Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “What I saw and how I lied” by Judy Blundell

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Evie is fifteen, her stepfather has returned from the war, and life is good.

Okay, so they still live with her step-father’s mother, who doesn’t quite get along with Evie’s mother. So Evie’s step-father is drinking more. So Evie’s parents are fighting more often.

But Evie’s main concerns are that her mother won’t let her wear grown-up clothes and that she can’t seem to attract the attention of her crush.

Then her stepfather decides to take them on a vacation to Florida–and Evie meets (and falls in love with) the dashing young Peter (who had served with her stepfather in the War.)

Awash with the headiness of a new environment, new clothing (one of her mothers’ new friends insisted), and new love, Evie thinks of little but how she can next see Peter. Then a hurricane hits and Evie’s world comes crashing down.

I added What I saw and How I lied to my TBR list on the basis of Semicolon’s review (I think), but by the time I’d gotten around to picking it up from the library, I’d forgotten the review and had no idea what to expect. (Even if I’d read Semicolon’s review more recently, I’m not sure I’d have known what to expect. Sherry does a good job of not giving spoilers.)

At any rate, I read with only the book’s title to clue me in on what was happening–and that kept me guessing for a good long time.

I knew something was wrong, that something wasn’t adding up in Evie’s idyllic world–but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. What’s more, if Evie (the narrator of the book) had seen something, why wasn’t she telling me? What had she seen? And how had she lied?

I was almost upset with her for not sharing–but I kept reading in the hopes that she would at last reveal.

And reveal she did, with a punch that left me gasping for air.

Other reviewers have called this a coming-of-age novel, and that it is. It’s about a loss of innocence, a loss of trust. It’s also a story about stealing, lying, adultery, and murder. As my grandmother would say, it’s a story of sex and violence.

But a well-told story.

This is definitely not a children’s book. But the sex and violence found in this book is not the gratuitous or experimental raciness of a typical YA novel. It’s tasteful (mostly) and integral, contributing to Evie’s awakening to the world of lies and truth, deception and integrity, lust and love.

I very much enjoyed reading this novel and recommend it for discerning, mature readers.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: YA-Coming of Age Novel
Synopsis:Evie grows up rather quickly after a winter in Florida where she encounters lust, lies, deception, and discrimination.
Recommendation: I think thoughtful readers are likely to enjoy this, while those looking for either escapist or sensational fiction will be disappointed. I personally enjoyed it a great deal.

Categories None

Thankful Thursday: When the Computer’s Off

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The truth is, I love the computer. I love blogging. I love reading blogs. I love building computers (even if it’s a bit of work!)

But for all the joy I receive through computers, it can’t compare to the pleasures of when the computer’s off.

Thankful Thursday banner

This week I’m thankful for…

…sewing with the girls
It’s been months since we last met to sew, but it was wonderful to see Grace’s doll dress come together, Taylor’s real-live dress come together, Little Miss Menter’s quilt finally get finished. I’ve missed our busy chatter side-by-side at our sewing machines.

…Highland Park Writer’s Collective concert
I’ve been waiting for it practically forever. Waiting for the day when I could invite my dad to a concert by one of his favorite groups. Waiting for the day when I could go to a concert by some of my favorite people. And the day finally arrived. Highland Park Writers’ Collective finally came to “Live at 38th Street Coffee”. (You can listen to some of their awesome music on their Facebook page)

…yardwork
The lawn mowed, the hedges trimmed, the driveway edged, the flower beds dug up and the bulbs separated. I got blisters and sunburns and achy muscles and allergies–but I also had a wonderful time in the sun and the shade and the dirt.

…conversations around the dinner table
Sunday afternoon dinners at the House of Dreams are becoming somewhat of a regular thing–and I absolutely love it. It’s what I’ve always dreamed of, having a home that’s open and enjoyed. And I love our Sunday afternoon crowd.

…reading books
I don’t read a lot of books straight through anymore–I’ve grown accustomed to reading a chapter each of a dozen books at any given time. But in the last few days, I’ve read a few novels straight through (or almost so)–and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit!

…preparing for Sunday School
I’ll be teaching this year–and now that my co-teacher has been moved to another class, I’ll be teaching by myself. I’m super pumped to be taking a class of 2nd and 3rd graders through the whole Bible in the next nine months. (We’ll be racing along “Route 66”–for the 66 books of the Bible, get it?) I’m majorly excited.

…friendship, study, accountability
Dinner and conversation with Beth. Digging into Hebrews with the girls. Staying way too late talking. Laying on Ruth’s bed, talking while Ruth sorted her laundry. I love these friendships.

I’m thankful for all the things God does in and through and for me…when the computer’s off.

Categories Health

Real Food & Real Science?

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The “real food” or “whole food” movement has taken off among the health-conscious and environment-conscious.

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Nina Planck’s Real Food: What to Eat and Why, and of course Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions are bibles for real food disciples.

Real foodies are begging for local producers, farmers’ markets, and Trader Joes’.

And they want to know what I think about the movement.

This is where the opinionated RD falls silent.

I don’t know what I think about the movement. I don’t know what I think about the claims of Real Food prophets and evangelists. I don’t even know how to start to evaluate them.

For starters, the “real foodies” are not too keen on people like me. In the extreme, they use terms like “politically correct nutrition” and “diet dictocrat” to deride my science and my profession as Sally Fallon does on the cover of her Nourishing Traditions. In the less extreme form, many warily eye me as a well-intentioned but brainwashed agent of the machine.

It’s difficult to get past the sometimes offensive language of Real Foods’ chief prophetess enough to actually explore her claims. It’s harder yet to avoid being on the defensive.

But the hardest part of all is simply figuring out how to handle the sheer volume of the “Real Food” claims. Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions is 600 pages long. Nina Planck’s Real Food contains at least 84 distinct health claims in the first chapter.

I’ve been reading through Planck’s book, underlining health claims as I come upon them, trying to evaluate them as I go. But frankly? It’s not easy.

I know the truth about some of Nina’s claims right off the top of my head. It doesn’t take me much to see the problem with her statement that “a BMI of almost 25” is “squarely in the ‘overweight category’.” (A “normal” BMI is from 18.5 to 24.9. Almost 25 is still within the normal range. Furthermore, a BMI at the top end of “normal” is likely healthier anyway.) I don’t have to look anything up to confirm that humans are omnivores and are not by nature vegans. (Vitamin B12 is an essential nutrient that has NO vegetarian sources. It is only because of the marvels of modern science that we now have bacteria who can manufacture B12 for vegans to take as a supplement.)

For other claims, I need to grab a reference material just to make sure I don’t make a silly mistake. I’ll look it up quickly and see that yes, brain is high in polyunsaturated fats; no, broth is not “rich” in calcium and minerals (it contains some, but less than 2% of the daily value of calcium per cup). Nina’s not quite right in claiming that Vitamin B6 is only found in small amounts in plant sources–in truth, there are some rather good plant sources of B6; and nearly everything has a little bit of it (which means that anyone with a varied diet, especially one rich in vegetables and whole grains, is likely to get enough.)

And then there’s the stuff I need to really research because I honestly don’t know whether the “Real Food” claim is correct or not. Is oxidized cholesterol a better marker of atherosclerosis than LDL and HDL? Does conjugated linoleic acid actually fight cancer? Does diabetes significantly decrease one’s ability to convert beta-carotene to Vitamin A?

I’m working on it. Trying to evaluate it. Trying to give an informed and objective opinion. But I’m not yet convinced that the “real food” movement is “real science.”

Categories Following Christ

Fight to be alone

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It was almost a month ago now that my pastor preached a sermon entitled “A Theology of Time from the Life of Christ”.

I listened, I was convicted, I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do. I was busy. How was I going to put this into practice?

At that time, I was reading James in my personal devotions and the part in chapter 1 about the man who looks at his face in the mirror and then forgets what he looks like was stamped on my brain.

I mentioned something from the sermon to Lisa, she invited me to share more from the sermon with her. I was eager for the additional motivation to take another hard look at my face in the mirror–and this time to remember what my face looked like.

So I’ve been slowly revisiting Justin’s six points.

Point 2: Fight to be alone with God

Jesus did. He regularly got up early in the morning to find a secluded place to pray. Even when the demands on His time were great, His need to be away with His Father was greater. (Mark 1:35-36; Luke 5:15-16)

Justin used the illustration of flying on an airplane with a child. If the air pressure inside the plane drops and the oxygen masks are needed, parents need to put their masks on first. Why? Because they can’t help if they’re dead.

In the same way, we need to be in communion with God. If not, the rest of our busy lives will be unfruitful–because we’re living them out dead.

Fight. That’s the word Justin used. Fight to be alone with God.

Struggle. Work at. Push towards.

Fight to be alone with God.

I fight for things I love, for things I consider important.

I fight for time to blog, coming home for lunch if I know I won’t have time to prepare a post some other time.

I fight for time to read, taking a book with me to the bathroom, into bed, with me as I fold laundry.

I fight for my evening baths, giving up sleep to make sure I get them.

But do I fight to be alone with God?

I’m choosing to. I’m choosing to make time alone with God a priority. I’m choosing to make the time to be alone.

I want to be like Martin Luther, who said he prayed an hour each day, except on particularly busy days. On those days he prayed two hours.

Even more than that, I want to be like Christ.

And if He fought to be alone with His Father, than I want to fight to be alone with the Father as well.

If you’d like to listen to Pastor Justin’s excellent sermon “A Theology of Time from the Life of Christ”, you can find the mp3 at Highland Park’s Worship Service Archive. It’s “A Theology of Time” dated 7/31/11.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: What! All This…

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My friend and I are reading The Greener Grass Conspiracy, a wonderful book on contentment that I originally picked up based on Lisa’s review. In it, author Stephen Altrogge relates a little story that Charles Spurgeon once told:

“I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water. Lifting up her hands, she said as a blessing, ‘What! All this, and Christ too?'”

Oh, how I want my life to ring with that same spirit. The spirit that cries out that Christ is all-sufficient, and that stands in awestruck amazement at how much I have been given (no matter how small or large it might be in comparison with that of another.)

Thankful Thursday banner

This week I’m thankful for…

…family
Seeing my brother for the first time in a long time. Spending more time cuddling with my little niece. Driving and talking with my Mother. Watching movies with the whole gang. Visiting with my aunt and uncle around the fire-pit.

…friends
Spending time with Steve and Joanna and Mary around a meal. Having Ruth and Beth over for dinner after church. Sitting and chatting with Jacqueline and Jon and Cathy and Grace before the parade. A long conversation with Kathy after we were all done.

…transportation
The luxury of jumping into my car and heading out of town for a weekend. The added pleasure of hopping on my bike for a toodle about town. A comfortable seat during a commute. Books on CD I can listen to while driving.

…possessions
A lawn to mow, a mower to mow it with. A bath in which to bathe, water with which to fill it. A computer to be built, and plenty of resources for when I hit unexpected snags.

…medical care
A doctor’s office I can pop into on my way to work. The ability to make an appointment only a few days in advance. Prescription drug coverage. A chance to reduce my insurance costs by living healthfully.

…growth opportunities
The accountability of a dear friend. Theology class at church. Bible-rich expository preaching. Opportunity to serve by teaching Sunday school.

What! All this, AND CHRIST TOO?

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (August 2011)

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Has August flown by or what?

I can’t believe it’s already time for another Nightstand post. Unfortunately, I just took a batch of books back to the library, so you can’t see photos of what I’ve read (except what I’ve read since Saturday or kept back for review). Fortunately, I did log my books–and I even logged them online for the time being (since my computer is still in limbo.)

So, here’s my box of finished books followed by my list of books read:

Books read

Adult Fiction

  • Crying Wolf by Peter Abrahams
    I expected suspense based on the front cover quote from Stephen King “–something obscured by barcode–merican suspense novelist.” This didn’t turn out as suspenseful as I expected, but that was a good thing from my point of view. Instead, it was an engaging if not exactly well-told story about a poor young man, a set of rich twins, and the dangers of crying wolf.
  • The Gold Shoe by Grace Livingston Hill
    I started reading this on my way down to KC to skydive–and ended up reading the first seven chapters out loud to my traveling companions. I quoted a passage from this book in yesterday’s post
  • Duskin by Grace Livingston Hill
  • The Sacred Shore by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn

Adult Non-fiction

  • Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
    Why are Chinese children (or the children of Chinese immigrants) so much more likely than Western children to be prodigies? Amy Chua says it’s because of the way Chinese parents parent. Chua begins this memoir on a soapbox–and doesn’t quite get back down as she realizes (and reveals to us in story) that Chinese mothering isn’t working with her younger daughter. I enjoyed this quite a bit-but I can understand why it was so controversial when it first came out. Chua’s Chinese parenting sounds an awful lot like child abuse to Western ears–except that these Western ears tend to register the same complaints as she against “Western parenting”, making them much more likely to consider parenting on the Chinese end of the spectrum.
  • God’s Diet by Dorothy Gault
    I reviewed this title here. Prepare for a mini-rant from this particular Registered Dietitian.
  • Dave Barry is NOT making this up by Dave Barry
  • My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster
    Jen Lancaster goes on a “Jenaissance”–freeing herself from the addiction of reality TV to become a “cultured woman”. I loved reading about Jen’s theatre-going experiences, pet troubles, and foot-in-mouth moments. I also loved that there was none of the conservative-bashing that seems so obligatory for memoirs these days. Jen happens to be a conservative herself, but she makes a point to leave her politics out of her writing (except inasmuch as the fact that she’s a conservative makes her even more fish-out-of-water among the hoity-toity culturata she’s now brushing shoulders with.)
  • The Most Reluctant Convert by David C. Downing
    This was a very good biography of C.S. Lewis, discussing his religious life from childhood to conversion. I wrote a mini-review in my Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge wrap-up post

Juvenile Non-Fiction

  • The Holocaust, Hitler, and Nazi Germany by Linda Jacobs Altman
    Not as well-organized as the other books in this series.

Juvenile Fiction

  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
    I had definitely forgotten a lot from when I read this as a child. I think I love this book. I quoted from it here.
  • Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
    I might love the sequel even better. There’s something about a group of almost wild children… Rainbow Valley was one of my favorites in the Anne series. Should I be surprised that I’m also in love with Little Men (or Jo’s Boys, as it has alternately been titled-Whoops, guess I was wrong on this one. Jo’s Boys is a separate book, and one that sounds rather more sensational than the wholesome Little‘s.)?
  • The Mystery in the Snow created by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Juvenile First Readers

  • Bones and the Math Test Mystery by David A. Adler

Children’s Picture Books

  • To & Fro, Fast & Slow by Durga Bernhard
  • The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum by Kate Bernheimer
  • The Tortoise and the Hare Race Again by Dan Bernstein
  • The Curious Demise of Contrary Cat by Lynne Berry
  • Are You Going to Be Good? by Cari Best
  • Easy as Pie by Cari Best
  • Goose’s story by Cari Best
  • Last Licks by Cari Best
  • Sally Jean the Bicycle Queen by Cari Best
  • What’s so Bad about Being an Only Child? by Cari Best
  • Three Cheers for Catherine the Great by Cari Best
  • Shrinking Violet by Cari Best
  • Montezuma’s Revenge by Cari Best
  • Wolf Song by Mary Bevis
  • The Artist by John Bianchi
  • Welcome back to Pokeweed Public School by John Bianchi
  • Spring Break at Pokeweed Public School by John Bianchi
  • The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco
  • The People with Five Fingers by John Bierhorst
  • Turkey Bowl by Phil Bildner
  • Twenty-One Elephants by Phil Bildner
  • A Regular Flood of Mishap by Tom Birdseye
  • Airmail to the Moon by Tom Birdseye
  • Soap! Soap! Don’t forget the soap! by Tom Birdseye
  • Look Out Jack! The Giant is Back! by Tom Birdseye

In addition to the books I’ve finished this last month, I have a number in progress (currently in a tote for easy travel!)

Books in progress

And I was unable to resist the lure of more books when I went to the library on Saturday, so I am almost certainly going to (once again) have to return books unread when I make my next trip down to the library in three weeks.

Books in the wings

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories The Week in Words

WiW: What a waste

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From Grace Livingston Hill’s The Gold Shoe (published in 1930):

Then, one day, there arrived a delivery car from one of the big florist’s establishments in the city…

“Mercy!” said Hesba, “what a waste!”

“A waste?” said Marget starting back sharply from her first sweet breath of them with a hurt look in her eyes.

“Yes, sending all these here, with just us two. Not even a party or a funeral! Mercy! Do you know what those yellow roses cost, those with the yard long stems? I priced them the other day, just for curiosity, and they are seventeen dollars a dozen! Just think of that! I say that’s wicked! Think of the heathen!”

“The heathen?” said Margret puzzled. “What about the heathen?”

“Why, think what that might do for them!”

“What would it do for them?” asked Marget burying her face in the mass of lilacs, and wishing she might keep it there awhile and not listen to the grilling of Hesba’s questions.

“What would it do? Why feed them, and send them to school, and put decent clothes on their back, and teach them to be respectable citizens in the world.”

“Is that all?” asked Marget with her eyes half closed, looking at the flowers dreamily.

“All? What more do you want?” asked Hesba indignantly. “Isn’t that about all one needs in life?”

“I was thinking that you might be saying it would send the knowledge of the Lord Jesus to them,” said Marget, lifting a stately lily and gazing into its golden heart.

“Oh, that! Of course, that goes too. But they have to live you know. They have to have food and clothes.”

“You think that comes first?” said Marget…

It’s a story that’s been going back at least a century–well meaning religious folk interested in social justice.

Caring for the poor. Providing food and clothes and education.

Upset with the extravagance of comfortable lives.

Nothing wrong with that.

Every Christian should be interested in caring for the poor. Every Christian should consider providing food and clothing and education. Every Christian should consider whether they are using their money wisely or squandering it on comfort.

But Marget and Hesba illustrate two completely different views of wealth and ministry.

While Hesba rages at the extravagance of a gift of costly flowers, Marget fully enjoys the gift she has been given.

While Hesba concerns herself with the physical needs of people, Marget recognizes their greatest need-their need for Christ Himself.

About 15 years ago, Charles Sheldon’s then 100 year old book In His Steps reawakened the question “What would Jesus do?”

Christians and non-Christians alike asked themselves what Jesus would do and sought to follow in the steps of the man from Galilee-the man who was famous for healing, teaching, and serving.

In more recent years, the church has turned more and more towards social justice issues–and much of it appropriately. They have heard the call of Christ to lay down their lives for others. And this is good.

But self-denial is not the gospel.

Even should we follow Christ to the cross for the sake of others,
our eulogies might still proclaim “What a waste!”

Our deaths would profit the world nothing–except that by our dying we proclaim Christ crucified and resurrected.

My crucifixion cannot save the world. My death to self cannot save the world. My giving up flowers and food so that others can have food and education cannot save the world.

I cannot merely follow in His steps in that I give of myself as He gave of Himself.
To do so would only be a waste.

In order for my following to not be wasted, I must give Him just as He gave Himself.

The Week in WordsDon’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “God’s Diet” by Dorothy Gault

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Dorothy Gault has a plan to take the complexity out of diet planning. Her diet includes no counting, no nutrition panel reading, no exchanges, no dozens of rules to remember.

In fact, there’s only one rule: “If God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.”

On the surface, God’s Diet is simple, straightforward, easy. Until you start asking the big question: What hasn’t God made?

Theologically speaking, it’s hard to come up with something God hasn’t made. I can only think of one: evil. And the idea of eating evil is pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.

So what does Gault mean when she talks about what God did or didn’t make?

Turns out, what God didn’t make is flour and sugar. (Who’d have thought?) So what’s off limits is anything with flour and sugar in it. Anything else, you can eat whole hog.

At least, that’s how Gault makes it sound, though she later backtracks to say that high-fat, high-sodium, high “legal”-sugar foods should be eaten in moderation.

This diet rubbed me wrong in several ways.

The first thing I didn’t like about it was that it violated one of my most sacred food rules: Food is not a moral issue.

There’s no such thing as a “good food” and a “bad food”. Food is morally neutral (sort of like money–you know the verse about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evils?) Turning food into a moral issue binds one to a law we have been set free from in Christ. It creates condemnation where no condemnation need be and false self-righteousness where righteousness is not.

Gault speaks in direct opposition to this “food rule” of mine.

“When we eat something sinful, we need to know that it is sinful. Once again, if God didn’t make it, it must be sinful.”

Errnt. Strike one.

Secondly, the theology in this book is terrible. Gault can’t decide whether she’s a creationist or an evolutionist, constantly switching between the two depending on which provides better “support” for her diet.

She really makes no case for why God didn’t make flour and sugar-and completely ignores the many instances in which bread is made by or commanded by God.

God commanded the eating of unleavened bread, manna was used to prepare bread (with no indication of it being wrong). Jesus multiplied loaves and taught His disciples to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.” What’s more, Jesus said that He Himself was bread from heaven, and commanded His disciples to take and eat the bread that symbolized His body. If flour is indeed sinful, would Jesus have done this? Would He have told His disciples to pray: “Give us this day our daily sinfulness…and lead us not into temptation”? Would Jesus have said “I am the sinfulness from heaven”? Would Jesus have commanded His disciples “Take and sin…do this in remembrance of Me?”

Clearly this diet has everything to do with ideology and nothing at all to do with Christianity, despite the author’s references to God and the garden of Eden.

Errnt. Strike two.

Finally, Gault’s vilification of flour, specifically, has little if any scientific support.

Gault claims that flour is bad for us because it has been processed; while unprocessed grain is good for us because it is in the form in which God made it. She uses a child eating corn and ending up with drawers full of corn as an example of how corn in it’s natural state is fundamentally different from corn flour (also known as cornmeal).

In its natural state, Gault tells us, grain is indigestible. In its processed state (when ground as flour), it is digestible and therefore bad.

Come again?

Since when is something being digestible a bad thing? And even if it is, Gault mistakes visibility with reality.

The truth is that just because Gault cannot see the corn kernels in the poop after eating cornmeal does not mean that the cornmeal was fully digested.

The same fiber that is indigestible in corn is still indigestible in cornmeal. It’s just ground so you can’t see it when it comes out in the feces.

Now it’s true that some forms of processing do make chemical changes to food products–but the making of flour is not one of them. The only difference between whole grain flour and the grain itself is the size of the particles. The only difference between how the two are digested is time We don’t have to chew the flour as long, don’t have to mechanically churn it in our stomachs as long–but the starch is the same starch and the fiber the same fiber.

There is no evidence that whole grain flour and unprocessed whole grains are fundamentally different.

Errnt. Strike three.

She’s out, and so is this diet.

Rating: 0 stars
Category: Diet
Synopsis:Gault proposes a “simple” but nutritionally and theologically unsound diet based on one rule: “If God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.”
Recommendation: Don’t read it. Don’t believe it. Don’t promote this sort of thinking. It’s wrong.

Categories Everyday Life

Safely Falling

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I was completely out of control, but I was attached to one who knew what was going on and who was in control.

The air roared past my ears as we free-fell towards the ground.

My mind strained to remember my instructor’s directions, even though I could no longer hear his voice.

Soaring above the clouds

Arch my back, kick my bottom, hands hanging on to my harness chicken wing fashion.

Content that I’d followed instructions, I could enjoy the ride.

Exhilaration.

Free-falling.

Amazing.

He pulled the chute, the free-fall ended far too soon. I wanted it to last forever.

Soaring through the clouds

Now he guided my hands into the chute’s handles, asked me if my harness was comfortable. Everything was fine.

He told me he would be loosening the connections that held us. I’d drop a bit lower, so inches would separate our bodies.

Now, here, I felt a glimmer of fear. I knew it would be safe, I knew I’d still be attached. But it wouldn’t be the same. Once he’d lowered me, I wouldn’t be able to feel his presence. Would I be able to make it without that sure sensory feedback reminding me that I was safe?

I would choose to trust, I told myself–and so I did.

Flying, closer up

I relaxed as the distance grew between us.

I was still safe, still connected, still hearing his voice. He was still guiding the chute.

He asked me if I wanted to do anything fancy–circles, loop-de-loops, or the like. “Or would you rather just hang out?”

It was hard to push the words from my lungs: “I’d rather just hang out.”

“That’s okay,” he told me, “we’ll just hang out.”

And so we did, arms outstretched, hands in the chute’s handles. We hung there, suspended between sky and earth, observing the scenery below as we softly drifted along.

My head started spinning. I willed it to stop. I was enjoying this too much to be sick.

I wanted to see.

Preparing for landing

I told my instructor that I was getting dizzy. He encouraged me to breathe deeply, said he’d go gently.

I breathed, my eyes taking in everything I saw.

Beside me, Joanna and her instructor were doing crazy moves.

I smiled and breathed and wished I could be flying forever, and never.