Two more weeks!
Happy Friday! That went by fast. Can you even believe that August has nearly passed us by? Just last week, I was relishing getting reconnected with my hometown, and now it’s nearly time to leave it. Two weeks from today, I leave on my adventure to the Balkans!
I’m so excited, but it’s meant a busy week of getting things squared away here. For the most part, things went smoothly, but I will reserve my words about the New Hampshire DMV. Let’s just say that I thought that the Mass RMV was where efficiency went to die. But, I’m registered to vote, have things squared away for Ollie, and have made a lot of progress toward gathering what I need to pack.
And now it’s time for a little break
I got things done so that I could take the weekend and early next week to visit some of my dearest. This weekend, I’m going to see my sister and her kids in Gloucester, Massachusetts (bonus: the ocean!) and then heading to northern New Hampshire to see two of my closest friends.
This means that I won’t be around to post, but I have been working on things behind the scenes. There’s good things coming!
Reading
What are you reading these days? One of the very last “normal” things I did in the Befores was to attend a book reading by Louise Erdrich of her then new novel, the Night Watchman. It wasn’t that normal—the Brattle Theatre smelled of hand sanitizer and whispered conversations all foreshadowed what was coming. I remember giving my dear friends (the same ones I’m going to visit early next week) a very nervous “Goodbye for Now” wave as I hopped off the Red Line at Porter Square, immediately slathering my hands in sanitizer.
For whatever reason, and it certainly was not because Erdrich’s reading didn’t immediately hook me in, I didn’t actually read the Night Watchman, which won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Until now. I picked it up at Innisfree Bookshop in Meredith, New Hampshire, last Friday after riding the Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad. Visiting Innisfree just before Christmas to pick up some last-minute gifts is a treasured family tradition, but this time, I went in looking for something for me. I decided that the time had come to finally read the Night Watchman.
What a novel. I’m only about a third of the way through it, and I’m trying to pace myself, but the rest of it sits there, tempting me. At its heart, the Night Watchman fictionalizes the story of Erdrich’s grandfather’s resistance to the attempt by the US Congress in the 1950s to de-list the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa Indigenous People and steal the last of their lands. Erdrich weaves in overlapping fictional stories of people living on the reservation and experiences of life off of it in the Midwestern cities where the government would have relocated them.
The Night Watchman is maddening, tragic, funny, magical, hopeful, and absolutely gorgeous—something only Erdrich can pull off in a single saga. If you’re like me and hadn’t picked it up yet—get on it. And then, let’s discuss!
Upcoming
As I mentioned above, I am taking a short break from posting this week. I might pop up with some snaps from my travels, but otherwise, I’ll be back to regular posting next week.
Have a fabulous weekend, and let’s catch up on posts below!
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