love

“Barbie Doll”–in honor of my mother

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue-eyed and blond, my

mother, one fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s

death, Dad said, “Barbara was afraid of absolutely on one

and nothing.” They married late, 34 & 38. He adored her

unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,

cornfields, hay rides, books, and ambition. Whatever she felt she

had missed, my sister and I were going to possess: books,

piano lessons, a college education. Her father, who died long

before I was born, loved fancy, fast horses. So did she. During

my preschool, croupy years, she quieted my hysterical night

coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a wagon.

With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination,

she stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri

River Bottom, strong, willful, free.

Note: This was first published in an anthology and later in my poetry memoir, “On the Rim of Wonder.” My mom loved the color pink and roses, had a rose garden. In the summer there were always crystal bowls on the dining table with roses floating. Today I have roses floating in two stemmed crystal bowls in my kitchen.

Book 14 for 2025: “About Grace”, Anthony Doerr

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This is one of the most heart wrenching books I have ever read. As a child, the main character, David Winkler, discovers he possesses the ability of premonition via dreams that come true. Only his mother understands him; unfortunately she dies while he is still young, leaving him with father who is only physically there. He becomes an hydrologist, specializing in the structure of snowflakes, leading a rather lonely life as a weatherman in Alaska. While at the grocery store, he meets a woman. He knows what she is going to do before she does it. Eventually, they develop a relationship. The remainder of the novel details the consequences of their relationship and their having a child, Grace. David dreams that he will not be able to save Grace from flood waters, his wife thinks he is crazy, and then to avoid what he perceives will be Grace’s fate if he stays, he disappears. Eventually, he arrives hungry and destitute on a Caribbean island where he is taken in by a kind family who have escaped imprisonment in Chili during the military dictatorship there. He agonizes over whether his running away saved Grace and is unable to find out what happened to her. Eventually he saves up enough money to search even though he has no idea where she might be or how she will react of he finds her alive. Will her mother forgive him, will Grace if he finds her? He is driven to find out no matter the consequences.

This novel’s main themes include love, longing, forgiveness, the meaning of friendship, and the human search for grace.

Note: I have now read everything published by Anthony Doerr. His works contain beautiful prose and detailed descriptions. One of the most impressive things about his work is the amount of research required to write in such great detail about so many subjects, e.g. structure of snow flakes, the anatomy of different types of shells, the history of the city now called Istanbul and its ancient neighborhoods.

Book One of 2025: “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”, James McBride

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This is another great novel by one of my favorite authors. The book begins with the finding of a skeleton in a well in 1972. Since it is located near the site of an old synagogue, the police start to question a local, elderly Jewish man, Malachi, but get nowhere. Before they can come back to ask him more questions, Hurricane Agnes washes away the skeleton and many houses in the lower, wealthier part of town. When they do finally get around to hunting for him again, he has disappeared.

Then the novel goes back 47 years in this nondescript Pennsylvania town where the white people live in the lower, nicer part of town, and the Jews and black people live in or near an area called Chicken Hill, a poor area with little water and no plumbing. It is the story of a Jewish couple, Chona and Moshe. She runs the grocery store in the title, and he runs a dance theatre where he hosts dances, sometimes showcasing very famous musicians, mostly Jewish or black or Latino. It is also the story of some of their black neighbors, one of whom was Chona’s best friend in school, Jewish immigrants from Europe like Malachi, and a deaf black child, Dodo. When the state comes for Dodo because his mother has died and they think he should be institutionalized, Chona’s kindness and the courage of a local black worker, Nate Timblin, bring the black and Jewish people together to save him. While all this can be sad and serious, I also found myself frequently laughing. This novel reveals the quirks of all sorts of people, how they relate to one another, the dangers of racism, and ultimately the meaning of community, courage, and friendship and how much these things matter.

A New Year

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

On this new day in a new year

I want you to promise yourself to

-laugh when you see the sunrise

-dance in the moonlight even if you

think you cannot dance

-remember your best day ever, then

make a new best day

-hug your loved ones, tell them you

love them

-walk in nature, touch a flower.

A new year brings no promises.

The world contains too much violence, hate.

Yet you, yes, you your precious self

can transform the world,

project joy where you think there is none,

bring laughter somewhere, sometime,

reach out to others,

send positive vibrations into the universe.

You can make a difference,

make the world a better place.

Tis The Season

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Tis the season to…

Feel joy when the morning

sun caresses your face;

Laugh when you hear

children playing in the

street;

Give thanks for being alive,

having friends and family;

Walk down your street or

take a hike, touch a flower,

a tree and appreciate nature’s

simple bounties;

Remember the time your

loved one took your face

in gentle hands and smiled;

Give the gift of kindness,

peace, and compassion to everyone,

strangers, friends, family,

the unknown;

Promise yourself to live your

best self in the year to come,

to never forget that life

is a gift.

Book 45 for 2024: “How To Stop Time”, Matt Haig

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What would your life be like if you did not age like everyone else? How would others treat you, your family? Would they kill your mother because they think she is a witch? Could you love someone who grew old while you stayed young? Would you have to move all over the world to avoid detection?

These are the issue the narrator faces because unlike ordinary people, he does not age normally. At the beginning he is living in London as a forty-one year old history teacher but has been alive for centuries. He’s met Shakespeare, travelled the oceans with Captain Cook, and played piano at clubs in Paris.

One organization, the Albatross Society, hunts down and “protects” people like him. Their leader has one rule: do not fall in love. He is also convinced that certain groups want to find these non-agers and imprison them for research. What is factual, real? Does life have meaning without love?

Book 35 for 2024: “Woman of Interest: A Memoir”, Tracy O’Neill

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

In 2020, the author, Korean, adopted as a child, nearly 30, decides she needs to find her biological mother before her mother dies. Finding few leads, clues, she hires a private detective who disappears. Then she takes the task of investigating on her own. This book details her investigation, her long relationship with a Serbian furniture mover, life with the parents who adopted her, and her career as a writer, plus going to South Korea to meet her biological family.

Her writing style is a bit different and somewhat rambling. However, for those who have experienced the same sort of search, this book provides details on how to go about finding “the lost”.

Book 21 for 2024: “The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu”, Tom Lin

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

If you like the unusual, violence, magic, revenge, stories of racism, classism, and Westerns, this is the book for you. Ming Tsu, a Chinese orphan at the time when the Chinese were building the railroad, is taken in by the head of a crime organization and taught to be an assassin. He falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a wealthy railroad magnate, elopes with her only to have her father (who has hired the crime organization to further his goals) kidnap her and force Ming Tsu into labor for the railroad. He eventually escapes, joins with a Chinese clairvoyant whom he calls the Prophet and a group of touring magic show performers, many of whom have supernatural abilities. He sets out to gain revenge, hunting down and killing all who helped his father-in-law kidnap Ada and put him in bondage. This is the classic Western romance, revenge story with a totally different twist and an unexpected ending.

A Tribute to My Mother

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Barbie Doll

Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue eyed and blond, my

mother, one fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s

death, Dad said, “Barbara was afraid of absolutely no one

and nothing.” They married late, 34 and 38. He adored her

unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,

cornfields, hay rides, books, ambition. Whatever she felt she

had missed, my sister and I were going to possess: books,

piano lessons, a college education. Her father, who died long

before I was born, loved fancy, fast horses. So did she. During

my preschool, croupy years, she quieted my hysterical night

coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a wagon.

With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination,

she stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri

River Bottom, strong, willful, free.

Note: This poem about my mother has been published in at least one anthology and my book of poetry. My mother loved roses, had a rose garden. I now grow roses too.

Book 19 for 2024: “Unearthing”, Kyo Maclear

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Several months after Maclear’s father (who was a famous journalist) dies, she decides to take a DNA test to find out more about her family health and personality history, mainly because of the stories about a particular grandmother. She wonders if certain traits she and her sons have might possibly be inherited. The results of the test are a shock. Her father, the father she adored, who raised her and adored her, is not her biological father. At first, she thinks perhaps it was a sperm donor, but then she discovers this is not the case. Through the DNA test and her detective work, she finds two biological half-brothers (she was an only child before this discovery) who are willing to communicate with her, send her photos, etc. She tries relentlessly to acquire more information from her mother, who is often unforthcoming or tells her contradictory information. Then her mother gets dementia.

This is also a story of plants, of gardening. Both she and her mother are amateur botanists and expert gardeners. When nothing else works in their mother-daughter relationship, their love of plants and gardening holds them together. Even with dementia, her mother knows plants. Their other joint endeavor is ink drawings and love of art.

Additionally, this is the story of family, family secrets, inter-racial marriage, and challenging relationships. Kyo’s mother is Japanese living originally in England and later in Canada who often struggled with her status as a Japanese immigrant. Her “real” father, the one who raised her, was of British and Irish descent; her biological father was a Jewish formula one race car driver.