Carey's Reading Notes

In The Quiet It's evening After work I drive home Under a beautiful sunset Sky full of orange and pink While it's still light We go for a little walk  Talk about our day You go back to sleep, tired I put the breakfast you didn't eat back in the fridge I make myself a cup of tea Have some dinner of leftovers Sit on the loveseat under the blanket Open a book to read In the quiet With the two of us in opposite corners The house doesn't feel so big Every room is filled with Quietness, darkness or both I worry about you while I'm at work How you are feeling If you are eating enough or too much If you are sleeping enough or too much Yesterday when we talked You said you felt 3 out of 10 And I felt guilty that I felt a 9 Today I meditated on self nurturing How each of us are so precious Just by being We  touch each other's lives And those of others Friends come and go But you are my chosen family We only have each other I don't know how I can help To li

All The Reasons I am aware of The fire of ambition The tight grip of perfectionism The sweetness of recognition In those moments of awareness I must not forget Fire burns Tight grips tire Sweetness spoils Achieving does not mean Impressing others or Sticking out from the crowd Choose Kindness over competition Accepting over striving Gratitude over arrogance I remind myself I have absolutely nothing to prove I already have all the reasons For being exactly where I am

After Death (2023) directed by Chris Radtke I wanted to see this documentary ever since I read the synopsis. What happens after death? The movie explores this question through people's accounts of their near death experiences and some scientific studies. I found it fascinating that since the advance of modern medicine, many patients are resuscitated from near death and have survived to tell the story of what they experienced. There are many commonalities; for example they experience hovering over their bodies and seeing a light of infinite love and warmth. Many describe feeling more alive than they ever felt in their lives with all of their senses heightened. People that were blind from birth reported being able to see and some found their newly gained vision disturbing. There were rare cases where patients were intentionally put into a state of clinical death for hours to undergo extremely invasive medical procedures. They saw and heard things in the operating room tha

 Killers of The Flower Moon (2023) directed by Martin Scorsese Although lengthy at 3 hours, I enjoyed the movie. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro were superb, despite the fact that both played despicable characters. I appreciated learning about the true events in American history. The Osage Nation in Oklahoma enjoyed great wealth from oil on their land. But an estimated 60 Osage were killed in a series of murders in the 1920's and the movie zooms in on murders in one particular family. So much greed, violence and corruption over oil wealth - I felt disgusted, but at the same time, not surprised. There are unexpected funny moments that alleviate the intensity felt by the escalating violence. I found it interesting that in Osage culture, Wakonda is a name for God, an all pervasive life force. This is what Wakanda from Black Panther movies is from. Now I know.

Livingood Daily (2023) by Dr. Livingood Social media ad got me (book is free, just pay for shipping!). Dr. Livingood makes some good points about the sad reality of healthcare in the US, how doctors care for you only when you are sick or in a crisis, instead of giving you tools to achieve and maintain health. It's an expensive "sickcare" system. Although many of his arguments are r epetitive or simplistic (but that may be by design!), I found some content interesting. For example, what does it mean to be healthy? When your organs are functioning at somewhere between 0 and 100%, at which point would you start to notice something is wrong? The answer is apparently somewhere between 20 and 60%, depending on the organ. Although his sources seem anecdotal, it makes intuitive sense. We can be at an advanced stage of a disease before feeling any discomfort. We may finally convince ourselves to go see a doctor when we feel pain, and our organ(s) may have fallen to only 50% fun

  Mother Canoe We meet every weekday at noon To bring us back to ourselves Today Amy led us on a meditation practice called RAIN by Tara Brach Recognize - be curious of where we are with our body and thoughts Allow - accept where we are without judgement Investigate - examine what it is like to be ourselves Nurture - practice compassion about where we are and how we are feeling When we do a silent meditation In solitude or in company of others It is like we each float in a tiny canoe Being swept by wind and waves, we explore Creeks, streams and canals we are not supposed to And mindful of steep waterfalls We try our best to stay on the river But when we are guided in our meditations It is like our tiny canoes float inside a giant mother canoe Gliding down the river together, protected from the elements Gently reminded to stay on course We may wander but never too far or for too long Mindfulness meditation is where I rest my mind and take a breath A journey taken together feels better a

She Came To Me (2023) directed by Rebecca Miller I liked this movie more than I thought I would. The trailer didn't do justice to the cinematic beauty and gentle flow of this romantic comedy. It is sweet that all the main characters find love and healing in the end. The young girl in love, played by Harlow Olivia Calliope Jane, is nervous about whether she would change and forget about the significant moments of her life after they are over. I remember when I was ten years old, I thought to myself I'm ten now and life will never be the same. I will never look at the world with these same eyes again. Now at forty-two, I think about how I am living my life, daring to be creative, grow and be a better partner to my husband, and devote time and energy to activities and people that make me happy. For a while, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get employed and the guilt, insecurity and rejections got me down. But now, a job offer is coming, and like that young

Steps (1968) by Jerzy Kosinski After reading The Painted Bird by the same author, this novel reads like recounting by the same boy that has grown up. And similar to the earlier work, some stories in this novel sound autobiographical: working as a ski instructor, teaching in a communist society, and immigrating to the US. Brutal acts are observed and carried out by the main character seemingly without conscience, which is different from the earlier work where the boy struggles with morality. The immigrant stories are fantastical and movie-like and made me wonder if becoming part of the underworld was that commonplace in the 1960's. As an immigrant myself, I enjoyed the poetic description of how one wishes to be affixed to that seat in the airplane, in that sky, to be frozen forever in that state between the past and the future. It is difficult to face the future as an immigrant, especially if so much was sacrificed to create it. It should feel like a new beginning but pr

Moran Market (2022) by Lee Gyung Hee Korean novel (모란 시장, 이경희 장편 소설) This was a distinct read, told from the perspective of a dog that lives inside a sijang, a Korean traditional market. The book addresses the controversial issue of the Korean dog meat trade. When I was a child, my family used to go to two restaurants that faced each other in an alley. My mom and I would go into the jook (Korean rice soup) restaurant, and my father and brother would go into the restaurant that served dog meat. Restaurants of the latter type still exist in Korea but are not as prominent. The traditional market, sijang, is perhaps the perfect setting to portray the survival of the strongest, but the aggressors, the oppressed and non-conformists all somehow co-exist in this unique ecosystem. There is injustice and violence but also kindness and compassion there. The protagonist - the dog - is heartbreakingly loyal to his master yet he sees the injustice done by humans to animals and to each oth