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On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Old, by Parker J. Palmer

Parker Palmer describes an exchange he had with his friend and long-time editor Sheryl Fullerton. She asked him if he was interested in writing another book. His reply, “I don’t have the energy for it. But I’m really enjoying short-form writing—brief essays and a little poetry.” She went on to suggest weaving the essays and poetry into a book. His reply: “…a book has to be about something. My short pieces have been all over the map.” She went on: “That’s not true….Parker, do you ever read what you write?” Parker: “Of course not. Why should I? I write the stuff. But, OK, I’ll bite. What pray tell, have I been writing about?” Sheryl: “Getting old! That’s what you’ve been writing about. Didn’t you know?”

Thus, the genesis of this little book. As our group read along, we had many criticisms. Some thought the writing was not as good as it should have been. More critiqued the editing. Each of the seven sections of the book has an introduction, a collection of two or three essays, perhaps some poetry, and a conclusion. And the seven sections are preceded by a Prelude and followed by a Postlude! It’s sort of “First I’m gonna tell you what I’ll tell you. Then I’ll tell you. Then I tell you what I told you.”

Interestingly, however, much as many of us found things to criticize, we also found much to admire. There are gems here, some from Palmer himself and some from those whom he quotes, notably Thomas Merton.

From a commencement address he gave in 2015: “To grow in love and service, you must value ignorance as much as knowledge and failure as much as success…Everyday, exercise your heart by taking in life’s pains and joys. That kind of exercise will make your heart supple, so that when it breaks—which it surely will—it will break not into a fragment grenade but into a greater capacity for love.”

From his musings on being contemplative: “Catastrophe, too, can be a contemplative path, pitched and perilous as it may be. I’m still on that path, and daily I stay alert for the disillusionment that will reveal the next thing I need to know about myself and/or the world.”

And on how we take on tasks: “As long as we’re wedded to results, we’ll take on smaller and smaller tasks, the only ones that yield results. If we want to live by values like love, truth, and justice—values that will never be fully achieved—‘faithfulness’ is the only standard that will do. When I die, I won’t be asking about the bottom line. I’ll be asking if I was faithful to my gifts, to the needs I saw around me, and to the way I engaged those needs with my gifts—faithful, that is, to the value, rightness, and truth of offering the world the best I had, as best I could.”

For me, specially, I was much affected by this poem from Parker J. Palmer:

Waving Goodbye from Afar
(for Angie, Ian, Vincent, and John)

One by one, their names have been
exhaled in recent weeks, fading into thin air
on their final breath: Angie, Ian, Vincent, John.

I talked, laughed and worked with them, we
cared about each other. Now they are gone.
No, they do not live on—just watch the world

keep turning in their absence, a tribute here
and there depending on the fame of the fast-
fading name. I’ve always thought it would

be good if a few who loved me sat with me
as I died. Now, as I learn from friends who’ve
taken sudden leave, I’m glad all I can do is

wave goodbye from afar, knowing they can’t
see me. It feels right to offer them an unseen
final salute, seeking no attention, unable to

distract them from a journey each of us must
make alone. It must be a breathless climb, the
kind I’ve made many times in the mountains

of New Mexico. The last thing I wanted there
was someone who just had to talk, when it was
all I could do to climb, to breathe, then stop—

marveling at the view, wondering what’s up top.

— Jeanie Smith

A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley

What lurks beneath the surface? This question rears up in every chapter of A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley’s searing reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Updated to 1979 and moved to a thousand-acre farm in northern Iowa, the story starts with Larry, the family patriarch and a king among the farmers in Zebulon County, abruptly deciding to divide his land among his three daughters. Just as Cordelia did in the original play, the youngest daughter, Caroline, expresses doubt about the wisdom of this move and is summarily disinherited. Left to manage the farm are our narrator Ginny and her sister Rose, along with their husbands, the dutiful and hardworking Ty and the onetime musician turned reluctant farmer Pete.

Smiley’s writing brilliantly captures the beauty of the tranquil landscape and the stoic nature of the farmers who tend it. “A thousand acres. It was that simple….But if I look past the buzzing machine monotonously unzipping the crusted soil, at the field itself and the fields around it, I remember that the seemingly stationary fields are always flowing toward one farmer and away from another. The lesson my father might say they prove is that a man gets what he deserves by creating his own good luck.”

This is a familiar backdrop to our group of readers. We see the rolling fields of corn and neatly planted rows of soy beans Smiley describes daily as we drive even a few minutes outside the city. As the story unfolds, however, we become aware of the poison flowing through the fertile soil. Smiley describes monoculture, use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, the practice of planting to the very edge of fields with no borders to capture and filter toxic runoff, and large hog confinements – all standard farming practices today that were just starting to appear in 1979.

And just like the land they tend, the stoic, upstanding members of the Cook family hide the poison that flows under the surface of their family dynamic. Bit by bit, Smiley pulls back the facades that hide the true nature of their relationships and interactions over the years, which are yet more toxic than the pesticides and fertilizers that form the foundation of their livelihood.

Just as Shakespeare did in King Lear, Smiley introduces side characters who complicate established relationships and drive the plot forward to its tragic end. Unlike Shakespeare, however, she gives sisters Ginny and Rose a voice and a backstory that make us wonder whether Lear’s coldhearted Goneril and scheming Regan might have had motivations we never saw. Smiley ultimately leaves us with a blistering family portrait and their beautifully-narrated, heartbreaking inability to avoid their own tragic demise.

— Marcy Luft and Jeanie Smith

Love is My Favorite Flavor, by Wini Moranville

Early in her career, Wini Moranville decided her lifetime goal would be “to rearrange a modest but sweet life” around small moments and great meals. She was in the Rhine River valley on a backpacking trip through Europe, where she discovered food and wine that “tasted like the joy of knowing something good had settled into your soul and will be there forever.” These were the moments to live for, she realized.

And so she did. She became a food and wine writer, summer resident of France, and restaurant critic for the Des Moines Register. And now, she shares this sweet life in her memoir, Love is My Favorite Flavor, an engaging book that demonstrates how food is all about love—growing it, preparing it, serving it, and sharing it.

She started waitressing when she was 13 at Baker’s Cafeteria, a family-run, family-focused place with plenty of mashed potatoes, gravy, and cream pie. For the next ten years, through high school and college, she worked at some of Des Moines’ iconic restaurants——Younkers’ Tea Room, the Meadowlark, and Parkade Pantry— building the foundation on which her career was forged.

She still remembers instances in which she failed a customer in need of sustenance, like the woman in the houndstooth suit who wanted a tuna salad sandwich at The Soup Kitchen, one of Des Moines’ earliest vegetarian restaurants. In hindsight, rather than turning the woman away, Moranville wishes she had encouraged her to try one of the restaurant’s satisfying alternatives and helped her enjoy her lunch. Or the little boy whose family mocked him for mispronouncing pecan to the point he couldn’t enjoy the pie he had been savoring. The memory of somebody being deprived of the joy of a meal still rankles.

And she remembers a fussy customer who wanted her tea in a teapot so she could brew it just the way she wanted. First, the woman seemed unsufferable, but then Moranville caught a glimpse of her “staring contemplatively into space and sipping tea brewed just the way she liked it. She simply looked so…happy.”

She realized the woman, like most customers, had her own drudgery, and the treat she allowed herself was her afternoon cup of tea. “And it took so little to make her happy: hot water in a teapot, tea bag on the side, two packets of honey.”

In the best restaurants, the staff shares a meal together before their shift begins, testing menu items, but also bonding, creating an atmosphere in which serving feels like a calling, not a job. She saw this in full color on a trip to France, when she and her husband Dave came upon a raucous group on a restaurant terrace, finishing a meal and enjoying the food and one another. They learned this was the staff, which was just about ready to go to work, after finishing the espresso being served by the restaurant owner. They talked to a chef, who encouraged them to return later, which they did, enjoying their own delicious and convivial meal. Moranville observes:

It occurred to me that the staff seemed to operate from a kind of pact: they had their turn sitting down at the table and being nourished and cared for. When it was our turn to sit at the table, the promise was that we would be in equally good hands.

The book charts Des Moines’ growth from a meat-and-potatoes backwater to a place where chefs win James Beard awards. But the strain of being the town food critic eventually took the fun out of that job, so she resigned as the Datebook Diner. And the wine junkets to exotic places never were much fun because she seldom saw the beauty of the landscape but was stuck in a stuffy room with stuffier writers. She turned to writing books, several on French cooking; she blogs about food at Dining Well in Des Moines with Wini Moranville.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book was the discussion, especially the stories book club members shared about their own relationships with food. We talked about the weirdness of carrot Jell-O salad, and learned how to make Jell-O in England without a refrigerator, about a picnic with salmon and peas, and about our own experiences as young, energetic and occasionally not sober wait staff. This was a relaxing read in a stressful time, reminding us that our tables can be sanctuaries, sacred places for friends and family, and that through food we build community.

— Pat Prijatel