Idealists on Guernsey Island

Guernsey Island, Needpix.com

“If you didn’t have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?” ~ James Carville

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” ~ James Baldwin

This post started off very differently. I was going to talk about how comforting I found this book because of the love and hope that is generated among the characters. But a friend of mine posted something on Facebook after Super Tuesday that made me think about what the word idealism really means and how we act or don’t act upon our idealism. Somehow that related to many of the characters in this book.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is a seemingly gentle look at how reading books connected the characters and how it helped them through extremely rough times. It’s the sort of story I love where wounded people form a found family and help each other heal.

That’s what the book is on the surface. The under layers are about so much more. Juliet, the main character, is fascinated by the founding member of the Literary Society, Elizabeth, who stood up for the members of her community against the Nazis. She was sent to a concentration camp as a result. Because of her courage, almost everyone on the island holds her in high esteem. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The book is based on actual events during WW II when the Nazis occupied the Channel Islands, part of Britain. Guernsey is the largest island in the chain. Of course, the Nazi’s idea was to use Guernsey as a jumping off point to invade England, which in the end never happened.

The story unfolds through letters shortly after the war between members of the Guernsey Literary Society and Juliet, a young journalist. During the war her assignment was to write a humorous column in one of the London papers in an attempt to keep everyone’s spirits up as bombs were falling all around them. Shortly after the war her columns were turned into a book and somehow someone in the Society got ahold of a copy. They write asking her to send books so they can rebuild their library.

Juliet is fascinated by the story of the survivors of the occupation. Why hadn’t she known about it during the war? As more members of the society begin writing to her she’s touched by their stories. And they begin to love her so much that they ask her to come for a visit. At home she’s beset by an eager rich American businessman who wants her to marry him. She’s not sure how she feels about him. Fortunately she gets an assignment to write about how reading helped people survive the war and she decides to go to Guernsey for a visit to finish research for her article. In the back of her mind, she might write about book about the islander’s experiences. Once there, she not only gets caught up in the lives of her new friends, but she finds a kind of peace that she hadn’t acknowledged she was looking for.

Though Juliet forms deep friendships and finds a the home she never thought she’d have, it’s the absent Elizabeth who inspires the book she’s working on. Elizabeth is the one who inspired the members of the society to look out for each other during and after the war. When Juliet arrives on Guernsey, Elizabeth’s fate is unknown. They hope and pray she will be found and come back. Until then they band together to raise her daughter who was fathered by a Nazi doctor who helped them against the orders of his superiors.

To Juliet’s delight, the members of the society welcome her into their circle as if she had always belonged. And as the book wended it’s way to it’s conclusion, I found deep satisfaction in the affect Elizabeth, the Doctor, and their child has on the group. They extend their love outwards to encompass others who are trying to heal from the wounds inflicted by the war. The members of the society are convinced that if they show love, caring and compassion to those who need it, they can make the world a better place. Who wouldn’t want a support group like that? The reviewer from The Christian Science Monitor wrote, “I’ve never wanted to join a club so desperately as I did while reading Guernsey …” I felt the same way.

So, if you’re looking for a feel good book, you might want to consider reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, even if it’s just to find out why they chose such an eccentric name for their group. When I compare what those characters went through, and I’m sure it’s a pretty accurate picture of what the real inhabitants went through, I feel so much better about what’s happening in my life. And I’m determined to be more idealistic and stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. What books have you read that give you hope for the future? Tell us in the comments below.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must put her life back together. When she finds old journals as she’s clearing out her mother’s house, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan. She is able to come back to her own life at intervals and apply what she’s learned to heal and forgive.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published.

Lessons from City of Girls

Dad, Lucinda, Mom

“Contemplate these words, nothing matters, and you think it does.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch

I consider myself to be an extremely tolerant person. 40 plus years of being involved in theatre taught me that there are all kinds of people in the world, and most of them are good at heart.

My spiritual practice has taught me that even the people who do evil things are connected to the Divine, just like I am. It’s just that they have a different purpose, which might be to shake us out of old belief systems that need to be examined.

These two ideas merged in a book I was eager to read because of it’s theatre setting. It’s City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. You might remember her from her enormously popular book Eat, Pray, Love which was made into a movie. After reading that book, I’ve been following Elizabeth Gilbert’s career. I’ve read other of her books, but when I heard her talk about City of Girls, I was hooked. There aren’t many books that take you behind the scenes of the theatre world.

The story is the main character Vivian’s answer to Angela’s question, “Vivian, … I wonder if you might now feel comfortable telling me what you were to my father?” Trust me, it’s not what you think. Okay it’s not entirely what you think.

Vivian has to tell her whole life story to answer Angela’s question. And as we follow her on her journey, there are, or at least were for me, some extremely uncomfortable parts. I have to confess, I nearly put the book down at one point because of Vivian’s life style. Later I was glad I stuck with old Vivian because what she had to say is extremely important.

Over twenty years ago, I was involved in the theatre scene in Portland, Oregon. I met people from all walks of life, with different points of view, different sexual orientations, and backgrounds very different from mine. Mine was sheltered.

My family went to church. My father was a lay minister. My parents didn’t drink or smoke, or even use foul language, unless you consider “darn” cursing, as one church member did. We sat down to meals together and talked. We talked about the news, the TV shows and movies we watched, and our lives. If I had a problem, I knew I could go to my parents for help and advice.

Many of the people I knew in the theatre companies I worked in didn’t have lives like that. And that was okay with me, because I learned to care for all kinds of people while I was growing up. More than once my parents took in people who needed a place to live until they could get their lives together again.

And though I’d go out for drinks after rehearsal, or go to the opening and closing night parties, I didn’t stay long. I wasn’t into smoking, getting drunk and carousing.

Vivian does all of that when her parents send her to live with her Aunt Peg who runs a ramshackle theatre in New York City. The story takes place before, during and after WW II. And even though I’d made friends with people with life styles like Vivian’s, I didn’t know all the details. That helped me like them without too much personal involvement. I was deluded into thinking I accepted them as they were.

Vivian’s life is so raw. It made me really uncomfortable. She gets drunk every night, sleeps with anyone who is willing, and they’re always willing. But eventually, because she’s letting life happen to her instead of weighing consequences and making plans for her future, something devastating occurs and she’s thrown out of the world she loves. She’s got to go home to her detached parents.

What makes it worse is that her disapproving brother is the one who has to bail her out. He gets one of his Navy buddies, who owns a car, to drive them home. And, spoiler alert, the driver ends up being important later in Vivian’s story.

Near the end of Vivian’s narrative, she tells Angela of something that happened to her father. During the war, he’d been on a ship that had suffered a Kama Kazi plane attack and he’d been burned on most of his body. That made touching and being touched impossible for him. He couldn’t sit at a desk, even though he was an engineering genius. So he became a beat cop because he could be outside and walk every day. One day he had to appear in court. One of the attorneys was one of his shipmates on the doomed ship where Frank, that’s Angela’s father’s name, got blown into the water. Those men who ended up in the water were considered cowards and the inept captain of the ship tried to have them court marshaled. But, of course, that case was thrown out. But the prejudice persisted and the attorney said some nasty things to Frank.

Frank’s PTSD was triggered by the encounter so he called Vivian in the middle of the night. He wanted to talk the incident through with her. She was always able to calm him down. When he’d told his story, she didn’t know what to say. But something occurred to her and she told him that what that man said meant nothing. Frank needed to remember what he’d told Vivian. “Life is never straight.” Something terrible happened to Frank. It didn’t make him a bad man, it meant nothing. It just happened. And something bad probably happened to the attorney too. That’s why he said those nasty things. But what he said meant nothing. Vivian kept using examples from her own life and finally Frank understood what she was saying to him and calmed down.

Things happen to us. We have quirks in our personalities that make us choose to do things that other people might judge, or at the very least cringe at. But that means nothing because as the blurb for the book states, “You don’t have to be a good girl, to be a good person.”

When Vivian helps Frank by telling him what happened to him means nothing, I got one of the things Elizabeth Gilbert was trying to say. Men can do almost anything they want and we don’t think a thing of it. We don’t judge or condemn them. But women, oh boy, we rake them over the coals for the slightest deviation from what we think is acceptable female behavior. When that idea exploded in my head, I fell in love with Vivian. Though she’s only a character in a book, she did what I’ve always wanted to do. After she learned some really tough lessons, she lived life on her terms and didn’t let anyone’s judgment or condemnation deter her from living the life she wanted to live.

It’s still not my style to carouse, but I have made some decisions that went against what some people thought I should do. My husband and I decided not to have children. I’ve continued my connection to theatre. I left the church in which I grew up. I’ve followed a spiritual path that some would consider unconventional. And other little rebellions against the good girl, bad girl binary viewpoint that we’ve suffered with for centuries.

Now, the message of City of Girls challenges more than just the attitudes of circumspect female behavior, because we put men into categories too. And that’s another thing I love about this book.

In the end, I learned something from reading City of Girls and I’m glad I didn’t abandon it as I was tempted to do. Sometimes it’s the uncomfortable stories that have the most relevant messages for us.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. Do you have a story that made you uncomfortable, but in the end had a great message? I’d like to hear about it.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must put her life back together. When she finds old journals as she’s clearing out her mother’s house, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan. She is able to come back to her own life at intervals and apply what she’s learned to heal and forgive.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published.

A New Plan

Architecture plans“And it’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.” ~ Alan Rickman

“Fairy tales are more than true not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ~ Neil Gaiman

I’ve been thinking for a long time about making some changes to this blog. The subtitle for what I’ve been writing is “The Arts, Spirituality, Life.” I chose those things to focus upon because they gave me a great deal of leeway. I could write about anything that came into my head and whatever I wrote would fit into one of those categories. But I’ve become restless of late. I needed a better focus for what I was writing. Over the next few weeks I’ll be changing the focus and look of this site. I hope you’ll stay with me on this new adventure.

After a lot of thought, I realized that I’ve been in love with stories my entire life. Our family would watch movies and then discuss them. Eventually it was just my dad and me discussing something we’d watched together. Those discussions could go on for days afterward. They were a great way to understand my dad’s philosophy of life, and to connect with him on a deep level.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I gravitated toward degrees that focus on story telling because those discussions with my dad helped me understand human behavior and interactions better. I loved that I could have experiences, make mistakes, and learn things all from the comfort of my couch. Eventually I also fell in love with books for the same reason.

So, from now on I’m going to share things I learn about being a human from the books I read, the movies, TV shows, and plays I see. Stories will be my way to examine the big questions that baffle me, or insights, or new perspectives I gain from consuming them.

Having written that, I’d like to write about an Amazon series that I’ve written about before. It’s The Man in The High Castle. My sister and I were discussing it because she and her husband have begun watching the first season. Our discussion brought back so many memories and insights I gained from watching.

The series is based on the book of the same name by Philip K. Dick. It’s a dystopian story which takes place in the 1960s in an alternate reality in which the Nazis and Japanese won WW II and divided up most of the world between them. The former United States is ruled by the Japanese in the West and the Nazis in the East with a neutral zone in the Rocky Mountains. A key point of the plot is the existence of news reel type films showing events in the reality we know where the Allies won the war. The Nazis and to a lesser degree, the Japanese want to find “the man in the high castle” and end the distribution of these films. The reason is obvious, they challenge their power. And it’s this idea of the different kinds of power that my sister and I were discussing.

In the book Seat of the Soul, by Gary Zukav, which we have both read, Zukav outlines two kinds of power. External power is based on our perceptions of the five senses. The idea is that, there is not enough to go around, so I need gather as much power as I can to protect myself and my loved ones. The Nazis and most of the Japanese characters are driven by external power. They need to control external circumstances to make themselves safe.

The other kind of power that Gary Zukav says we’re moving toward is authentic power, that is based on the perceptions and values of the spirit. In other words, what is good for all of humanity is good for me too. This power comes from within each of us not as power over anyone, but power to cultivate creativity, compassion, and trust. Though the various resistance groups struggle with trust and how to accomplish their goal of overcoming the superpowers, their main focus is to make sure everyone has the necessities and opportunities they need to create good lives.

The book ends rather abruptly when the main character, Juliana Crain, finds the man who has been distributing the videos. But meeting him doesn’t answer the question of why he’s doing this. It doesn’t seem he has any purpose except to cause chaos. The series, on the other hand, uses the plot device of the videos as a way for various resistance movements to gain momentum in their fight against tyranny. The man is producing and distributing these films attempting to foster an evolution to authentic power. He is spreading hope that love and brotherhood is more powerful than the fear the Nazis and Japanese dish out.

An interesting part of the story for me are the traveling characters who can travel between dimensions or timelines. One of these is the Japanese Trade Minister. He and Juliana have an interesting relationship, sometimes bridging the two timelines. All the characters who travel to the timeline we know, either gain strength from their visits, or are confronted by the bad decisions they made. And those kinds of character studies are always interesting to me because some characters make expedient decisions instead of thinking of the consequences they will face further down the road. When their lives end up badly, it’s like a warning sign to the audience, “Don’t make these mistakes.”

It seems to me that stories can also help us make sense of what we experience in the outer world at the time of their creation. The Man in the High Castle is a piece of art that shows us a version of what we are experiencing right now. There are leaders who want to control their citizens by denying their basic needs. They control by using fear to keep the population down. On the other hand, there are leaders who seem to feel the trials of their fellow human beings and want to do something to relieve their suffering.

Stories give us a chance to explore the consequences of the choices the various characters make without experiencing them personally. Sometimes mental distance can be a good thing.

I hope you will stay with me on this ride. Stories permeate our lives and as the quotes above advocate, we need them. We need them to give us courage, or to weigh possibilities, or to help us get new perspectives, or even to connect emotionally with people (characters) we might never encounter in our real lives. Stories help us develop empathy. And in my estimation, we can use a lot more of that.

So, welcome to my new followers. Thanks so much for reading. Please leave a comment or a like, and if you feel so inclined, share this site with your family and friends. I’m a story nerd and would love to discuss the stories you love too.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must put her life back together. When she finds old journals as she’s clearing out her mother’s house, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan. She is able to come back to her own life at intervals and apply what she’s learned to heal and forgive.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published.

This Is Still Our Phoenix Moment

Roller Coaster at night, Seaside Heights, NJ

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” – Joseph Campbell

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”  – Maya Angelou

The year I started this blog, 2013, I wrote an article titled “This is Our Phoenix Moment.” It was about one of the government shutdowns. Obama was President and the Republicans had declared that they were not going to approve any laws he, or the Democrats proposed and to prove it they let the money run out and the government shut down.

At the time I wrote that post, I felt personal and societal rumblings that were going to shake us and wake us. And that feeling has turned out to be right. Everything is topsy turvy. It looks like we’re crashing and burning, but I see that as a good thing. To make a mundane analogy, you can’t clean out closets without taking everything out and making a mess. Chaos brings an opportunity for rebirth and renewal.

I don’t know about you, but my personal life is going through cosmic closet cleaning at the same time the world is going through it as well. In 2013, I thought I’d have become a full-time writer ensconced at home, blissfully selling my work. But nothing ever happens the way we think it will. Which is one of the ways we are forced to grow. We get plopped into an unexpected situation and have to learn to live in the new circumstances.

It’s easier for us if we embrace change. For example, I want to sell my work, but it’s impossible to sell anything if no one knows it exists. Just recently I realized that I can easily think of ways to promote the work of others but not my own. It’s this weird feeling that I’m not worthy to have people read my work. Once I admitted that to myself, three interesting things happened. A friend of ours that we got to see over Christmas vacation, told me she was in her local library and there on an end cap was my book. She was so excited that she took it off the shelf and hugged it, because what I’d written meant so much to her.

Then a week or so ago, my acting friend Dave told me that when he can’t sleep he picks up my book and reads portions of it to calm himself down. “It’s a beautifully written book,” he told me. I was so touched, because what I remember most are the criticisms I’ve received, not the praise.

And finally, I’ve started a new writing adventure with Sivana East. I think I wrote in a previous post that they invited me to submit articles on their site. I’ve done three so far. Any opportunity to improve my writing skills and unfold layers of what I’m learning is welcome and maybe I’ll make new contacts as a result.

This is what I believe: We go through individual times of upheaval to aid our spiritual growth. Societies, governments, and groups of people go through the same thing. And the two are linked. We’re not meant to get stuck in the same routines and ways of thinking forever. We can make ourselves miserable by complaining and fighting the inevitable, or we can hop on the roller coaster and see where it takes us. The ride can be joyful and exciting, or oppressive. It’s up to us.

It’s become clear to me that I need to make more of an effort to connect with people, not just to sell books but to hear their stories, lend them support, and accept theirs in return. I’ll always be an introvert, but it’s not good to stay hidden and quiet all the time. Because the way I grow is by being exposed to other people’s way of thinking and being. That can be in person, or it can by through the art they create.

I’m ready to open the chrysalis in which I’ve been transforming. It’s time for me to become the beautiful butterfly I was always meant to be. Maybe it’s time for humanity to do the same thing.

Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting. If you like what you read here, please share it with your friends and family.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must find a way to put it back together. When she finds old journals, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, rather than traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Syntesis: Nevelle Longbottom and Mitt Romney

To Kill A Mockingbird book cover

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ~ Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

So, I was fixing breakfast thinking about what I was going to write for this post and two seemingly disparate bits of information collided in my head.

I’m not a domestic goddess as you may know from previous posts. But sometimes doing menial tasks frees up my mind to wander and today that paid off. As I was cooking the eggs, I was thinking about Mitt Romney’s bravery and Nevelle Longbottom came into my head.

Do you remember in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, at the end when Dumbledore is awarding the house cup? He hands out some last minute points to Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Then he says, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” And he awards Nevelle enough points to give the cup to Gryffindor. That’s when what Nevelle did in the book/movie and Mitt did at the Senate Impeachment trial synthesized in my head.

Mitt Romney stood up to his party. I don’t know if he considers them friends. He even said in his speech that he expected to be vilified for taking the position he did. But here’s the thing. The President and many in his party may berate him and call him nasty names, but there are plenty of people, Democrats, people in the media, and many ordinary people like me, who were moved by his courage. He stood up for what he thought was right. He honored his oath even though I’m sure he endured great pressure to abandon it.

My sister, Celeste, said. “I see hope for the Republican Party and for the rest of us. He showed a willingness to set aside politics as usual and vote his conscience.” He gives me hope too.

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about why we fold under pressure and don’t stand up for what’s right. I’ve done it upon occasion and it makes me feel so bad about myself when I do it. I’m sure Romney was frightened about the brouhaha he was going to cause, but he stood by his oath anyway.

When we show courage, we often get support in unexpected ways. I haven’t seen it but the two most liberal women on The View Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, praised Romney. They were willing to say that even though they have not always agreed with him, what he did made him a hero in their eyes. Yeah! We can use real heroes right now because heroes not only give us hope, they help to stimulate courage in those around them.

So, while I feel inspired by fictional heroes, it’s much more heartening to witness a real life person exhibiting great courage. Thank you, Senator Mitt Romney!

Welcome new followers. Thanks for reading, commenting and liking. If you like what you read here, feel free to share this site with your friends.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must find a way to put it back together. When she finds old journals, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, rather than traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.