Beth Kephart's Blog, page 326

Nieces, Nephews

We called our mother's brother Uncle Danny, and he meant the world to me. He was tall and a bit Hollywood-esque, a beachcomber and an antiques expert, a maker of the most exquisite Christmas ornaments and a wit who held his smile behind his hand. He was someone who brought us the craziest presents wrapped in used paper bags, and yet it was those gifts that I waited for each year, for my gifts were always crazy in the way that I once was crazy, and sometimes, too, they were dear. Pearl earr...

Cat Sweet

We drove the nearly three hours to my brother's house yesterday and settled in for a terrific day of Peru by proxy (what glorious photos they have of their trip there), Oui resort battles (I swear I beat my nephew at least one time; I swear I did), and a meal prepared by a gourmet chef (that would be my sister-in-law).

With us at all times were the family's three adopted cats (and by adopted, I mean rescued), who did not seem to mind our intrusion.

Asylum and Looking In: Two Glorious Adult Picture Books

This morning I'm celebrating two extraordinary picture books.

The first, featuring photographs by the exquisite Christopher Payne and an introduction by Oliver Sacks, is called Asylum. Presenting some of the most moving images I have ever seen, this book takes us on a tour of the institutions that have served as home to this country's mentally ill. There are no people in these photographs—just a wall of toothbrushes, say, or canisters of ashes, or beleaguered ward hallways lit up by sun. Ta...

Dancing with Natalie Merchant in the Morning Sun

and wondering where she's gone, whether she's by the river of which she once sung. If she is, I will find her.

well I will go to the river
from time to time
wander over
these crazy days in my mind
watch the river flow
where the willow branches grow
by the cool rolling waters
moving gracefully and slow

—Natalie Merchant,
"Where I Go"

Blue Sky, The Piano Teacher, and The Kid Gets a Raise

It is hard, sometimes, to remember just how blue skies can be when you are hunkered down in the midst of a storm. But the skies bloom blue today, and I have no major meal to prepare, and so I have been reading The Piano Teacher, a book that, if at times feels rushed (surprising grammatical miscues, dialogue pitching toward explication, secondary characters that do not always find dimension), has much to teach about life in Hong Kong during World War II and is often punched through with vivid...

Crow slipping through wet sky

The snow has been dissolved by a rain that will not stop. The rivers and creeks are high on their banks. There was this crow in a tree out front. I caught it in mid-slide.

The Hands of He and Him

One is an artist who spent yesterday seaming together fabric that he designed with the software called Maya (a virtual process, keyboard and screen, undertaken in a workshop that seems far away during winter rain).

The other is an advertising major who sat with me on a couch on that rainy Christmas day looking at a book of iconic ads and explaining the theories behind them, the jokes at play, the double or triple entendres. "You're incredibly good at this," I said, after listening to him talk...

Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel/Thoughts

So of course I'd read The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls) and of course, therefore, I expected so much from Half Broke Horses, the "true-life novel" that serves as prequel (of sorts) to Walls' bestselling memoir. It's the story of Walls' maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith—a plain speaking (oh, is she plain speaking) woman of hardscrabble beginnings who is breaking horses by the age of six and riding 500 miles, alone, across the desert, by the age of 15, and sleeping on the floor of the sc...

Christmas Day

"Dad," I'd said, the day before, "do you ever see owls?" (We are the bird watchers in the family, by which I mean, we watch for birds.)

"Just once," he said, "that I remember."

Then, yesterday, I took my son to Valley Forge National Park, where my mother is buried beneath the stone that my father and I designed. She is buried in a place that my father visits everyday, beneath the chiming of bells. I went, as I always do, with something to leave behind—this time a miniature instrument, in memo...

My Friends, Travel Wise

As I lit these candles yesterday, I allowed myself a moment to reflect on the many and varied emails that have come in these past few days. There's Mike Y. sending Where in the World updates from his trip to China and Hong Kong (snake brandy, he says, and three-story tall Buddhas). There's B.B., with reports of "decadence" in Turkey. R.R.R. is in the Bahamas, wearing colored strings around her ankles, and Jerry S. is at home—thinking, always thinking, a father to sons. J.P. is planning fo...