Lil' Corner of Joy

Every so often I read a book with which I fall instantly in love. “Once upon a time, the North Wind said to the Polar Bear King, ‘Steal me a daughter, and when she grows, she will be your bride.” So begins Ice, a novel by Sarah Beth Durst. There is so much I want to know now: who is this girl who will be stolen, and will she have anything to say about being married to a bear?

Ice follows the myth East of the Sun West of the Moon which is a variant of the Psyche myth (and from which Beauty and the Beast is also descended). In the prologue, the grandmother tells her granddaughter the fairy tale whose beginning I quoted above. The North Wind’s daughter falls in love with a man and has a baby. She makes a bargain with the Polar Bear King. He will protect her from the North Wind, and she will give him her daughter for a bride. But the terrible North Wind discovers his truant daughter’s hiding place and blows her away to the castle of the trolls, east of the sun and west of the moon. As the prologue ends, young Cassie asks her grandmother, “And Mommy is still there?”

When next we meet Cassie, she is almost eighteen, an aspiring polar bear researcher at her father’s research station in the Arctic. The Polar Bear King appears in her orderly life, and she makes a deal with him. She will marry him if he brings her mother back from the Troll Castle. The Polar Bear King carries Cassie away, “an aurora streaking across the Arctic.” Durst portrays the conflict between Cassie’s scientific view of the universe and the magical elements which suddenly appear in her life: “There couldn’t be a castle in the Arctic. The whole expanse had been covered by satellite photography. Someone would have seen a castle. It was, she thought, beyond beautiful.”

I devoured the novel in two sittings. I followed Cassie’s progress as she falls in love with Bear and learns to appreciate the magic of life. She is a strong heroine, and I found her determination and ability to reach Bear after he is taken to the Troll Castle a believable if somewhat crazy quest. I loved the beautiful, win-win ending. The novel has lyrical moments, moment of breathtaking nature descriptions, and moments of courage.

Though Ice could be classified as a fairy tale retelling, I do not feel that the novel fits that mold. Durst manages to marry seamlessly the magical fairy tale elements with the raw reality of the Arctic. Perhaps because the novel takes place in a location that is itself mythical it was easier for me to accept the enchantment of the story, or perhaps it is just that I prefer to believe that magic really is everywhere around us. Either way, Ice is one of the most beautiful novels I have read lately.

Thanksgiving and the parties around my mom’s birthday have given me some five or six extra pounds around the midsection, a not-so-little gift which I would rather like to return. It always amazes me how much easier it is to gain weight than to lose it, and having never been much prone to dieting, I feel very helpless about how to proceed.

I train at the gym three times a week and go to pilates twice. I jog sometimes around my home, walk the dogs and go on hikes. I think of myself as a fairly active person. It seems to me that my weight ought to remain low due to all this exercise, but for some reason this theory simply does not hold.

Taking a look at my eating habits does not make me feel much better. I eat a lot of chocolate, though now that I’m in love with this brand of chocolate called Taza, I eat less. It’s very dark chocolate and gritty, being stone-ground, and somehow one piece of it suffices. I feel like I eat a lot of vegetables throughout the day, but looking closely at yesterday, for example, reveals that I had a bit of salad for breakfast, then a few cooked carrots for lunch, and a couple cucumber and carrot sticks for dinner. Not that much. My mood falls even lower when I consider that I always pour olive oil on my salad, and that the goulash from lunch had been sautéed in canola oil before cooked.

I’m going to make chicken soup today with lots of veggies inside, and this thought makes me feel a lot better. I guess in order to eat healthier I’m going to have to make an effort to eat at home oftener, to cook myself, and to add more vegetables to everything I make.

I have one friend who, whenever I’m upset about my weight or comment on looking fat, tells me that our weight fluctuates in winter and summer, that it’s natural to gain or lose as much as seven pounds at these times. She also says to talk about myself in the way I want my daughter to talk about herself. That’s a big statement, because I definitely would not want Eden to have issues with her weight. Ever, if possible.

I feel very ambivalent about these extra pounds. I wish to accept myself the way I am, with a belly or without, but it’s very hard. I think mainly I want to feel healthy, fit and strong, and I guess I don’t right now. Perhaps keeping the balance of eating as healthy as I can and working out is the important aspect, and my weight is not much more important than as a side product. Today I can’t quite reconcile myself to this, but tomorrow, as always, is a new day, the perfect day to start.

I don’t know why, but big projects tend to freak me out. Two years ago, relief flooded me when Uri chose to build a synagogue model for his third grade project with his dad. Similarly, last year, I felt as happy about the two of them working on Uri’s science experiment together. This year, when Eden announced that she decided to build the synagogue model with me, I felt very tentative about it. I didn’t know how to begin or how to go about it, and I felt like if she insisted on working with me, the project might never get done. I think Eden noticed my hesitation, because a few days later she came home and declared that actually her plan is to build the synagogue with her grandpa, my dad. Big sigh of relief. Responsibility off. Now, I thought to myself, there is a chance that she will have a synagogue!

My dad, who has prepared models like that before, immediately imagined Eden and himself working in his wood shop, covered in thin wood dust, building a synagogue out of balsa wood. I suggested that perhaps using foam board would be easier. My dad submitted. He began working on the sanctuary, the most difficult-looking part which is shaped like an ark. Eden seemed to have little interest in the process, instead immersing herself in creating a torah and aron kodesh.

Seeing how uninvolved she was, I thought we could switch to building the synagogue out of lego. Eden sparkled back to life. In an hour, the walls were up. Another hour or two, and we had ceilings. Without so much as a peep for help, she built a bimah and a little rabbi. We put everything together, and voila, a synagogue! I felt a huge surge of pride. Of myself as much as of Eden, I think. We had done it! Perhaps we couldn’t have done it without my dad’s help, who told us where the windows ought to go, and where the door is, and to which side the huge ark-shaped sanctuary must look. But we did a lot! My first project!

When we entered the school this morning, one of the girls in Eden’s class looked at our synagogue and said, “Why is it so small?” Upstairs, mega-projects lined the walls. I think some of these synagogues are the work of parent more than child. Some I know were done by the kids alone. I am proud of Eden for having done more than half the work on her project by herself. Yes, her grandpa helped her with the sanctuary-ark, and I gave her the idea for the ceiling, but most of the execution is her own. And it’s beautiful. It might be small, it might be in many shades of grey, black and blue, because we didn’t have all grey pieces, but to me, it is beautiful.

My favorite Cinderella retelling is Eleanor Farjeon’s The Glass Slipper which I originally read in Hebrew. I love the image of Shoshi’s father (she is called Ella in the English version), hiding sugared plums for Shoshi in his pocket during the ball, feeling sad about not standing up to his wife. I love the chirping fairy godmother who hides peaches for Shoshi within a pile of kindling, Shoshi’s childlike enthusiasm about dancing and the speeches that the toastmaster gives for every dish.

When I came upon a recommendation for Ash, a Cinderella adaptation by Malinda Lo, I was excited. Here was an opportunity to research the fairy tale market. Ash grows up near the forest, and after her mother and then her father die, she is taken to live at her stepmother’s house, which is adjacent to a different part of the forest. The forest helps maintain the enchantment permeating the book: paths form beneath Ash’s feet as she wanders, leading her in and out of mist-shrouded places to which a fairy friend tells her she ought not to go. In the forest she also meets the King’s Huntress, and in an unexpected twist we find that Ash is to fall in love not with the prince, but with this woman who feels compassion for the deer she hunts.

The novel is beautifully written in lyrical language which brings to life the mystical world Ash lives in. Despite that, I felt confused by Ash’s bizarre relationship with the fairy man. I was further confused by the scene at which Ash enters the ball in her fairy ball gown and is accosted by the prince who falls in love with her. I suppose three is a magical number in fairy tales, but this abundance of lovers simply made me see Ash as rather emotionless. I also wondered whether women kissing in public during the king’s ball was a common occurrence, since no character commented on it.

In contrast, I was entirely entranced by Jessica Day George’s Princess of the Midnight Ball. I do not know if there is another retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairytale, but I was smitten by this one. Jessica Day George raises the stakes so high in the story that I was kept wanting to read more and more and in fact felt so eager to know what is coming next that I never once thought to peek ahead (my usual naughty practice). Midnight Ball is readable and colorful, and all the characters felt lovable to me, including the grumpy Reiner Orm, uncle to the soldier who attempts to rescue the princesses from the enchantment placed on them.

I am looking forward to reading some other fairy tale adaptations I downloaded into my ipad, as well as some new releases which I found recommended on blogs. I enjoy discovering new writers, and I already purchased another Jessica Day George novel called Dragon Slippers, which I hope will be as good.

Yesterday my cousin asked me if I read Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. She wanted to know if I think she would enjoy it. I happen to have a strong opinion about the novel, and I told her that opinion in as strong terms.

I read The Hunger Games this past March after the SCBWI Asilomar Conference. Everybody there talked about the book: editors, agents, writers. It seemed I was the only one who had not read it, and so I downloaded the novel on kindle and began to catch up.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I have minimal experience with dystopia, being more of a light and airy, romantic fiction reader. I have never been a fan of books like 1984 or Lord of the Flies. So I was shocked, overwhelmed, and horrified. I had nightmares about the novel for weeks. Just looking at the movie trailer (as I had been tempted to do a couple weeks ago) made all those feelings return. My cousin, who had avoided the Harry Potter books because she felt they were too dark, said she might skip reading this one too.

I think partly I felt so traumatized because The Hunger Games is a book for teens 12 and up. In the book, twenty-four teenagers between 12 and 18 are chosen to fight each other to the death in an enclosed game area. The adults intervene only to provide more weaponry or to force the children to fight. The movie, coming out in March, is not yet rated, but it is designated a family film. I assume that means PG13. At least I hope so.

It seem to me that many new books for teenagers have a “bad world” turn to them. Dystopias are everywhere, fallen angels, zombies and vampires. Dead girls are featured on book covers (see Rachel Stark’s blog trac-changes.blogspot.com). Themes which I would have expected in adult literature appear repeatedly in teen novels: like Ellen Hopkins’ Tricks, for example, which has some disturbing sex scenes that were difficult for me to read. The gory birth scene in the last Twilight film, rated PG13, surely would have belonged in an R film twenty years ago. Rain Man, as a comparison, which was released in 1988, is rated R, but neither the sex scene nor the screaming tantrums in that film unsettled me as much as the sight of Edward cutting open Bella’s belly, injecting her heart with his venom, and biting her repeatedly in her arms and legs.

So I don’t know what the world is coming to. Of course, this “bad world” trend might not be a bad thing, just another trend in a world which loves trends. But I hope maybe one day soon we can have a joyfulness trend. A happy, wonderful, the world is great trend. I’d enjoy that.

I feel irritable tonight, ready to snap at anyone who dares say a wrong word. My grumpiness comes from being angry with myself for having wasted time today. I look at what I accomplished, and I judge myself based on how much of what I expected to do (a lot) had actually been done (very little).

Today had not been productive. I am only now writing the blog which I intended to write earlier this morning. I did not find a way to become unstuck with the synopsis for my novel. And what about other things I wanted to do? Read blogs, look for more agents, send out more queries, write in my new book, spend some time with Dar. Nope, nothing, zilch, none.

Whenever I am aware of being mad at myself, I wonder why I need to judge myself so harshly. I mean, really, how does being critical serve me anyways? Then I realize that I am judging myself for being judgmental, and I laugh. But another day I catch myself doing it again.

After all, wasting time is sinful, right? At least, that is what I’ve been taught. My mother says that the more you do, the more time you have to do what you want to do. That sounds complicated, but think about it this way: On vacation, I lie on the beach, read a book in the sun and eat good food, right? Sunning, bathing, eating, reading equals a full and satisfying day. At home, I somehow manage to write, do homework with the kids, cook, wash dishes, walk the dogs, play with Eden, sit with Uri while he’s playing the violin and the clarinet, read to the kids, do the laundry, and read in bed and take a bath! How can that be? It’s because the more I do the more time I have to do what I want to do!

I get satisfaction from writing, but less from talking on the phone for two hours (which I did this morning), or from waiting for half an hour in front of the kids’ school and then for an hour and a half at the dentist with Uri. And even less from driving half an hour in each direction four times a day.

But as I write this, I wonder. Can’t I find satisfaction in these seemingly time-wasting activities? Can’t I find joy in sitting in traffic, or in spending an afternoon with my son at the dentist’s office?

Maybe it’s possible, but I’m not yet zen enough to remember this wisdom at the right time. I can see the ways I could have been more self-aware, compassionate, and mindful today while “wasting” my time. Smart after the fact, a friend aptly told me today. And yet it seems a transient smartness and goes away fast, before I can use it next time.

Ever since I first began toddling in my socks, I loved being in nature. With my family, we took trips all over Israel, and I learned the names of the wildflowers, the history of the archaeological places, and how to look safely under rocks.

As an adult, after successfully avoiding any form of exercise for the better part of fifteen years, it was clear to me that I could not walk for long, carry a backpack, or under any circumstances sleep in a tent. I limited myself to short, easy hikes and stays at dreary motels.

The desire to be in nature, however, burned in me, and finally, thanks to my friend Genevieve, I took the backpacking plunge. We purchases sleeping bags, a tent, backpacks, a cooking set and freeze-dried food, and we were ready for our first try. We chose our favorite place to hike: Henry Coe State Park. Genevieve picked a trail which she felt would be appropriate (eight miles the first day and five the next), set the length of the trip for two days, and off we went.

I remember us trudging on Springs Trail that April afternoon. I followed Genevieve, wondering at finding myself carrying a backpack. We arrived at China Hole which had risen with the rains and covered our trail. We took off our shoes and waded through, shivering at the chilly water. The path meandered uphill for several miles till it reached Mahoney Meadows and our last stretch into Lost Spring. Lost Spring, a lost cause indeed, was nothing but drippy muddy water. We felt lucky that we had brought enough water till we discovered that my water had entirely oozed out of my hydration bag.

We learned a lot that trip and continued to make mistakes in trips to come. There was the day we hiked fifteen miles in 110 degrees and run completely out of water because of a rattlesnake. There was the time we forgot to bring the pot and had to cook in one of our titanium bowls. There was the hike in which both of us ended quite ill after not bringing enough food.

Now I have a backpacking partner in my boyfriend Dar. We still make mistakes and try to learn from them if we can. We plan on hiking the John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mount Whitney. We want to venture into the wild Kalalau Trail. Today, indoors, I look at the fog hanging over the world outside, and I close my eyes and imagine what it will be like to sleep under the stars again, to fight the mosquitos, miss fresh food, and dare to swim in a cold lake. How lucky I am to be healthy and strong! How lucky that I have the hiking bug! How lucky that I had been brave enough to challenge my beliefs about myself and discover that I can do so much more than I thought I can.