Category: Books

Books, Writing

In interview, author Sarah Einstein offers tips on writing your truth

Jen

I recently interviewed Sarah Einstein, author of Mot: A Memoir for Drunken Boat’s blog.

Mot a Memoir

Above and beyond the interesting tidbits about her process writing the book, Sarah provides wisdom for emerging writers on how to navigate the potential strains writing about family or friends can have on relationships:

“Don’t overcome your fear of writing your truth in spite of potential fallout. Keep that fear, because you need it. It will guide you to make better decisions about what you do and don’t want to become public knowledge about your private life and the private lives of those around you.”

Read the full interview.

Books, Writing

Finalists announced for Autumn House Press book contest

Jen

The winner will only be announced at the end of the summer, but for now I’m pretty excited to join the high-caliber writers of nonfiction on the list of finalists for the Autumn House Press 2016 full-length book contest.

Cross your fingers…

Books, Philosophy, Spirituality

One thing you can do to feel better when the world seems to be going to shit

Jen

In our age of internet memes and sloganed t-shirts, it’s really easy to start throwing around a catchphrase without giving much thought to who coined it, let alone whether or not it’s actually true.

The most clicked-thru post on this blog is one in which I consider the phrase “life begins at 40,” questioning (without answering) whether or not Carl Jung actually said this. If Google searching is any indication, it seems people really want to know the answer: does life really begin at 40?

I don’t have the answer.

But the sentiment was reaffirmed at the Cherry Hill Public Library sale today, where I’ve spent the last two mornings old book diving. There, I found on the “Antiquarian” table this 1932 book by Journalism professor Walter B. Pitkin. I cracked it open in the hopes of getting to the bottom of the phrase. After all, an old book must be a little more reliable than a meme…right?

Screen Shot 2016-07-15 at 8.45.55 PM
Enter a caption

I leafed through the slightly water-stained, hardbound book, and then turned to the introductory chapter.

life at 40 first pageOn a day when my sadness and despair for the fate of humanity has only deepened, in a month during which my confidence in a safe and equitable future for my children has only continued to wane, this book’s opening paragraph had such a positive tone, I couldn’t help but spend the $2 to buy it.

Did you know that at forty “work becomes easy and brief?” “Play grows richer and longer?” and “Leisure lengthens?” This is Pitkin’s claim, at least.

I haven’t read past the first few pages, so I am not sure I’m willing to give credence yet to Pitkin’s claim that life begins at 40. Work for me has not become easy. My play has not yet grown richer and longer. But Pitkin’s basic thesis is that we should be happy we’re not dead. And with this, I agree.

Along with Pitkin’s book, I also bought an Eckhart Tolle, Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and three books of poetry. When I walked out the door and looked at my stash this morning, I realized what I had done.

I had “self-helped.”

*  *  *

According to Wikipeda “Life Begins at Forty” was

Written during a time of rapid increase in life expectancy (at the time of its publication American life expectancy at birth was around 60 and climbing fast, from being only at age 40 fifty years before),[1] it was very popular and influential. It was the #1 bestselling non-fiction book in the United States in 1933, and #2 in 1934,[2] according to Publishers Weekly.

Wikipedia concludes by saying that the “general thrust of the book is that given the current conditions of the world, one could look forward to many years of fulfilling and happy existence after age 40, provided that one maintained the proper positive attitude.”

Strange considering when Pitkin wrote his book, the U.S. was facing a devastating economic depression, and countries around the world were immersed in their own domestic upheavals. That a book suggesting to 1932’s struggling, poor 40 year olds that they were “the luckiest generation ever”  wasn’t collectively thrown into the trash can fires in the street, it pretty incredible. And on the contrary, the book was a #1 bestseller!

Given the current conditions of our own world, I am constantly terrified of not being able to look forward to anything let alone a fulfilling, happy existence after 40. But when all else fails…you know what I do? I buy books. Especially ones that may help me feel better, even temporarily. For me, I usually serve myself up a portion of nonfiction positive attitude, law of attraction, pseudo Buddhist philosophy. For you, the salve may be crime fiction or cookbooks. (All available at the Cherry Hill Public Library sale!)

According to an unattributed internet meme, Theodore Roosevelt once said the “more you know about the past the better prepared you are for the future.”  As someone who has spent much money and much time trying to be less “prepared for the future” (aka lose my commitment to the irrational beliefs caused by my lifelong generalized anxiety disorder) I will suggest that the future of our world may look grim, may indeed be grim, but one thing we can and should do is, as Pitkin writes, try not to grow “disconsolate, embittered and hard.”

Even in these very grim times.

Instead, buy books. (And read them.)

 

Books, Family, Parenting, Writing

My interview with Rivka Galchen today in Times of Israel

Jen

I so enjoyed Little Labors, the latest book out from award-winning novelist Rivka Galchen. A stunning, intimate, but thoughtful hybrid work, Little Labors is definitely a recommended read for this summer.

Check out my review and interview with Galchen, up on The Times of Israel today.

Books, Writing

A long weekend filled with books and books-loving friends

Jen

It’s one of the best times of year in Israel for those of us in the writing-in-English biz. This week the 5th Jerusalem Writers Festival kicks off with author David Grossman in conversation with author Colum McCann. I’ll be heading down on Thursday to see Amanda Stern host Happy Ending, a NY-based literary series, for the first time in Israel.  I interviewed Amanda for the Times of Israel a few weeks ago and hearing her background and stories made me even more excited to see her in action, along with Anthony Marra (whose book I will finally buy, if it’s on sale, as it’s been recommended to me by a few people who know my book also “features” mixed tapes), Etgar Keret, Colum McCann, and Nell Zink.

Then on Sunday, I’ll get my chance to hear David Grossman as he kicks off the Tenth Memorial International Writing Conference at Bar Ilan University. So much over three days: writing workshops and readings by new authors/ fellow alums Anthony Michael Morena and Joanna Chen. The conference is free and open to the public, so other than skipping work or other duties, there’s no reason not to come.

Hope to see you at one of the events! If not, check out my instagram feed so you can feel like you were really there.

 

Books, Writing

Interview with Curtis Sittenfeld in Times of Israel

Jen

Up in The Times of Israel today is an interview I conducted with Curtis Sittenfeld, the New York Times bestselling author of “Prep” and “American Wife.” Sittenfeld has a new book hitting shelves this week: “Eligible,” a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

I’ve been a big fan of Sittenfeld’s since my NJ book club (make that my beloved and sorely missed book club) read “Prep” as our first selection back in 2006. “Eligible” was cleverly entertaining and I definitely recommend it. It was a huge pleasure to speak to Sittenfeld by phone from Israel recently. Check out my article in TOI for more.

Books, Community, Kibbutz, Middle East Conflict, Politics, Spirituality, Survivalism, Terrorism, War, Writing

Not quite the end of the world

Jen

I just finished reading Station Eleven, a post-apocalyptic novel by Emily St. John Mandel. I highly recommend it. It’s the one of two five-star ratings I’ve given on GoodReads after going a long stretch without being able to give more than a three-star. (The other recent five-star was Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, more to come on that soon.)

Whenever I read a dystopian novel — and moreso when I read a well-researched, well-written one like St. John Mandel’s — I can’t help but examine my own life and my own “what ifs” in the face of some future life-altering catastrophe I somehow survive.

Lately, as my mind has been busy with the America vs. Israel conversation (a two-sided dialogue I engage with myself at least once a day exploring the pros and cons of leaving or staying in Israel), I considered the events of the novel. The Earth is ravaged by a pandemic, killing off 99% of the population. Those who are not sickened and killed by the flu are left figuring out how — and more existentially, why — to survive. Some survivors are stranded in an airport far from home. They understand quickly they will never return. And this, today, is the question that occupied my mind:

What if I knew I would never see America again? Would never see my parents? My brothers? Any of my friends who live there?

Could I be happy, or satisfied at least, living in Israel, remaining here on Hannaton?

What if it weren’t the apocalypse (meaning: what if I abandoned the upset of knowing my loved ones were ill or gone), but an event that meant the end of international travel?

Could there be such an event? After which my parents were still alive, but inaccessible? Following which we in Israel still lived a somewhat normal life, but simply could not fly anymore? Or buy passage on a ship, even?

No. All I can imagine is disaster. There is no in-between in my imagination. There is no mild cataclysm. Either things are as they are now or the worst-case scenario.

*  *  *

However, if I were to play fiction writer, for a moment, I might say, “Hold on now. Let’s consider Donald Trump.” 

Donald Trump as American president is possibly the in-between disaster I can’t imagine; the wonky future in which the world still runs on electricity and internet and Dunkin Donuts, but international travel is forbidden. Let’s say, for instance, a Trump presidency leads to a law being passed in which American immigration is on hiatus, but citizens living abroad have a brief window to return. Once they do return, however, they are required to remain on American soil for the next four years. America, in this fictional scenario, is testing out a new policy for the duration of Trump’s term. It’s called something like “No American Left Behind.”

“The In-Or-Out” law, the talking heads dub it.

Would I leave then?

Would we pack up our belongings and run back home?

What if there was no time for belongings? Only time for the five of us with one-way tickets and that which we could fill in our suitcases?

Would that be a home we would want to live in anyway?

What’s scarier? I considered. America as a gated-community? Or the idea of being stuck in Israel for an indefinite amount of time with no certainty of ever seeing my family again?

What kind of decisions, I asked myself, do we make in the face of black-and-white? Of choose this or that?

And what kind do we make in the face of seeming interminable uncertainty?

*  *  *

To be honest, I’m not paying too much attention to the U.S. presidential election, but I noticed on Facebook today someone saying they planned to vote Republican in the primary — vote for Rubio — as a way of derailing Trump’s run. But what if that was the plan all along? Democrats, for all their intellectualism, can be pretty stupid. Conservatives are wiley. Strategic. Cool cats. Liberals, with all their free love tend to act irrationally, emotion-based, don’t think enough before jumping in heart first.

Then, on Twitter later in the morning, someone wrote they thought the media hype equating Trump with Hitler was an exaggeration. I don’t quite align myself politically with this person, so I can’t put my faith in his ease. But as a reader of post-apocalyptic fiction I can say with certainty that there is always the guy on Twitter who thinks it’s not as bad as everyone says it is. This is classic disaster narrative. Bad guy/bad storm/bad killer disease. Makes no difference. The experts keep it quiet at first, but then feel compelled to reveal the danger to the masses as they realize their calculations were too understated. Upon learning of the now likely unavoidable danger, half the masses freak out, and the other half cry hysteria. Usually, there’s the goofy teenager who makes fun of the hurricane/flood/asteroid (he’s the first to go), and often, the old guy saying in his old guy voice “I never thought I’d see the day.”

No matter what, though, there’s always the guy who — just before the shit hits the fan — says most assuredly, “It can’t be as bad as people are making it out to be.” This is the point at which you should start storing water and supplies. 

I haven’t started shopping, though. In fact, my storage room/bunker is as empty as it’s been since we’ve lived here. And I wonder why. I wonder if it’s acceptance or if it’s resignation.

And does it matter? Am I saner if I am accepting or saner if I am resigned?

Acceptance: Yes, this is the world we live in.

Resignation: Yes, there will be disaster.

Acceptance: There is no certainty.

Resignation: Why bother? You will likely not survive the apocalypse, anyhow.

I don’t know which it is. What I do know is that reading Station Eleven has me grateful for my flushing toilets, and for my Google search, and especially for my at-home, self-grinding espresso machine. It had me abandon for a few hours my ongoing, inner turmoil over where to live now or next; which direction to choose.

Neither decision, I suppose, would be the end of the world.

 

Books, Middle East Conflict, Philosophy, Politics, Writing

Book Review: The Ambassador

Jen

For all my love of time travel and exploration of whether or not we could or should alter the past, I’m surprised I don’t read more fiction in the category of alternative history. Perhaps I will now, after reading The Ambassador (The Toby Press), a novel by the late Ambassador Yehuda Avner and award-winning novelist Matt Rees.

Set mostly in the late 1930s with World War II as its backdrop, The Ambassador imagines the impacts on Europe’s Jews had Israel been established in 1937, as opposed to 1948, when the Peel Commission recommended to the British cabinet to establish a Jewish state. The novel’s main character is Dan Lavi, a young diplomat sent by Ben Gurion to Germany to serve as the fledgling nation’s first ambassador to Berlin. Dan’s there with his wife Anna (an American) and Shmulik, who masquerades as part of the diplomatic team, but is really in Berlin on behalf of the Mossad.

The characters, their dialogue, and even the actions they take that veer from historical events come off realistic and plausible. I was caught up in Dan’s conflict once in Berlin as he struggles between proper diplomacy and his clear distaste for Nazi politics.

“The words of the Old Man, Ben-Gurion’s nasal Polish accent echoed in Dan’s mind, the order delivered in between reports from Shmulik on the first maneuvers of the War of Independence.

‘You will sup with the Devil, Dan. You will do everything the Devil requires. Whatever it takes, you will maintain the transfer of Jews from Germany to Israel.'”

The transfer of Jews from Germany is, in fact, Dan’s primary goal in Berlin. He is there, as he argues repeatedly, to “secure as many Jewish lives as we can.” He does so by working with and catering to the ego of Sturmbannfuhrer Adolph Eichmann, who serves (in this alternative reality) as head of the “Central Office for Jewish Emigration” offering Israeli visas to Europe’s Jews under the controversial “Transfer Agreement.” In this 1938 Berlin, Jews are permitted to leave the country, hundreds per day, for Israel. The Israeli Embassy’s main purpose is administrative, filling out and processing applications of families requesting exit. On the side, however, Shmulik and his Mossad team are investigating rumors of a “final solution” for the Jews, and recommending plans of action to Ben Gurion.

Most interesting to me — especially as a fan of time travel — was watching the story unfold and witnessing how some decisions in this alternative reality led the Jews to the exact same fate they met in our current reality, and how other actions managed to transform a people’s destiny. Less interesting to me were a few brief distracting side stories (based on some historical truth) of lost love and family secrets; though not distracting enough to take away from the main plot.

Any fiction pertaining to the Holocaust is potentially contentious. Still today, there are debates about who, if anyone, has the right to construct fictional tales set in or during the Holocaust. In the preface to The Ambassador, Avner writes “I fought in the war that established Israel. I worked decades in the highest circles of the Israeli government with every Prime Minister up to Rabin’s second term and as Ambassador to Britain and Australia.” One wonders if Avner is not attempting to stave off those critics of Holocaust fiction with this list of credentials. Whether or not he was, it certainly lends credibility to the story and his right to tell it.

“I sat among the crowd commemorating Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day, as then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres addressed us. More precisely, he apologized to them. The ones taken by Hitler. ‘We were 10 years too late,’ he said.

And I thought, ‘What if we hadn’t been.'”

The Ambassador will be available in bookstores September 1, 2015.

==

This review was made possible by The Toby Press with an Advanced Reader’s Copy.

 

 

 

Books, Childhood, Dreams, Family, Home, Letting Go, Memory, Parenting, Relationships, Writing

Key to the Treasure

Jen

I keep dreaming of my childhood home. I won’t bore you with the details; with the recalling of the coat closet next to the front door; the fur that once lived there, but didn’t appear in my dream. In my dream, my mother pulled out a vintage polyester shirt draped over a wire hanger steam-pressed and plastic wrapped years ago, now eager to breathe. She handed it to me, “Do you want this?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer.

= =

My middle son is reading a musky-smelling original hardcover edition of Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish. It’s not the edition I read when I was nine — mine was paperback. But mine was lost in the Flood.

= =

I know for certain someone somewhere is reading my copy of New York Then and Now on a toilet. It’s a book meant to be read on the toilet.

They call them coffee table books, but no one has time for coffee anymore. They ought to be called toilet books. This is where I go when I want to pore over pictures from then and now.

Why can’t I manage to hang on to my books? Especially the ones I sought out, hand-picked, then coveted?

I found some of my lost New York books at The Strand last December. I had an urge to buy them all in an effort to once again build a carefully curated collection. This would have been a redux since once before — on weekday afternoons at Bookman’s in Tucson — I spent my lunch hour scanning the children’s section for the titles lost in the Flood.

= =

I say it, but I don’t yet fully believe it: That there is something worthwhile in losing.

==

Except this.

I accept the hardcover original edition of Key to the Treasure, but I do so with a gentle stab of reluctance. I understand it’s the story I was wild about when I was nine — Jed and Bill and Liza and the feathered bonnet and the sorrow of missed connections passed down through the generations — not the texture of the pages or the color illustration on the cover. And yet, I want back what was once mine.

After all, if I had wanted to part with it I would have. I would have piled my copy of the book on top of the others that were going to Good Will. But I didn’t. I kept it on my shelf and then placed it in a cardboard box which I labelled “Jen’s books” before my father carried it down to the basement.

Those books, I believed, were meant to be found again one day.

= =

I say it, but I don’t yet fully believe it: That there is something worthwhile in losing.

= =

I can have almost anything I want: a Fisher Price Sesame Street set, a pair of gently-used docksiders, a Speak and Spell, an autographed pull-out poster of Mackenzie Astin. People are buying and selling my faded memories…and yours… all the time.

I can have almost anything I want.

==

And yet, there is something worthwhile in the losing. In the being lost.

Books, Childhood, Food allergies, Health, Love, Making Friends, Memory, Relationships, Writing

5 Random Facts About Me

Jen

Deborah chose me and I’ll have to be honest — I was excited. In a tingly “you’ve been selected” sorta way. I felt it …well, I won’t tell you where, but it’s the same spot in my body and the same physical sensation I get whenever I’ve decided I’ve been designated special by someone.

Credit to http://wislrme.wordpress.com/tag/olivia-pope/ for the GIF
Credit: http://wislrme.wordpress.com/tag/olivia-pope/

Of course, this sensitivity to being chosen also makes me physically vulnerable to the dark side of egocentric arousal — for when someone decides I’m not special (or worse, unremarkable or overrated), the tingly sensation moves down to my lower digestive tract; I spend the next few hours in the bathroom, and … well you can imagine the rest.

Deborah dared me to reveal five random facts about myself. I use the word “dare” lightly because, let’s be honest, if I didn’t enjoy disclosing facts about myself, you and I wouldn’t be enjoying this writer/reader virtual pseudo-relationship. In fact, if I could just eliminate the urge to tell you stuff, I might be able to once and for all walk away from social media.

I could be happy.

But then, I wouldn’t be a writer.

Which leads me to Random Fact #1.

Everyday anxiety is an “organizing principle” in my life. In other words, it has made me who I am today and continues to make me who I am no matter how much yoga I practice, no matter which books I read, how much air I breathe, no matter how slowly or deeply. Anxiety is an essential element of me.

I did not realize there was a name for this condition until I read a passage yesterday about Joan Didion written by Vivian Gornick in her book on writing called The Situation and the Story:

For Joan Didion, ordinary, everyday anxiety is an organizing principle. Out of it she has created a depressed, quivering persona that serves her talent wonderfully … in [her] essays, where a subject beyond the self must be intersected with—migraine headache, the Black Panthers, California and the American Dream—Didion’s gorgeous nerves are brought under brilliant control. It is here, in this form, that her existential nervousness is developed with such artistry that insight transforms, and literature is made through the naked use of the writer’s emotional disability.

Don’t mistake my admission of Random Fact #1 as me comparing myself to successful memoirist and essayist Joan Didion. As if! But out of this I understand that my acid reflux and my artistry, my migraines and my imagination, like Didion’s, go hand and hand. And that I am far, far from alone.

Which leads me to …

Random Fact #2

One of my most notable appearances in the media was in the Associated Press when I was quoted as being a sufferer of irritable bowel syndrome. Equally classy, I was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as not only suffering from IBS, but also allergies and anxiety. At the time, those interviews seemed like a good idea for the personal brand I was building (as a wellness expert and writer). Now, I’m not so sure.

Random Fact #3

My bowel, ever irritable, offered me the distinct honor of pooping in the Executive Office building of the White House where I volunteered every Wednesday morning between the hours of 4 am  and 9 am for the Clinton administration’s Communications Office one semester in 1994. Also in the Embassy of Israel where I interned for a semester. And in the Starbucks on K Street.

I was just telling a friend of mine yesterday, in fact, that I had this brilliant idea when I used to live in Manhattan in the late 90s. I wanted to research and publish a Zagat type listing of all the best bathrooms in Manhattan. I zagathad mentally logged most of the cleanest ones in SoHo, where I lived and worked at the time, for my own personal benefit since I never knew where or when I would need quick access to a tidy and private stall. But what if I expanded my research to the entire island? And categorized the lists according to not just cleanliness, but also friendly to, let’s say, hookups? Cleaning up after an accidental coffee spills on the train? Best for vomiting? Ones with condoms? Tampons? Fresh mints? Luxury bathrooms easily accessed in hotel lobbies? Restrooms frequented by celebrities?

I never wrote the book, but it’s on my list of “good ideas that could have made me money if only I wasn’t so lazy.”

Which leads to …

Random Fact #4

I practically invented Facebook. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who knew me in 1999. Especially my parents … because they like to brag about that almost as much as they like to say I was a “White House intern.” Which I wasn’t … I was a “volunteer.” You don’t need to watch Scandal to know that Washington has a hierarchy. A hierarchy, people. That said, I was a volunteer in the White House the same time Monica was an intern.

Back to Facebook and how I missed an opportunity to be a gajillionaire.

In 1999, a half a year or so before the internet bubble burst, I built on my Dell computer and maintained all on my own from my one bedroom apartment on Prince Street a web site called oldcampfriends.com. I came up with the idea because I was obsessed and preoccupied with my overnight camp experience and friends and figured other people were, too. This was before you could Google stalk anyone or pay $9.99 for a dossier on them. It was difficult, still, to track down old friends.

I built it on the old Homestead site builder online software. I created a form that people filled in and submitted. I HAND-FILLED in the information (their names and email addresses) on the profile pages I created for each camp: Camp Wekeela, Camp Wohelo, Pine Forest, Camp Anawana, Camp Ramah New England, Camp Nah-Jee-Way, Che-Na-Wah, Moshava, you name it. Your camp was there. Via oldcampfriends.com you were able to reconnect with your bunkmate, your first kiss, the counselor you always wanted to hook up with but who was too fearful of arrest … Oldcampfriends.com? It took you there.

Coulda been Facebook. Coulda been Facebook.

oldcampfriends screen shot 3

(Those hikers at the top were animated GIFs.)

If oldcampfriends.com leaves any legacy it is to illustrate how impactful the people who have passed through my life have been and continue to be even after they’re gone. It is to show that when you leave me — because leave me you must — you don’t ever really leave.

Random Fact #5

You remain inside me — sometimes as acid reflux, sometimes as tingles that recur when I look at your picture or handle between my thumbs the friendship bracelet you once wove for me in the arts and crafts cabin, or the mixed tape you made me that summer. You remain inside me, as a song or a slow dance or as a scene from a movie we watched together on Betamax in your basement. You remain inside me; sometimes as an eternal punishment, sometimes as an occasional pleasure. You remain.

Random fact: I am forever tagged by you.

You, the people.

==

I tag Sarah, Nina, Judy, Tienne, and Jason.

Books, Modern Life, Parenting

Bring on the Parenting New Year

Jen

There’s January 1, there’s Rosh Hashana, there’s Chinese New Year, and then there’s the day or two after Labor Day (or if you live in the South, three weeks before) when parents get the opportunity to finally breathe deep enough again to consider what they want to do differently this year when it comes to raising their kids.

And then there’s the day after that when we’re all hungover from smiling and liking friends’ first day Facebook photos and feeling good about our lives for a second, and decide we’re parenting just fine thank you for much.

But then come the backpacks on the floor. And the bickering in the backseat on the way to ballet. And the globs of toothpaste in the sink.

Sigh. Someone pass me a Bloody Mary, please.

But wait … what if there was a book with easy, practical advice offered by an expert in a package that not only set you up for quick success, but made you laugh along the way?

Well, my dear friends with children between the ages of 4 and 12; have I got the book for you.

GetBehaviorYouWant-BookCheck out The Times of Israel today, which is featuring my author interview and book review of Get the Behavior You Want Without Being the Parent You Hate by Dr. Deborah Gilboa. Then go download the book on September 10 when it goes on sale.

Books, Childhood, Love, Memory

I admit it. I am a bibliophile.

Jen

Is our melancholic love of books in the digital age just another reinterpretation of our nostalgia for home?

Today, I opened up a 1983 edition of  Madeline L’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet (the third book in the A Wrinkle In Time trilogy) and almost tilted over myself.

Okay — that is a tiny exaggeration.  But I wasn’t even able to move past the Table of Contents before I was overcome by a whoosh of emotion rushing through my chest and up into my throat.

“In this fateful hour…”

My pulse turned rapid.

“All Heaven with its power …”

The way I used to feel when a boy I liked was just about to kiss me.

“The sun with its brightness…”

Held my breath. Tried to steady myself.

“The snow with its whiteness…”

Leaned in. Closed my …

“The fire with all the strength it hath…”

And took a picture of it on instagram to share with all of you.

 

 

SwiftlyTiltingPlanet

bib·lio·phile   noun \  ˈbi-blē-ə-ˌfī(-ə)l\
: a person who loves or collects books
: me