Thinking about things

Since my last post, I have been thinking about starting out in life. As you can tell, I am very concerned about my son making a living and paying his bills. He has a wonderful education, great musical skills and talents, but no money.
In the brashness of youth, I was in the same situation. My parents must have thought I was nuts to rent an apartment with no income--and when I finally started to earn one, it was sporadic, since I was a day to day substitute. I had no health insurance--and wasn't very concerned about it. I was so optimistic that I opened a few charge accounts, just to make sure that I could stay up with the latest fashion. I spent time and money decorating my apartment. I was so thrilled to be on my own that I forgot to worry.
Maybe I did worry, but I don't recall being concerned at all. My biggest issues were having a good time, going out, making new friends, having a date on Sat. night and so on. At that time, I didn't even take my job very seriously.
Looking at my son's situation through a filter of 40 years of experience, I see so many possible pitfalls. I worry a lot.
At one time I thought that my worst day would come when he got his drivers' license. But when that day came, I was happy because I wouldn't have to drive him around any more. He is a good driver--and has logged my many more driving miles than I had at his age.
So. I should lighten up. But I still worry.

All Growed Up

When does your child become an adult? Is it when they turn 18 or 21? Or is it when they go away to college? When they graduate college? When they earn an advanced degree? At the time, I though that all of these milestones were the beginning of my son's adulthood. Now I know better. Yes, these are very important milestones in a persons life, but during this time, I was paying most of his bills.
Saturday, he moved to Houston. Not to go to school, but to live and work there. In a few days, I hope, he will have a place to live and can start working on making a living. Making a living as a musician isn't easy, but he is convinced that he can do it without working a Starbucks. I think that hard reality has hit him--he was quite anxious during the 2 1/2 days he spent with us at home.
As I look back, I was in the same situation. I had just finished by Master's degree, and decided to relocate back to Chicago from Boston. I had an apartment, but no job. I signed up to substitute in two school districts, and I did manage to support myself by substitute teaching. However, I did have a second job at Marshall Field's. I never considered that I was taking a risk, but my parents must have been worried.
So, the conclusion. My son is all growed up.
On another front--the first day of school for me is tomorrow.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

This book, by Kim Edwards has been a best seller and is on the list of several book clubs. This is where I found it, on the book club shelf at the public library. I had been attracted by the cover for a while, seeing it in a pile at Costco, as well as in bookstores.
So, I finally read it. It is a disturbing book: a woman gives birth to twins, the first, a healthy boy, the second, and unexpected twin, is a girl with downs syndrome. The father, a doctor, who delivered the children, for emotional reasons of his own, decides to tell his wife that the second baby died. Now, he delivers these babies in his office, since getting to the hospital was impossible because of a snowstorm. His nurse, who assisted him, is given the job of taking the baby to a home for retarded children, and is given a very basic birth certificate. So begins the big lie. This lie takes on a being of its own and pretty much controls the plot of the book. The relationship of the doctor and his wife is at its high point at the birth, and slowly begins to go down hill. The only character who seems to survive is the nurse. She takes the baby to the home, and can't leave her there. She decides to keep the baby, leaves town, and starts a new life in another city. She successfully raises the baby to adulthood.
Now the ugly side of the lie begins its life. The wife wants to have a memorial for the baby she never got to see. She never forgets about her, even though her life goes on. Her son grows up to be an angry young man, the doctor's marriage deteriorates. As with lies, the characters have to make up more lies to keep the original one going. The doctor, it seems has been living a life of deception--not sinister deception--just regular deception. Eventually, the reader finds out everything, and the story ends.
Sometimes people tell lies to protect someone--this is what the doctor did when he decided that his wife didn't need the heartache of raising a down syndrome child. So, this was a lie with good intentions. But can a lie ever be one of good intentions? In The Memory Keeper's Daughter, the answer is no.

What I've been reading lately

My summer reading has been interesting--I picked these books from the book club shelf at the public library, and surprisingly there are some commonalities between them.
The most recent is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a book about love that lasts for decades,, but isn't requited until the last chapter. The two main characters--one, Fermina Daza is an attractive character, the other Florentino Ariza, I didn't find as likable. It is set in a country--its name is not mentioned, but I assume that it is Columbia, about 100 years ago. What I found so interesting is that the love affair was based at first on letters. The lovers--Fermina and Florentino rarely meet or speak, but their relationship was built on letters they wrote to each other as teenagers. Later in life, the relationship is rekindled by letters. Today, people rarely write letters, let alone love letters, and having a relationship with a person that you rarely see or speak to is almost unheard of. The story covers over 50 years of the characters lives--so there are long periods when there is no contact between them. Yet, Florentino keeps his love for--or obsession with Fermina alive, putting that part of his life on hold. She, however, forgets about him, and lives a normal and happy life as a married woman.
The second book I read is Gatsby's Girl, by Caroline Preston. I was expecting a light read--but was surprised to find that there was more to this book than to your average summer read. It is about Giverva Perry, a character who is based on Giverva King, a young woman who was romantically linked to F. Scott Fitzgerald. She is the woman on whom he based Daisy Buchanan and several other characters in his novels--thus the title, Gatsby's Girl.

How is this book linked to Love in the Time of Cholera? By letters! Ginerva and Scott met briefly-- for an evening, in St Paul Minnesota, when they were teenagers. Later they met a several more times, but only for a few days. Their relationship was based on love letters, which were long, romantic and frequent--like those between Fermina and Florentino. It seems that both relationships had huge elements of fantasy in them--each with an idealized image of the other person. Both women kept the relationship going in their imagination--and Fitzgerald used his memories to construct several characters Both women quickly tired of the man, and married others. The author, Caroline Preston did a lot of research on Fitzgerald and Ginerva King, so her characters are believable, and the book has the feel of a biography.

The third book, The Memory Keepers Daughter, by Kim Edwards, has a much smaller connection to Gatsby's Girl. The daughters of both main characters are named Phoebe. I will write about this book in another entry.