Still Here . . .

If you read my other blog, you know that I’ve been weighed down the last few weeks by my mother’s decline toward Hospice care and end-of-life — compounded by mid-term fatigue. The result has been an absolute loss of will to read anything serious other than that which I have to read for teaching. And I have to admit that the will to write about my reading is even weaker.

I don’t, however, want to let go of this blog — at least not yet. So I’m going to try to pop in occasionally and list what I’ve been reading. I’m afraid I may already have forgotten some titles, but I’ll do my best to catch up. First, the reading I’ve done for teaching:

Lee Maracle’s Ravensong — an important book, and I was so sad to see that it is out of print, currently at least, and my students had to buy expensive “coursepack” copies of it (on 8.5×11 photocopy/printer paper) from the university bookstore. So relevant still, particularly with the ongoing Idle No More movement. . .

Thomas King’s Medicine River. I’ve probably read this 8 times, taught it 3 or 4, studied it myself, written about it (a chapter in my dissertation) — Still finding new stuff I love, and I still delight in helping students see the richness within its deceptively simple pages.

Mark Doty’s Dog Years. A delightful memoir, if a poignant, sometimes very sad one. Beautifully written, as one would expect from Doty, but also profound on death and illness and memory and place. And pets, bien sûr

I do hope I’ll be back soon to list the light reading I’ve done. But at least I’ve shown up, and sometimes that’s all we can do, right? Just keep showing up . . . Happy Reading!