Beth Kephart's Blog, page 184

perfect day

Pure nothingness.  It's all I've wanted for a very long time, and today pure nothingness was mine.  Which is to say that I did not rush to the gym, because I'm still not capable of gym-ing.  Which is to say that the house was already clean, so that I did not further clean it.  Which is to say that I actually listened to the kind soul who wrote Friday with an assignment to say, "You have time, so don't rush through it over the weekend." Which is to say that it was me and my shelves full of books, most of the day.  Me and my books and magazines.  Me and my iPAD edition of the New York Times.  Me and other people's words, and the blare of the horse show music from down the road.  A slight, coaxed breeze.  A friend taking the time to write a note about something that meant a whole lot to me.  (Her endless generosity.  Her honest interest.  Her calm.)



I read Istanbul, by Orhan Pamuk, a book I had started reading months ago.  I read the Times.  I read The New Yorker and celebrated its review of Philadelphia's own newly relocated Barnes.  I read the first fifty pages of Imagine (and hope to read the rest quite soon).  I made a pile of all the other books I plan to read between now and Monday.



And sometimes I slept between pages, and sometimes I daydreamed, and never did I chastise myself for being lazy.  



And I wasn't sick this afternoon.  And I felt better than I've felt for what has been such a long time.



Perfect.  Day.

still alive and some scenes from the horse show

I've been spending more time than I'd like in doctor's offices lately, working my way back up to health.  The other day, the nurse taking my pulse explained (blithely) that anywhere from 60 to 100 was "an acceptable" pulse rate.  "If you're under 60, you're either a huge athlete or ...." she stopped, raised her eyebrows, gave me the "you know" shrug.



Two days later, my pulse was 52.



I'm neither a huge athlete (I don't think Zumba on occasion counts) nor, you know.  But here, above, is what quickens my pulse—the big beasts, the grand spectacle of the Devon Horse Show.  I have promised photographs.  These are a few snapped last night. And next time I go to the doctor, you watch:  I'll be pulsed right on up there with the rest of you.[image error]

SMALL DAMAGES, Starred Kirkus Review

The thing about these starred reviews is that you don't know who to thank.  I want desperately to thank the kind souls at Kirkus who had this to say about SMALL DAMAGES.  I am blessed.



From Kirkus:



 A young woman is forced into unexpected territory when she is packed off to a vividly imagined, shimmering Spanish countryside in order to conceal an unexpected pregnancy.



Provided by her mother with only the barest of details about a couple that wishes to adopt her baby, Kenzie finds herself an unofficial apprentice in the kitchen of the home of a successful bull breeder connected to the prospective adoptive parents˜ a world away from where the talented filmmaker expected to be following her high school graduation. In an introspective first-person narration, Kenzie's story effortlessly unfolds. Her initially strained relationship with terse Estela, the marvelous chef charged with her safekeeping, eventually melts into a mutual trust. Readers will sympathize deeply with Kenzie‚s emptiness over her father's death, which led the way to a loving but uncommitted relationship with her baby's father, a longtime friend. Parallel to Estela's history is a tale set against Franco's rule, which poignantly serves to help Kenzie sort through her numbed confusion. Characters are never simple in this gorgeous landscape so masterfully described by National Book Awardˆfinalist Kephart; fully engaging in their lives˜touched as they are by gypsies and bullfighters and the tragedy of war˜will require an audience that is willing to be swept up by unfettered romanticism.



Lovely and unusual˜at once epic and intimate. (Fiction. 13 & up)

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The Small Damages Book Trailer

... featuring the words of authors I love, the kindness of bloggers, my photographs of southern Spain, and my husband's deliberately rough Spanish guitar, for that is the kind of guitar my gypsy characters play.



It would mean so much to me if you shared this trailer with others.[image error]

the horses are back in town (and a small bit from THE HEART IS NOT A SIZE)

Those who have followed this blog for at least a year know that, come the end of May, I begin to spend at least a few hours most days at the Devon Horse Show, prowling around behind the scenes with my camera in hand.  My long-time love for this show (I first began to visit as a child) inspired many passages in THE HEART IS NOT A SIZE, a book about two teens whose best friendship is tested when they make their way to Juarez.  Before they get there, however, they head on down to the horse show.  I conveniently gave my protagonist, Georgia, a version of my house in which to live.  I transcribed my personal experience into Georgia's tale:

The next day I woke to the
quadruple clopping of hooves, the slamming and latching of a pick-up
truck.  Boots on asphalt.  I grabbed my glasses, sat up.  From my bedroom window I could see them
best—the long line of trailers that had arrived overnight, from California,
Connecticut, New Jersey, from every state that claimed a horse with the heart
or brawn to win.  The trailers were
nose to rear up and down my street—some of them posh as limousines, some with
room to spare for the polished carriages and sulkies that would be paraded
later that week at the fairgrounds two blocks north. 

The horses were
like kindergartners being let out of school—shuddering and tossing their tails
as they reverse-walked down the grated ramps.  Their eyes were big as purple summer plums, and all I wanted
to do right then was breathe the horses in, press my cheek against their
cheeks.  It was early, a Sunday; I
called Riley nonetheless.  The
horse show came to town only once each year, in May, and the show was a
Georgia-Riley tradition.

            “Riley.”
I whispered, so that my brothers couldn’t hear.  “They’ve come.”

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Book Bling

I am happily anticipating the Children's Publishing Conference, which will be held next Thursday in New York City at the Scholastic Headquarters.  I'll be carrying my Small Damages bling with me, which is to say postcards, which have (happily) just recently arrived.  (Whew!  Nothing like getting things in under the wire.)



This is the backside. 



Every time I am reminded that this book will be published on my son's birthday I smile.

worth watching: the Aaron Sorkin commencement speech

Thank you to Keris Stainton for pointing me toward this youtube rendition of Aaron Sorkin's Syracuse University commencement speech, which, watched a second time, is as good as it was the first time through.



Listen to the rhythms, the patterning returns, the wisdoms.  Listen to the honesty.  I loved this.

Sarno, Truth, Sorkin: the deeds are done

Two things happened this week:  My friend Melissa Sarno got married to a beautiful man (and since she is a very beautiful woman, this is a heaven-made match) and I (as of a few hours ago) finished the first full draft of HANDLING THE TRUTH.



This may seem like a random pairing, but it is not, for it is dear and wise and good Melissa who, with a bit of Facebook jesting one lazy day, delivered unto me this book's title.  She posted this "A Few Good Men" video snatch on my wall.  She dared me.  It was all over after that.  It seems especially fitting that these infamous movie lines were crafted by Aaron Sorkin, who gave the perfect commencement speech at my son's university two weekends ago. 



To purple (Melissa's favorite color).  To truth.  To intelligent jesting.  And (we shall never forget) to Aaron Sorkin. 



To sleeping in tomorrow.

remembering my mother on her birthday, with her own words

This is the last photograph I took of my mother.  Just days later she would enter the hospital for what would become an infinitely sad progression of diagnoses.  But here she is, driving with my son, on the day he got his car.  A game front-seat passenger, urging him on, and waving goodbye to me.



Today would have been my mother's birthday.  Today will always be my mother's birthday.  She was a writer, too, and she loved her city, conveyed that love to me.  In honor of her, I yield this blog to her words.  Happy Birthday, Mom.

Southwest Philadelphia was my growing-up place.  It was the kind of community I now tend
to think of as reminiscent of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town; there was a pervasive sense of social security intrinsic
to the very nature of that neighborhood. 
Stability was at the core of community life.  It was enshrined in churches and schools, as well as
enduring friends whose longevity even now captures the essence of youthful
memories.

            There
was the coveted childhood occupation of being personally selected to run an
errand to the corner grocery store. 
Such an expedition not only netted pocket change, often enough to cover
tickets to a Saturday matinee at the Lindy Theater, but also allowed one the
no-cost distraction of a pastime known as “dropping in,” a typically
Philadelphian pleasure rarely tapped by suburbanites.

            During
World War II, families on our street were urged to develop the empty field
behind our homes into what eventually became known fondly as “Victory gardens.”  This gave my parents the opportunity to
become involved in a project which was not only rewarding but fun.

            Although
necessarily molded from the same patterns, rowhouses did not lack
individualized interpretation. 
People discovered ways of personalizing their homes, and streets were
distinguished by the results. 
After I was married and moved away, our young children, having become
accustomed to the split-level landscape in which they lived, always made a game
of finding Grandmom’s house when we visited my parents.  Its boldly painted green sunburst door
became a symbol of the loving welcome they always received there.

            Philadelphia,
profoundly and affectionately, is a city of neighborhoods, and remnants of
neighborhood memories rightly remain to soothe as well as to structure.  An occasional, cogent reminder of their
unifying significance casts a welcome, prismatic glow on memories past.




            From
“Old neighborhoods revisited,” The
Philadelphia Inquirer, May 26, 1981

one more chapter to write

it feels like this.