Fog
Nature's cozy blanket
Hello Friends,
I heard some troubling news about an author I admire. Suleika Jaouad wrote the book, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Intrupted. It’s a beautiful story about her journey with cancer and the particular challenges young people face with the disease.
This week the author announced that her cancer is back and she is currently under going treatment. I linked to her book and personal update below.
Jaouad writes a lot about how she feels like she is living between two worlds, the Kingdom of the Sick and the Kigdom of the Well and how she belongs to both and neither at the same time.
I found myself nodding my head as I followed along her story.
I am living in both a home of happily ever afters and great sorrow, a world of serenity in sobriety and the madness of the possibility relapse, a structured predictable life and uncertainty.
It’s been foggy here and it has me in a contemplative mood. I feel cozy in the fog. It obscures what’s ahead, but also begs us to stay put.
This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.
xoxo,
Emily
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On The Blog
Last month I wrote about how I was attempting National Novel Writing Month again and guess what?
I WON!
Read all about it here.
Just Finished
I originally found this book through the Isolation Journals Suleika Jaouad began during the beginning of the pandemic. I loved the writing prompts and community formed in those early days of lockdown. I finally listened to the Audiobook and absolutely loved it.
Two years ago my 20-month-old son died from brain cancer and I have been navigating between two kingdoms of my own ever since. This book is beautifully written and the structure of the narrative is so perfect.
It's a story of grief and loss and of continuing on in spite of the fear that comes with the experience of facing one's own mortality.
To Shake the Sleeping Self: A journey from Oregon to Patagonia and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
Overall I enjoyed this book. It made me want to travel through Mexico and South America. It made me want to spend time alone with my thoughts and seek out new experiences.
The author tells a good story and is a skilled writer. I felt like I knew the characters.
What I was missing, was more change in the narrator. I wanted him to have that hard conversation with his mom about identity at the end. I understood why he didn't, but I still wanted him to have it. I got the feeling at the end that he was just too tired to face the really hard stuff.
He biked all those miles which is amazing and a great story in itself, but he still has to go home to a mother he loves but doesn't accept him for who he is.
Links to Ponder
Living on fault lines a personal update from one of my favorite writers and creators Suleika Jaouad. Her cancer is back. Please send her some love.
Post Dinner Interview with a Twelve-Year-Old Who Sat at the Grown-ups Table for the First Time on Thanksgiving. (Mc Sweeny’s)
What Movies Can You Watch Over and Over? (Cup of Jo) For me, its Overboard, Moana, and the Die Hard series.
A Year Ago, He Couldn’t Run for 20 Minutes—Now He’s Completing Sub-3 Hour Marathons (Runner’s World)
The New Mom Welcome Packet (Cup of Jo)
I Wrote the Book on Getting Kicked Out of Book Clubs (Narratively)
Aimless Clicking (Seth Godin)
Overloaded: is There Simply Too Much Culture? (The Guardian)
In the L.A. of my dreams quirks and imperfections will be a part of the city’s charm (L.A. Times)
Today’s journal prompt comes from Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals. Her journal prompts saved me at the beginning of the pandemic when I was locked inside with my grief.
What are you reading or listening to this week? What have you created that wasn’t there before? Post your response in the comments below or tag me on Instagram @emilykathleenwrites