Kristopher Jansma's Blog, page 8

Here I am reading from Why We Came to the City at Brookline...

Here I am reading from Why We Came to the City at Brookline Booksmith! Thanks to WGBH Boston for the excellent recording!

This is more a comment or rather a compliment for your story in Real Simple magazine March 2016. I'm a nurse in a surgical critical care unit. We deal with tragedy on daily basis. It is such a conflict for family members when they have to deal with rea

Thanks for writing… I have heard similar things from dozens of readers now. It is so great to know that my words can make them feel less alone in what they have gone through, the same way that messages like this one remind me that I was never alone in it either. And thanks as well for the great work you do! Thankfully my sister and I had dozens of terrific nurses like you on our side!

This is more a comment or rather a compliment for your story in Real Simple magazine March 2016. I'm a nurse in a surgical critical care unit. We deal with tragedy on daily basis. It is such a conflict for family members when they have to deal with rea

Thanks for writing… I have heard similar things from dozens of readers now. It is so great to know that my words can make them feel less alone in what they have gone through, the same way that messages like this one remind me that I was never alone in it either. And thanks as well for the great work you do! Thankfully my sister and I had dozens of terrific nurses like you on our side!

This is more a comment or rather a compliment for your story in Real Simple magazine March 2016. I'm a nurse in a surgical critical care unit. We deal with tragedy on daily basis. It is such a conflict for family members when they have to deal with rea

Thanks for writing… I have heard similar things from dozens of readers now. It is so great to know that my words can make them feel less alone in what they have gone through, the same way that messages like this one remind me that I was never alone in it either. And thanks as well for the great work you do! Thankfully my sister and I had dozens of terrific nurses like you on our side!

This is more a comment or rather a compliment for your story in Real Simple magazine March 2016. I'm a nurse in a surgical critical care unit. We deal with tragedy on daily basis. It is such a conflict for family members when they have to deal with rea

Thanks for writing… I have heard similar things from dozens of readers now. It is so great to know that my words can make them feel less alone in what they have gone through, the same way that messages like this one remind me that I was never alone in it either. And thanks as well for the great work you do! Thankfully my sister and I had dozens of terrific nurses like you on our side!

This is more a comment or rather a compliment for your story in Real Simple magazine March 2016. I'm a nurse in a surgical critical care unit. We deal with tragedy on daily basis. It is such a conflict for family members when they have to deal with rea

Thanks for writing… I have heard similar things from dozens of readers now. It is so great to know that my words can make them feel less alone in what they have gone through, the same way that messages like this one remind me that I was never alone in it either. And thanks as well for the great work you do! Thankfully my sister and I had dozens of terrific nurses like you on our side!

lastnightsreading:Kristopher Jansma at Community Bookstore,...

lastnightsreading:

Kristopher Jansma at Community Bookstore, 2/16/16

The Sartorial Side of GriefGrieving Victorians in...

The Sartorial Side of Grief

Grieving Victorians in upper-middle-class society once wore mourning clothes as a public demonstration of their private losses. The rules on what to wear, and for how long, depended on the relationship of the griever to the grieved. A spouse or a sibling rated higher than a third cousin or a workplace “connection.” This determination was so complex that popular etiquette guides such as “Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management” contained lengthy charts that the grief-stricken might consult.

These rules were primarily for women of the age. Men got off light, with black gloves, cravats and bands on their hats and arms. But a woman who was grieving, let’s say, a departed husband, would begin in “full mourning,” meaning that for “1 year and 1 day” she would wear “bombazine covered with crepe; widow’s cap, lawn cuffs, collars.”

All black, all the time, naturally. Letters were sent on special black-bordered paper and envelopes sealed with black wax.

After the allotted 366 days, she’d move into “second mourning,” a six-month phase that involved slightly less crepe. That would be followed by six more months of “ordinary mourning,” reintroducing fabrics of silk and wool. During the final months, jewelry and ribbons again became permissible, as a segue into the ultimate six months of “half mourning,” when colors such as gray, lavender and mauve would gradually re-enter the wardrobe.

I was fond of showing this chart to my literature students when we reached the Victorian section of the syllabus, hoping to impress upon them the inflexible, even oppressive, social order to which a 6-year-old girl like Alice in “Alice in Wonderland” would soon be expected to conform, as well as the commonplace nature of death and grieving in a society where illness and wars took people, especially the young, at a regular clip.

But after my younger sister, Jennifer, died from cancer at the age of 22, I came to see things differently.

Read More At Salon.com

“The universe has no center. No center, no limits. We live in the midst of...

“The universe has no center. No center, no limits. We live in the midst of infinity.” - #WhyWeCameToTheCity

A photo posted by Viking Books (@vikingbooks) on Feb 21, 2016 at 2:39pm PST

“Live haphazardly”- Why We Came to the City

“Live haphazardly”

- Why We Came to the City