Kit's Law

Once I opened Kit's" Law, I did not put it away until I had read all 383 pages. Granted, this was during the Christmas break when I was off from work and could wake up at whatever hour I pleased the morning after.

What in this first novel hooked me? I'm not sure. I told you before that I like novels that attempt to capture the inside story of mental illness. Maybe that's it. Maybe I was fascinated with how this teenager dealt with having a woman with a child's mind for a mother. It was a scenario I couldn't resist letting Donna Morissey pull me into. And believe me I got into it for there were times I bawled as though I were Kit, caught in the middle of this unusual trilogy of women.

But then maybe it was the moral dilemmas that Kit must come to terms with that kept me turning the pages. Kit must choose between her own freedom and doing what's best for her mom. Kit also makes a startling discovery which forces her to make the most difficult choice of all.

I must admit that the first few chapters were slow moving and I might have put away the book if Lizzy (Kit's grandma and surrogate mother) hadn't died suddenly. For me that's where the action begins, though the the preceeding chapters were essential to getting me rooting for Kit.

I enjoyed the Newfoundland dialect which marks the narration, and there are several very engaging secondary characters. What I did not like was the tortuous route to a resolution which I found to be morally ambivalent. This was a disappointment for me since the entire novel was so critical of duplicity and ambivalence.

To Longevity and Original Body Parts and Serenity

Over the last month, my creative juices slowed to a trickle. I came to my blog and was unable to write a word. While I recouped, I was hoping to fool around with the template a bit to see what I could come up with, but just haven't got to it. And I've only just peeped in on a few of my friends. All sorts of off line perplexities ambushed me, gagged and tied me down, leaving me unable to do anything but look helplessly, longingly at the computer.

It got me thinking about some of the bloggers I've met in my short stint. Some having been blogging for years. How do they do it? Do they ever feel like quitting? What sorts of things come between them and blogging? As a new blogger I am beginning to know the answers. And so, it is with humility that I say hats off to anyone who can blog consistently for a whole year. A toast to longevity.

I am not one for making New Year's resolutions. I just never keep them, for one, and for two, I like my thing kind of spontaneous. The germ for a life-changing, life-defining idea might come in April or November; for me, it rarely comes in January. But this year a pang of fear hit me on January 1. I am going to be 37 this year. Jesus Christ! That is nearly 40! So I made some resolutions this time round. This year I am going to do something about the slight paunch around my middle, do some execises with the hope of enabling those two to do battle with gravity, and visit the dentist to see what should be done about my wisdom teeth that have been growing on and off since I was 20. Youth is a wonderful backside, I don't ever want to give it up! Here's to mi own teeth and other body parts.

I once told a friend of mine that if we ask ourselves at regular intervals, "what will my life look like at 50?" it would help set a good tone for the way we spend our twenties and thirties (and dare I say forties!). He reminded me of it recently. He told me that since then he'd paid attention to 50-ish looking people. He'd seen some, tired and forlorn, wanting to be somewhere else doing something else. And he'd seen others; calm, self-possessed and settled. So, notwithstanding the restlessness inherent in my last point, I want to raise the last of my sorrel to serenity.