CHASING MATISSE: the right book at the right time

Occasionally, a book comes along that is "the right book at the right time". So it is with Chasing Matisse, A Year in France Living My Dream by James Morgan.

I had been eyeing this book in the library for a number of years, perhaps as many as six or eight, without picking it up. A couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a try. James Morgan, the author, and I are about the same age. He turned roughly sixty when he finished this book. I was almost sixty at the same time. Morgan gave up his livelihood, retired, and he and his wife Beth sold their home and moved to France. But there was a purpose to his journey: to follow somewhat in the footsteps of the painter Henri Matisse. Morgan had always wanted to be a painter (painting has always interested me though I did next to nothing about it, either, until I retired four years ago), and decided that he would start, with very little training, and do so in France while visiting the various places Matisse had lived. (I began taking drawing and painting classes at UNF  about two years ago, and am progressing slowly towards, I hope, respectability as a painter. Be not deceived, I have a long way to go.)

The book is full of anecdotes about Matisse and the places he lived and how they effected his style of painting. And Morgan's reflections about his adventure speak quite strongly to me and what I'm doing. Morgan's idea of retirement is to "Read, write, paint, think, travel: Finally my surface life and my subterranean life had meshed in perfect harmony." That's also my idea of retirement, especially, reading , writing, painting, and thinking. Travel will probably not be much in my retirement, certainly not traveling far from home. But the first four will keep me plenty busy.

This memoir is one that I could have lived, could have written, but...well, it's already been done. But it does have something indirectly to say about retirement and growing older. There is still a lot of adventure for us all, if we only take the chance.

Childhood

I've been reading Annie Dillard's An American Childhood and thinking about my own childhood, remembering it, trying to put a name to it. I asked myself: What did it mean to be a child? I decided that the one thing it means for sure is that I (the child) have no memory. When I was born, I had nothing in my brain (memories) to fall back on, to tell me what was going on, and that was the case for quite a few years.

As an adult, I can remember my very first memory. I recall it vividly. I was walking down the street, holding my father's hand. I had a diaper full of doo-doo. On the top of the fence pole, there was a large Lincoln Head Penny.

I was potty trained when I was two years old, so I had to have been two years old or less. I walked at around ten months of age, so they tell me, so I might have been one or two years old. Was that my first moment of self-realization? Why did that memory stay with me for the rest of my life, and nothing much else until I was older? What was so memorable about it? I can't say. It just is. Just like a child, I just was.

Being a child means learning how to remember--to remember without remembering. We forget almost everything we remember. Yet, we remember it all. It is within us. We just don't remember it. So being a child is all about memory.

"Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova's Memoir" by Ann Carbine Best

Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in fairy tales? If you don't, you might after reading Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova's Memoir by Ann Carbine Best.

"Imprisoned" resonates with Best's well-sculptured prose that says more between the lines than many books say within their lines. But this story is not about Best, it's about Svetlana.

Svetlana's memoir engrosses you with the story of the brutality that strikes her unexpectedly, and how hope and promise turn into despair and futility. But it is Svetlana's response that turns despair and futility back into hope and promise. It's the story of a Russian immigrant escaping the Russian mafia and searching for a new home, but who finds a prison instead, and once again must escape from someone who might kill her. It is through her courage, and perhaps a few miracles as well, that she finds her freedom a second time.

While this is a story that disturbs, with it's honesty, it is also a story that shows that you can survive and find freedom and happiness after all.

Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova's Memoir is available at both Smashwords and Amazon at the links below.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Imprisoned
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00689ORVK/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_ask_syFlC.0TKCAA6

"In the Mirror" by Ann Carbine Best

It's not very often a memoir is written that compares favorably to two of the best memoirs I've ever read: Lost In America by Sherwin Nuland and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Ann Carbine Best's In the Mirror shares the best qualities of each: honesty, candor, superior writing, shocking truths, and emotional depth that won't allow you to stop reading.

Best's prose reflects the shocks life continually deals her, shocks that would numb any person to her own feelings. Not one, not two, but three battles she has to fight, any one of which could defeat her. But her bravery, her Mormon faith, her willingess to love even those who seemingly do not love her, carries her to victory. Her stoicism in the face of adversity, her turbulent emotions held in check, permeate every sentence.

"I got home from work and found Larry talking on the phone. He looked startled when he saw me." So begins the bizarre saga of her marriage. The candor of her emotions is heartbreaking. The coldness of some of those she loves filters subtly through the narrative. Despite the odds against her, she never gives up. "I think I'm getting used to saying goodbye to people I love." Ann's life is one of constant deception, but she handles it with charity and forgiveness, and in the end she can say, "It was a beautiful day, the sky almost cloudless and so blue that I thought if I looked hard enough I might see my face reflected in it."

In the Mirror reflects Ann Best's life clearly--a bittersweet life you'll never forget.

In the Mirror is published by WiDo Publishers and is available on Amazon.com.