My Best Books of 2023

 The delightful and as yet unread pile from our annual Jolabokaflod of 2023

I can hardly wait to dig my eyes into these.

I'm only listing the best of my ratings (5/5)

Many I tossed- life is short, no more time for uninteresting (to me) reading. My list is not in any particular order.

Many were enjoyable (4/5 or 3/5) but not listed. Reading is one of my greatest pleasures.

• Colours and Years - Margit Kaffka
• Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garman
• Smith to America - Imani Parry
• A Girl's Story - Annie Ernaux
• The Diamond Eye - Kate Quinn
• Happening - Annie Ernaux
• Ask Again Yes - Mary Beth Keane
• Damon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
• The Latecomer - Jean Hanff Karelitz
• Fayne - Anne Marie MacDonald
• Tom Lake - Ann Patchett
• Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent
• Old God's time - Sebastian Barry
• The Librarianist - Patrick De Witt
• The Echo Chamber - John Boyne
• Playing Nice - J.P. Delaney
• Burst - Mary Otis

Thanks to all of you blogmates for your recommendations also.

AND in 2024

Happy

And a PS to the Etc

 Dear Joared and DKZ

Your blogs kick me out after I comment which is very frustrating. Can't figure out why this is so. Can you figure it out? Other blogs do not do this, much to my relief as I could become quite paranoid.

I've been tossing books lately with a DNF* note in my book journal. I resent the time I spend on them before this act as I could have been reading a good book. Know what I mean?

I'm into fiction in a big way. I like the escapism provided by a good author. Good in my estimation, maybe not in yours.

I persist sometimes when the books are both gifts and best sellers as these last two were.

But finally I just threw in the towel on both and picked up my emergency Michael Connolly who never lets me down when Bosch is involved. And PS I can't abide the actor portraying him in the Bosch series on Prime.

I will update my 2021 Books Read Page soonest as I have enjoyed some smashing reads this year.

And I will mention now, albeit with connection to reading, that my right eye, one day after the hospital procedures has gone semi-blind. A grey fog has descended. What next, I think, sitting on my pity pot. I have an appointment with my eye guy first thing Tuesday and we'll take it from there. 

But at least the left eye is behaving itself. And there have been no alarming calls after two biopsies on last Tuesday.

And, I always think, and I pass this on, who would trade places with me right now? So many worse off, so many in desperation and pain. So many, and I know one dear one, who are facing their own mortality.

*Did Not Finish.

Thoughts

A sunset from my window the other night.

it seems endless doesn't it? I feel like I'm fraying around the edges. This heat isn't helping. This humidity is frying my brain out. Often close to 100%. Last night it was 80%.

However it should settle down by the weekend.

I heard from a client yesterday, overjoyed my edited piece for him had been accepted by a literary magazine. I love when others are so ecstatic when their creative energies receive acknowledgement. He credits me with bringing his pieces to life.

I am still working on this new novel. Distracted by other stuff at the moment - tax work mainly.

One good thing about the pandemic is there's so little to spend money on. Seriously. I'm not much of a shopper to begin with, so there's that. I was debating a 2021 planner (joke - I'd die without a planner).

I got these on line. I feel very rich in reading material, as the library also had a little pile for me on the safe distancing shelf. I will update my reading list shortly, I've read some spectacular books in the last while.

Grandgirl gifted me with HBO the other day so I watched Clemency last night.



To me, slaughtering murderers is barbaric, appealing to the basest of our instincts. Cheaper than life long incarceration of course. And just how many have been falsely convicted?

And predictions of huge mental illness fallout post pandemic. So many are not "dealing" well with it at all. No inner lives so to speak. They are most at risk.

Currently reading The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donohue . A tour de force of a book, taking place in Dublin during the confluence of WW1, the Easter Rising, and the Spanish flu pandemic which was wiping out the planet, much like today's Covid. I'm halfway through and it's gripping.

How are you all coping out there in the bigger world?

Blog Jam

I haven't moved to New Blogger as the reports I'm hearing from the kind keyboards of other bloggers are not favourable. If more steps are added to the process I don't see where the advantage would lie. Your comments are very welcome with either yays or nays for the new platform.

I did something major for me, which will probably be petty for others. But I ordered, on line, a seat for my shower. This is part of the journey of my acceptance of disability. It arrived ready to be assembled with very clear instructions and nuts and bolts and warnings about making it secure. Well, I sat down and assembled it. And installed it in my shower/bath. I mentioned to Daughter what I had done and she said: It's really hard to wash long hair like yours, you had a choice, cut all your hair off or make washing it more comfortable. I'm the only old woman I know with long hair. We all have our oddities and peculiarities.

After a long sojourn from him, I picked up a Michael Connolly Bosch from our community library and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy his writing and plot and character development. I see that they have made a streaming series out of his books on Amazon, but I'm not sure I want to see it. I have a visual image in my head of how he is and don't want that destroyed. Sometimes we need books that are fairly frivolous and utterly distracting. I will try and sort out the problem with my page reading lists as they're not working on here for some reason.

I am 34 years sober today which is really nearly half my life without the "divil drink". I think I would be long dead if I had continued my love affair with booze. I am so very grateful that all those years ago I found a better way of living my life without the self-destruct button.

Photograph is of Woody, a pink elephant, whom I treasure, given to me by Younger Daughter 33 years ago.

Joy

I take politics far too seriously. I think I've learned my lesson. My detachment from all social media is complete. I will only fight now, post-covid, for senior fairness and bringing the many of us living in Canada to the official poverty line. I know. Small potatoes but essential for survival here where many elders make $5,000 per annum below it.

So now. I can't get over myself. I am experiencing gallons of joy for the last four days and I hope I'm not jinxing this. I am reading a marvelous book called H is for Hawk by Helen Mac Donald

The rating isn't that great on Goodreads but I get why it wouldn't be to everyone's taste. It is a memoir by a woman whose father has just died and she gets into the business of training a groshawk, one of the most challenging of all falconry enterprises. I am learning so much from it, another underbelly of life unexplored. There are so many.

I have 21,000 words written on the new novel and it is taking me to extraordinary places. I am living and breathing it every day. I am also busy on the blanket I designed and have about 1/3 complete.

You will note the completed lighthouse, the partially finished house and of course the familiar diamonds of vines and cables of Irish knitting. On the left you will see a cream and black cord (it will wind up a marble-like frame for the work) which I knit away at as it is mindless when I attend Zoom meetings. The main body requires concentration due to its complexity.

You're the first in the whole world to see it as I'm not posting it elsewhere.

It brings me enormous joy. Plus I keep a notepad by me and jot notes for the book as they occur to me.

I think it's the first time in my life I feel undistracted as I write with no other responsibilities apart from feeding myself and basic maintenance.

Hence joy.

Blog Jam

I am forcing myself to not give in to exhaustion today for it is stealing my life away. These beta blockers! But enough of that. I just put on the Brandenburg Concertos and have celebrated the fact that much reading has taken place so far this year.

I was quite taken with May Sarton's "The Reckoning" which is about a 60 year old woman finding she has terminal cancer. And has to prioritize the life business of the few months which are left to her.

Some rather wonderful lines:

"Her attachments now are only to those who serve her". When she realizes she doesn't have the energy for family drama or for those fluttering around her or taking her much needed energy.

"The dead are not asleep...for sleep is the domain of the living."

And how gorgeous is this:

"It was pure bliss to stretch out on the sofa then with a Haydn quartet pouring its vitality into her like wine."

"Little by little, we are more peopled by the dead."

It was a slow and wonderful read and I so enjoyed her wanting to be solitary and "desiring a lot of time to think".

I have lent it to Daughter but once she brings it back I would be more than willing to send it to one of you out there. It truly is a marvelous read (published in 1979) and way ahead of its time in many of its concepts. I will hold a raffle if there are a few requests.

As the Lodge Lurches
A rather lovely gentleman, Bill, was taken quite quickly. He was 81 and when I did my laundry on Sunday mornings would come up to the second floor community room (it's a gorgeous gallery overlooking the main community room and outside gardens and golf course) and sit there and chat to me as I went back and forth. I was surprised he was 81 as he had the energy and vigour of someone much younger. He was very good to our common cleaning lady and helped her with her cars and hospital visits. He just had a knee replacement which was followed quickly with his ulcer acting up. That turned out to be terminal stomach cancer and he died within a week of being in palliative care. So 10 days between diagnosis and death. It is such a shame his cancer wasn't "caught" before his extremely painful (and how unnecessary!) knee replacement.
Photos!
This is the outside wee area of my apartment. The artwork on the walls is mine. Instead of wreaths on my door I have yarn and needles. The two chairs are in one of the many such nooks and cubbies around the building for private talks or just sitting amongst the fine plants.

Blog Jam

Living in a seniors' building, death knocks on doors periodically and is a reminder of our own mortality. One of The Ladies died on Friday night. She was having trouble sleeping as her sister was sick and she was worried. The doctor refused to give her sleeping pills as he was afraid she would get up in the middle of the night and fall. Her sister died on Wednesday night and then Gillian (a pseudonym) died on Friday night. They were both in their nineties. I know, a great age. But the judgement of the doctor I do question in not prescribing her something, anything, to help her sleep as she was most distressed.

Needless to mention a pall descends on the building when this happens, we are all quite subdued and reflective.

I realized in meditation this morning that I just don't have enough hours in the day to Get Things Done. The things I want to do, the things that bring me joy.

I have a great idea for the CBC memoir contest and have been scribbling notes everywhere I go and on bits of napkins, etc. More on that at some later date. But for now, I am laughing at some of my memories which start out as being sad but turn a corner. A lot more work is needed.

Then my niece showed me this one needle method of knitting socks, yes! including turning the heel!, and I thought this old dog can learn a new trick if she works really hard at it. And yes, dropping stitches as I went, nevertheless I persisted, as I am wont to do with most new skills. And this started to climb up the needle.

I am reading this rather wonderful book: A Gentleman in Moscow and I can't get enough of it. I have to pace myself because of all the other stuff going on. I think it was Anne Brew, a frequent commenter here, who recommended it. Thank you!

Next week there is something on every day which necessitates putting on my nice face and leaving my nest. I shouldn't complain as the alternative is where Gillian is. I am glad she kept going, with her erect, proud, tall, military carriage, right to the very end.

Dis and Dat

I updated my book list for those interested - and I am gratified some of you enjoy it.
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As to Canadian Netflix, it seems to have run out of steam. Deliberately, I don's subscribe to any other streaming service in case it would get in the way of my real life. So I decided to embrace my local library yet again and I'm finding all sorts of goodies which only take up temporary space in my abode. For instance, I just received "Brideshead Revisited" which I haven't seen in a dog's age and am looking forward to revisiting (ha). This is the 1981 version which I remember enjoying. I didn't see the remake and have no desire to.
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And yay Ireland on the referendum and all who sailed in to cast votes from everywhere around the planet. I haven't been so emotionally swept up in a vote in a long, long time. Remembering all who suffered and died because of the barbaric nature of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland.


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I had one of those "real" dreams last night. Missing Daughter had returned to the fold. Engineered by First Daughter. All terribly complicated but I was holding her and she was sobbing her heart out and wouldn't let me go. I woke up smiling and not crying which surprised me. But I carried a little oomph of hope. I have a major milestone birthday coming up and maybe this is playing some part in this. But I do know about expectations being folly. So no fatted calf or parades in anticipation.
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In the past week, I banjaxed my left arm from the fingertips to the shoulder. The pain was brutal and I needed a brace. This happens periodically and we can't seem to source the cause. It feels like a repetitive sprain injury but to cover such a vast area? I've checked seating, desk height, etc. But I'm baffled. A few months ago when it happened I went for all sorts of tests and nothing was found.

Sometimes

Sometimes it's blowing the budget on $6 lavender candles.

Sometimes it's the view from my front deck (above) taken yesterday.

Sometimes it's the loaf of partridgeberry bread left in the front seat of my car (text: don't sit into your car without checking the front seat!)

Sometimes it's an engrossing read like "The Green Road" by Anne Enright with a line such as this which lifts me right out:

P70: "Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Everyone dies. It's the timing that matters. The first and second of it. The order in which we go."

Sublime.

Blog Jam

Lovely days out here on the Edge of the Atlantic. Big moons, big suns. Green grass. Denim water.

What's there to whine about?

There's always something. My legs are still causing me difficulty even with the switch in meds. I'm not up to much, about 2k, and the pain is something I have to meditate through. I keep at it - Elder dog and I, she's very slow which suits me.

I talked to Ansa's groomer a few days ago. She's going to take her in as a solo with no other dogs to make the occasion as free from stress as possible. Sixteen years old (over 100 in human terms) is pretty ancient and deserving of slow pampering. I was reluctant to add the burden of clipping and shampooing to her, BUT she needs it.

I've been editing up a storm on this anthology we're producing at the end of Workshop 1. Some really good writing.

PGs are trickling in. I get a lot of last minute PGs which I decline as it is too stressful given an hour or so's notice. But I'm looking forward to a visual artist from Quebec coming on Monday and Larry The Gambler is still here and we had a lovely chat tonight.

I feel I could bore for Canada right now. I could go off on a political rant but I don't have the energy. I want to curl around the end of my current book "Girl on a Train" - anyone else read it?

And oh, I did my volunteer stint at the library today and while there I designed and made this dishcloth. Can you tell what it's meant to be?

I Take Notes

I take notes on books I read. I wish I had done so even as a child. But. Notes trigger ideas in me, validate feelings often unexpressed or ephemeral. Answer the whys. Illuminate the squelched thoughts. Give me hope, yank me from despair.

For example:

I love this thought from P170 of The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout:

"And she learned - freshly, searchingly - of the privacy of sorrow. It was as though she had been escorted through a door into some large and private club that she had not even known existed. Women who miscarried."

Anyone who has miscarried (myself, my daughter, some friends)finds this reflection resonates. Deeply and profoundly.

It's a private club. Lifetime membership.

A Fresh Eye

For this reader, it is sometimes important to re-read books that I originally read forty years ago. That is the case with my current read: "Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Willa Cather, written in 1926.

It basically tells the story of two Catholic priests converting the "natives" and "aboriginals" to Catholicism in New Mexico and Texas in the 1850s. The descriptions of landscape and culture are superb.

But it is the recounting of the white man's ways that take my breath away, particularly in the light of today where we are somewhat more aware of what we do and the evidence of our never-ending destruction of land, sea and water is far more deleterious than it ever was back then.

"...it was the white man's way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a little (at least to leave some mark or memorial of his sojourn), it was the Indian's way to pass through a country without disturbing anything; to pass and leave no trace, like fish through water, or birds through the air."

Also, our sense of "decoration" compare unfavourably to aboriginals wherein they contented themselves with decorating only their bodies:

"....upon their blankets and belts and ceremonial robes they lavished this skill and pains. But their conception of decoration did not extend to the landscape. They seemed to have none of the European's desire to 'master' nature to arrange and re-create. They spent their ingenuity in the other direction; in accommodating themselves to the scene in which they found themselves. This was not so much from indolence, the Bishop thought, as from an inherited caution and respect."

I wish I had taken notes back then on books I read as I've done for the last five-six years. But again, with two small children and a full time job, I'm consistently amazed at how much I did read back then.

A journey of self-education, never regretted.

30 Days - Day 20

I put this picture here because I love it.

This daily writing commitment is good discipline.

Some days I can't find the words for here, or feel the words are too depressing.

I was pondering on what holds us together. Us. Meaning us average humans. One of those precious sayings hangs in the hallway inside my head all the time: "Never compare my insides with your outsides" and that is so true. At my age I know what your outsides can hide. As mine do when I'm superficially with you. Barely held together on some days while hanging out the happy shingle for others to see.

I just finished reading "Lila" by Marilynne Robinson. And as good books do it got me thinking: mainly of my major character in my last novel. And I'd never addressed her loneliness, often unidentified in people until its removal. Excellent writing can do that: it can get me reflecting on other times, other circumstances, and on my fictional characters. In this case her vacuum. A vacuum that can exist even when surrounded by those who love us. The vacuum which we all try to fill even when we can't name that vacuum.

Am I making any sense? A good editor has read this novel and couldn't connect with my protagonist and couldn't tell me why, only that there was something missing. And now I know what it is, I think. I'm never finished with my characters, they are as real to me as if they walk beside me.

It's May 3rd and the fire is going and I'm still in my PJs and that feels decadent enough for this old lady right now.

Blending Reality and Fiction.

I read. I read a lot. I always have. I gain so much from reading. Insight into the lives of others. Insight into the minds of writers. Massive escapism. Understanding. Being understood.

Some have it that to be a good writer one needs to be a voracious reader. My jury is out on that one. I would like to hear the other side of that argument. As a voracious reader and voracious writer I link the two processes. But how I would I know? I've always read. Since I was four, thank you Daddy.

In mid-July I finished a large tome: "The Novel" by James Michener.

And he put into words something I'd been mulling about for a while.

P4:

As so often happens with writers, my imaginary terrain had become more real to me than the physical one that surrounded me.

I have exactly that feeling with one of my unpublished (but complete) books. When I am back in the town in Ireland I write about (but disguise)I see my own imaginary characters on the roads and in the houses and churches.

I know these people.

They walk with me.

Mortifying Metaphors.

I finished this book. Yeah, I had quoted it in a blog post. But it was not in the way of a recommendation for any of you readers out there.

For the book was a slog. Normally, I shove such books aside. Donate them half-read to the thrift shop. I don't know why I kept going. It was 562 pages of my life I'll never get back.

One of the reasons was to see how many appalling metaphors the author could cram into those 562 pages. Did I mention there were 562 pages? Oh yeah, sorry, three times now.

Samples, just a few out of hundreds ~

When a fellow's hair lifts off his forehead:

"It settled back to his temples like roosting doves."

On a small sound from someone:

"Like the wheeze in the chest of an asthmatic, or the faint whimper of a small creature dying at the side of the road."

"The inquiry team were starting to dissipate their energies fruitlessly, like men urinating into a strong wind."

Reflecting on a picture of a six year old girl:

"Fair hair cut raggedly across her forehead and a selection of teeth and gaps like a half-demolished wall."

"Tears crawled over his skin, like tiny slugs, slow and painful."

Apart from these, there were also times when metaphors were needed as in two sets of parents with murdered daughters not reacting to the loss and horror. At all. In fact, one couple doesn't bother to come back from their vacation. A face etched in grief at the death, a small sob over the casket? Not at all. No funerals even mentioned.

And the resolution at the end was so forced along with the perpetrator being signalled from Page 1 or 2.

Oh, boy. Someone should have told Mr. Booth that appalling metaphors takes a reader right out of the story as she contemplates those slug-like tears and teeth like a wall or a pile of men urinating into the wind, while her mind frets over the conundrum of that chilly pair of non-grieving parents.

Mulling

Our evening walk

Mulling: Verb

1.Think about (a fact, proposal, or request) deeply and at length: "she began to mull over the various possibilities".

To write well I do believe we have to read well. I was struggling with a short story I wrote that I like very much. For one it's based on truth but for two I have a narrator that just isn't sitting right with me. The story's in the third person and he is an old, wise man with some physical deformities (oddly proportioned body, very short with a large head)that I am extremely fond of. I know, for literati - "of whom I'm extremely fond" sounds clunky and snobbish, so hey, artistic licence, y'all.

He collects stories, and people trust him with their deepest secrets. I've written many stories featuring this wonderful old man but this particular one was driving me crazy. I put it away about six months ago, still unresolved.

I was reading a story out of an anthology yesterday. It was a great story up to a point and then it all fell down as the writer couldn't extricate the narrator and the protaganist from each other. The end of it was a mess. I read it four or five times and it was still a mess. Like the writer gave up and said, I did really well for 90% of this and now I'm tired, so stop bothering me.

I was out with the dog this evening and I was transfixed by the slapping of the incoming tide on the stones. My mind soared off. I was a child again listening to my grandfather who had wonderful stories and songs. "Come here to me, a leanbh," he'd say, "an sceal eile." (child, another story). I don't know how long I stood there but it was long enough for the dog to throw herself on my feet and whimper. But, suddenly, I knew where that writer had gone wrong and QED where I'd gone wrong too by not giving my beloved storyteller, Chester, his very own voice.

It's odd that. How we can think reading and walking and playing with the dog can be pastimes, fun things, but on another level, almost subconsciously, the mind can be opened up anew and a very old ball of knotted wool can be untangled.

Just like that.

The Path Untravelled

I read a lot. For pleasure mainly. But I am so struck by passages from different books that I write them down. And reflect on them. Allowing them to percolate and take hold. I am currently reading The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard. I adored her Transit of Venus so much I gifted it to several friends who felt as I did.

Her The Great Fire is about a post WW2 world.

Examples, Page 6:

"In the wake of so much death, the necessity to assemble life became both urgent and oppressive."

Page 102:

"Dignitary is a one word oxymoron."

And several times in the book:

"When we're indecisive, the wishes of others gain."

I was struck by that phrase as I read it again this morning. It's clear to me that many times in my life I was indecisive. Afraid. Not pro-active.

Which got me to thinking of what makes us decisive? At what point do we let our own children, for instance, make their own decisions about their lives?

My father made many decisions for me, my career for one. I had wanted to be a writer from the first moment I set pencil to paper. His decision not to allow me to pursue this (in those days it was considered far too radical in the Ireland I grew up in and what would the neighbours say?)so I crunched numbers. Like he did. Like most of my siblings did in their own ways. Safe and secure. Education in those days being so wasted on a woman who would throw it all away on marriage and babies anyway which was the life Gawd intended for her, their being no greater glory for a mere woman - apart from being The Bride of a Polygamous Christ.

I mean my life has worked out, don't get me wrong, and I've lived long enough to explore that part of me that was so successfully and complicitly squelched, once the rest of my life's responsibilities were managed or put to rest.

My thought this morning was: What if I had been decisive way back then, and stood up to him (a daunting, brave act it would be even now, if he had lived)and declared : "My mind is made up. I won't be anything else but a writer!"

The Long House

This book I just read?

Well, it wasn't a very good book, characters wandered in and out without much rhyme or reason. It was written by a Quebec author, an international best-seller and award winner, highly recommended, but written like she was poorly translated into the Anglaise.  But I persisted.

When I told one of my Quebecois writer friends I was reading this author she had dramatically raised one eyebrow (she does that so well, I wish I did) and said really? as in why waste my time.

I learn something from every single book. Even from this particular one,  though I will not read her again.  But now my curiousity is satisfied and I can say to myself, yeah, I read her, not impressed.

But, and it is a big but, there was one wonderful passage in it that I could strongly relate to:

P261: Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one great long room. Everyone we ever met and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past, they'd continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions, even years later.
 

Somehow, my life became more manageable when I thought of it as a long house. Yes, sure there are hecklers but also there are some glorious wonderful times that I can glance back at now and again. And grin and do a little skip.

I don't have to stay in bleak December. Now I can run back and be in August 2012 if even for a few moments.

Alter Ego

I just finished reading a rather long but engrossing book. "The Calling" by Inger Ash Wolfe. Not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, it is over 500 pages of unputdownable suspense.

The two main characters are a 61 year old police chief with a bad back and her 87 old mother who lives with her.

I scooped this review on the net and it puts my thoughts into words so well I just couldn't improve upon it.

But the really interesting thing about this book is that it was penned by a famous male author under the above pseudonym and I would never have found out about either of these if I hadn't listened to Writers and Company on CBC.

I won't disclose his name here but a quick web search will do it for you if you're so inclined.

It's such a joy to find books that are unashamedly Canadian (the story is based in small town Ontario) and also so unremittingly good. And are about older people doing their jobs, with interesting backstories: broken marriages, remote adult children, etc.

I love a good yarn.  And bonus, a yarn behind the yarn.

Hidden Clues and Mysteries

Did I mention how our family are voracious readers? I hear from brothers and friends and blog-friends who delve into my blog sidebar of books read throughout the year and go by my ratings and acquire them - and usually enjoy them.

Daughter and Grandgirl are also of the "there's never enough books in the world for me" ilk.

But isn't it interesting what a young person can throw at you out of the blue. Something one has never thought about before.

The other night:

Grandgirl: Do you realize that the books one likes to read tells so much about one's character?

Me: Really? How come?

Grandgirl: Well the books you really like are usually about missing people and unsolved mysteries.

Me: So what does that tell you about me?

Grandgirl: Well, I'd say you'd be trying to make sense out of your life, like there would be missing pieces.

Me: Well, I'll be! And I even write about that kind of thing too.

Grandgirl: So what would be missing?

Me (thoughtful, astounded): Well, the mysteries in the paternal side of the family. My father wouldn't talk about it, and I've tried to string it together from the evidence of others.

Grandgirl: Well, there you go, right?

(PS-LOL- And my father would sing "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" just about every day.)