had written more poetry. I wish I had worn the clothes I loved and the colours I loved and the fabrics I loved. I wish I'd said to more people, "Hey, I like you - would you like to meet for coffee on Tuesday?"

I wish I hadn't let my life be ruled so much by what I thought I should do. Ruled by fear of looking a fool, being rejected, tripping over my feet, getting things wrong. I wish I'd told certain people to just get the fuck out of my life. Now, I'm so set in my ways that I just can't bring myself to wear inappropriate colours and clothes. My body's not up to dancing or learning to surf or riding a unicycle. I do act 'inappropriately' sometimes, but not as often as I would if I followed my inner voice.

Pretty much I am happy with my life now. I love living here and doing the back-to-the-land thing. I have interesting friends. I have old and loyal friends. I have sons and grandchildren. I have a husband, without whom life would be seriously empty.

But if you are still young, hear me and listen - be who you are, now, before the concrete sets.

June Reading

Fiction

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
A funny love story about an old Indian-born English Major and an English born Pakistani woman. The reactions of their families, friends and the local villagers make for a bit of thinking about cultural differences, but it is neither too shallow nor too intense. Not quite 'fluff' but an easy winter fireside read that is quite satisfying.

Gith by  Chris Else
An easy but uncomfortable read. Well written but a bit too creepy for me. An NZ author.

Dinner at Rose's by Danielle Hawkins
Another NZ  author. An amusing romance. Definitely winter-time fluff, but reasonably well written.

Non-Fiction

The Exercise Book - Creative writing exercises from Victoria University's Institute of Modern Letters edited by Bill Manhire, Ken Duncum, Chris Price and Damien Wilkins

The writing group I go to intermittently has been using this book recently and it has lots of good trigger ideas. There are exercises for a range of genre, and some that deal with revision and editing. A worthwhile book of interest to beginner writers and the more experienced. Sadly though, it still hasn't got me doing the most important thing of all: writing EVERY DAY!

One of the exercises we did was based on The Ian Sharp Poem, which Jenny Bornholdt has used with children in schools. Ian describes himself in third person in terms of various things: a parcel, a toy, a landscape and more. We did our own versions, describing ourselves, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed doing this as I usually hate exercises of any kind, especially the 'you have 10 minutes to do this' kind!

The Cally Brown Poem

Cally Brown is parcel of seedlings

wrapped in wet sports pages

from Monday’s Waikato Times

secured with green rubber bands

saved from last year’s asparagus.

Cally Brown is a sandpit

with buried matchbox cars

a faded yellow bucket

a broken red spade

and a couple of ice block sticks.

Cally Brown is an orchard

with four white Peking ducks

beside a garden with rows

of carrots and beetroot and

broad beans and sweet red onions.

Cally Brown is an old Toyota van

with room for shovels and a scythe,

bags of fallen leaves, new plants,

trees, children and grandchildren,

love, and baskets full of memories

Cally Brown is a home-made book

with crinkly rusted paper

bound with brown hemp twine

embellished with pages from old books

pressed leaves and chook feathers

Cally Brown is a pile of old jerseys

just waiting for transformation

into wild patchwork hoodies

with crazy ribbons, buttons, beads

and totally unsuitable colours.

The Light Returns

It's the shortest day plus one. I hurt my back yesterday but although it's still hurting, I can't really complain: I haven't got the flu like my oldest son; my chooks are alive, the sun is shining.

 My neighbour, Otis, arrived over today with his last chook - another neighbour's dog had dug under their fence and killed their second to last chook. Which makes 25 killed chooks in 4 years. He hasn't been able to catch the dog in the act but she's been seen coming and seen going, and the other neighbour has admitted in the past that the dog had killed their own chooks so..... But this time he's back in denial. Otis asked if we'd adopt the last chook, and I agreed but said she'd probably get seriously harassed until the new pecking order was established - best practice is to never introduce fewer than 3 new hens to an established flock. However, Otis felt that would still be better than being killed by the dog! Well, the new lady strutted into the middle of the flock, had a brief fight with my number one and is completely settled in.

 The bees are out and about and bringing in food including bright orange pollen - you can see some on the legs of a bee just going into the hive.

 Grapefruit ripening: it will be marmalade time soon.

 Limes: hard to see, but they need picking and using now.

 Lemons galore.

 When we moved here, my mother-in-law gave me couple of rooted cuttings of a plant which 'is great for covering banks.' Nice to remember her by too.

 The washing's on the line drying in a gentle breeze and warm sun.

And poor me - I'm 'stuck' sitting for most of the day in a chair with a wheat-bag on my back, looking out at my bush and 'my' mountain. Mid-winter can be pretty good.

Solstice Catch Up

Looking back I discover that I haven't written about my garden for five months! I have been out there working our land though.

We had a reasonable summer garden, though we have resolved not to use peat pots any more. The courgettes, pumpkins and cucumbers did not do well, and this was the second year that we'd had problems. The only ones that did well were the cucumbers that sprung up self-seeded from the previous year. As I cleaned up the garden at the end of the season the penny dropped. The peat pots had not disintegrated the way they are supposed to, and thus the plants could not spread and develop their roots.

It was a bumper year for my peas and beans though, and also the capsicum. The tomatoes were sufficient for day to day use, but I wasn't able to store many, just a couple of bottles of sauce.

The big thing was that I cleared all the dead plants in good time, have spread a lot of mulch, and planted winter things for only the second year - though still not from seed, instead buying seedlings. Maybe next year. I had broad beans, onions, leeks, garlic, spring onions, lettuce, a variety of brassica (including pak choi, after Simon told me it was yummy - Simon - vegetables yummy? - have to try them then!)

Last week I went outside to plant some more garlic and a few remaining spring onions which have been bravely fighting to live since I planted out the rest of the punnet a couple of months ago. I went to get my garden bag with my gloves, tools etc. - oh no! I hadn't hung it up on its hook last time and everything was soaked. Including half a paper packet of broad beans and a packet and a half of peas - soaked and sprouting. So I had to spend a whole lot more time hoeing some garden space and planting seed carefully so as not to break off the wee shoots. The bag has been scrubbed and is almost dry again.

 The chook run has become more and more overgrown. The flax bush has grown so much I could hardly get in, and couldn't get the wheelbarrow to the right place to clean out the hen house. It had to go!

 The 60th birthday party bunting that I had transferred to the run to deter the harrier the year I 'grew' my own chicks, had become torn and bedraggled and needed to be untied from the trees and discarded.

 An early winter weekend was perfect- sunny but not too hot.

This summer we bought a moveable fence to extend the run. It could be an electric fence, but we don't bother - the chooks don't get out through it anyway. They do clean up the ground - especially good when the nashis were dropping on the ground and starting to rot. Anyway, the run has had it's winter clean up.

 My bees are a sad story: I put strips in one hive early, as it was showing signs of varroa, but I was late putting them in the other two, and they were too weakened to survive the massive wasp attack we had this year, along with much of the rest of the country. We killed five nests, but hardly made a dent in the numbers attacking the hives.So I lost two of the three hives. It is heartbreaking, especially when I know that it was partly my fault for letting them get weakened like that.

Inside, I have been undoing and re-knitting the jersey I gave up on last winter. I don't feel bad about that since I discovered that my sister Elizabeth, who is an awesome knitter, has also undone hers to reknit - it was obviously a not well written pattern that I got from her. I've been playing with paper and books, and just bought myself an overlocker, so will be having fun with fabrics when the wet weather keeps me inside.

Today is the shortest day and so far, despite a stressful time over the past six months, I have had no hint of depression. Life is good.

May Reading

We Shall Not Cease: The Autobiography of a Conscientious Objector by Archibald Baxter.

This is one of those 'must read one day' books that's been on my list for decades, ever since I first discover James K Baxter's poetry. Recently it was the book reading on National Radio and after missing listening on quite a few days, I got it out of the library. It's a very slim volume but it took me several weeks to read it - I needed lots of downtime from the horror, and lots of thinking time.

The horror is partly due to the calm way in which Baxter recounts the events of his incarceration, and enforced time on the front in WWI. Baxter and his co-objectors were not just imprisoned, but also starved and tortured for their beliefs. Baxter had particularly bad treatment from some who could understand the religious objector - "because my religion is against it' - but not someone who just believed that all war and killing is wrong. It is only near the end of the book that some of Baxter's feelings show through.

The book was published first in 1939 at the beginning of WW2, and re-published in 1968, during the Vietnam war. It's interesting as a documentary, but it's real value, in my opinion, is in the thinking it promotes. As Baxter said when he sent a copy to one of his fellow objectors, "In memory of days we can't yet afford to forget."


The Happiness Project: or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin

I've been reading quite a few books about happiness and positive thinking over the last year or so, driven by my continuing efforts to keep depression away. Most reinforced my thinking about the 'born again Amway' mentality of most positive thinking promotions which say that if you visualise and believe the good messages (lies?) you tell yourself, you will get what you visualise, and if you think negatively you'll never get what you want. They don't usually seem to go into detail about how people bring disaster on themselves, like fire, famine, flood, earthquake, tsunami, although even expressions of that occur occasionally. As mentioned in my February review, Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret,   stated that disasters like tsunamis can happen only to people who are "on the same frequency as the event." The messages of Positive Thinking, The Law of Attraction, and the like, feed the smugness of middle class First Worlders. They cannot be taken seriously by anyone able to open their eyes to the very real hardships faced by the less priveledged, for example, problems of the Third World.

The Happiness Project came to my notice via  our local Facebook page, The Raglan Noticeboard, as people asked to borrow a copy. I accessed it via the Hamilton Public Libraries. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that it describes the personal search of one woman, over one year, to try to make her present life better. This is not a book about a grand journey, an exotic adventure, a trip to sit at the feet of a guru in India, a dramatic career change: it's a story about making small changes to make the life she already had happier and better appreciated. Many of the ideas I had already come across, and implemented, but I really like the structure she put them into. My structure would be different, as would everyone's: it's not so much a self-help book, as an exploration of how one woman helped herself. As such, I have found it far more helpful than any 'self-help' book! There's no magical formula, and quite a bit of challenging hard work, but I find that inspiring. 

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: a memoir of going home by Rhoda Janzen

I loved this book!  And, according to the cover, so did Elizabeth Gilbert author of Eat, Pray, Love. At forty two Janzen was told she had to have a hysterectomy.  Because of medical misadventure, she was left incontinent for six months. They then moved to a rural community and two months later, her husband of 15 years left her for a man he'd met on 'gay.com', and she was left living in an expensive house she could no longer afford. After a time, she decided to go home for a year to recover - home being with Mennonite parents. The book is an exploration of her failed marriage, of her childhood and of her family's religion. It all sounds very grim. But it isn't! It is interesting, informative, thought provoking and endlessly funny. She doesn't blame her broken marriage totally on her husband, she examines the good in her parents and their religion, as well as the bad. It is interesting, informative, thought provoking and endlessly funny. It is very easy to read, yet not at all shallow. Highly recommended.

April Reading

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism  by Kristine Barnett (2013)

After watching an interview of Kristine Barnett and her 15 year old son Jacob, and having previously seen a TEDxTeen talk by Jake, I borrowed her book, The Spark, from Hamilton Public Library and couldn't put it down.

Jake started life bright and curious. He talked early, learned the alphabet early (Kristine did child care in her home) and was sounding out short words by the time he was one. He loved a cd that read Dr Seuss's The Cat In The Hat and read along with it - then they discovered that not only had he memorised the English version, but also, the Japanese and Spanish versions. He also had extremely good precision and dexterity.

At 14 months they started noticing little changes in him, at 2 he was diagnosed with autism, and by 3 they were told he would never talk or read and the goal for him was the hope that he would be able to tie his shoe laces by the time he was 16.

This is the story of a mother who never gave up on the person she knew her son was. She did what experts told her to but when that didn't help she began to follow her own path, observing and responding to her son as a person. She decided that, rather than focussing on what Jake couldn't do and didn't like doing, she would focus on what he did like doing, including behaviours that were seen negatively as autistic behaviours. She looked at the same behaviours as passions. The results were extraordinary, and although Jacob proved later to be extremely intelligent - genius level - Kristine also worked with other autistic children of every IQ level, with similar resulting improvement in their quality of life.

Dr. Chris Edwards on the Skeptic website reviews the book in a very negative way. He is very defensive of the school system and seems to take Kristine's lack of appreciation of the wonderful system in which he is a teacher, as a personal affront. He makes a couple of valid points, but misses the miracle that I see, and fails to acknowledge the possibility that some children might not thrive in school. His criticism is based on the Jake we see in the present day, without acknowledging that school had nothing to do with how Jake got here.

Kristine's ideas on how to teach children are not new - unschoolers everywhere will recognise them - but although Jake was not unschooled, not even homeschooled, Kristine followed similar principles when it came to Jake's learning. Watch the short interview at least, and if you find it as amazing as I did, read the book for so much more of the story. Personally, I'm with Temple Grandin who says, "Every parent and teacher should read this fabulous book!"