Monthly Archives: November 2007

Review: A Door Near Here

Reading, , ,

Anyone who knows me well knows that C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia was a huge factor in the person I’ve become. I cannot say I’ll read them again, but when I read them in my mid-teens I was somehow different aftwards.

I remember devouring anything that was in any way associated with the Narnia stories and now still get a small thill out of mentions of the Wardrobe or Aslan like when I saw a car with ASLAN on the license plate outside Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago. Or when I remember the time I ate dinner off a table with a pedistal made out of the packing crate in which the Wardrobe travelled to Wheaton College.

Back when I was frequenting the bulletin boards on a forum discussing the Narnia movies I heard mention of a book about a girl who looked for the door to Narnia. I found it on Amazon and put it on my wishlist, expecting to know when I should buy it. I eventually broke down and purchased it about a month ago, and began reading it last week.

The book, A Door Near Here, is not the light fiction/fantasy I was expecting. It is a very heavy story about alcoholism that resulted in child neglect. It is about four siblings who stuck together and survived a very nasty part of their lives.

Katherine, the eldest sibling has a lot on her plate. Besides being only 15 years old, and all that that entails, she has been responsible for ther younger siblings for several years while her alcoholic mother worked long hours and dated promiscously. After losing her job, Katherine’s mother drank more and spent much of her time, intoxicated, in her bedroom, leaving her four children to fend for themselves.

When the story opens, Katherine’s main concern, apart from feeding the family from an empty larder, is her youngest sibling, Alisa who has developed a strange attraction to the woods behind her school. Alisa believes that a door to Narnia lies beyond the fence, in the forbidden woods. She also believes that if she finds the door she can bring back a magical cure for her mother.

Katherine thinks that Alisa is losing her mind and tries to disuade her from looking for the door and believing in Narnia and Aslan. Katherine’s religion teacher is no help because he seems to be meddling in her life and encouraging Alisa to belive in Narnia.

This story, although it ends on a positive note, is not a happy one. It doesn’t have the magic of Bridge to Terribithia, another book that elicits images of Narnia. The book kept me interested. The writing was never clumsy or stilted. The characters were compelling enough – not perfect, any of them. The jacket of A Door Near Here explains that the book was the author’s Masters Thesis. It is certainly the most interesting Master’s Thesis I’ve read.

Memories in the laundry room

Memories, , , , , ,

Isn’t it funny how seeing (or smelling or tasting or hearing) certain things makes you always think about certain people, places or events in your life? I’m like that about the most mundane of objects – especially in the laundry room. Folding towels makes me think of my mom. Cleaning lint from the dryer makes me think of my friend Chris. A wooden clothes drying rack makes me think of my friend Marie.

I met Marie in the early 1980’s when her husband, Neal, and my boyfriend, Dean, shared an office at Carnegie Mellon University. She was a nursing student. She was also a birder before it was a popular or even accepted pastime. We did a lot of things with Neal and Marie in Pittsburgh until they moved back to Rhode Island. I was heartbroken. I’d not had a friendship like the one I had with Neal and Marie since — well, probably since forever.

We kept in touch and visited them a lot. We spent Easter with Marie’s boisterous Italian family and met Neil’s brother and his wife. I considered Marie one of my closest friends and asked her to be my matron-of-honor at my wedding. She and Neal flew to Illinois for the wedding and even accompanied us and our friend Paul to Wisconsin for our first honeymoon.

Over the years we’ve visited them probably once a year on average – perhaps a little less. They visited us a few times, but not as much as we did them. We rejoiced at the births of their children and they did the same for ours.

Marie and I had a few differences – I remember that we disagreed on whether or not a teacher who had no children could be as empathetic as those with children. As a child free teacher then, I thought I was as empathetic as one with kids. (Later– after my own daughter was born — I agreed with Marie and told her so.) We also had a bit of a falling out when I suggested she see a movie instead of a play of some play we’d just seen. I didn’t mean anything by it – knowing that their life was so busy with their children. It got her upset though.

The last time I saw Marie was at her Newport Beach beach house when we visited them for a few days. The room Dean and I shared had a collapsible wooden clothes-dryer and I remember Marie coming in the room one day, folding it up and putting it away. I remember thinking that one of those might be handy to have. The day we left I had a monstrous hangover from way too much wine at a party they had the night before.

We planned on visiting them again the next summer but about a month before we were to go Marie emailed us that she and Neal had separated and would probably divorce. She was shocked too, but doing ok. She said we could still visit, but it might be uncomfortable.

I was beyond shocked. I was devastated. It was like a dear friend had died. NealandMarie was dead. It was now Neal or Marie. Not that we needed to make a choice, but it felt like that. We couldn’t make a choice. So we’ve not seen either of them. We’ve both communicated with Marie through email and telephone conversations and I IMed Neal a couple of times. They both say they are friends and we should feel free to go visit — we could see both of them.

Perhaps it is the divorce, or perhaps it is just the busy life we have with two teenagers and aging parents, but New England is no longer somewhere we first think about visiting when we are thinking of vacation plans.

The last I heard from Marie, she said she was seeing someone and was doing well. I’m glad. She is still one of my all-time favorite people and always will be. I’ll always consider her one of my best friends, even if we never see each other again.

So, on days when I have a lot of clothes that cannot go in the dryer, I think about Marie and our friendship and sometimes I cry a little, but usually I smile remembering the good times we had.

Proof I cannot walk and do anything else at the same time

Events, ,

Today started out great. I found my TomTom in a bag that I searched throughly twice earlier. I’d been looking for my TomTom for days and on Friday came to the conclusion that I just was not meant to have a GPS device (an earlier one was stolen from my car).

Today was also a film group day. I’d seen the film, so just went to help out with tickets. I got there early and talked with a number of patrons as well as the manager of the theater. We had a large number of people show up – always a good thing.

At ten I left the theater started to walk to my car. I crossed Woodmont and was stepping up on the curb in front of Barnes and Noble when I tripped* and had a spectacular fall, landing on my nose and the right side of my face. I felt my glasses bend and grit scrape my cheek. My first thought? “Gee. I hope no one saw me!”

I rolled over on my side and sat up. No such luck. A crowd of concerned Bethesda folks were asking me if I was ok. I think I said I was, then noticed the blood dripping off my nose. Someone handed me some tissues, then a car stopped, someone got out and gave me about 50 tissues. She then went back to the car and got me some “wet ones”. Those stung my face. The car left and a police car pulled up and the officer asked if I was ok and if I wanted an ambulance. Another woman asked if there was someone she should call. I gave her our number, but I’ve taught the kids not to answer the phone if they don’t recognize the number. Oops.

The policeman asked if I wanted an ambulance again, just so they could check to make sure I was going to be ok. I finally said ok. He told me to sit back on a bench instead of the ground where I’d been sitting. The woman with the phone kept trying to get through, and finally Clare answered. The woman gave me the phone and I told Clare that I needed Dad to come get me from Barnes and Noble because I fell. She gave the phone to Dean who promptly asked if I crashed the car. When I told him I fell, but thought my nose was broken he said he’d pick me up, so I told the police officer he could cancel the ambulance. (I most certainly didn’t want an ambulance contributing to the gawk-producing spectacle)

While waiting for Dean the police officer gave me some sanitary gauze, someone else gave me a box of tissues. I got lots of second glances. Another police car stopped to chat with the one police officer. That was causing more people to look my way.

Dean finally arrived, pronounced my nose possibly broken and took me to Suburban’s ER where they didn’t give me stitches (but super glued my flapping nose skin together) and where X-rays showed that my nose was not broken. Good news.

It doesn’t hurt, really. The scrapes sting a little and my nose is tender to the touch.

I look a mess though – and am told it will get worse. Maybe when it gets really ugly I will post a photo. Yeah, right.

*I think I misjudged the height of the curb. I was wearing glasses – which is unusual for me to wear them out of the house.