Note: Election Results

It has been one week since the United States made the irrevocable decision to bestow its most sacred title to the most profane and undeserving man. To envision the president-elect in the White House is nothing short of sacrilege, and I suspect that the betrayal will be freshly felt every day that he remains there.
 
If there is room for hope, I hope that democracy considers this an opportunity to prove its resilience; I hope that the country proves that it can bend and fold in unprecedented ways only to straighten itself up, weathered but stronger and more refined; I hope progress proves inevitable.
 
As events continue to painfully unfold, let us remain on the right side of history. Let us learn, collect and connect ideas, and act accordingly. With renewed enthusiasm, Bookswept will continue to share the wide range of perspectives that are born of literature. It may become harder than ever to extract truth from our leaders and institutions. The opposite can be said of our books. Let us put them to good use.
 

Note: Summer

Summer leaps above the rest of the year, much like the holidays, a brief period of entirely unique rituals. Perhaps long summer days are to be appreciated, but I’ve never appreciated when things linger, be it days or guests or feelings.
 
I’ve traveled up and down California throughout the season, driving alongside sunflowers that bravely line the highways, the wild kind whose tiny heads branch out in all directions. In Lake Tahoe, tall pines swayed until they creaked, like a house near collapse, and in the southern Sierra Nevada, stars appeared and I counted four, nine, and then sixteen before they flooded the sky and the counting proved futile. The photo above was taken in Joshua Tree, where in that very same dress I ran at full speed among the giant boulders because at 6 a.m. there is not a soul in sight, and thus every reason to do just about anything that comes to mind.
 
Summer unveiled a few surprises so I’m in the midst of just as many changes, which I hope to (happily) reflect upon soon. I have a feeling that this fall will bear little resemblance to summer or spring or the previous fall, which is perfectly fine by me. When I was younger, adjusting to new situations proved difficult, but I now find change to be less daunting, more stimulating. I feel relieved that life refuses to be overly pleased with itself, that it is biased toward change.
 
I recently finished Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers (Random House, 2016), the dreamers being those who cling to the American Dream, the supposed direct and easy transaction between hard work and success. The author goes as far as to call America “a magnificent land of uninhibited dreamers,” which seems to suggest that we don’t know when to stop. But these characters do, eventually. More on this Cameroonian writer’s million-dollar debut soon.

Note: Farewell, April


Deep into spring and through with April, I look back to discover moments that quietly slipped by to be some of the easiest to make out. Like rainfall on the second to last night in Amsterdam en route to purchase tickets for the Rijksmuseum, or the bartender briskly correcting my pronunciation of “La Chouffe” at the historic Café Pieper. I see too many cups of pitch black coffee, far too many miles on my car, and picture frames on my bookshelf that now house Van Gogh’s Roses and Beetle and Cypresses and Two Women. I see an 8-year-old on a swing set who asks, “Have you ever made up an animal?” to which I answer, “Have you?” because the little experience I have with children informs me that it is easier to have them talk than listen. “Yeah! A lot! All the time!”
 
I see my last copy of the New York Times followed by my first issue of The New Yorker. For weeks, each day’s delivery of the Times remained in its plastic blue sleeve, arriving only to join its predecessors in a pile by the door. The pile grew, each delivery adding its own variation on dirt and rain, and I saw the gradual decay of what was important a day ago, a week ago, two weeks ago, and it was not only depressing but also confusing. What is important to know, remember or revisit? After canceling my subscription, I felt a pang of guilt when on my bank statement I noticed a $2.13 reimbursement for what remained of it, as print media may soon be gone and I think I will miss it. A subscription to The New Yorker is my way to make amends. Theatre openings, museum exhibits and restaurant reviews all reflect New York City, which is of little practical use yet rewarding to read, a reminder that on any given night there are countless variations on person and place, swirls of activity sending up dust clouds across the city, all cities, yours and mine. Then the flip side to consider, everything that takes place within the quiet and unseen. Taking it all in “makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in your life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means that they are so small you don’t have to take them into account when you are calculating something.” The character in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is referring to the stars, though it rings true for the city as well.
 
I also see roses, roses of colors I’ve never seen growing all around. Amber Flush, Evelyn and Iceberg are some of the varieties I’ve seen if I did my homework right, though pinpointing the name of any given rose has never satisfied me nearly as simply admiring one. Despite their abundance, roses appear rare and precious, more on par with gold and platinum than their floral counterparts. I often encounter them in such rigid contexts, alongside baby’s breath and tied together with a bow, obliged to admire or sympathize or congratulate, depending on the occasion. But this spring, my first in Sonoma, I encounter them most often growing in the front yard. I can see roses through no less than four windows, often blurred by the breeze, buds alongside blooms and colors ranging from pastel to neon. Upon closer inspection, I see stems lined with thorns and spiders tucked deep beneath petals. Everything is alive and in spring it is felt. Let May pick up where April left off, roses abound.
 
Best, Yuri