EBook New Life, No instructions now
The Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of Let s Take the Long Way Home now gives us a stunning exquisitely written memoir about a dramatic turning point in her life which unexpectedly opened up a world of understanding possibility and connection New Life No Instructions is about the surprising way life can begin again at any age What do you do when the story changes in midlife When a tale you have told yourself turns out to be a little untrue just enough to throw the world off kilter It s like leaving the train at the wrong stop You are still you but in a new place there by accident or grace and you will need your wits about you to proceed Any change that matters or takes begins as immeasurably small Then it accumulates moss on stone and after a few thousand years of not interfering you have a glen or a waterfall or a field of hope where sorrow used to be I suppose all of us consider our loved ones extraordinary that is one of the elixirs of attachment But over the months of pain and disrepair of that winter I felt something that made the grimness tolerable I felt blessed by the tribe I was part of Here I was supposedly solo and the real truth was that I had a force field of connection surrounding me Most of all I told this story because I wanted to say something about hope and the absence of it and how we keep going anyway About second chances and how they re sometimes buried amid the dross even when you re poised for the downhill grade The narrative can always turn out to be a different story from what you expected New Life No Instructions
Gail Caldwell is the former chief book critic for The Boston Globe where she was a staff writer and critic for than twenty years In 2001 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism She is also the author of A Strong West Wind a memoir of her native Texas Caldwell lives in Cambridge Massachusetts. EBook New Life, No instructions now Here s the thing Caldwell s second memoir Let s Take the Long Way Home sets a really high bar It s sad and simple and profound and totally wrenching in its portrayal of the loss of a friend By contrast I found her first memoir about growing up on the plains of West Texas a bit boring I was excited for this one Number Three And it s disappointing It s a bit of a melange of themes from the earlier two books her parents her childhood polio her grief and her dogs a new one this time around But its subtitle could also reasonably be A Memoir of My Hip Replacement Seriously While Caldwell s hip replacement is bound up in the aforementioned childhood polio and while the writing is still quite lovely a lot of the time a hip replacement just can t compete with the death of one s closest friend in terms of subject matter I get that the transformation wrought by the hip replacement was pretty profound for Caldwell but her writing didn t always convey this All that said the book is brief it ll only take you a few hours And in a world that mostly celebrates romantic partnership Caldwell is still really articulate in her descriptions of the power of friendship English Dog lover and writer pens another personal piece this one on her hip replacement surgery I love her clear simple writing that cuts to the heart Dogs have a present tense alacrity that makes short shrift of yesterday s bad news They are hard wired to charge forth to expect good outcomes and that viewpoint can shape the future as much as it anticipates it. Kindle new life no instructions required A lot of my adult life has been spent within shouting distance of others but in my own tent Never married no children myriad levels of deep connection with men and women both And animalsI ve been asked if I was resentful about getting a new diagnosis as late as I did at least a decade beyond the initial symptoms that indicated my hip was failing The answer is no and not because I m trying to be valiant I think it s because of all the years I ve spent in AA meetings listening to people s stories They can be terrible stories full of anguish and fear and disrepair But the point is not to spin the narrative that defeats the purpose in some way of the story itself You can t change the tale so that you turned left one day instead of right or didn t make the mistake that might have saved your life a day later We don t get those choices The story is what got you here and embracing its truth is what makes the outcome bearable Excellent advice for my sister Kathi The book and story ends a bit too soon for my liking but let s hope she has to say later English A big Thank You to NetGalley for an e copy of this latest book by Gail Caldwell. Kindle new life no instructions needed This is the second book I ve read by this author and have thoroughly enjoyed both of them She s an expert at getting her point across using plain English no bad language and exceptional prose. Kindle new life no instructions required Ms Caldwell can take ordinary happenings in life or not so ordinary in her case in this book and writes a story that leaves me wanting She has suffered immeasurable loss in recent years and writing about it seems to make her an even stronger writer. New life no instructions pdf download In this memoir she must undergo a total hip replacement after suffering so much pain for most of her life due to polio as an infant She includes her friends her doctors and of course her new dog and weaves this situation into a story with many beautiful passages There is also emphasis on her parents especially her mother an extraordinary woman who helped Gail in many ways. How to start a new life alone I love to read this remarkable author and will patently await her next novel memoir English Another exquisitely written book from Gail Caldwell I also know that my living alone had a huge impact on the help I got and not simply because people think Oh she s solo she needs a hand It s because solitude itself makes you stretch your heart the usual buffers of spouse and children are missing so you reach toward the next circle of intimacy I ve appreciated this distinction for years Single people form different depths and kinds of attachments with their principals partly because of the time and space being vacated where a partner might have stood T here might be a heroic husband taking care of everything or an ambivalent spouse dealing with her own caretaker issues or a teenage son stealing my painkillers or deciding to go to medical school Romantic partners and offspring always get first shot at being the main characters and inevitably they change the plot around Happens every time English Ok first I have to say that I don t think I ever talked about Let s Take the Long Way Home which was Caldwell s story of her relationship with her best friend Caroline and Caroline s subsequent death I read it in 2012 and it has stayed with me I highly recommend that one beautiful story great writing This one did not speak to me quite as much mostly because it was about things I m not as interested in namely dogs and hip replacement surgery But credit must go to Caldwell because I enjoyed the book despite the fact that I am decidedly not a dog person and her description of having had polio as a child the ultimate cause of her hip replacement was compelling I m afraid I m selling it short a little bit because the book is about loneliness and community than it s about dogs and I am a big fan of Caldwell and her writing Recommended for dog people people who live alone readers of her other work English Having read and enjoyed Let s Take the Long Way Home A Memoir of Friendship I was curious about and very happy to have the opportunity to read this sequel of sorts that picks up several years after Caldwell s friend Caroline s death and after the subsequent death of her parents and her beloved dog Clementine It s a story of love life death mourning and cheer health and pain struggle and recovery this time physical It s also a story of giving up life long suppositions and accepting change And all of this from the need for a new hipa quite drastic need it turns out. New life no instructionsh instructionbook found The book follows a non linear route taking us back and forth to her childhood in Texas around the country briefly to her landing point in Cambridge Massachusetts There may be some repetition from the first book but if there is it didn t bother me at all The anecdotes all seemed to be new ones and most of the story is entirely new She discusses her relationship with her parents especially her mother getting a new dog a Samoyed pup while she was in her late 50s and wondering at her decreased mobility To say much would spoil what she writes but I will try to pick out a couple of my favorite quotes I do wish I could leave a few notes for the dead to give them crucial details to tell my mother that I am all right strong and safe and still planting the field pansies and red geraniums she loved at the start of every spring I would like my dad to know that his memory still causes a sensation of warmth in my heart like being held from the inside out I wish I could wrap my arms around Clementine and tell her she s my good girl always And I wish Caroline knew how much my loving her even after her death has made me a better friend in the world She would like that I think. New life no instructionsa app download And on a different note and as one who has seen both sides of rehab having worked for 30 years as an OT and been through countess sessions of PT and OT myself in recent years there is this But of all the advice and support I received the one comment that stood out after surgery had come from a young guy who liked to remind people how tough he was He d had shoulder surgery a few years earlier and the night I came to the meeting to say good bye he broke role long enough to slap me on the back as he was leaving Rehab sucks he said but you gotta do it I do recommend this book highly In many ways Caldwell s story while purely her own could be yours or mine. Pdf new life no instructions free download An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for the purpose of review English Caldwell former chief book critic for the Boston Globe and 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism lost her parents her best friend and a beloved dog all within six years Moreover she d always limped and hunched in pain after having polio as a child in early 1950s Texas She dealt with post polio syndrome by jokingly telling people she had a bum leg an editor once said to her I always thought that was a swagger but gradually started having falls After a move to New England she spent her thirties immersed in both freelance writing and alcoholism she never married but has maintained a strong support system of friends. New life no instructionsh instructionbook found This is a short but incisive memoir about how Caldwell changed her life through hip replacement surgery and a new puppy The surgery on Halloween 2011 lengthened her right leg by 5 8 of an inch the puppy Tula the Samoyed made her feel like someone just put a poultice on my heart One of the most touching aspects of the book is seeing the choreography of comfort friends put together to take care of Gail and Tula during her recovery. New life no instructionsjdk There was also always Caldwell s mother Ruby When she was one and two years old in Texas Ruby spent two hours a day with her on the living room floor helping her towards walking when Gail was in AA she gave up alcohol in sympathy As the years pass Caldwell has to be the one offering support a metaphorical reversal of roles that she chronicles with real sensitivity. New life no instructionsg download The voice here is very similar to Anne Lamott s though I was also especially reminded of Eileen Battersby s Ordinary Dogs and Elisabeth Tova Bailey s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating Battersby is also a single literary critic whose dogs have been her family while Bailey suffered from chronic disease and pain. New life no instructionsjdk My favorite lines very reminiscent of Lamott indeed reflect on the way tiny alterations combine to create major life changes Any change that matters or takes begins as immeasurably small Then it accumulates moss on stone and after a few thousand years of not interfering you have a glen or a waterfall or a field of hope where sorrow used to be You have a second chance or an unexpected kindness or a voice singing somewhere that floods you with light You have a leg that works a little better than you ever believed possible Lovely stuff See a cute illustration of the premise here English A childhood bout with polio left Caldwell with one shorter leg than the other a condition that caused her to walk later than usual and which caused her a great deal of pain throughout her life A hip operation in her late fifties caused her to take stock of her life and after the pain and frustration of physical therapy to celebrate a new way of life Loved her closeness and memories of her father and of course her love for dogs which plays an important part in her life Good memoir an ode to second and new chances English Excellent memoir Will write later but for now I ll just say I highly recommend it and plan to read of Gail s books Some favorite quotes We need to remember I think that dying isn t the worst thing That getting to love someone on the way out is a great honor easy to forget in the wake of so much sorrow run past all your sorrows and dance and keep on going until we all fall down This is a beautifully written book very moving with lots of lessons on perseverance never giving up and facing your fears She also writes how she dealt with the loss of important people in her life and how dogs helped her I really loved this book English I was too absorbed in learning how to be a newspaper lady as my mom called me when Gail Caldwell won a Pulitzer for criticism in 2001 I wouldn t discover her beautiful writing until I read her wonderful second memoir Let s Take the Long Way Home about her friendship with Caroline Knapp There are so few acknowledged lovely narratives about the beautifully deep intimacy of the bonds women forge with one another Ann Patchett s Truth and Beauty is another that after reading that book I kept an eye out for of Caldwell s work New Life No Instructions is a bit of a follow up to the last memoir Caldwell wrote except this story centers on her hip replacement surgery because of a bout with polio that began for her in 1951 That she has to have this risky surgery after her dog has died and her friend is gone and her mother is dying and her father is gone feels like it is one bad bit of news after another But Caldwell is a Texas woman in all the best ways she uses adversity loneliness and heartache to light the way for those of us in a similarly dark place There were a lot of passages I liked including Most of all I told this story because I wanted to say something about hope and the absence of it and how we keep going anyway About second chances and how they re sometimes buried amid the dross even when you re poised for the downhill grade The narrative can always turn out to be a different story from what you expected. New life no instructionsb bbb We love what we love in spite of ourselves toward something larger and generous than the velvet prison of self We need imperfection in our relationships else we would die from the thickness of intimacy We probably need the I hate yous the spit up on the baby blanket to be able to bear how much we love them I m inclined to relate to a lot of what Caldwell has written since there are some overlaps in our experiences I once was a rower I experienced the overlapping grief she writes about not long ago and I hope that by writing that story it serves to remind others and myself about the miracle of resilience that shows up in the most unlikely circumstances Dog lovers too will find some familiar and funny insights here worth reading and re reading English
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