It’s summer-time! The arrival of summer brings me to my rest period for these posts, after which I will resume in September. My youngest son just graduated Grade 8, so I’m officially out of the elementary school world. I felt a mix of sadness as that chapter ended and some excitement for him too. I’m still feeling that element of air and wanted to leave you with a variety of books & shows to see if any spark your interest (my “subtle” reference towards fire there for you).
I will save my post on the element of fire after Leo season, but my invitation for you is to reflect on what you’d like bring into your summer this year (or your winter if that’s your next season). I encourage you to be experimental and see what it is you need most – rest? fun? intellectual stimulation? connection? Invite some mystery and spontaneity into the season ahead. Feel free to change your mind 🙂
Asian Heritage Month
Usually I focus on Pride month, and I’m shaking it up this year to focus on Asian Heritage Month. Also the last things I watched with an LGTBQI+ focus was Queer Ultimatum (Netflix) and the movie Gray Matters (Prime). The first one is best watched with a friend either side by side or by text due to the ridiculousness of the premise of this reality-based show – this is not quality television. Gray Matters is very 2006 and you’ll have to take it as it is.
If you’re itching to read or watch something with some depth, I recommend one of my favourite novels The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Recently this was made into a TV series and I’m about half way through it. Canadian Sandra Oh has a role in it, and she’s a force to be reckoned with.
The Sympathizer takes place during the Vietnam war. The Captain is a double-agent spy. The complexities of this role mirror his experience as a Vietnamese man brought up by an absent French father and a Vietnamese mother. He went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause.
The author writes like a double-agent himself walking that fine line of sharing hard truths with a smile & a knife behind his back.
Viet Thanh Nguyen also published a memoir this year – The Man of Two Faces: a Memoir, a History, a Memorial. Start with the Sympathizer, and if you like that one, you’ll probably like this one too.
Another great read by Taiwanese-American Hua Hsu, is Stay True. This is also amemoir, but of a very different nature. This is based in California about Hua and his friendship with Ken, a multi-generational Japanese-American man. His friendship lasts until his friend is killed, and Hua struggles to process this event and connect with who he truly is beyond the intellectual walls he has created for himself.
If you have any favourites or recommendations – send them my way!
Manhattan
If you’re looking for a lighter summer-time read – here are two based on twenty-somethings living life in Manhattan. I loved both of these books.
The more current read is Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados. Isa & Gala are “doing nothing” in New York City. They try to make enough money to pay the rent and otherwise weave in and out of different circles with the main goal of having fun and not having to pay for it.
Another Manhattan-based novel that takes place in the late 1930s by Amor Towles is Rules of Civility. Katey & Eve are both women who find themselves pulled into the upper stratosphere of Manhattan after befriending a man, Tinker Grey. This book starts out as a book about having fun and enters into more interesting territories.
Both books explore friendship & love in very different time periods.
A Splash of Woo
As a break from television, I’ve been having some fun exploring the world of tarot. If you’re into tarot or curious to get to know it more, I recommend Alice Mastroleo’s book Tarot for Practical People. The title isn’t a great fit (it’s translated from Italian). What I like about this book is that a) it shows 4 separate images from different tarot decks for each explanation and b) it’s playful in it’s explanations. It’s also less binary when it comes to gender as it includes images of multiple tarot decks including the traditional Rider-Waite Tarot deck.
I’ve been dipping into some different podcasts lately – and if you like all things that are VERY woo, try out Just Tap In with Emilio Ortiz. He interviews all sorts of interesting people. As Tom Kenyon says, “just put anything that seems too out there in an imaginary box next to you, and say – not for me in this moment (my paraphrase of his wisdom)”.
Thanks as always for reading along with me this year. I am looking forward to a summer of some fun, vacation, my feet in the grass and hopefully some magic too. I hope you all have a great summer and I look forward to reconnecting in September!
