of Books and Cheese...

Lent begins tomorrow. Probably you know that and have already been considering your own Lenten discipline.

I love Lent. I've mentioned that before, haven't I? That along with my whole great affection for the cycle of the church calendar. Tonight we won't be able to make it to church for Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper because we'll be worshipping the gods of ballet and lacrosse, but I'm serving Brinner for dinner tonight. Will wants me to point out here that saying "I'm serving Brinner for dinner" is an unnecessary repetition and I can just say we are having "Brinner."

Once I had a priest who when I told him I loved Lent, said, "Please remember, we're an Easter people.". I see his point but there's still something I find terribly comfortable and enjoyable about the weeks of Lent preceding the celebration. Probably because I like over thinking things and Lent is a lovely time for enforced reflection.

I typically give a great deal of thought to my Lenten discipline. I'm on the give something up and add something in plan. This year, I have great intentions of reading the Forward Movement Day by Day Daily Meditation. This is something I should probably do every day but never seems to happen. I'm bookmarking it on my iPad today. No excuses.

In the "give up" category, I'm giving up cheese this year. That's right, cheese. Mary Rollins is too. I've told a few people about our Lenten sacrifice (and well now the entire world since I'm blogging about it) some people have laughed but I think it'll be the hardest thing I've ever given up. I love cheese. I've never met a cheese I didn't like. The Reverend Janey who knows we have a cheese drawer in our refrigerator seems to appreciate the depth and meaning of this sacrifice. I know that every time I forgo cheese, I will be reminded of the reason I observe Lent.

One year I gave up fiction for Lent. A friend of mine questioned me during that Lenten period about “giving up books.” I guess for her it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. For me though, I knew how many quiet spaces I filled up with good stories and that reading is my drug of choice that takes me away from my own life and into other fascinating worlds. . During my Lent without fiction, times that I would have filled with audiobooks -- my morning runs and long car rides especially, meant lots more time in reflection and prayer, listening to silence and listening to music. I was thrilled to have my books back on Easter.  Who knows, I might do it again some Lent that I need it.

Incidentally, I have another friend who always observes a Lenten practice but she will never talk about it. I was thinking about her as I wrote my blog post today and I almost didn't write this post, however, I decided that when I do talk (or blog) about how I observe Lent it's not intended in either a mournful or boastful way.  It's really just about exploring in a community/with friends what we believe and I think it reveals a little more about who we are to other people. For example, I am a cheese-loving, book addict.

So, will you practice a Lenten discipline this year?

On Sunday night, we had fondue farewell to cheese...

Attention Ballet Fans...

Lexington Ballet's school company dancers in their upcoming show, Ion Dance, at the studio in Lexington, Ky., Saturday, February 4, 2012. Photo by Matt Goins 13432 MATT GOINS — ©2012 Herald-Leader

Or, just Mary Rollins fans!  Guess who was on the cover of the Lexington Herald-Leader Weekender section today!  None other than our favorite dancer:  Mary Rollins Mathews and company.  Click here if you'd like to read the Herald-Leader's story of how white girls interpret a broad range of African-American music through classical ballet.  Performances are tonight and tomorrow at the Lyric Theater. 

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

My own weird sisters (and me)...Cordy, Bean, and Rose.
No wait, that's not right: Gwenda, Lynda and Cindy
(okay so isn't it weird that really
only my family calls me Gwenda AND
I felt the need to put that in my photo caption because I'm
with my sisters??) .

New book I love: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown. Maybe I loved this book because it’s about three sisters and I’m one of three sisters. Maybe I loved this book because they’re Episcopalians and I’m an Episcopalian. Maybe it’s because this family defines itself by its love of literature and, well the Williamsons are a book family. When all other conversation fails, we seem to always come back to our favorite books. Oh, and that the setting is in a small college town and their lives seem to revolve around a higher education calendar. No, that doesn’t hit close to home or that caring for aging parents is part of the theme.


The Weird Sisters is now my favorite book of 2012. Written by Eleanor Brown, the Weird Sisters is a bewitching tale of three sisters who have grown up with a Shakespearian scholar father and a loving but distracted mother. The sisters each named for one of Shakespeare’s characters, now grown, have all returned to the family home ostensibly to care for their mother who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. In truth though, her illness is really a much needed excuse to escape from their own lives. Their return home is punctuated with saucy sarcasm and mysterious quotes from the Bard.

Like the Andreas sisters of The Weird Sisters, I also have strong feelings about having returned to my home town.  I often find myself apologizing for living in Lexington where I was born and raised. Sometimes I think my life should have been, somehow bigger, that I should have landed far from home and be living a glamorous life, riding the subway to work, sitting in a beach house somewhere writing my novel as I stare out over the waves with my dog’s head on my foot. And yet, I find myself here in the Bluegrass, living where I can step out my front door and hear my high school band practicing and my children are attending the same cotillions that I went to and have teachers with whom I once went to school. To me, it sounds small and yet, my life doesn’t feel that way. And even on the bad days when I’ve argued with someone or had a stressful day of real estate, it still feels big and rich and full of good things. To me, the landscape of horse farms and hills isn’t any less beautiful for my having seen it a thousand times before and the opportunity to make a difference in the world, here, is no less important than the difference I could make in another place. It’s really all about peace, isn’t it?  And, yet, I always have to clarify to people that I "chose" to move back home, that I "could" have lived somewhere else. 

The Weird Sisters isn’t The Life of Pi or even The Help in becoming a literary classic that defines an age or a culture but, I highly recommend it as a great read. If you ever had a sister, ever moved away from home, ever moved back home, ever read any Shakespeare or if you just like a really good book, put The Weird Sisters on your what to read next list. You might find, like I did, that it leaves you with a lot to ponder about growing up and where you fit into your family.

By the way, I was compensated for this review as part of BlogHer Book Club, however the opinions expressed are entirely my own. Just as they should and always will be…

Happy reading!