Hope vs. despair

"Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom."
–Doctrine & Covenants 88:118

It's not a shocking revelation that the scripture above is one of my favorites. Literature exists so we can learn about ourselves. We write things down to document what we've learned.

Which is why I want to start writing about nuggets of wisdom I find in books I read, as a sporadic feature on this blog. It's not like I ever talk about books, anyway.

And since I opened this post with a scripture, I thought I'd kick off this series with a book many consider to be scripture: The Return of the King.

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy explores hope and despair, but it's illustrated most beautifully in Book V after the Battle of Pelennor Fields. It's the calm before the real battle starts, a battle that makes Pelennor Fields and Helm's Deep look like warm-up games. They know what's coming because the Palantir has shown them what would appear to be their doom.

Denethor takes this information and despairs. He saw what Mordor was about to throw at them and came to the logical conclusion that humanity could not possibly overcome such odds—and gave up. He justifiably assumed that the only choice left to him was when/how he would die. So he died by fire before the bad guys could take him.

Aragorn and Gandalf saw exactly what Denethor did and came to the same conclusion: we can't beat these guys. But instead of succumbing to despair, they chose to have hope that perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps they just weren't seeing the entire picture. So they drew the armies of Mordor out, that massive army they knew they couldn't defeat, for the sliver of hope that it would help Frodo destroy the ring of the enemy and the source of his power.

We all know how it ends. Frodo succeeds, the world is saved. All because of hope.

I've gotten a lot more cynical as I've gotten older. One side effect being that I've started to view hope as a useless emotion. Hoping for the best is not a plan. Saying "hopefully" before the thing you want will not make it happen. The hope you feel about any given situation will not spontaneously change said situation.

Despite Denethor being the Worst Dad Ever™, I sympathize with him more than I ever have. He gave up when he knew he couldn't win—isn't that the smart thing to do? What can man do against such reckless hate, after all?

Movie Aragorn has the answer: Ride out and meet it.

The king is here to remind us that that's the moment hope changes from a useless emotion to an action. Being hopeful about a situation may not change it, but your actions can. Even a fool's hope can change how you react to a challenge or setback—and as we see with Frodo's quest, that makes all the difference. The Lord of the Rings trilogy would have had an ending similar to Denethor's if Aragorn and Gandalf had chosen to act on their despair rather than their hope.

It's much easier to let despair dictate our actions. You're much less likely to be disappointed that way. But the changes that needs to happen in our world will only happen if we allow hope to drive our decisions.

It all started on a farm

There once lived a young boy who lived in a simple log cabin with his family. He worked hard alongside his siblings and parents and was generally considered a good kid.

But like most teenagers, he had questions. One question in particular troubled him, so one day he went into the woods by his house in search of an answer. What he found there would change the world.

If you've ever read a fantasy novel, this story should sound familiar. It's almost always about a youth who lives in a small town who discovers a dragon in the woods and goes on to fulfill a great destiny and save humanity. It's a formula that works—people just want to see the little guy win.

The origin story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is similar. Joseph Smith went from a country farm boy to the founder of what would become a worldwide religion. One that has millions of members today and that blesses the world with its message of Jesus Christ and its charity work fueled by tithes and an admonition to serve others.

Whether you believe that prayer is a way to communicate with God or a useless waste of breath, there's no denying that the result of Joseph Smith's prayer regarding which church to join made an immediate and lasting impact on the world.

The Sacred Grove, circa July 2018.

President Russel M. Nelson has urged members to ponder the First Vision story and how it's affected them personally. Trying to figure out where I would be without the founding of the church that is the central focus of my life can be fun to think about; it also makes my brain hurt.

But thinking about who I would be without the gospel isn't as fun of an exercise. It's hard to imagine who you would be without your core foundation. I know many, many wonderful non-members who don't need religion to make them better people and who don't need faith to drive their everyday lives. But as for me, I need these things. And most importantly, I don't know how I would make it through difficult trials without access to all the gifts the Restoration of the gospel provides: prayer, priesthood blessings, knowledge of why we're here and where we're going, even callings. Life is hard enough with the peace and hope the gospel brings. Take that away and life would just be unbearable most of the time.

I visited the Sacred Grove a couple of summers ago with my family. I always find nature peaceful, but this grove of trees took that feeling to a whole new level. Even as I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I felt the sacredness of that space. We Latter-day Saints love our historical landmarks, but this one is especially worth visiting because of the question that was asked in these trees that shaped the lives of so many: "Which church should I join?"

Joseph got more than he bargained for when he asked that question. I wonder if he ever had a Frodo Baggins moment, wishing the monumental task of restoring the Church of Jesus Christ upon the earth could have fallen on someone else.

"I wish the Ring had never come to me," Frodo said. "I wish none of this had happened."

Gandalf likely expected Frodo to be discouraged and afraid, so he was prepared with a response Frodo wouldn't forget. "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil" (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II).

Joseph knew he had seen God the Father and his Son in that grove. He knew it wouldn't make his path any easier, and that many people would remember him for evil instead of good. But he stayed the course, sealed his mission with his blood, and the gospel he restored lives on today.

Even for little old me, a tiny speck in the universe who doesn't have a grand destiny. The church was restored for everyone, but after pondering how it's blessed my life for 32 years, it feels profoundly personal. No gift could be better.

Good news, indeed.

New year, new things

"How do people do this professionally?!?"

That's the question I asked my brother as I stepped onto the ice at Seven Peaks Arena, clutching his arm as my legs attempted to find firm footing on a surface that's meant to reacquaint you with the consequences of gravity. We were there for my niece's 5th birthday party, and I hadn't ice skated since I was a teenager.

It wasn't just like riding a bike, in case you were wondering. But it was a blast.

Ice skating is a strange sport for the casual skater. All you do is skate around in circles, but it's essentially a free-for-all obstacle course. Everyone starts at level one, where you shuffle your feet along until you gain the confidence to take longer strides. If you can progress that far, you get a variety of new challenges, depending on your preferred speed. Dodging the people who fall down in front of you. Swerving around groups who are going slower than you, now a pro, want to go. Flailing in panic as you try to figure out how to avoid a collision—a common occurrence when the rink is crowded.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is taking a not-blurry picture while skating.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I survived almost an hour of this without falling. I was on my last lap, headed to the exit, when it happened. My traitorous shoelace on my right skate got caught on my left skate—one minute I was skating, the next I was airborne. I figured since I was going down anyway I might as well go out flying—literally—so I stretched my arms into a dive formation and sailed through the air. I must have gotten 15 feet of air before I bellyflopped on the ice, landing smoothly in a shower of white stuff.

(My dive probably didn't look as graceful as I imagined it, because a guy who witnessed my epic fall was laughing at me as he skated by.)

It's a fitting metaphor for the new year. Jumping into something new with confidence only to fall flat on your face an hour later. But that fall was the most thrilling part of the afternoon. It was the only moment I wasn't playing it safe and it was the part of the day I talked about the most afterward as we ate our unicorn and rainbow-themed birthday cupcakes.

Try something new this year. Fail at something new this year. It might end up on your 2020 highlight reel in December.

Moments after the fall, miraculously uninjured, aside from a few bruises that showed up the next day. 

2019: No Dalmatians, just 101 books

These yearly book recaps usually write themselves, but I struggled getting this one out. Because 2019 was a very gray year for me: drab, disappointing, creatively draining.

Which is the perfect set-up for a good reading year, really. When you can't catch a break, a book is the perfect break from reality. When you can't create, you consume. Books are my preferred coping mechanism for life, and I bring them along for all the good times too, so books and I got a lot of face time this year. Enough to break all my reading records.

And because I'm not enough of a book nerd already, I tracked my reading more extensively this year—so this blog includes blurry charts! I know you're all giddy with excitement.

Goal: 100

Books read: 101

A light reading month is a good indicator of a bad month. I'm looking at you, August.

Some books I whiz through, some I take my time on (Hamilton, for example, took me months to get through), so the average amount of days I spent per book—11—isn't really indicative of how long it takes me to plow through a book. Especially considering how many pages I read per day—101. If you're picturing me spending every spare second with my nose in a book, that's not what's going on here. Most of my reading happens during my treasured bedtime reading hour, leaving me plenty of time to "have a life." Like watching Netflix and stuff.


Pages read: 36,575

Average # of pages per book: 362.

I read more this year than I ever have, both in page count and book count. It was kind of an accident.

Longest book: Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon. 1,059 pages.

Shortest book: Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin. 33 pages.


First reads: 87

Rereads: 14

Books not finished: 12

I'm proud of that number, though it probably should be higher. I'm still hesitant to abandon a book before I finish it because I think there's value in reading books that aren't really for you—sometimes. But that feeling when you toss aside a book you're not into? It's like dropping dead weight from your life.

Ratings

One of the best things about my Book Spreadsheet of Nerddom is that it allowed me to track my star ratings in half-star increments. Because sometimes you need to give a book 3.5 stars—simply rounding to 3 or 4 will not express your reading experience adequately.

Sadly, I did not hate any book enough this year to dole out my first 1/2 star.

Fiction vs. nonfiction

I've always been more of a fiction reader, but 24 nonfiction books isn't too shabby.

Male vs. female

I don't make an effort to read male or female, so it's always interesting to me to see what the numbers say in this category. Women won this year.

Where all these books came from

This was my favorite stat to track. It looks like I bought a lot of books this year, but this was a frugal book-buying year for me. A lot of those were rereads of books I've owned a while, and—this is the miraculous part—I actually made it to the bottom of my TBR (to be read) pile on my nightstand. Some of those books have been collecting dust for years, and before Christmas that spot was empty for a month. Super weird. Must buy more books.

I need to give a plug for libraries, too. The simple concept of enjoying a service without any money being exchanged doesn't happen much in this money-driven world, which is what makes libraries so great. Not all library systems are as great as Salt Lake County's (I am now a paying library-card carrier because SLC's system is a bajillion times better than northern Utah County's), but all libraries are doing a tremendous public service.


Favorite book, fiction: Circe, by Madeline Miller. This is one of those books that left me a little speechless; I loved the book, but, even months after finishing it, I'm not sure what to say about it. All I know is that it checks all my boxes for an excellent book: great writing, great characters, great story.

Favorite book, nonfiction: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, by Bill Bryson. My third Bill Bryson book, and probably his most famous. Bryson writes the kind of nonfiction I wish I could write: funny, informative, thought-provoking. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Favorite reread: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I didn't like this book the first time I attempted it. Or the second. It wasn't until after I graduated from college that this book finally spoke to me, and rereading it this year only made it more dear to me. It's one of the most intensely relatable books I've ever read and had me crying my eyes out several times. This book gets me.


If you've followed my book recaps in the past, you'll notice some new categories below. Some weird themes emerged in my reading this year, so I decided to highlight some of those rather than stick to my usual categories.

Libraries: You can take the book out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the book. That's my 2019 reading year in a nutshell. There were libraries that were portals to alternate realities, libraries that were evil, libraries that were forbidden. Books were stolen from libraries, long journeys were made to libraries, and the history of libraries was told.

But one of my favorite library stories came from Jojo Moyes' The Giver of Stars. Set in Kentucky prior to World War II, five women travel on horseback to deliver library books to residents living in remote areas. Because a library is more than a source of free books. Knowledge is power, and libraries are the great equalizers in the pursuit of knowledge.

18th/19th century: If I wasn't happily trapped in a library, chances are I was transported to the 18th or 19th century. For a while there it felt like I was taking a course on early American history, with texts ranging from David McCullough's 1776 to book 4 of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series to Octavia Butler's Kindred.

I finally took a ride on the Hamilton bandwagon as well, soldiering through Ron Chernow's massive biography that inspired the musical (still haven't listened to the soundtrack, though—sorry, Hamilton fans). Learning about Alexander Hamilton made me want to learn more about his wife, Eliza, which led me to My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. I love American history, and this book brought the American revolution to life better than anything else I've read. Those who framed our constitution were actually living the "let's invent our own government" game. It wasn't a class assignment or a hypothetical debate. It was real life. They would face very real consequences if they failed. Seeing the revolution play out through Eliza's eyes—a woman who knew 16 of the U.S. presidents—makes what the American experiment became seem all the more miraculous. America should not have become the great nation it is today. But it did. Despite the country's problems, we still have so much to be proud of, so much that's worth fighting for.

Weird diseases: Yep, this was a real thing this year, probably because I read a lot more sci-fi than normal (including eight Orson Scott Card books—there's some weird stuff going on in the Enderverse). But my favorite veered more on the dystopian side of the scale: Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles. The rotation of the earth starts to slow down, slowly elongating the 24-hour day Earth has provided so faithfully, causing lots of social, economic, and physical ramifications. Really cool concept, and very well written. Walker wrote another "weird disease" book this year that's also quite excellent: The Dreamers, about a sleeping epidemic. Loved them both.

Business/self-improvement:

This is a very general overview of the genres I read in 2019. One anomaly is the self-help/business category at a whopping 8.9%. I don't read many books in this category because they all tend to be the same, but in an effort to make some career changes I read a bunch of them. And guess what, they didn't change my life. But I did appreciate how some of them helped me get out of my head a little and see the world differently. Honorable mentions are The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (a dumb recommendation because I think I'm the only person on the planet who hadn't already read it) and Radial Candor for those working the 9-to-5 grind.

Nerdiest book: Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, by Keith Houston. Yes, I read a book about punctuation. And I liked it. Being an editor only enhances my interest in nerdy subjects, and this one was a really cool way to look at the small things that helped shape history.


And, that's it for this year. I read many more books that deserve a shout-out, so pay extra attention to the bolded titles below.

All the 2019 books:

1. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
2. Behold the Sword Maiden: A Storyteller's Introduction to the Heroine's Journey, Dorothy Cleveland & Barbara Schutzgruber
3. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
4. 1776, David McCullough
5. God Is Out to Get Us: At All Costs—the Life of Abraham, Carol Bond Wagner
6. The Knockoff, Lucy Sykes
7. Harry's Trees, Jon Cohen
8. The One-in-a-Million Boy, Monica Wood
9. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High, Kerry Patterson
10. From Tolerance to Equality: How Elites Brought America to Same-Sex Marriage, Darel E. Paul
11. Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver
12. Lacks Self-Control: True Stories I Waited Until My Parents Died to Tell, Roy Sekoff
13. The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden
14. The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker
15. The Summer Dragon, Todd Lockwood
16. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Power Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey
17. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
18. Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Benjamin Dreyer
19. I'll Be Your Blue Sky, Marisa de los Santos
20. Ghosted, Rosie Walsh
21. Saints: The Standard of Truth, 1814–1846, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
22. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
23. The Library Book, Susan Orlean
24. Rapunzel's Revenge, Shannon Hale
25. Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott
26. Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield
27. The Hypnotist's Love Story, Liane Moriarty
28. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull
29. Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, Keith Houston
30. Delicious!, Ruth Reichl
31. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson
32. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
33. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
34. The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English, Lynne Murphy
35. Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
36. Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card
37. Logan Likes Mary Anne!, Ann M. Martin
38. Circe, Madeline Miller
39. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown
40. Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey, Alice Robb
41. The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker
42. Field Notes on Love, Jennifer E. Smith
43. Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh
44. The Book of Dreams, Nina George
45. The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding, Jennifer Robson
46. In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey
47. How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job, Sally Helgesen
48. The Accidental Beauty Queen, Teri Wilson
49. Recursion, Blake Crouch
50. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
51. The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, Chip & Dan Heath
52. The Golden Hour, Beatriz Williams
53. This Must Be the Place, Maggie O'Farrell
54. The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, Peter Hessler
55. Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, Ruth Reichl
56. Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
57. Time After Time, Lisa Grunwald
58. Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes
59. Voyager, Diana Gabaldon
60. Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon
61. The Mother-in-Law, Sally Hepworth
62. Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
63. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Bill Bryson
64. The Clockmaker's Daughter, Kate Morton
65. Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo, Obert Skye
66. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
67. Kindred, Octavia Butler
68. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
69. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
70. Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow
71. Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
72. After You, Jojo Moyes
73. You Have Arrived at Your Destination, Amor Towles
74. Still Me, Jojo Moyes
75. If I Could Only Tell You, Hannah Beckerman
76. Summer of the Monkeys, Wilson Rawls
77. Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
78. Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
79. Shadow Puppets, Orson Scott Card
80. Shadow of the Giant, Orson Scott Card
81. One Plus One, Jojo Moyes
82. Summer Frost, Blake Crouch
83. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
84. I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years, Bill Bryson
85. Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson
86. The Non-Obvious Guide to Emotional Intelligence, Kerry Goyette
87. Fate of the Fallen, Kel Kade
88. The Giver of Stars, Jojo Moyes
89. My Dear Hamilton, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
90. The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
91. Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings
92. One Day in December, Josie Silver
93. Starsight, Brandon Sanderson
94. Emergency Skin, N.K. Jemison
95. The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman
96. Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos
97. Ink and Bone, Rachel Caine
98. A Return to Christmas, Chris Heimerdinger
99. Christmas Bells, Jennifer Chiaverini
100. The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien
101. Stepsister, Jennifer Donnelly

Previous years:
2018
2017

2016
2015
2014
2013
2012

8 things to do on the beach besides read

The reading community loves to discuss beach reads: what counts as a beach read, the newest releases they're lugging to the beach, how many books they devoured on the beach. You would think it was the books that brought people to the beach, not its blue waters, white sand, and sunshine.

I had my books picked out for my Bahamas vacation weeks in advance. For me a good beach read is either a light, breezy novel (Liane Moriarty and Elin Hilderbrand come to mind) or nonfiction, preferably essays or a memoir. I had three books picked out, and they sat on my nightstand forever, taunting me with hopeful expectations.

I read those books while vacating my life, as planned, but not on the beach. Because paper is hard to preserve when you're surrounded by sand and water, and because when you spend the majority of your life in a desert, you take advantage of the novelties the beach has to offer and catch up on your reading later.

I did most of my reading from my private balcony on the cruise ship. It was glorious. (Although this book was a massive disappointment.)

The balcony is also a good place to practice your selfie skills, although it's so humid out there your camera lens will keep fogging up. Super annoying.

While reading is one of the best ways to have adventures, I found eight other ways to have fun on the islands.

Play in the water

I mean, duh. Especially if you're in a place like the Bahamas, it's too hot to do anything else, and the water is beautiful and warm and calm. Unless you're squeamish about fish swimming around your legs, there's literally no reason to stay out of the water.

Play in the sand

My family's not one for sandcastles; they usually end up being uninspired, lumpy blobs. It's much more fun to bury someone. Even as kids, it was usually Tiffany who ended up getting buried. (Sadly, I couldn't find the old picture to showcase alongside this one.)

Snorkel

Snorkeling masks are not designed for heads with hair attached. My hair got tangled in that thing more than once.

It's astonishing how much life and color is under the sea. True, the ocean is a sight to behold when you're above the water.

This multi-colored water is SO COOL.

But dip your face underwater and you literally feel like you've become an extra on the set of Finding Nemo. Provided you pick the right spot, fish are everywhere, of a variety of sizes and colors, and it's all the more astounding considering how good they are at avoiding you. If you were just treading water, you'd have no idea the activity taking place mere centimeters from your flailing limbs.

Speaking of Finding Nemo, sometimes sea turtles will pop above the water, but most of the ones we saw were swimming lazily along the ocean floor. What a way to live.

Hey, man.

"Do you have your exit buddy?"

Cruise in the boat

Noah told us many jokes during this vacation. One of my favorites:
What did one snowman say to the other?
Do you smell carrots?

When you're tired out from the playing and the snorkeling and the treading of water, it's actually quite relaxing to cruise around on the water for a while. Our driver showed us some of the many beautiful views of the Bahamian islands while providing complimentary hair-drying services.

5 minutes later...

I didn't even pack my flat iron for this trip. When it's this humid, you just let your hair go crazy.

Get sunburned

Guys, I tried not to get sunburned. I thought applying sunscreen three times in six hours would be enough. I thought putting chapstick on every chance I got would protect me from the horrible experience of sunburned lips.

But my skin was just not ready for the midday Bahamian sun. I still suffered the second worst sunburn of my life and came home with an entirely new skin color and really attractive blisters on my bottom lip.

Kayak

I'd never been kayaking before so I made my brother go with me. Turns out the hardest part of kayaking is syncing up with your fellow paddler, a challenge when both paddlers are used to being in charge.

"Follow my lead, I totally know what I'm doing!"

Water slide

Turns out some beaches have water slides! In fact, the water park at CocoCay has the tallest water slide in North America. I hopped right in line, hoping to come away with bragging rights, but only made it about halfway up the tower. At that point there was still an hour to wait, and I was already panicking about the height, so I abandoned my post and zoomed down the "drop" slide instead. (You stand on a platform and it makes you wait an eternity before dropping you into a tube. I only went because my dad, who is also afraid of heights, went, and I couldn't let him out-brave me. We all survived the experience.)

The drop slide is the yellow tube. There's another one on the other side so you can race. 

Jet ski

This was a major highlight of the trip for me. I was a little nervous at first, but once you get a feel for shooting across the ocean in your own little automobile, it's hard to keep the grin off your face. Zooming across that vast, beautiful ocean at the 37 mph max speed is an experience I'll never forget.

Lightning cut our kayak excursion short, but luckily it stayed away while Tyrel and I were jet skiing (still got rained on, though). It would have been truly tragic to cut that ride short, even with a refund as consolation.

The cherry on top of two days of beachy entertainment? No books were harmed in the experiencing of these activities. 

The journey of a book

When I'm planning a trip, one of the first items on my to-do list is to find an independent bookstore nearby. And when it's time to pack, I make sure to leave space in my suitcase, strategically staying under the weight limit despite my tendency to overpack, and dedicate most of my souvenir money to bringing home a new stack of books.

My latest haul, from Symposium Books in Providence, Rhode Island, has been somewhat disappointing. I loved the book on punctuation I picked up at the ACES conference, go figure, but the stack I carefully selected during my bookstore wandering has so far yielded two 3-star books and one DNF ("did not finish," for those not fluent in book nerd lingo). Already, two of the eight I plan to take to a local used bookstore—in exchange for different books, of course.

This is my "I just spent too much money but simply had no choice" face.

Returning or exchanging any other purchase is an annoyance, but I don't mind it so much with books, even if I lose out on money. I make sure they find a good home elsewhere (unless I hate the book; then I make it suffer). I like to imagine one of my book finding its way to someone who will appreciate it. Even if it had to travel from Rhode Island to Utah to a yard sale to a bookstore in Colorado—there's something beautiful and serendipitous about all the exchanges that must happen to get a book to where it belongs.

It's one of the reasons I like to check out used bookstores occasionally, too. By taking home a book that used to belong to someone else, I'm adding a little bit of their history to my own library.

Take Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, for example. I bought this at Marissa's Books in Murray for $6. The former owner (male, I would guess based on the handwriting) had underlined passages throughout and left comments in the margins. For example, this passage on page 19 was underlined: "If you can't got first class, don't go at all." Next to this the reader wrote: "Reading this in first class STL–SLC. Ha!"

Now isn't that lovely? I have a clue as to where this book may have come from, and insight into the person who enjoyed it before I adopted it. Maybe he was traveling for work, or maybe he was a rich man who loves to cook (many of the recipes had markups, too). Maybe he was reading it for a school assignment, which is why so many of the philosophical passages are underlined.

This book wouldn't have meant as much to me without the personal insights the original owner added to its pages. Now it's one of my favorite books, purely because of the way it connected me to a stranger I'll never meet.

Any reader will compare books to friends at some point. Books go through quite the journey to find us, after all.

Fear

A few weeks ago, I took a couple long plane rides to Providence, Rhode Island for what I like to call my annual word nerd vacation (an editing conference). I went a day early so I could attend a writing workshop, where I expected I'd pick up a bunch of tips to bring back to our writing team.

Instead, I got group therapy.

Dave Ursillo, the guy running the workshop, wasn't there to teach us how to write. He was there to help us figure out what our main blocks (he called them "shadows") are that prevent us from writing, and to help us overcome them. We all took a quiz to find out what our main shadows were, and then the group therapy commenced.

Of the three shadows—guilt, shame, and fear—I scored highest in fear. I got the highest score in fear out of the whole group; in fact, no one scored that high in any category—except for me.

I wasn't surprised by my results. Fear drives just about every decision I make, whether I realize it or not. There's the fear of failure. Fear of wasting my time. Fear of rejection, of looking stupid, of making the wrong choice, of making a mistake. The bigger, outward things like riding roller coasters and traveling alone and pursuing a master's degree I can handle, but the less abstract, internal things I tend to sit out. Send a dragon my way and I'll fight it eventually, but invite me to do something I don't think I'll excel at and I'll respectfully decline.

But there is a bright side to this writing shadow. Those who score high in fear have a knack for finding a sense of home in their writing, like journaling. As someone who has journaled regularly since the age of 8, I am much more comfortable sorting through my thoughts in writing than I am in confiding in someone I'm close to. In that private writing realm, there is safety.

Dave's recommendation to me was to write under a pseudonym or as an alter-ego of a character I want to explore. Which is spot-on advice that I intend to follow, but the past few days I've thought more about how this might extend to other areas of my life. If I pretend to be someone else, would that make it easier to take risks? Could my instinct for avoiding the spotlight be the shield that protects me as I try new things? And maybe there's more truth to the "fake it until you make it" mantra than I realize.

If nothing else, this workshop reaffirmed one of my core beliefs: some solutions can only be found when explored through writing. And that word nerds are kindred spirits.