Praise (with some embellishment) for Connie Lapallo's Jamestown Trilogy

At times, when finishing up a chapter of Connie Lapallo’s Jamestown trilogy, I caught myself near breathless, shaking my head with amazement. I’ve studied and loved Virginia history my whole life and I’ve written six books, so I know a thing or two about the effort and hours she’s exerted to craft these tales. I offer her a nod of respect. I hope the work of historical fiction I’m in the midst of researching will be as good.

Okay, so now you know why I bought Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky from Connie at the Williamsburg Book Festival last fall. I wanted to see how she handled a work of “local” historical fiction. Knowing the hard work for little reward that goes into book writing, I also wondered if she’d like to take my research and make it into her fourth book. It seemed to suit too, since my story starts where hers ends, in 1652.

But once into the book, I found it to be a page-turner. I wanted Book 2! And then, I was inspired to hold on to my research and write it “better.” (More on my critique later.) My husband must have heard my thoughts since for Christmas, he gave me the next two books in the trilogy: When the Moon Has No More Silver: The Continuing Story of the Women & Children of Jamestown and The Sun Is But A Morning Star. What a treat.

It took a while for me to read the second book, due to that universal problem: life got in the way of my reading! But when I started the third, I pressed through quickly. Reading the Jamestown trilogy inspired me to dig into my own project every minute I could spare. Research is the fun part. (More on that later too.)

So what did I like and dislike? Well, I am a history buff, especially a Tidewater, Virginia, history buff. Even though I already knew a bit more than the average person about Jamestown, I discovered to my surprise that I’ve digested names and dates that hadn’t stuck before. The slow pace of the book allowed me to make friends with the characters whose names and relationships really have stuck to my few spare neurons. For example, when I read in the local newspaper that there would be a program at Historic Jamestowne led by Edmund Brewster, I knew who he was! The good man came to Jamestown on a mission to manage the estate of my Lord la Ware. Ah ha! This book of historical fiction peopled around my knowledge of dates and events. Now, Jamestown is more personal. I feel like I know the people. In fact, I plan to head out to Jamestown Island tomorrow to visit the Pierce’s house.

At the same time that I love the history that came to life, I also know that I must be careful to double check it before speaking about it around my historian friends. For instance, I had to cheat a bit by stopping to check with Martha McCartney (Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers: A Biographical Dictionary, 1607-1635) and others on the details. Tom Pierce was killed in the 1622 Massacre, so says Martha. Hmm. Connie has Tom outliving his mother. Martha names Joan’s daughter Joan too, not Jane as Connie did. Perhaps Connie did this to prevent confusion?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she took a bit of literary license. As a person who lives in a college town (my alma mater!) with lots of scholarly friends, I know a mere B.A. in history and a genuine interest in Virginia history does not make me a historian. I will say up front that my book is going to be historical fiction.

I have a problem with Connie a) labeling herself as a historian and b) saying that her books are true when they aren’t always. Take for instance the Postscript: In my opinion, the last chapter of the third book was the best of the hundreds that went before. I was about to hoot my approval, run out to tell my husband, when it occurred to me I’d better check the back for her “What’s Fact and What’s Fiction?” section, included in each book with the back matter. The sad news was right there on the second page of the Author’s Note: “While Joan is a real person and did live these events (with a few embellishments),” . . . What!? Oh wait, maybe I better not quote the rest since that will spoil your fun. Suffice to say the Postscript "embellishment" was fiction. Maybe I should check all the back matter to see if there is an apology for letting Tom live so long and naming young Joan Jane. Maybe not. See? This is my big problem with a book that’s touted to be true, yet the author admits is embellished. You can’t have it both ways.

My other problem: I am not a big fan of Western theology and the fact that this book drips with it is off-putting. Luckily, I was quick to put on my “historian” hat and realized she wasn’t proselytizing. Literal faith in deities was just the way the Western world turned in the late Middle Ages.

And it’s my training in mindfulness that takes this to another level too. Joan is a classic example of NOT mindful, as she continually obsesses about the past and the future. Breathe, Joan. You can quickly stop your suffering by realizing that you can’t do anything about it. You can only be at your best right here and right now. Yes, I would have preferred the narrator to be more stoic, like Tempie. Jeez. All the monkey-mind worry added at least a hundred pages to the trilogy, me thinks, and resulted in a slow pace overall.

I thought, before reading her work, I might hand my research off to Connie. Now I think that research is, perhaps, the easy part. Good storytelling - sharp, quick, colorful, and insightful - is the real challenge. Hard work indeed, and you can’t please everyone, but I would rather give book writing another try.

Nevertheless, welladay, Connie Lapallo! If I see you at this year's Williamsburg Book Festival I will cover you up with praise.

Thoughts about War and Warriors on Memorial Day

While others find it easy to celebrate noble warriors on Memorial Day, I have always found it hard to do so because I couldn't separate the warrior from the war. Innocent people get killed, land gets damaged and, think about it, is the cause really worth fighting for? I am a pacifist.

But why am I this way? Why can't I bring myself to click on the thumbs-up button when my friends post photos of family members who have served? Perhaps there is a clue in that last sentence: family. Perhaps I don't express appropriate Memorial Day emotion because of conditioning experience. 

I grew up around a father who was bitter about the military. He joined the Merchant Marine when he was 19, in 1941, because it was the right thing to do. But while some signed up for the Navy and Army, he wore glasses, was "legally blind," so they wouldn't take him. He turned to the natural alternative. In his hometown of Mathews, Virginia, the Merchant Marine suited the seafaring tradition and many Mathews Men chose maritime careers in times of peace. Dad made multiple trips to Europe and one destined for Japan in convoys of hastily constructed Liberty Ships loaded down with munitions, attacked by German U-Boats. Amazingly enough, he survived.

But in the end he felt angry. His buddies came home from service to the GI bill. He would not be able to afford college and of course that affected his career prospects and life trajectory. Even after Reagan granted veteran status to those who served as merchant seaman he wouldn't sign up. It was too late then, he thought. All through his career as a civil servant, an electrician on the Fort Eustis army base, he would make his bitterness know with little asides about military men on the base who acted in entitled ways.

When my son was a Boy Scout and we went to Memorial Day services, I looked at veterans and saw men who thought they were better than my father. For years I couldn't feel a warm place in my heart for veterans or Memorial Day, until the last decade or so. 

It all started to change during a speech-language pathology practicum when I worked at the VA Polytrauma Center at Hunter Holmes Hospital in Richmond. I saw young boys whose lives were forever changed by an IED . . . or an attempt to commit suicide to get out of the service. Warrior. War. Two different things.

And then, while working on family genealogy, I came across a photo of my grandfather when he was 22, the same age as my son at that time. Sent from Maine, it simply said, "Dear Aunt, I expect to go to France in a few days. Love to all, Cpl. Frank Lewis." He enlisted 101 years ago, in May 1917, and was discharged in March 1919. He came home to a career with the US Lighthouse Service, serving out the rest of his life in lonely stints on Chesapeake Bay lighthouses. He died when I was 4-years old, in 1959. Warrior. War. Two different things.

Recently I watched with utter sadness and dismay the The Vietnam War film by Ken Burns. As if I hadn't know, it called out the fact that wars are the product of politics and leadership. And the warriors . . . are swept along. The Looming Tower brought it closer. Today we have a president who could recklessly spark yet another war.

Wars. Warriors. So many are sacrificed in body and spirit. Our lands and monuments are scared and destroyed. Why? Have we, has anyone, ever won? What did they win for the warriors? Yes, yes, some wars are about animals like Hitler, but many are not.

Memorial Day isn't about celebrating noble warriors. It is about opening our hearts to those who have seen terrible things, who have done the unspeakable. It is about embracing a world tired of war and focusing our next moves along a peaceful path with arms linked across nations. May we feel our common humanity and be weapons of war no more.

The Blood Moon and the Night

I woke up at 3:30, so why not? I had set up my camera earlier in the evening just in case. I took only half the amount of medication that I usually take at night; that way there was a possibility the aches and pains would wake me. My plan worked

I leashed Cici and gathered up the camera on its tripod. Out we traipsed into the quiet street, me in my pajamas and my Wonder Dog, a Jack Russell/Shih Tzu hybrid I'd rescued in the fall, growling at the shadows and the wind.

About halfway down our street, as though just for us, the clouds thinned long enough for me to plant my tripod and capture a dozen blurry photos of the historic Blood Moon. Other celestial objects, I learned from this mornings news, are Mars (at the closest point to the earth it will be in our lifetime), Saturn, and Spica (the 15th brightest star and the brightest star in the constellation Virgo).

At a little after 4 am, the clouds thickened. I waited, but that appeared to be my last look for the night. Cici was ready to go in. One last stop at the end of the driveway. No moon. A tug on the leash and we sneaked back inside. I took the other half of my medication and went back to bed.

Thoughts about "God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age"

In 1995 I found Unitarian Universalism. I've been an infrequent Sunday service attendee, but it feels right when I go and I'm always glad I joined the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalist community. Lately though, events have conspired to make me a more regular service-goer. As I grow older I feel my mortality, I think about my reasons for living, and a faith community supports looking inward in the presence of others who share my world view.

By coincidence, I've wanted to join a book discussion group, so when the minister invited us to join her for a discussion of God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age I jumped on it and placed my Amazon order right away.

There is no doubt in my mind that this book came along at just the right time for me. The author put into much more eloquent words than I could some facts I've felt for a long time. Like him, I left a more rigid religious background. Like him, I couldn't accept paying allegiance to a supernatural being, a form of religious focus more suitable to an earlier age. I couldn't accept the Bible as anything other than history, in which many stories relayed messages of universal truth and goodness. No, I couldn't go to a Christian church and pretend to believe 100%  in stories that were written for a pre-scientific age. Although it felt good to go to church from time to time due to aspects of the community and ambiance that are transcendent, it became harder to do so because I knew the dogma was irrational.

The Unitarian Universalist Church offered me a community similar to the church community I knew as a child, but there was no kidding ourselves about an anthropomorphic God or belief that one had to think like us or else. Unfortunately, though, in the Unitarian Universalist Church it is often easier to say what we don't believe than what we do believe. Yes, beliefs are stated in the creed and such, but I suppose that my lack of regular attendance attests to the fact that I hadn't studied our belief system in more depth.

God Revised has helped me along this path and I look forward to further discussion of the book with the minister later this month. The author, Galen Guengerich, moves through what we don't believe to what we do believe in prose that I know I'll want to go back and reread again and again. Yes, traditional church is losing us slowly but surely because it is not evolving. Civilization settled on the truth that humans are not at the center of the universe centuries ago, yet some still cling to traditional religious language as the Gospel (pardon the pun) even though it rings decided weird in the ears of modern people. Let's move on. Why community? What is faith? How do we show it?

Guengerich gave me more. We have faith in the belief that the world is a wonderful mystery. We are part of the flow, both physically and as a result of our experiences or interrelationships with one another and all things in the universe. This is God: the movement of all things in relation to one another, both physical and experiential, from the past and into the future. Our religion is our faith in being part of the whole and we seek community in which to express our gratitude for this connection. We express gratitude by recognizing that as part of the whole, we are ultimately responsible for the well being of one another and for the well being of the environment that sustains us.

Each year as Christmas grows close, I think about the gathering that runs from fundamental Christians to atheists around our table. Each year the default is to let one of the Christians say the prayer. Each year I wish one of the non-traditional sorts would take the lead and offer up pre-meal thanksgiving. This year, though, I have found the words to give that thanks myself.

"As we gather here in the quiet moments before dinner, let's close our eyes and think about our faith. Yes, we all have faith that the world is a wonderfully mysterious place. We believe that love is divine. We acknowledge that our past has made us who we are today and for that we must be grateful. Let us show our gratitude by taking responsibility for the well-being of each other and the earth that sustains us as these give us hope for the future. May it be so."

I watch the sunrise in my rearview window

Every morning as I drive to Richmond, I have the most pleasing opportunity to watch the sun rise, in all its glory, tinged with the metaphor of new beginnings. My chest feels full as I grab the air in and my throat tightens because a sunrise can have that effect on you if you believe you have been given another chance.

In a few weeks, with any luck, I will graduate from JMU's MS DLVE-SLP program. Currently I am driving to the VA hospital in Richmond where I am finishing up my fifth practicum experience, this one at the VA Polytrauma Center. The experience has been awesome albeit challenging.  Therapy requires a great depth of knowledge along with a quickness that doesn't always come easy for me. I work under a younger clinician who is mightly self-assured. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when the old dog's brain is a little compromised. I struggle with chronic pain from neuropathy, auditory processing deficits, and a jumble of executive function-related residual issues. In sum, I'm slow . . . but sure I need to work with the brain injured in some way so that I can share what I've learned and help others avoid the pitfalls I've experienced. I think I can, I think I can.

I am 58 years old and this will be my third master's degree. I'm about to start something new because I want to help others who live with brain injury and because I can't go back to museums or marketing. Wish me luck . . . and the ability to compensate more effectively with the residuals confounded now by the affects of aging.

Now I let go and meditate on things that are higher. The great, explosive, gaseous, buring sun will come up tomorrow and I will breathe in from it a reserve of strength that comes from knowing that the world, the universe that holds me in its force field is mighty. I go forth humbly, a mere mortal speck, putting one foot in front of the other. I will do my best. I cannot alter the ancient and powerful forces that swirl around me with so much surety. I can only strive to be at one with the force.