Reconnecting
This evening we went to an open house at some friends' house, people we used to spend a fair amount of time with when our sons were in elementary school together and on the same sports teams for several years running. They had one last year, too, after they'd taken a two week hiking trek through Chile, and had wonderful photos to share of the trip. This year, it was a "tiny appetizers and desserts" potluck, for which they provided ample and generous beverages.
It was enjoyable to talk to them again, as well as to meet people they know from kayaking and elsewhere. Their son has committed to writing in a serious way, is in an MFA program back in Boston and working on producing works of fiction. Ours is out on a climbing quest. I wonder if he'll also write, having also taken a major in creative writing. I think he'd do a good job writing along the lines of Aldo Leopold and Wallace Stegner, who were so passionate about the wilderness. No, maybe more like Edward Abbey, who was angrily passionate. Hard to know - he still has a broad horizon before him, despite his pessimistic musings. My dad used to talk about how as you got older, the horizon narrowed gradually, until you didn't have so many choices left open to you. I can't remember what the context was, it wasn't any sort of advisory theme directed at me... more like a reflection upon his experience, as a self-professed "short-term optimist, long-term pessimist." Oddly enough, as opinionated as he was, and as hard as he tried to control, manage and protect us all, he was open to whatever we kids chose to do with our educations and lives. Maybe it was because he really never had such choices open to him in his youth, and once he opted to get married and have a family, he had even fewer options.
I'm just getting traction on a novel by an Australian writer named Thea Astley; the book is entitled The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, published in 1996. From the first page I was taken by the voice, style and intelligence behind the writing. I am thrilled to discover, thanks to a Bookgroup friend Downunder, a whole new body of work to savor.
It was enjoyable to talk to them again, as well as to meet people they know from kayaking and elsewhere. Their son has committed to writing in a serious way, is in an MFA program back in Boston and working on producing works of fiction. Ours is out on a climbing quest. I wonder if he'll also write, having also taken a major in creative writing. I think he'd do a good job writing along the lines of Aldo Leopold and Wallace Stegner, who were so passionate about the wilderness. No, maybe more like Edward Abbey, who was angrily passionate. Hard to know - he still has a broad horizon before him, despite his pessimistic musings. My dad used to talk about how as you got older, the horizon narrowed gradually, until you didn't have so many choices left open to you. I can't remember what the context was, it wasn't any sort of advisory theme directed at me... more like a reflection upon his experience, as a self-professed "short-term optimist, long-term pessimist." Oddly enough, as opinionated as he was, and as hard as he tried to control, manage and protect us all, he was open to whatever we kids chose to do with our educations and lives. Maybe it was because he really never had such choices open to him in his youth, and once he opted to get married and have a family, he had even fewer options.
I'm just getting traction on a novel by an Australian writer named Thea Astley; the book is entitled The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, published in 1996. From the first page I was taken by the voice, style and intelligence behind the writing. I am thrilled to discover, thanks to a Bookgroup friend Downunder, a whole new body of work to savor.
posted by isabelita at 10:46 PM
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