Book Review: When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . July 26, 2011 . 6:05PM

Every family has secrets and even the ones that seem to have it easier than others hide those secrets even from themselves. Sarah Winman has beautifully shown how a secret can be lost to a family and retrieved in the most unexpected ways. In When God Was A Rabbit, Elly’s life is tied to that of her best friend, Jenny Penny, a girl who seems to have mystical powers. As Elly and Jenny weave their way through childhood, Elly relies on her brother Joe to be her stronghold even as she watches him grow into adulthood and change in ways she didn’t understand at the time.

As they age, the family comes into good fortune and an eclectic cast of characters changes the way they view people and each other. Jenny Penny fades from Elly’s life but, as all soulmates are, Jenny and Elly are connected and they seem to find one another again. While the writing was confusing and disjointed at times, particularly when it came to understanding the characters of Alan and Arthur, overall, the book was nicely done. There were no punches to be pulled and the plot didn’t drag.

The most compelling part of the book, for me, was watching Elly cope with her personal drama as a child by turning her rabbit into a talking version of God. I have never seen a defense mechanism so beautifully written and it showed a stoic Elly turning to an animal in a way that most children do but it is rarely shown realistically in novels. As an aside, children who have experienced trauma or who have difficulty talking to other humans can frequently express themselves more easily to animals and I found this a particularly sensitive aspect of the novel. Elly continues to search for her rabbit God throughout the novel and I found it touching.

**Disclaimer: I received this book for free in order to review it. Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts on this novel with others!

Pills, pills, pills and Michelle Bachmann

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . July 19, 2011 . 7:25PM

As I’ve noted repeatedly at this blog, I am a chronic migraine sufferer. I’ve discussed how they affect me as well as how they affect my family. I’ve also mentioned in the past that stress is certainly one of the factors in my migraines, however, and this is the important part, it is not even close to the only factor. Actually, I’ve had one migraine in the last 3 months and they have been among the most stressful months of my life. My other two main triggers are weather (thankfully, we’ve had a particularly dry summer) and hormones (which I’ve been able to thoughtfully control thanks to a great neurologist).

Today, I received an instant message with a link and the comment that I was going to be angry. I am. I’m very angry. The link was to the message entitled: “Stress Condition ‘Incapacitates’ Michele Bachmann; Heavy Pill Use Alleged.” As someone with chronic pain, I couldn’t wait to read what someone who clearly has not had this condition had to say about someone with migraines. What I knew I’d read was total misunderstanding and an attempt to smear a reputation based on half-truths and worthless reporting. I don’t care what you think about Michelle Bachmann as a person. I don’t. I don’t care what you think about her politics. What I do care about is someone misreporting facts about chronic pain and pill usage when it already has a bad rap. If Michelle Bachmann is popping pills like candy because she’s addicted and that impairs her judgment, fine, report it. It’s worthy and the public needs to know. If Michelle Bachmann has chronic pain, is managing it properly and using preventative and abortive methods with proper dosage to control her migraines, then this is ridiculous, alarmist reporting.

Back in 2006, Ben Affleck went to the hospital and endured months of ridicule for treating a migraine and the media freaked out. What struck me as odd about this is that many migraine sufferers will still work through a migraine and most of us, when we get to the point where our abortives (the medications that are used to attempt to stop a migraine when it has already begun) are ineffective, will head to a clinic to get a steroid shot and some phenerghan. Steroids are highly effective at stopping migraines and the phenerghan stops the nausea so we can get some rest. There is nothing unusual about Ben’s trip to the E.R. but the news was reporting it in a couple of ways. The first, as if he were a wuss. Anyone that has an inkling of a migraine knows that they aren’t for wimps. The second as if he were experiencing the worst pain ever and they’d hospitalized him to run tests. I don’t know what they did to him. What I know is that migraine sufferers do what they have to do to go on with life. They don’t generally want to lay in bed for four days if they can avoid it. In Bachmann’s case, the article states that she was hospitalized and released on the same day for migraines. Gee, I wonder what occurred? Could it have been, in the interest of saving herself a full day’s worth of work, she got the steroid shot and maybe an IV for hydration (another possible trigger of migraines is dehydration) and got back to work? Many migraine sufferers are type A personalities and get them because they work too hard, not because they are slackers.

Why is this an issue? Michelle Bachmann plans to run for President, according to the article, and “some” (who are these people?) fear she’s not up to the stress. Let me reiterate, yet again, stress is only one trigger. For some people, chocolate is a trigger. For some, sweeteners, others, the MSG often found in chinese food. Do you avoid chinese food because of unpleasant side effects?

Michelle Bachmann’s spokesperson states that she has her migraines under control. I find the “heavy pill use” notion preposterous. The first thing a migraine user considers when a doctor attempts to foist a new pill on them is how it will affect his or her migraines. My guess, if I had to make one, is that Ms. Bachmann is on a regimen that most of us chronic pain migraine users have. She likely takes a preventative medication daily that helps prevent her migraines (1 pill a day, generally). She likely takes an abortive pill as needed when the migraines occur (1-2 pills per migraine). She may take phenerghan (bless its little heart, 1 per migraine to make you not throw up while you ice your head). Tally it up, folks. This is 1 pill a day and possibly 2-3 pills (maybe a couple more depending on her personal regimen) as needed when she has an attack. This is relatively FEW pills for a chronic pain sufferer. If things are really bad, she’s already shown she will suck it up and go the route of getting it fixed quickly at the clinic. Granted, this is just my guess and I’m not her doctor nor do I know her personally.

Is perfect health now a requirement for the Presidency? Is it now a requirement for any job? According to the University of Maryland webpage (and this is a secondhand source from the American Chronic Pain Association), 86 million Americans experience chronic pain. Do we not elect our officials to represent us? Do we no longer allow people to run for office if they may have a handicap or something that may slow them down? Andrew Jackson, who some may know is not my favorite president, had chronic headaches. JFK had Addison’s Disease. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, Roosevelt had polio and Coolidge was depressed.

Don’t think for one minute that our current President doesn’t have flaws. Don’t think that the other folks who may want to run don’t have flaws. Before you judge someone with chronic pain, especially someone who, by all accounts, is working hard to keep it under control, take some time to really consider what that person is going through and what they have to offer. I’m all for choosing the best person for any job, but discriminating against someone for something they can’t control, even if they can do the best job is unfair and wrong. Hating on them and calling them a pill popper because they don’t play for the same team you do or because you want someone to pay attention to your writing is ethically unfair and wrong. Write responsibly, folks and educate yourself before throwing someone under a bus.

Why sometimes it is better to give in to the small things

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . July 17, 2011 . 6:43PM

As I noted in the post prior to this one, this summer has been little fun for me and, really, for anyone living in this household. Stress and tension are overwhelming and even our mini-vacation back to Illinois was more stress and tension and what felt like a lot of pressure in what was supposed to be an easy-going week back home. AJ and I have been struggling to find our way this summer and it feels like we are navigating in a pressure cooker. I have been sensitive to this in the past week and have really been trying to get both of us out of the house and doing things to alleviate some of this build-up.

Lately, for at least two hours a day, I have studied for a test that is coming up next weekend. So, instead of letting him do other things, I asked AJ to come to the library with me and read a book that he has enjoyed in recent weeks. Generally, this would provoke whining and upset, but because of the melancholic timbre of the summer this very peculiar year, he has been delighted to sit in the cool, quiet alcove of the well-lit library on their comfortable leather couches and soak in the atmosphere of the library. When he heard we would not be going yesterday, because it was Saturday and they’d be closing early, he was disappointed that he would not finish his book in the calm demeanor he’d become accustomed.

I have not lavishly spoiled him to make up for the loss of a summer of fun. AJ isn’t entitled to a summer of fun just for being a kid. There are parents that will disagree with me on that statement, but the truth of the matter is that no one is entitled to anything other than safety, love, a full belly and a warm/cool place to sleep. I give my child all of those things, lots of attention and affection, plenty of cool gadgets and he does get to do fun things, but he doesn’t go on lavish vacations and we don’t spend a lot of money making sure every single day overstimulates him to the point where I no longer like who he is as a person. When I meet a parent who does, I often find it difficult to be friendly with both the parent and the child because of the expectations they have as to how people will treat them; Rather, how they feel they are entitled to be treated.

Besides studying yesterday, I planned a small outing to the Nashville Farmer’s Market. I’d never been and AJ and I had gone to the adorable one near our house the other day. He’d studied a pattypan squash and liked it because it looked like a UFO. He’d picked up several other vegetables that I could not identify, to his amusement and to my dismay. I thought that, perhaps, a trip to the market where he could look to his heart’s delight and I could learn about the vegetables might be fun for both of us. They also had a flea market and AJ loves to look at trinkets. Garage sales may be his favorite events on earth.

When we got there, I handed AJ the $6 he’d earned by doing chores every day this week and told him that he could spend it, but carefully and not on junk. Immediately, he focused on a large adults watch with a disastrous amount of bling and a large money sign on it. It was a glowing green color and also came with a large $$ necklace. I bit my lip and hoped that it would be too expensive. Despite my better judgment, I told him he could not ask how much it was and pulled him away from the bling ensemble. As we continued to walk around, he found another necklace he desperately wanted. It was hematite, shiny, and looked like it had a shark’s tooth attached to it. It was gaudy and awful and I knew he wanted it more than anything. Again, against my better judgment, I told him he could not ask how much it was.

My inability to understand his want of shiny, blingy jewelry was too much. His jaw set, he marched ahead of me to the food market and the day was ruined. The shark necklace might have been $2. We continued to argue about it for the next hour. As I picked up tomatoes, peaches, cucumbers and oranges, I thought to myself and wondered if the argument was truly worth it. The money was his and while I knew he’d be happy when he’d saved enough to buy a larger toy, AJ is 10 years old. He wants immediate gratification despite the costs. Even though I’d explained that I did what I thought was best, was it worth the cost? Was the loss of that necklace worth the upset between us and the upset of our day together? The event was planned to offset some of the negativity of the summer. Surely, if he wanted a $2 necklace that he was going to buy with his own money, it wasn’t worth this.

I made a mistake. Adults do it. We decide we know what’s best and we hold firm to in the idea of good parenting practices. Usually, in this vein, we are correct in what we are doing and it is better for our children. However, “don’t sweat the small stuff” is a cliche for a reason, as are all cliches. In this case, my not giving in hurt AJ’s decision-making process and our camaraderie for the day. In the big scheme of things, was that necklace important? To me, it wasn’t. To him, it was. To us, it was. Giving in would have made the difference in how he felt about our time together. We had a large discussion about how material things should not affect our time together and how arguments do. Ultimately, I think we both learned a lot.

Next time, I’ll do better. A small thing is a small thing and day-ruining arguments are best saved for the things that really matter.

Summer is no fun

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . July 12, 2011 . 3:26PM

At some point this summer, I recognized that my stress levels were a little overwhelming to me. I haven’t been writing in my blog. I’ve been consumed with studying for yet another standardized test that is required for me to prove myself. I cannot count the number of those I’ve had to take over the years of education and I am still anxious about taking them. I’m still working on internship stuff and that is on top of other things that are occurring.

It came to a head today when I looked at the happy meal I’d purchased for lunch and squinted at it while thinking, “You’d better do what you say you do.”

Placing my hopes on that happy meal to make my day go better was an irrational thought, but, at the time, it was something under my control. At this juncture, there are many things outside of my control that directly affect my future and frustrating isn’t the word for how that feels to me. What this also tells me is that I need to spend some time relaxing, once I do take this test and get it finished.

I tried to re-write the last part of this post about 30 times. Nothing felt authentic or right. So, I’ll just say that this summer has been “no fun” and I long for the days that I enjoyed my summer days. I long for the days not so long ago that I had motivation and time to write in my blog or things to write about other than how busy I am studying or working. For now, it is my life. Not always and not forever.