Mid-year sound off

​Time for a check in. The peaks of my year have been plentiful thus far. I've progressed in my ballet training, traveled as far as Tahiti, French Polynesia, and led one of my best-ever communications workshops. I've had endless fun with friends, spent quality time with my sweet aging pug, and found my bliss through all kinds of self-care activities. 

Was there bad? Of course. But it's nothing that can't be removed with ruthless and surgical precision.

I've read twelve books so far (with hopefully more to come). These are my favorites:

Claudine at School, by Colette
Imagine Gossip Girl, except everyone is French and living in an idyllic village in the 1800's. Claudine has big Blair Waldorf energy. A delight!

"Good heavens no, I don't want to! If that appealed to me, it would be with someone stronger and more intelligent than myself, someone who'd bully me a little, whom I'd obey and not with a depraved little beast who has a certain charm, perhaps, scratching and mewing just to be stroked, but who's too inferior. I don't love people I can dominate. I tore up her letter straight away, charming and unmalicious as it was, and put the pieces in an envelope to return them to her."

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
This is not the book you read when you want to be all light and hopeful about spring and summer. This is the book you read when you're in a quiet, reflective space. Read this if Russian surnames don't freak you out - there are a LOT of names to get straight. Also good for people even slightly interested in reading about prisoners of war.

"Ten days. Ten days hard in the cells--if you sat them out to the end, your health would be ruined for the rest of your life. T.B. and nothing but hospital for you till you kicked the bucket. As for those who got fifteen days hard and sat them out--they went straight into a hole in the cold earth. As long as you're in the barracks--praise the Lord and sit tight."
​

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Apollo's Angels, by Jennifer Homans 
If you're a history or ballet buff, you'll love this book. It's nearly 700 pages, so be prepared for a long read! But it's so informative and authoritative.

"One morning in 1937 Vaganova arrived at the theater to find a note posted on the door stating that she had "resigned" her position as director; she quietly withdrew into teaching. The ballerina Marina Semenova's husband (a high-ranking diplomat) was arrested and killed; Semenova was put under house arrest but eventually released (she was Stalin's favorite dancer). In 1938 Mayerhold's theater was shut down, and when he dared to speak out he was arrested, tortured, and shot; his wife was found stabbed to death in their home. Fear cast a pall over art, but the effect on dance was not always immediate or apparent. Whatever they were thinking at the time and we really don't know - Ulanova, Chaboukiani, and many others continued to dance their hearts out. Artists who were there will tell you that, the Terror aside, this was ballet's golden age."

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Maame, by Jessica George 
If you want to read something without heavy consequences, this is a great choice. Set in London, with a Ghanian protagonist. I identified with so much of this charming novel. 

"No. We don't rely on the GP for things like that," Mum says. "They'll just give you drugs: they work on some kind of commission with it."

"I highly doubt that's true."

"I know more than you do about how the world is working, Maddie," she says. "They'll give you drugs for ailments that do not exist and then you will get sicker. It's not necessary. With God, there is no illness He cannot cure that's why we rely on Him for all things."

I quietly ask, "Then why doesn't He give you money?"

"He blesses me through you, my daughter," she says with finality.