Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Boy, has this year got off to quite a mixed bag of tricks. Here we are now, end of February already, and while I must confess, I'm no farther in writing my book than I was four months ago, I'm so much farther in so many things that will hopefully aid in my process to finish this novel. Truth be told, of course I haven't updated this blog since Christmas because I haven't accomplished anything I said I would accomplish. But I've actually accomplished quite a lot that I didn't say I would accomplish. And therein lies some of life's greatest surprises.

Firstly, I sat down and read my mom's memoir one night, I think it was a weekend night, while Chris was busying himself with either building a workbench or setting up his own photo studio in the basement (being the resourceful husband he is). The "book" was a fast and easy read, and though it is in need of much literary love, my mom has some really great stories wrapped up in that package, and I'm really eager to talk with her more about them and write out the scenes with more description and depth. I have mixed feelings on what I read. It helped me see my grandmother more as a human being, where I've regarded her as a saint my entire life. But it only tapped the tip of the iceberg that was her personality, and I'm now I'm filled with many questions and many holes that need to be filled.

The main issue with what Mom wrote, though, and revising it for the masses, which is still an idea that I don't think she's sold on, is the same main issue I've been having with my story and thus the main reason I haven't sat down to write any more of it lately. That problem is that there is no major conflict in our stories. Sure, someone is dying, and you would think that would be conflict enough, but the conflict has to reside in the protagonist. There has to be something for the heroines to overcome, to come to terms with, to learn, to grow from. And in the case of both my mother's story and mine, we are but simple loved ones who live through the experience, changing in the end, sure, but in small ways, nothing quite resembling a denouement. Mostly, we are just telling events as they happen and sometimes volunteering our emotions as we feel them, but that does not make a story... not a good one anyhow.

I thought that perhaps we could combine our stories together... tell how the mother dealt with her first experience with death and losing one close to her, and then I'd chime in with my story. But that would make a better eighth grade essay than it would a memoir, with its compare and contrast elements. There would still not be any real conflict, no mountain for us to climb.

And my writing club has been no assistance either, which I started frequenting again. It's funny how things haven't changed in the four months I've been absent. There's still the same old man writing magazine propositions, but who never brings the actual articles for us to critique. There's the same petite woman with a deep voice writing the most rudimentary remakes of children's fairy tales. There's the lovely slender housewife who totes copies of her already written (though still in much need of polishing) novel. And there's the fantastical lyricist who hypnotizes everyone with his smooth narrating voice and dancing words, but has no actual comments to hand out to anyone else. And of course, there's me, who receives the same critique every time: I have a great style and a unique voice, but my pieces lack any kind of conflict.

I'm starting to feel some conflict with my lack of conflict.

Then the other day, I had some conflict with the huge pile of snow in my driveway, which is nothing new. Shoveling out my driveway usually involves a lot of cursing, throwing of hats, and general huffing and puffing. But in all that anguish, the answer appeared to me.

I've posed the question more than once on this blog about whether this story that I'm writing is really about my grandfather or if it is about me. I always assumed it was about me, because I obviously couldn't put words in my grandpa's mouth (even less so now that he's dead). But it's not just about me. It's about my relationship with the man, or, more importantly, the lack of relationship that I had with him. I always felt close to my grandpa, though I had no good reason to. We never had any heart-to-heart conversations, I never asked him for advice. In the six months I lived in his house, I don't think I even learned how to cook a single thing, though he made us dinner every single night. We really never shared anything together, and yet this world darkened for me the day he left it. It was only at his funeral, when I had nothing left to lose, that I could actually tell him how I felt about him. Now if that doesn't sound like plot resolution, then I don't know what does.

Although, now this opens up a whole can of worms where my personal life is concerned. Intimate issues I have with forming relationships, being scared to be honest with my feelings, the regrets I face for not taking a more active part in the lives of my family members... I can already visualize the therapy sessions that are inevitable in my future.

It's not what I wanted originally. I wanted this memoir to be a tribute to my grandpa, to tell his story. I didn't want my life to be in the forefront. But what is a memoir if it's not about the person behind the pen? I'm really hoping that, in the end, it will still be all those things I wanted when I started, and maybe now it'll actually be a good story, too. Fingers crossed.

Another important bit of news has occurred in my life. I've been accepted into the Masters Program at my old alma mater. I always assumed I would get in, because I was such a good student during my Bachelors semesters, no matter if my GRE score was lousy or if I submitted a writing sample I wrote five years ago and didn't bother revising. I assumed I would get in, but I wasn't certain, and I did have a few episodes where my brain flashed forward to show me my floundering future as an utter failure (yay, alliterism!). But alas, I made it, and I feel the winds of change a-brewing in the Furner household. I've already been propositioned to write a biography on Sir Walter Scott and his relation to Orientalism, two subjects I know absolutely nothing about, which my dear cousin in Kentucky assures me is entirely normal for graduate school. It's a little strange being thrown back into the deep end so abruptly, and truth be told, I'm thoroughly terrified of this project, but I'm also excited and relieved and I feel like I'm back in the place where I belong. However, now this project takes away precious time from my own writing, and the deadline for it is, of course, July. I think one project will help fuel the other, though. The critical thinking and word juggling of one will only facilitate productivity of the other, or at least, so I'm hoping. Again, fingers crossed.

I think "fingers crossed" is the epitome of my emotions at this moment in time. I have a lot going for me, and I'm hoping to keep the motivation alive, to keep all the balls in the air, and I'm holding my breath that perhaps this is the start of something bigger and better for my life.

Fingers crossed.

A novel holiday contribution...

Well, seeing as you haven't heard from me for over a month, you can bet it's safe to say that NaNoWriMo was a complete and utter failure. I got nowhere near the designated 50,000 words and got too wrapped up in other things to allow myself to care much. Am I disappointed in myself? Perhaps a little. I mean, when you think about it, it's not THAT hard to write that much in 30 days. One of my friends who participated surpassed the goal with a whopping 60,000-plus words. It's not like a marathon where you can only do it if you've trained for it. Anyone can sit down and write that much at any time they want to. So to not even get close to accomplishing such an achievable goal did do a bit of a number on my self-respect and confidence.

Although I know it wasn't because I COULDN'T write that much. It was because I chose not to. I chose to believe other things were more important. And if faced with that same decision today, I'd make it again. Some things are more important than NaNoWriMo. Another month, another year would have been better for me, would have had less life-altering changes to combat with. But that goes back to the whole premise of NaNoWriMo and the reason people do it in the first place. I learned that this year and I will try to keep that in perspective next year.

And in that respect, NaNoWriMo wasn't a failure at all. I am so glad I at least attempted it and stuck with it for two weeks. I learned so much about myself and my writing. I learned to pay attention to the tiniest details and to always keep the reader in mind. It got me really excited for the memoir, actually, though my actions may suggest otherwise. And though I rarely designated my writing as more important than other chores, I always deemed it significant enough to include in the schedule. I never thought to myself, "I shouldn't be writing" or "I shouldn't bother writing." In fact, I often thought, "I should be writing," or, "I WISH I was writing. " The fact that I want to write and want to make time for writing gives me hope that I will see this project through to the end.

Therefore, I have decided that January is going to be my makeup NaNoWriMo. I'm gonna get out the tens of thousands of words I didn't write in November and achieve enough words to be able to call myself a novelist. I feel like I can't begin to work on the editing and the fine-tuning of the novel until I get it all out on the page, and really, this being a memoir, I should get it all down before I find myself forgetting anything. So I'm excited to get that finished and follow through with what I should have completed a month ago.

However, I do have another distraction tempting me away from my own memoir. This holiday, when we were all gathered at my mother's, she handed me a finished copy of HER memoir about her mother's death. I've been dying to read it since I even knew such a thing existed, but I didn't want to bug her to finish it or to show me because that's something she had to figure out on her own and something I didn't want to feel rushed. But as part of our Christmas gift, she gave each my brother and me a copy. You should have seen the beaming smiles on our faces. I was so proud of her, and I think she was really proud of herself.

We had always talked about (perhaps only joked) about how I could edit it for her when she finally did finish it. But she didn't seem too keen on the idea now that it was written. "Oh, Jen, I think you'll be disappointed when you read it," she said.
"But let's just say I want to change some things..."
"I didn't write this for publishing," she said.

But I could barely help myself. Only reading the first page, completely oblivious to the conversation in the living room, I found myself making all kind of mental notes on how to make it better. Not saying that it was bad. Goodness, no, that's not the case. I haven't read it yet, but I know before looking that, between her and me, we could make that into something really fantastic. She's got the story and I've got the creative flair. And really, what more do you need to write a smashing book? Hell, some people on the Best Sellers list don't have either of those things.

Really, though, I'm excited to read it, to know more about my grandmother, my family, and heritage, myself. And maybe I'll find some answers to questions I'm having about my own book.

Can you ever just be whelmed? I think you can in Europe.

Overwhelmed is a state I often find myself in. There is a phrase that goes, "when it rains, it pours." With me, it never seems to stop pouring. That's just how it's always been. The week my last semester of college started, I turned 22, my then-boyfriend broke up with me, and my paternal grandmother died... for instance. And now I'm trying to write a novel in the same month that I'm trying to renovate a house, or more correctly, finish renovating a house, a house I must move into the same month, oh, and of course there's a little holiday called Thanksgiving in there, too, which means driving back and forth across the state repeatedly. And I'm still considering taking a weekly hot yoga class, just to make things a little more interesting.

Usually when so many things like this happen simultaneously, my brain goes into overload, and I can get kind of depressed recounting everything that has to get done and realizing the improbability of any of it getting done. It makes me not want to do any of it. And the worst part is, I feel like I have a justified reason to quit. So I usually quit.

But then the most amazing thing happens. Everything ends up getting done. And the world doesn't explode. I still don't know how.

Up until this morning, I had justified to myself how ridiculous it was for me to agree to all these commitments and how foolish I was to believe I could accomplish any of them. I had given it the old college try, I told myself. I had learned some new things. I should be proud of what I've done up to now. Everyone will understand if I stop now.

Then I realized I should be used to being overwhelmed by now. And if I were to quit, I would just take all that time that I had devoted to projects and use it as an excuse to sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself. There are 200,000 other people out there right now who probably have just as busy of lives as I do, and I don't hear any of them complaining. In fact, I get emails from some of them (just randomly--I have no idea who they are) empathizing with the way I feel and then offering encouraging words to keep me going on. I always feel like my life is so much more outrageous than everyone else's, but really, I just like making excuses and letting myself off the hook. Being busy is just the American way. We like to bite off more than we can chew, even if we choke a few times getting it down our throat.

So last night I had decided to give up on NaNoWriMo, focus on finishing the house and getting moved and maybe get my grad school app done since December's lookin' crazy, too. And then this morning I changed my mind.

I'm 10,000 words behind. I think you are not surprised to hear that. I'm still not promising I'm going to be able to hit that 50,000-word mark. But I am promising to continue to try.

Because I'm desperate for every word I can get, I decided that when I'm writing, I just have to be as honest as possible. I'm writing everything I think and feel about whatever or whomever I'm writing about. It's been quite eye-opening. If I were reading my book as a complete stranger to my family and myself, I would think that I was a jerk and a brat. I've written some pretty terrible things about almost everyone, but it's not that I think terrible things about everyone. It's just, taken out of perspective, my opinions about things and people sound negative. I'll write a whole paragraph about my brother's perpetual tardiness and finish it with, "Well, this paragraph will never make it in the book," because I know it's coming off hurtful instead of intended funny (because it is comical--love ya, bro!). So that will be definitely a hurdle in the editing process.

Another major problem I'm finding is who this book is about. It's clearly about my grandfather, right? Wrong. So far, it's about me. And that's what memoirs are supposed to be about. But I don't know if I'm happy with that. Do I want my viewpoint only, even though it's so limited? Or do I want to include my extended family members, get their opinions, their stories, their memories? Or would that be opening a can of worms? I'm just not sure what would make the best story yet. Hopefully the answers to these questions will start revealing themselves the more I type.

I'm nearly 14,000 words, which sounds like an astronomical amount, but it's really only a quarter of the way and an entire week behind where I should be. But I'm feeling good. I'm not running out of steam yet. I have plenty still to talk about. In fact, probably too much.

Being okay with crap...

Well, we're five days into NaNoWriMo, and I only have 4,000 words written so far, 8,000 words away from what my goal is for Sunday. In my defense, it's been a rough week.

We started it in Florida where we were hoping to see the shuttle "Discovery" blast off into space. Discovery was having a lot of trouble the week before, little mishaps that kept popping up, but NASA engineers were working day and night to get her all patched up for her big ride. Well, the day before we were supposed to leave, NASA announced the launch would be delayed a day. We hurriedly changed our flights, added another night onto our hotel stay, and rearranged all our vacation plans. A friend who was supposed to come with us, though, backed out because he couldn't afford a new flight and an extra day off of work. Such is the businesses of space travel spectating. It's a risk you have to be willing to take, and he wasn't.

So he got a refund on his Saturday plane ticket while Chris and I cashed ours in, but just after landing on the tarmac in sunny Orlando and turning on our cell phones the minute the pilot said it was okay, Chris discovered Discovery was pushed back another day, another day we ourselves could not afford to stay. In other words, we had a black cloud following us around the whole four days we were down there. Don't get me wrong, it was a great trip. It was 85 degrees, 35 degrees warmed than we were accustomed to in chilly Michigan, and we still got to see plenty of awesome things, like the shuttle actually sitting on the launch pad. However, since we did things that were related to NASA and the shuttle launch, our emotions were confused. We would see something really interesting and astounding, and we were elated, and then it would remind us of the shuttle launch, and we were depressed. There was so much sorrow in our smiles. It was the epitome of bittersweet.

I had planned on having a lot of time to write on day one and day two, because shuttle launches are all about hurrying up and then having to wait, so with all the down time we would have on the causeway waiting for the countdown on Monday and of course the airplane ride home on Tuesday, I figured I'd have plenty of opportunity to spit out a couple thousand words at least. But then our plans changed, I didn't have quite so much free time, and the little bit I did attempt to write I thought was terrible, and the trip had already been depressing enough.

But I still had my original battle plan of writing for two hours every day after work before Chris got home. Only when I returned to work on Wednesday, all hell had broken loose while I was gone, and my boss was practically begging me to do overtime. Now everyone loves a little cash in their pocket, but when's a girl supposed to find time to write? And of course every evening is spent renovating our house, so I was starting to feel up a crick without a paddle.

One of these nights, after a minor nervous breakdown, I told Chris I couldn't spend much time at the house because I needed to write if I was gonna take this pledge to NaNoWriMo seriously. (Haha it's hard to talk seriously about something called NaNoWriMo, but I digress) So I got myself a cup of tea and a slice of cake and I sat down at my computer and got serious.

Only everything I wrote was crap. Crap, crap, crap. I felt like I was in third grade again, writing pages of run-on sentences and boring plot lines strung together with "and thens."

In fact, overall, it hasn't been finding the time that's been the problem this week. You can always find the time if you look hard enough. It's getting motivated to face my monitor when I know all that's coming out is crap.

I argued with myself a lot this week, asking myself if it was worth it to spend so much time if I would have to rewrite my entire end product, and if I should bother wasting so many bad words when I could be writing better (though fewer) words. But I keep trying to remind myself that it's about words in general, good and bad, and just getting some on the page, which is a task that seemed to be eluding me before this month started. And yes, I'm writing a lot of stuff that will end up getting crossed out with the most brilliant red pen I own, but there's also little gems here and there, ideas I hadn't thought to include before, metaphors I hadn't pondered before, poetry I didn't know I was capable of before. That alone, I think, is the reason so many people believe in NoNaWriMo and want to be a part of it. I just have to keep reminding myself.

Luckily, I've got help. At least two friends on my facebook are "suffering" (though self-imposed) with me, both veteran writers who love to root this rookie on. They reassured me that writing crap is okay and even they, with their more advanced writing level, are still writing their share of crap and then some. One friend doesn't even bother looking back at anything he's written. In fact, he's got a writing program that only lets him see the last hundred words he's typed, which I think is friggin' genius. I find myself writing for a good fifteen minutes, hitting a wall for a moment, and then checking my word totals, only to find they've increased by a mere hundred or so. The other encourages me to not stop writing for anything, and to switch gears to a different plot line or character if I feel myself slowing down. Great advice from both and great encouragement!

But to be honest, the most helpful thing they told me was that they were writing crap, too. It reminds me I'm not alone.

So I will trudge on. Hopefully I can find some time this weekend between laying hardwood floors in our house to catch up on those 8,000 words. If it's one thing I've learned so far, it's that getting behind by even a day can really hurt your numbers, and after all, this really is all about the numbers (since it's certainly not about good writing). I guess I need to take Tod up on his offer and have a POWER WEEKEND!

NaNoWriMo!

I find myself sounding like my mother the older I get, which I suppose is only natural. I find myself saying "jeez oh pizza" instead of any of the other common expletives I'm sure most other normal 20-somethings use when they are surprised or upset. When the day doesn't go according to plan or the GPS leads us somewhere unknown, I often tell my husband to "think of it as an adventure." Mom had all sorts of little sayings and phrases for my brother and I when we were growing up, and at the time, she sounded like a broken record, but apparently her common phrases made their way into my brain and my everyday conversation, which is fine by me. I think it gives me a cute quirkiness. Haha. One of my mother's favorite sayings, one that is probably quite common among moms in general is "if it's meant to be, it will be." I spent much of my childhood believing that phrase. When I just started college, I actually put a lot of stock in it and became somewhat obsessed with the idea of fate. I wanted to find the signs all around me that would lead me to where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do. And I followed such "signs" until I ended up in an unhealthy relationship being lied to by someone I thought I could trust and lying to the people I should have been trusting. And then I realized maybe it was time to give fate a rest.

But even now, after all this time and all the hard lessons, I still have those moments where it seems that the universe is trying to tell me something. And as much as I don't want to believe it, it seems there's an unstoppable force guiding my life in a certain direction. I feel like that kind of happened with National Novel Writing Month, and even though it was a long process to get me here, the universe wasn't about to stop trying until it did.

It actually started last fall when my brother declared that I should just write a book already and stop complaining. Don't remember that? Well, click here and let me refresh your memory.

Anyhow, it was shortly after that that my brother emailed me the link to National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. I still have the e-mail he sent on October 24th (thanks, Gmail for rockin' like that) saying he thought I should give it a try. "Not trying to pressure, just help fester the process," he wrote. I checked it out and thought it was a cool idea and I loved him for pressure/help, but it was starting in six days and I didn't have any ideas for a novel and I had a thousand other reasons not to do it, the main one being I wasn't ready to take myself seriously as a writer yet.

When I first started this blog and my project for my novel, the idea of NaNoWriMo definitely entered my mind, but I thought I wouldn't need any motivation to write at the time. I thought I would be a writing machine. We all know how that turned out.

Then I forgot about it until two months ago when my friend Tod posted on his Facebook that he was considering doing it. And I was all, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. But again, I didn't want to wait another two months to get some writing done. I wanted to write now. But then I didn't write at all.

So then October 19th of this year rolled around, and I received an e-mail from the Writers Group I have been shamelessly avoiding for the past two months of a fellow member who was doing NaNoWriMo and encouraged the rest of us "members" to join in on the fun. And then it finally clicked. It was time to get serious. I haven't written, yet I have so much to write. Why not just spend it all in one glorious month of reckless abandon and get it all out there with the encouragement of 200,000 other crazies who are attempting to write 50,000 words in only 30 days (thanks a lot, lame November, for cutting out the 31st on us).

I don't expect it to be publishable on November 30th. I don't even expect it to make sense come November 30th. But if ever I'm going to write, NaNoWriMo is my best hope for making some progress. And it all seems so easy in my head. I have two hours every day after work before my husband gets home, and I type 80 words per minute, so at that speed, I could have the novel done in two weeks instead of four. Then again, it took me 45 minutes to write my opening paragraph, and I'm still not happy with it. But NaNoWriMo says that this isn't about editing. "Editing is for December" they say. I think that will be the hardest part of all, not editing.

Not to mention, the whole renovating an entire house and then moving before November 30th, being gone to Florida the first and second days of the project, having Thanksgiving thrown in there, too... yeah, those parts will be pretty hard, too, I imagine.

There's always a million reasons not to do something.

(That's not Mom's saying, though. It's Jan's from "The Office." Haha, well, I'm sure it's not HERS, since she's fictional, but I digress.)

I feel really confident about this, though, and really excited. I feel anxious most of all. Ever since I signed up on the web site, it feels like a constant state of anticipation. My toe is tapping impatiently. My knee is bouncing. My pen is constantly being clicked. My hands are braced mid-air, waiting for the gun to go off, for the shout of "Go!" to break through the atmosphere, for the marathon to begin. I can hardly contain myself. I can hardly keep myself from sketching words on a blank page. I'm hoping this is a good sign.

So wish me luck. I'll do my best to keep updating on my progress, if for any reason, to just keep myself focused and motivated. They say sticking through it until the end and reaching the 50,000 makes you want to yodel--"And we're talking the good kind of yodeling here," they promise. And I love any reason to yodel!

Crown Royal on ice...

Two weeks ago, as dance class was wrapping up, Dr. Love (so our instructor likes to be called, though I'm 99% sure he is NOT a doctor) gave us a preview of another routine we would be learning later in the session. He said it was to a song called "Crown Royal" which made me beam uncontrollably. I didn't know the song, but I'm guessing if anyone saw my ridiculous grin, they probably would have imagined it was my favorite song of all time. It wasn't the song, but the liquor that had me smiling from ear to ear. The mere mention of that specific beverage was all I needed for my own little moment of personal serenity that Monday night.

Crown Royal is very significant in my family, and no, not because we're a bunch of alcoholics. In fact, I'm not sure there's anyone who actually enjoys drinking it. Out of my immediate family, at least, my husband is the only one I know of who will pour himself a glass on a weekday night, usually after a hard day of work and usually when there's no beer or wine in the house.

It was a holiday recently, maybe our engagement dinner at my mom's house last year that I ventured out and bought my first bottle. It would have to have been a special occasion for sure, because that's the only time our family drinks it. And we drink it on special occasions because my grandpa drinks it on special occasions, or most accurately, drank it on special occasions.

Without fail, every Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Easter, we were always at Grandpa's, indulging in a loud, large potluck with all my aunts and uncles and cousins in attendance. Aunt Beth would always bring the betty salad. A sports game was always on the television in the living room. We'd always hold hands around the kitchen table, all 40 or so of us, and recite our prayer together. And all the men would always gather in the kitchen for their favorite ritual, a shot of Crown Royal while the womenfolk took pictures and cheered for them.

Most of the time, I was in the basement playing with my cousins during this event, though saw plenty of performances of this ritual while passing through to get another glass of Mountain Dew or to sneak a cookie before dinner, but it's not like I understood what was going on anyway. And when I was old enough to understand, I still didn't find it interesting enough to ask anyone why they bothered with it.

When I was finally at the age that was legal for me partake in such beverages, it hadn't occurred to me to ask to be involved in their ceremony. Even as an aspiring feminist, I didn't even bother pulling out my equal-opportunity card, questioning why it was only men and why couldn't the women join in. I just accepted that it was always done this way and I never had the motivation to mess with the tradition.

Then my cousin Jamie married Courtney, and she threw a big wrench right into the tradition. I thought it was a Christmas Eve, but it would have been any such holiday occasion that the men got up to do their ritual shot of Crown Royal and Courtney got up off the couch to go join them. No one had asked her to go, not that I noticed anyhow, but she was a spontaneous, outgoing kind of person, so I wasn't surprised that she would include herself. In fact, if my husband's family had had a ritual like this, I probably would have hopped up and partaken just as Courtney did, whether I was asked to not.

On her way to the kitchen, however, she turned back to me and said, "Come on, Jenny, let's go." I don't remember if I even bothered putting up a fight or making an excuse. But eventually, I ended up in that kitchen with a shot in my hand, surrounded by all my uncles and the patriarch of the entire Gotha establishment, toasting each one of them and entering a rite of passage my brother hadn't even had the privilege to experience yet.

(My brother was absent that night, the reason now escapes me--hell, the specific holiday and specific year escape me, so what did you expect?)

In hopes to be able to write more extensively on the subject of the Crown Royal tradition in what hopes to be my book, I turned to my mother for answers on all the questions that surrounded this age-old ceremony. Come to find out, my mother had the exact same mindset as I did; it never occurred to her to ask why it happened, it was just the way things were done. But she said that Crown Royal was more expensive than Seagram's or Canadian Club, so it was only reserved for holidays and Friday night card games. My grandparents were quite the frugal pair, but still knew how to have a good time.

It is funny to think back on the tradition and how it evolved over my lifetime, how my cousins eventually got old enough to take the shot, how their wives eased into the ritual themselves, how I, the baby of the family, finally got my chance at it. At my wedding, we handed out Crown Royal shots and my grandfather got up and told me he loved me, and we all had a shot together, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, everyone. It is a moment I will never forget.

At his funeral, towards the end of the night when most people had cleared out, and with the undertaker nowhere in sight, good old Courtney grabbed a stack of Styrofoam coffee cups and we all filed silently out of the back door into the parking lot, where my brother revealed from behind his back the majestic purple bag. We passed it around, splashing some into our cups, and I raised my glass, swallowed hard, and then said, "To Grandpa."

And we all brought our glasses to the center and then downed the potent liquid. We all shivered, but smiled proudly with our mouths open to let out some of the sting so that it might float up to heaven.

When Chris returned from the NASCAR race in Bristol with his dad, we presented me with a gift of a Crown Royal t-shirt that he had bought from the Matt Kenseth trailer. I almost broke into tears. To think, I didn't think there was anything he could bring me back from the NASCAR race that I would enjoy, and here he brought me the most perfect gift of all.

It's a shame "Crown Royal" the song has nothing to do with the whiskey. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's a song my grandfather would not approve of. Dr. Love designed all the moves around the words of the song, so he is constantly reciting all the vulgarity over and over again while he is showing us sequences. There's a high school boy in the class, and after one such explicit lyric, the boy said, "That's nasty!" And we all chuckled.

But just knowing what the song is called makes me smile at dance class anyhow. And I told Dr. Love I would be sure to wear my shirt next week so I would be dressed for the occasion.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death.

I'm not sure how or why I got onto Barnes and Noble's e-mailing list. I haven't bothered to get myself off of it because sometimes they send me good coupons, but I happen to live in a city with lots of library options, so I very rarely buy books, especially ones I haven't read, which I realize might sound weird and might take all the fun out of reading for people, but for so many years of my life, I had books taking up space on a countless number of shelves, books I never read or intended to read, books I attempted to read and hated, so I've decided that I will not spend any money on a book that I'm not sure I will love (holy run-on sentence, Batman). Therefore, most of the time, I get a book out of the library, take it for a test spin, and then, if it tugs at my heartstrings and makes me catch my breath, I go out and spend the money on it so that it may rest peacefully on my bookshelf not wasting space but serving a purpose. Although, chances are, it may sit there the entirety of my life never having its binding broken open, because I rarely read books twice.

At any rate, shortly after I spent that long weekend at home with my mother while my husband was on a father-son trip, I got an email from Barnes and Noble that caught my eye. My mom and I had just seen "Eat Pray Love" in the theater, which I loved (but mostly for the part where they're describing how Italians talk with their hands because it was SO TRUE), and the subject of the email was "Powerful and Uplifting: A Mother-Daughter 'Eat Pray Love'." So quite unlike myself but driven by curiosity due to current events, I actually opened the B&N email to find a book recommendation for "Traveling with Pomegranates" by Sue Monk Kidd, who some of you may know through her unmistakable novel-turned-movie "The Secret Life of Bees." I am unfamiliar with that work, only know of it by the trailers I've seen during commercial breaks on television, so the fact that she had penned that particular piece was really of no interest to me. What caught my attention, however, was that not only was it a memoir, but it was a shared memoir, alternating essays written by herself with essays written by her daughter.

Naturally, I looked it up on my city's library catalog to see if this was something I could borrow first to see if it was even worth my time. And I found it currently in stock sitting on the shelf waiting for me. And then my husband came home from work and asked if I wanted to go to the library to look for instructional books on how to lay hardwood floors, which he plans on doing in our new house. It was like it was meant to be.

And it was meant to be. The book, while I still have a third of it yet to read, has been such a delight and I plan on buying myself a copy, as well as a copy for my mother and mother-in-law, because I feel it is just too good not to share. I mean, it takes place in Greece and France, had oodles of Greek mythology in it, and I feel it has a rather accurate representation of my current relationship with my mother and is relevant to the periods we are both in in our lives.

But what I seem to like most is the constant presence of the Virgin Mary and what Mary means to these women and all women in general.

I've never been very religious. I've tried to be religious many times in my life, and sometimes I've tried harder than others. I still want to be religious, but haven't quite come to terms with how to do that yet. But I've always felt a connection to Mary. I've always found her to be the most interesting character in all of Christianity, and yet I feel like she is constantly overlooked. Which is perhaps why I like her even more. It's like her and I have a little secret that no one has quite caught onto yet.

I know it all started when my grandma died. I was only five at the time. But ever since then, I've always associated my grandma with Mary. I guess I thought they would get along very well in heaven. Everyone always said my grandmother was a saint. So I guess this was my way of making her one. Besides, I was five. What I knew about death and heaven was so very limited (not that I've learned all that much about it since then). I knew who Mary and Joseph and Jesus were, I knew they were in heaven, and now I knew my grandmother was in heaven. So I suppose it was only natural that I put them all in the same clique up there.

Of course, too, there was the song that they played at her funeral. I don't remember anything about the funeral. I don't remember anything about her sickness or her death. I sometimes think I do remember, but I'm pretty sure it's just the stories that people have told me that I remember and not the actual events themselves. But there is this song that is very common in Catholic churches, especially in the spring, called "Hail Mary, Gentle Woman" that was played at my grandmother's funeral. It's a terribly sad, but beautiful song. My brother hates it... he says the harmony is annoying. I think he either hates it because he's not a woman and doesn't have a connection to Mary or he hates it because he remembers it being played at the funeral (him being 9 at the time and fully capable of remembering) and it makes him sad. And while I myself don't remember it being played at the funeral, what I remember is that every time it is played in a Catholic church to this day, my mother (and aunts, if they are there, too) break down into sobs. And now that I'm old enough to be the kind of sentimental where I cry at happy endings of movies and sappy songs on the radio, I am usually sobbing in the church pew right along with them.

Still, it wasn't until I spent some time in Italy that my infatuation with Mary was brought more to the forefront. As Catholicism is the official religion of the country, Mary is everywhere. She's in the churches, in the museums, but even just on the street corners and painted on apartment walls. I would say the point in my life where I respected religion the most was when I was living in Italy. And perhaps it was when I was the most spiritual.

Because I was "studying" in Italy (technically, I had already graduated, so the classes I didn't care about so much as the whole being in Italy thing), our group went to every single museum in Florence and saw COUNTLESS paintings of the Virgin to the point where they all started to look the same and frankly were starting to get a little boring. But when we got into the Uffizi, I saw a new portrait of Mary that I couldn't take my eyes off of. It was called "Madonna of the Chair." I've posted it at the top of the entry, but I'm not too techy with this whole blog thing yet, so I couldn't get it to go where I wanted it to go. But you can click on it and make it bigger.

ANYWAY, I just thought Mary looked so HUMAN in it. So many other paintings she's depicted as a saint or as royalty, which she is and deserves to be depicted that way, but she was also human, and I think it's the human aspect of her that makes her so appealing. I mean, the woman gave birth in a field, people, with a man she wasn't even married to. I'm married, and my husband is capable of a lot of things, but I don't think I'd let him birth my baby in the middle of g.d. field. And she raised the SON OF GOD. Like, she had to put him in time-outs when he acted up and had to protect him and take care of him. And she had God to answer to if she didn't do her mothering job right. But this painting, it doesn't feel like a painting of Mary and Jesus. It feels like a painting of a mother with her son. She's got a loving, protective grip on him. She seems to know she's gonna have to let go of him, but you can tell she doesn't want to. And all the while, she seems to be giving a look to those watching her that says, "You mess with my baby, you mess with me."

Later in the trip, our leader/instructor took us to an artisan shop to show us that things are still handmade in Italy and that generations of families stay in the same business, and I found that exact picture buried in a pile of plaques, outlined in beautiful gold paint, handcrafted in that very shop. Now I don't know how popular this image is in Italy. But the Uffizi is just ONE museum in Florence and it alone has thousands of paintings in it. What are the chances I would that painting in an artisan shop down some isolated alley? Like it was meant to be.

My mother took a tour group over to Italy the year after I had lived there. I couldn't afford to go with her, which broke my heart. She asked if she could bring anything back for me. I said the only thing I wanted (besides nutella gelato) was a necklace with Mary on it. And in an artisan shop that sounded much like the one I found my Madonna of the Chair in, she found the perfect, most absolutely beautiful Mary cameo and she bought it for me. I still wear it all the time over three years later.

I wear it as a reminder of what I want to be. I don't want to be the next Mother of Christ. I can't be the next virgin mother. That ship has sailed. But Mary, despite being saint royalty, was once a very human woman, a hard-working woman, a proud woman, a woman who did what she had to do without complaint. And from what I've heard about my grandmother, she was a lot like that, too. If I can be half the woman my grandmother was, I would consider my life a success.

Gentle mother, peaceful dove, teach us wisdom, teach us love.

Sometimes I worry that this book is going to be an epic failure, that no one is going to want to read 200 pages about death and grieving, that no one will care about my life or my grandfather's life. But "Traveling with Pomegranates" isn't all happy-happy. In fact, it's mostly not. And yet I can't seem to put it down. After all, death and grieving is a big part of what makes us human, no?