maybe progress

I think we’re making progress on the house. I’m not sure because I’m too tired. Though I really do wish right now we were there. The entire time we were at the house we had no bathroom issues, considering we have three to choose from and we’re only two. Tonight? We’re constantly bickering due to the scarcity of “reading rooms”. *sigh*

I do know that it’s starting to feel like ours and I found returning to the apartment for a week of Work (the kind that pays the mortgageS) very depressing. I’m finding a rhythm and also that I only meet our new neighbors when I’m covered from head to toe in sweat from yard work. We’ve not yet read up on the sprinkler system that came with the house (we are *incredibly* spoiled by this) so we have yet to turn it on. I hope that the heat and humidity that’s hit the metro NYC area this week doesn’t completely kill my lawn.

I’m picking up books wherever I can on gardening and an impulse trip to Strand this afternoon lead me to bring home a slim volume on composting. I grew up among all of these things but was young and take an active participation in them. (That and I am a very spoiled only child). I can’t recall what my father did with grass clippings, which household waste is ok to toss, etc etc. A quick skim through this book on my way home shows me I have some common sense in the do’s and don’ts and I hope it will help me. I will hopefully finish the small volume by next week and will try to review and provide you with all the author/title information you could ever want.

The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Lost Loves, and Forgotten Histories
by Sadia Shepard

I found Shepard‘s memoir of her path to and on her Fulbright year enjoyable. Despite a few books on my shelves of far-flung Jewish Communities such as the Bene Israel, I am sadly mostly ignorant of them. Additionally I have a large hole in my knowledge of “real” Islam. I studied Western Religions at an introductory level in College, but it was very theoretical. I don’t know much about many things as they are in the world outside the academic bubble. The portrait Shepard sketches of her identity and the customs and concerns she faces was a refreshing read. It reminds me many respects of Saidiya Hartman‘s Lose Your Mother, both write with a frank poetry and cadence that left me feeling as if I were conversing over a cup of tea. (note: I took a seminar with Professor Hartman in 2008 so my memory of her book and her class have most likely merged in the past year). If you think your way of religion is the one and only right way, please don’t open this book or come ranting to me with “how could she”. If you are respectful and curious, I think you will greatly enjoy the journey Shepard invites us on. I wish her the best on her future endeavors.