Naomi's 2018 Reading List

Second year in a row doing this summary of the books I read in the past year. In 2018, I read upwards of 120 books--this isn't all of them but it is a lot of them. 

Favorite Book of 2018
Becoming by Michelle Obama
This was so many people's favorite book of 2018 and with good reason! Michelle Obama is our Forever FLOTUS and her memoir is equal parts sweet, poignant, funny, and incisive. 

Second Favorite Book of 2018
Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton
It's funny to me to have my top two favorite books of 2018 to be memoirs but this was another really excellent one--a vulnerable and raw account of a life living with addiction and then the never-ending journey of recovery.

Other Favorites I Read This Year
The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
Tempests & Slaughter by Tamora Pierce
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Well, That Escalated Quickly by Franchesca Ramsey
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
Make Trouble by Cecile Richards

Best Book I Listened To On Audiobook
The Mother of Black Hollywood by Jenifer Lewis (This was a truly fascinating memoir anyway but most definitely listen to it on audio--Jenifer Lewis is such an amazing performer and storyteller! I listen to a LOT of audiobooks but this is one that I truly believe must be better in audiobook form.)

Favorite Book That Was Basically A Rom-Com in Book Form
The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

Favorite Intergenerational Novel
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (As I mentioned last year, I LOVE stories that span generations, so this exquisitely written story that won many awards in 2017 was a real hit with me.)

Favorite Collection of Poetry I Read
The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

Other Poetry I Read This Year That Was Also Excellent
A Place Called No Homeland by Kai Cheng Thom
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing by Alice Walker
Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing
The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace
Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni

Favorite Essay Collection
Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit

Other Essay Collections That Are Also Great
The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit
Meaty by Samantha Irby
Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton

Favorite Graphic Novels I Read This Year
Marbles by Ellen Forney
Tomboy by Liz Prince
Chronicles of Jerusalem by Guy Delisle (I learned a LOT about the occupation of Palestine from this one.)
Still I Rise: A Graphic History of African Americans by Roland Owen Laird, Jr.
Aya: Life in Yop City & Aya: Love in Yop City by Marguerite Abouet (this is one of the few fiction graphic novels I've read--I tend to stay in the memoir/historical, but this series was super fun!)

These Graphic Novels I Read This Year Were Only OK
Poppies of Iraq by Briggite Findakly
Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches From Turkey, Syria, and Iraq by Sarah Glidden (I really enjoy reading nonfiction graphic novels about different countries--this one was from a journalistic perspective and while parts of it were interesting, it got a little too deep into the 
Am I There Yet? by Mari Andrew (I follow this artist on instagram and I have always enjoyed her posts, however I think her art is geared to be consumed in smaller segments at a time, so I didn't enjoy this collection as much.)
Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson (probably not really fair for me to say this was "only OK" since it was a middle grade readers book--it was cute but not my fav.)

More From Rebecca Solnit Focusing on Hope
Call Them By Their True Names & A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit (One of my favorite books I read in 2017 was Rebecca Solnit's Hope In The Dark, and I really appreciate how Solnit works hard to be realistic but also not give in to panic--making the argument in both of these that hope is an essential component of our work for a more just world.)

Books About Body Positivity
Fat Girl Walking by Brittany Gibbons
The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor (I can't recommend this one highly enough--all about taking ownership and pleasure in our own bodies and undoing the endless socialization of fat-shaming culture.)

When You Are In The Sexual Violence Field, You Read A Lot About Sexual Violence, So Here Are Some I Read This Year
Speak: The Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson (The novel was originally published in 1999 and then a graphic novel was published in 2018--having read both, there are advantages and disadvantages to both forms--since so much of the story focuses on the character's art, it was really cool to see it visualized in the graphic novel.)
Becoming Unbecoming by Una
Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture by Roxane Gay (Ed.)
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
I Still Believe Anita Hill by Amy Richards (Ed.)
The Round House by Louise Erdrich

A Self-Help Book I Liked
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

I Read This Because I Am A Social Worker And Jane Addams Is Considered The Mother Of Social Work And This Book Was Informative But Very Dry So It Took Practically All Year To Finish
Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams

2018 Was The 50th Anniversary of The Assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So I Read These
The Mountaintop by Katori Hall
April 4, 1968 by Michael Eric Dyson

I Loved Learning More About Coretta Scott King's Story Not Just In The Shadow Of Her Rightfully Famous Husband 
My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King

A Treatise For Gun Control
Enough by Gabrielle Giffords & Mark Kelly

A Long History of Class in the U.S. and How Poor White People Have Demonized People of Color Instead of Rich White People
White Trash by Nancy Isenberg

A Book About U.S./Cuba Relations From The Perspective Of A Former Diplomat in Cuba
Our Woman in Havana by Vicki Huddleston (This was interesting but definitely a narrow point of view. Also not sure if it was just the e-book edition I got from the library or what, but it had a weird amount of typos in it.)

A Really Fascinating Look Into Apartheid in South Africa From The Perspective of a Biracial Person Who At The Time of His Birth Was "Born A Crime"
Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

Famous Books I Finally Got Around To Reading
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

A Heart-Wrenching, Chilling (Fictional) Account of a Family Weathering Hurricane Katrina
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Another Beautifully Written, But Painful Story
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Books I Read Because There Was A Movie or TV Show Based On Them That I Liked
Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
To All The Boys I've Loved Before & P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Books About Grief
Option B By Sheryl Sandberg (I know how problematic she can be in her involvement with Facebook & her "lean in" philosophy, but this book focused on the journey through grief in a very compelling way and I really liked it.)
Modern Loss by Rebecca Soffer
I'm Just A Person by Tig Notaro (This is a memoir so it isn't strictly only about grief but it is a big part of Tig's story and I think she works through it in a very interesting and funny way.)

Books About Church and Faith and Spirituality
Searching For Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
Rising Strong as a Spiritual Practice by Brené Brown
Everything Happens For a Reason & Other Lives I've Loved by Kate Bowler
For the Love by Jen Hatmaker
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Interesting & Well-Written Books About Race
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith

Badass Books About Feminism By Badass Black Women
Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Stories Centering Women
Halsey Street by Naima Coster
Waiting to Exhale & Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan
Heart Berries by Therese Marie Mailhot
The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo by F.G. Haghenbeck
Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
Bloodhound & Mastiff by Tamora Pierce
The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
Postcards From the Edge & The Best Awful by Carrie Fisher
The Women of the Cousins' War by Philippa Gregory
Crumbs From the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage

Two Books About Young Women Exploring Europe That Take Place Almost A Century Apart
Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Skinner
I See London, I See France by Sarah Mylnowski

The Second Half Of The Epic Novel About World War II That I Listened To On Audiobook
War & Remembrance by Herman Wouk

Historical YA Novels (I really loved this series when I was a preteen but hadn't read any of the ones released post-2003ish, so every now and then I will read one of these. It's a snapshot into history in a very accessible way.)
Dear America: The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson (About the internment of Japanese people in the U.S. during WWII.)
Dear America: Like the Willow Tree by Lois Lowry (About the 1918 flu pandemic.)
Dear America: With the Might of Angels by Andrea Davis Pinkney (About integration of the public schools post Brown v. Board.)

YA Novel About A Trans Girl
George by Alex Gino

A Very Weird YA Fantasy Novel Based On Folk Tales
Uprooted by Naomi Novik

I Thought This Murder Mystery Was Only OK
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)

But This One Was Really Captivating
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I Like To Get Festive In My Book Choices At That Time Of Year
The 12 Daves of Christmas by K.L. Brady
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor

I Wanted To Like These Books More Than I Really Did
The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
Woman Hollering Creek & Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros

Last and MOST DEFINITELY least:

Least Favorite Book of 2018
Wideacre by Phillipa Gregory
This is one of my least favorite books I've ever read. I don't particularly have a good reason for finishing it except I am weirdly stubborn about finishing things once I've started them and I love this author. The main character is terrible and this book is all about how far she will go to gain power, including quite a bit of incest and.... no thanks.

Naomi's 2017 Reading List

I started a new year's resolution of reading 50 books a year for the first time in 2012. The first year I actually achieved that was 2014, the first year I significantly surpassed that was 2016 (87 books) and so for 2017, I set the loftier goal of 100--I closed out 2017 having finished 138 books in total. This is the first year that I spent the entire year not in school or in full time employment, so I found myself with a bit more time to read.

I thought about doing one sentence book reviews but then I saw Roxane Gay's post about her reading list from 2017, and I liked that format better, so here we go! (138 books is a lot and several were re-reads or not really noteworthy enough so I'm not going to literally write about each one)


Favorite Book of 2017
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
This book is SO GOOD. I love novels that follow many generations of families, which this is, so I was already predisposed to like this book. But it blew me away with the fascinating interwoven stories of these characters and a look at the struggles of Black families in the US as descendants of kidnapped Africans who were enslaved and also the stories and struggles of African families who are descendants from the families that weren't kidnapped and enslaved, and sometimes benefited from the transatlantic slave trade themselves. It's such an epic novel and if you are a fan of good stories and beautiful writing--highly recommend.

Second Favorite Book of 2017
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
This book was important timing. I read it in March 2017, as things were not looking too good. Originally published in 2004, it outlines reasons for hope in what often seems like a very bleak world. Solnit writes about times when organizing and campaigning and working hard for positive change actually made a difference. It helped me re-frame where we are right now in terms of social justice and remember one of the most important tools we have is the hope that things can change for the better.

Other Favorite Books
I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama XIV & Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Crunk Feminist Collection by Brittney C. Cooper (Ed.)
Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times by Carolina De Robertis (Ed.)
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine & the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward (Ed.)

In My Continuous Quest For Self-Improvement, I Read:
Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
Rising Strong by Brené Brown
Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
Grit by Angela Duckworth

Books I Read Before Traveling To Japan & Taiwan
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Third Son by Julie Wu
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
Vignettes of Taiwan by (This was probably my least favorite book I read this year mostly because it was just dumb. But it was hard to find books in English about Taiwan so I finished it anyway.)
Lost Japan by Alex Kerr

Books I Read Before Traveling To Mexico City
Black Dove: Mamá, Mi'jo and Me by Ana Castillo
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros

In-Depth Look At Why More Women Than Ever Are Choosing to Stay Single (And Not In A Way That Looks At That As A Bad Thing)
All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister

A Look At How [Traditional] Women's Labor Has Been Devalued In Capitalism But Y'all Couldn't Have Done All This Without Us
Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?: A Story About Women & Economics by Katrine Kielos

Klein Really Tears Into The Whole Idea Of Disaster Capitalism And Shock Doctrine As A Viable Economic Strategy And I Read This Right After Hurricane Harvey Hit And Got Very Angry Because You Could Already See It Happening Again
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

A Horrifying Intimate Look At The FLDS Church From A Woman Who Escaped And Helped Put Warren Jeffs In Prison
The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice by Rebecca Musser

Another Book About Women In Fundamentalist Religions, But Islam This Time
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Very Well Articulated Argument For Ethics Outside Of Religious Belief Framework
Beyond Religion by Dalai Lama XIV

A Book That Made Me Really Mad Because It Is Still So Accurate And It Was Written Over 20 Years Ago
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

I Wish Everyone Would Read This Book Because It Explains The Moral Argument For Accessible Abortion The Best I've Ever Seen
Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Dr. Willie Parker

Beautiful And Powerful Poetry By Beautiful and Powerful Women of Color
Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur
Salt by Nayyirah Waheed
Nejma by Nayyirah Waheed
Bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire

Historical Fiction Based on the Plantagenet and Tudor Women (All by Philippa Gregory--I had read about half of this series before 2017 but re-read them and read the others for the first time. Philippa Gregory is one of my favorite historical fiction writers--she bases her books in historical facts and though she takes strange creative license choices sometimes, mostly I really appreciate her imagining of these moments lost to history behind the real stories of these women. And her whole approach is centering women in her stories--some more well-known than others, but all part of pivotal historical eras.) 
The White Princess
The Kingmaker's Daughter
The Lady of the Rivers
The Last Tudor
Three Sisters, Three Queens
The King's Curse (This one was my favorite of hers I read this year, maybe my favorite out of all of them. It follows the story of Margaret Pole, one of the last Plantagenets and the oldest person executed by Henry VIII in 1541, at age 67. It's a morbidly fascinating look at how insecure Henry VIII felt on the throne and how tyrannical he became--having any dissidents and practically all of his extended family executed.)

A Book I Read Because I Was Trying To Better Understand The Complicated Plantagenet Family Tree But I'm Not Sure I Do Even Though I Read This
The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones

A Really Long Novel About WWII That I Got In An Audible Sale But Ended Up Really Liking Though Turns Out It's Only Part 1 of 2 Books Which Irritated Me Since I Had Already Listened To It for 55 Hours And We Only Got Up To Pearl Harbor
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

I Got Into Historical Graphic Novels
A.D.: After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
The People's History of Empire by Howard Zinn
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Deslisle
Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984 by Riad Sattouf
Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-1985 by Riad Sattouf
Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki

YA Book That Got A Lot of Praise And It Was Well Deserved
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Enjoyable Fiction With Interesting Characters 
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo by Ntozake Shange
Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner
I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan
Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
Stella By Starlight by Sharon Draper

The Rare Case Where the Film Adaptation is Better Than the Original Novel
Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile
If you haven't watched the TV adaptation on OWN, do it! Such a good show with really interesting stories and characters. It was based on this book, but I think the changes they made actually really improved the story.

A Novel By An Author I Love That Was Sort Of Interesting But Also Felt A Little Too Preachy About Climate Change
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Dystopian Futuristic Novels That Eerily Predicted The Current World We Live In (That Most People Read In High School But I Didn't)
1984 by George Orwell
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Other Books I Finally Got Around To Reading (I started Maya Angelou's autobiography collection many years ago, but finally finished it in 2017.)
The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou
A Song Flung Up to Heaven by Maya Angelou
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
An Autobiography by Angela Davis
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

A Book That Very Accurately Describes Life as a Twenty-Something Without a Mom
Wild by Cheryl Strayed

This Book Is So Painful To Read, For All The Parts I Identified With And All The Parts I Didn't. Vulnerable, Raw, Powerful, Beautifully Written.
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Powerful Feminist Essay Collections
Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman by Lindy West
Sex Object: A Memoir by Jessica Valenti
The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion by Meghan Daum
Lost in Language and Sound by Ntozake Shange

Interesting Autobiographies/Biographies on Important Women
This Child Will Be Great by Ellen Sirleaf Johnson
Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird
I, Rigoberta Menchú by Rigoberta Menchú
Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston

And last but not least,
Carrie Fisher Memoirs Because I Miss Her
Wishful Drinking
Shockaholic
The Princess Diarist

The Last Good Day

Mama and I on the Caribbean cruise May 2013

“There's no way of knowing that your last good day is Your Last Good Day. At the time, it is just another good day.” ― John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)

What I would consider Mama's "last good day" was two years ago today: July 4, 2013. Most of the family was gathered in Austin for festivities and we had a great time as a family, as usual. One of the last conversations I remember having with my mom before her final trip to the hospital was about going to karaoke for my birthday. We talked about renting some karaoke equipment for a party. After she died, I was using her computer and saw that her last internet search was for karaoke equipment.

The weekend following July 4th was the beginning of the very end; Mama was weak and exhausted. When we took her to the hospital, after running tests it became clear that this was progression of disease and not just reactions to chemo or pain meds. As a family, we made the decision to transition into hospice care on my birthday, July 10th. She left the hospital on the 12th and died less than a week later on the 18th.

The summer of 2014 I carefully planned out to be in Europe on the Don't Postpone Joy European tour. I find I am wishing that had been an option this summer as well. It was a way to honor and celebrate life, my mother's and my own. I'm not doing anything quite that exciting this July, so it's easier to sit here remembering those incredibly difficult last days.

But her last good day, two years ago, I remember having conversations with her about the summer camp I was working for at the time. I remember her joy, as always, of being with family. I remember her conversation with my "cousin" (not by blood but basically) Timothy about being strong in his faith and continuing his journey to greatness beginning college that fall. I remember her smile.

So despite the fact that the memories of July 2013 are largely painful, today I am trying to focus on Mama's last good day. A day when the cancer was still growing and giving her pain, but she was still able to celebrate being alive and her motto: don't postpone joy. The last good day before the very end and one that I am grateful I could share with her.

2013: Loss

This is an incredibly late "2013" essay, but it's been a whirlwind beginning to 2014 as well. So here it is anyway.

How else could I sum up last year without using the world "loss?"

Earlier in 2013, I used to have a living mom and a boyfriend. By August, I had neither. Mama died after a fifteen month battle with cancer. The boyfriend, of almost nine months at that point, chose not to come to her funeral. Talk about adding insult to injury. (Disclaimer: the boyfriend is not the villain in my life, and since our breakup, I have realized many other things that tell me we were not built to last, but it would be dishonest to not say how much that choice did hurt me.) I went into August motherless, single and unemployed.

Also at the end of July, I had a glitch in my phone that required me to do a "hard" reset to my phone so it would function normally again. The particular cord I had to connect to my laptop had become iffy and during the reset, it became disconnected and with that, everything on my phone was erased. Most was backed up, such as contacts and photos and apps, but what wasn't were the text messages. I had had that phone for two and a half years and every text message from that time had been erased. Now that's not the biggest deal, but when your mom had only died a week and a half earlier and you no longer could read text messages from her... it was a big deal.

But I took care of the unemployment situation quickly on August 1st, and was hired on to continue with Austin Learning Academy, where I had done my second AmeriCorps year. While in AmeriCorps, I co-teached/assisted in seven different classes, but since September, I've had my own Advanced ESL Class. The last couple of days of July, I even tried to demand of the universe that it be "Good News August'" because of how much crap had happened in July. The job was certainly good news, and my grandmother's health, which had been so precarious in July as well, was improving. August passed with no major bad news, but in September my pet betta fish (who had lived for four years!) died. I cried a lot more than I thought I would.

And then came the flood.

In mid-October, our family was planning on going to the Texas State Fair, and I had chosen to spend the night in Salado the night before we were going.

But the next morning, my dad woke me up to tell me that David had called in the night and the rainstorm had been so bad in Austin that our apartment had flooded... 3 in. of standing water, coming in through the front door and the walls on the side of the apartment where my room is, reaching almost to the back wall of our apartment.

So instead of getting ready to go to the fair, I got in the car and drove back to Austin to see the full extent of the damage.

I am not the neatest person, and we had only moved in to the apartment a month before, and many things were still in cardboard boxes or stacked in piles on the floor. Even of what was in plastic bins, a couple had been turned on their sides for more space-saving storage in one of my closets, so the water seeped in them as well.

After finally seeing what was damaged, we had several hundreds of dollars of books either ruined completely or warped by the water, much of David's record collection (that had not been unpacked and were in cardboard boxes) soaked, many of my journals soaked and warped, with whole pages unreadable now, all the letters and cards I have saved, about half of which went to recycling and the rest of which I laid out on the floor to dry. My college scrapbook materials were in a cardboard box, so most of that went straight to the trash or recycling--all of my photographs from my year as a photo student--stuck together.

2013 stripped me clean. I know that I am still so fortunate, but loss was very real to me this past year.

And it has taught me in a practical way the lesson I have long heard: You can't take it with you. None of this is permanent, and there's nothing we can do to make it so.

My grandma told me she was hoping that maybe we could have a Good News 2014 like our Good News August, but it certainly hasn't been great so far. Health problems and phone problems and weather problems and car problems... Can't escape.

But it's not that there hasn't been good news. And though I've said goodbye and good riddance to 2013 two months ago, I know I can't say goodbye to all bad news. I can only keep moving forward, every moment knowing that loss is simply part of life, and that life is just as impermanent as everything else.

But I have a choice on how to live my life.

New Year's Resolutions

Last year, I made a resolution to write in this blog once a week.

I only posted 10 entries in 2013.

In my defense, for the first half of the year, I was working an average of 50 hours a week with AmeriCorps. And my mom had cancer. And I had a boyfriend. Very little writing.

Then to start of the second half of the year, my mom died. No more AmeriCorps, no more cancer or mom, no more boyfriend, lots more grief and depression. Even less writing.

But I love writing. Even as I am in the midst of trying to finish my essays for graduate school, I am thinking about all these things I'd like to write about in this blog. So I made the same new year's resolution this year--I will try to write in here at least once a week.

Today was my first day back in class--as most of you know, I teach Advanced ESL to adults--and of course, part of our lesson was about new year's resolutions. We discussed the tradition, and I had them create a few of their own for 2014.

As for me, I have made new year's resolutions since I was a teenager. They used to be a really long list--like, 50 resolutions (I was inspired to change, but usually only managed to work toward about three of them). I love to make lists. (I also love to read lists, which is probably why I love Buzzfeed so much). I make to-do lists all the time--I have them on post-its in my classroom, varying from things I need to do this week to things I need to get done/want to do in the semester. I have separate lists for types of tasks.

I also make lists in my journal--just for funsies. Lists in my journals as a teen included gems such as "Boys I Think Are Cute But I Don't Necessarily Like" (a list of about 15 boys, one of which I didn't know his name and just called him Las Palmas boy), "The People I Knew Who Were At The Middle School Dance" (there were these for every dance and party I attended in middle school), "The 7th Grade Couples At Durham School Of The Arts In 2001-2002" (if anyone needs a copy of this, let me know), and "List Of Injuries I Have Right Now" (if you knew me as a child/teen.... or even now, you'll understand why this actually took a list). More recent lists in my journal as an adult have been "Dances I Have Choreographed" (that list was over 100 items), "Dances I Want To Choreograph" (not quite as long), "Places I Want To Visit" (ever-growing, though I am slowly getting to work on it), and "How Am I Going To Finish My AmeriCorps Hours?" (sometime we'll have to talk about all the random volunteer opportunities I did during AmeriCorps so I would make my hours). Oh, and occasionally, I'll list all the states and capitals in the U.S. just to make sure I still remember them all.

But back to new year's resolutions.

I've gotten somewhat better at picking actual concrete and attainable goals for my new year's resolutions. Starting in 2011, I've made it a resolution to read 50 books a year. That first year, I made it to 48. 2012, I only read 37. But in 2013, thanks to audiobooks on my commute, I read 51! I think it's a great challenge for me to read more, which I love to do but don't always make time for. Also in 2011, I challenged myself to lose weight. I did, I joined weight watchers and lost 15 lbs. But then I moved to LA and excuses, excuses, point is, I've gained it all back and then some since then.

In January 2012, I even led a spirituality night with my community based on The Happiness Project, one of the books I read in 2011. I focused it on resolutions to make ourselves happier that year.

For years, I made it a new year's resolution to stop biting my nails. I even got a little more creative last year by trying to say I would paint my nails every week (I am less inclined to bite them when they are pretty/nasty tasting polish on them), but nope, didn't work (well maybe it would have if I had actually painted my nails that often).

Resolutions are so full of optimism. We take the things we are most insecure about and try to change them. Or we decide that that thing we've always wanted to do--this will be that year.

As regular readers know, it's hard for me to be optimistic these days. Yet, on January 2nd this year, I went shopping and happened upon a new journal that I fell in love with. I bought it and later that day decided to start writing. But in the front of each journal I've had for the last few years--it starts with lists, of course! Lists of what I want to accomplish that year, lists of habits I'd like to change or maintain, lists of what was good about the previous year, lists of what I'm looking forward to in the year ahead.

So despite it all, I made my new year's resolutions as I do every year. There's eight, but let's be real, thats probably the fewest I've made in my entire life (even last year there were at least 20). I hope you'll send me good vibes as I embark on this journey of positive change and look forward to this coming year--and I send them along your way as well!

Thoughts on Grief

“If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.”
--Cheryl Strayed


The loss of my mother has caused extreme upheaval to my life. It is very difficult to me to take this intensely personal and private loss and have to grieve publicly. I don't like crying. I don't like crying in private but I really hate crying in public. And this of course is such a strong reminder of my mother--who cried a lot. She was unafraid to show her emotions to anyone, from the grocery store clerk to a church member, which I honestly always found embarrassing.

I analyze my relationship with my mother too much these days. Though I absolutely was at peace with our relationship by the time of her death, I still think of how it could have been better, or wish that we'd had a stronger relationship earlier. Like many other teenagers, I didn't get along that well with my mom during middle and high school. I was fiercely independent and frustrated with rules that my parents had, and wanted nothing more than to escape. And I took that out on my mom. Mama and I are so much alike in terms of personality. And I take pride in that. But it is also why our relationship at times struggled. (We were both always right).

I hardly talk on the phone to anyone these days--partially because I have really bad service in my apartment, but also because it was my mom I talked to on the phone most--a few times a week. My relationship with some other friends and relatives are growing in response to Mama being gone--but I will never have a relationship with another person like the one I had with my mom.

I haven't been able to write much either. Not here on this blog, not on facebook, not even in my personal diary. It seems I have no words. But then, as you can see, once I actually start writing--I have so many words. I am just so wary of saying them sometimes, because I can't stand the pity--I can't stand the sympathetic faces. Grief is a fact of my life right now, and will always be, honestly, though I know things will also be less difficult than they are right now. I don't know how to speed up the process, or whether I should, though this dark night of the soul seems neverending.

One of the most difficult things about these last four months is that I have really lost my faith. I feel abandoned by God, and most days am not sure I believe in its existence. I hardly dance. It's too painful without Mama. Which I hate, because it was one of the things she has been incredibly supportive of in me my entire life. I feel lost and empty. As someone who has dealt with mood disorders in much of my teenage and adult life, it's not a new feeling. But I don't have Mama to talk to about it anymore. 

It seems impossible to imagine going forward each day, but somehow, someway, inexplicably, I do.

One of my students told me she would like to be a math teacher, and immediately my thought was, oh man, I gotta tell Mom! She'll love that! And a split second later I realized, I couldn't.

People ask "how are you?" even with the best intentions and I think how the fuck am I supposed to be? And I always say something like--"just one day at a time."

And I love teaching and every day all I want to do is share that joy with my mother and ask her advice from her vast experience teaching many different levels of learners.

Live life with no regrets? How is that possible? You can make your peace with the past and face forward in your life, but we cannot avoid making mistakes--we are human--and though it is important to learn from those mistakes and carry those lessons with us, I think it's impossible to live without some twinge of regret--maybe wishing we didn't have to make those mistakes in the first place--especially the big ones.

And though I was a teenager and though it was 6+ years before my mom would be diagnosed with terminal cancer--when I look back on some of the arguments we had and some of my strongest memories of that time of my mother was just a lot of yelling--I feel regret. I do. I couldn't have possibly known that I wouldn't have 30+ more years to fight with her but when I look back, I wish there had been less of it. I wish we'd been able to have a better relationship before I moved so far away. Before it turned to phone calls.

But then, I cherish the time when Mama moved back to Texas my junior year--and before the rest of the family followed, she and I were able to spend so much more time together. She was very lonely, and I was just so happy to have my mom nearby. We went out to eat, we went shopping, she came and watched me at dance practice, she came to my dance shows, and I loved it. And because this blessing for me was at the expense of my father and sister (it was the longest my parents spent apart in their 30 year marriage, and it was Lydia's senior year of high school), it was even more wonderful when the rest of the family moved to Texas and we were all able to spend much more time all together.

So this is what grief is like. This is what the loss of a mother is like (for me--I cannot speak to anyone else's experience). There is depression, emptiness, memories of joy, wishing for that conversation and word of advice, hoping someday it won't hurt so much, and praying that I'll never forget all the good things of my mother. Or even the bad things. It's hoping I'll have more dreams where we meet at Schlotzsky's and split a smoked turkey sandwich (that is the most vivid dream I've had of my mom in the last few months). This grief is present with me every day, and it is so difficult to grieve publicly, but I truly believe in our interconnectedness and community, so here is a glimpse as to what the last four months have been like.

Because She Existed//In Memory of My Mother

I want to write, but it's hard to find words to say. I'm a jumble of thoughts right now. I want to write eloquently of how much my mother meant to me, what the last month has been like wrapped in grief. But I don't even know where to start. I read the posts my dad has made on the caringbridge site--so profoundly beautiful, and I wish I could find those words right now.

Everly Jean Estes Broadway

October 3, 1958-July 18, 2013

On July 10, I turned 24 years old. That same day, our family had to make the decision to put my incredible mother into hospice care.

Not exactly how I imagined my birthday. In fact, we had planned a family dinner at one of my favorite restaurants and my boyfriend was going to meet my parents finally. Instead, we all sat in Mama's hospital room and cried a lot. The boyfriend came to see me and I cried in his arms for half an hour in the hospital cafeteria that I have spent too much time in for the last fifteen months.

Mama was able to spend six days at home in hospice care. We took shifts being present with her. My shifts for those six days were mostly spent singing for hours at a time--I went through the whole hymn book singing every song I knew--and folding paper cranes. It was all I could do. And every time she'd stir a little, I'd say "I love you, Mama." She couldn't respond. But I wanted her to hear those words intimately as long as she lived. Day 2 of hospice she asked me how long it was going to take for her to die. I told her it wasn't up to us, it was up to God.

When Mama was first diagnosed in April 2012, when I would talk to people about how scared and sad I was, I would also be sure to tell them I was hopeful. And that I had no doubt that she'd be dancing at my wedding.

I didn't know she'd only live 15 more months after I said those words. If I had known, maybe I'd have gotten a move on the whole marriage thing. Not really. I would've gotten a lot of long speeches about not rushing things. Which I actually got anyway, even though I was definitely not actually trying to get married so soon, despite the fact that it was breaking my heart to realize how unlikely it would be for her to be there.

My best friend is getting married next summer. She and her mom came to visit me a few days after Mama died and we talked about wedding planning and went bridesmaid dress shopping. And though we enjoyed ourselves, and I am so enjoying wedding planning with my beautiful best friend, the thought came to me that I would never do this with my mom, and I just had to walk out of the shop and cry outside in the 95 degree heat.

There will be many future days like that one. I hear a song that reminds me of her and smile or burst into tears. I don't have her to talk to about the boy problems or the work problems anymore. Mama was a giver of good advice and insight, or even just a listening ear if that's all I needed. One day, I may get married, and my mom won't be there. She won't be there to meet her future grandchildren. She won't be there for the future graduations, birthdays, Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters...

And yet, she will be. She permeates my entire being, and she has given so much to so many. She lived such a full life, despite how short it was and I will strive to live in her example. Through genetics and the fact she raised me, I am very much like my mother and I embrace that fact. I am independent, stubborn, perseverant, organized, determined and strong. And fiesty. 

A Maya Angelou poem read at Mama's funeral and her memorial service ends this way:

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

I am who I am and will continue to become who I become, because she existed. I am better, and we are all better, for having had her in our lives. 

Love you, Mama.