Book Club

As I am often waiting for my kid at certain times: guitar lesson, math tutoring, soccer games, etc., I have been reading books.  I am a vociferous reader but don't always have large blocks of time anymore to enjoy a good book.  So those little snippets of time have been nice & now, as the weather gets warmer, & the sunlight is longer, it will be especially wonderful to get outside & read.  But this really isn't a post about my enjoying a good book, it's really about how these books have called to me recently in some of the passages--how they are so appropriate in parallel to parts of my own life.  Right now I am reading a book entitled Between Here and April by Deborah Copaken Kogan. I was struck by the following truth found in this passage:

"Marriage is the one institution I know that doesn't require preparation for matriculation. There are no essays asking us to predict the number of children we will have, if any, and who will take them to the hospital if they bleed.  There are no multiple-choice tests forcing us to envisage how our financial partnership might look, or late-night field trips to love's inner sanctums (which from syntax alone--master bedroom--reveals a lot) to witness sexual politics in action.  There are no textbooks offering tips on what to do when the baby is sick, the sitter's on vacation, and both spouses are on deadline; no four-page syllabi containing his-and-her primary source material.

 In fact, the only primary source material we're given comes from the most unreliable of sources possible: our own parents.  No wonder half of us flunk out."

On first glance I guess it looks a bit depressing, but I think it just points out that keeping a relationship positive & moving in the right direction takes work.  That we need to be aware of the pitfalls & try to remember why we fell in love in the first place. And the fervent wish that there was a manual to make it work.  And perhaps the recognition that it can work & be wonderful--even if it takes another attempt, or two, or three...  *I always add the caveat that it needn't be a marriage--any LTR or relationship for that matter counts here.  

Anyway, the book has far more to it than the main character's marriage--there's a bit of a murder mystery as well & an exploration of postpartum depression & pms before such things existed--women's health issues.  It is a good book thus far.

http://www.amazon.com/Between-April-Deborah-Copaken-Kogan/dp/1565125622


"Life's full of irony, bubelah.  Haven't you learned that by now?"