The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Mara Molner was recommended by a friend. I thought about suggesting it to my book club, but decided to read it first. I will definitely recommend it when it’s my turn. I have grown to love historic fiction. This is an easy read, and it’s the third book I’ve read this month.
This book is about half fiction and half history, going back and forth in time. It follows the life of Emsley, an art auctioneer and granddaughter to Violet, a Hollywood Celebrity (current day, fiction). Her grandmother leaves a box to her, which contains an old diary, in addition to some letters written in Dutch. As Emsley is reading the diary, written in English in the 1800s, she realizes this is the diary of Johanna Bonger, the sister-in-law to Vincent Van Gogh. We are transported back in time to her life (historic and true with some fiction interspersed for the story’s sake). I learned a lot about the Van Goghs that I didn’t already know, or had forgotten.
Tim and I visited the Van Gogh museum nearly 30 years ago when we were in Amsterdam. It was our first trip overseas as a married couple (not including our mission trip to Mexico, as that was not technically “over-seas.”) We were on a tight budget. We booked the cheapest flight and that’s how we landed in Amsterdam. We also booked an inexpensive hotel. We were so new to traveling at the time, we really had no clue how to go about finding the best locations.
Little did we know, we would have to walk through the red light district to get anywhere! I remember the smell of cannibus everywhere we went, being offered to buy it in the shops, and feeling a little unnerved by the women standing in the windows as we walked through the district (I had never seen glow-in-the-dark underwear before – wow).
I also remember the good things. The canals, the very old architecture, the trams, and the snowflakes. They were the biggest I had ever seen fall from the sky; I have never seen any to compare since that day. People continued to ride their bikes as a primary means of transportation, even in the snow, holding an umbrella with one hand and the handlebar with the other. It was surreal. We also took a day tour of the windmills and a shoe factory. Now that I think of it, our daughter was 3 or 4 years old at the time. I bought her a little Dutch outfit which she wore for the fall festival later that year. Good memories.
Vincent Van Gogh was Dutch, and his brother Theo believed in his brother’s talent, trying to sell his work. He only sold one painting while Vincent was alive, and that was to a family friend. You may remember from art history that Vincent was mentally ill, and eventually committed suicide. What I did not remember was that his brother Theo was so grief-stricken and filled with remorse that he, too, ended up in a home for the mentally ill. He died about six months after Vincent. That’s the sad part of the story.
Johanna, now a widow and mother to an infant, took on her husband’s baton. It was her way of keeping the memory of her husband alive in her heart. She was rejected many times, but did not give up. She finally decided to represent his work herself. She was the first female art agent, and was not taken seriously in the beginning. However, her persistence was largely responsible for making Vincent’s artwork famous. Johanna kept impeccable notes in a diary, which Emsley is reading. There is an actual diary, which has now been made public. However, the author published the book just a few months before they were made public, and had to get her research from numerous other sources, mostly out of print. Her recounting of Johanna seems to be spot on though, in my humble opinion. Regardless, The Secret Life of Sunflowers is a great story with a lot of uplifting quotes that encourages women to just “go for it.”
Emsley’s life also provided some levity to the book. I think it added immensely to imagine that her grandmother had in her possession the diaries of Vincent’s sister-in-law. Emsley’s friends (and Violet) made me laugh, and her pet chicken was a great addition to the story.
Read it. You won’t be disappointed.
Vincent Van Gogh painted a lot of sunflowers, which provided some insight into his life. His addition of color amidst all the gray in his other paintings (as well as life) brought moments of happiness for the artist. Apparently, sunflowers will grow wherever they are planted, regardless of soil type. He believed sunflowers were stretching toward the sun in gratitude. The is a reminder for us to do the same.
Also, if you believe someone is suffering from a mental illness, please reach out and help them. You may be the only sunflower in their life.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
I finished my June book early and started on my book for July (even though we will be traveling). I finished this novel fairly quickly as well. It’s a pretty easy read, and the author keeps your interest as you seek to know more. We were still on Lake Livingston, staying in our Airstream, when I read this book. Lake living sure is relaxing! It’s like a perpetual vacation.
These Tangled Vines, by Julianne Maclean, starts with what we would all love to hear – you just inherited some property in Italy! At least, I would! I’ve never been to Italy but if someone wanted to give me a vineyard, I don’t think I would turn it down.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The book is set in Tuscany and primarily follows three women: Fiona, Lillian, and Sloane. There are spoilers in this review, so if you plan to read the book, SCROLL past the sections with “Spoilers.” 😂😂
The setting was beautiful, as the author described it. I’ve seen pictures of Italy and I would love to go there one day. It seems like such a serene, calm, and peaceful environment. The food would be a bonus! The author did a good job of including enough descriptions to make me wish I was there.
KEEP ON SCROLLING…
Fiona Bell is a young woman in her 30s (young to me, anyway). Her perspective is the only one shared in first person, and she is a likable character. She is single with some relationship issues. Fiona was 18 when her mother died, and on her deathbed her mother revealed to Fiona that her father—who she has known these past 18 years as her father—is not her biological father. (What?? Can you imagine hearing that from your mother on her deathbed?)
Her biological father (Anton) owns a vineyard in Italy, but her mother makes her promise to keep this news a secret from her father, because it would devastate him. The father who raised her has been in a wheelchair her whole life due to a horrible accident in Italy. He had only bad memories of their trip. The dutiful daughter kept her promise for all these years. She didn’t want to hurt her father.
Fiona receives a phone call from a lawyer in Italy, who tells her that her biological father had passed away. He urges her to be there for the reading of the will as she is named as one of the heirs. She was too late to attend the funeral, but if she hurried she could make it in time for the reading of the will. After much contemplation, she lied to her father and his caregiver, got on the next flight to Italy, and began to face her past. Her mother’s past. Her father’s past. It was quite a tangled story, hence the title.
Fiona had always believed Anton to be a man who took advantage of her mother, a womanizer, or some other connotation of negative relationship, so she never sought to know him or attempt to have a relationship with him. She also didn’t want to hurt her disabled father by engaging in an attempt to know him. Little did she know she would be walking into a hornet’s nest with Anton’s two older children—who only just learned that they had a half-sibling—with all the implications of her “stealing” their inheritance as an illegitimate child, manipulations by her mother, and other serious accusations regarding her character and her intentions.
The second woman followed in the book is Lillian, Fiona’s mother. She and her husband went to Tuscany for a season, while her husband was writing his first novel. She took a job at a vineyard in Tuscany, and the reader is aware that this is the same vineyard which is owned by Fiona’s biological father Anton. The author jumps back and forth in history to share details of the relationship Lillian had with Anton. It was clearly an affair, which both of them seemed to genuinely try not to engage in. He was the perfect gentleman.
Anton’s wife was living in LA with their two children and had recently filed for divorce. They rarely saw each other in spite of his constant begging for her to bring the children. Lillian’s husband was off in Paris writing his novel and was not staying connected to her because, “It’s long distance.” Throughout their marriage, she had put all of her attention onto her husband and his writing career, yet he did not support her desires or needs. One can see how easy it was for her to fall into the arms of another man, regardless of looks or status. She offers some business advice to Anton on marketing the Americans; he is very supportive and complimentary of her ideas and there is a chemistry between them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~NO SPOILERS HERE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aside, that’s how affairs usually get started. Another reminder to support and compliment your spouse. If you don’t, someone else probably is! Give him or her the love they need.
In all my years of being a marriage therapist, I don’t recall anyone who had an affair tell me they did it “on purpose.” (If they did, I would consider an even bigger issue than this.) Their typical response, “it just happened.” It started with a conversation, complimentary and support of ideas, a hand on the back, a lengthier conversation, brooding over the individual, and so on. It happened because they didn’t guard their heart. Their spouse didn’t guard their spouse’s heart either, and their spouse was not fulfilling a deep need in their life. I’m not excusing affairs, so please don’t email me and blast me about this. I am not in favor of affairs. And I am not in favor of divorce for the majority of marriages. God hates divorce. However, I do understand how affairs can happen when someone is living in an emotional desert. Perhaps because of my profession I am a bit more understanding of Lillian and her dilemma.
KEEP ON SCROLLING
Anyway, back to the story. Fiona learns through her research and conversations with various staffers that Lillian and Anton’s relationship went beyond a one-night stand or sexual offense. Anton did not take advantage of Lillian as she had previously thought. Their relationship grew over time, and they were very much in love. Lillian had not heard from her husband in weeks. She finally made plans to leave her husband and stay with Anton. But suddenly, her husband returns, was involved in an accident, and became a quadriplegic. I won’t tell you the details of the incident, so as not to spoil the entire story, but it is a juicy part of the story. After the accident, Lillian comes to her senses, says good-bye to Anton, goes back to America with her husband. She spends the rest of her life taking care of his needs. Recompense, perhaps?
The third woman is Sloane, Fiona’s half-sister. Fiona also has a half-brother, Conner. Neither of them stayed in touch with their father after the divorce, and they were both fairly spoiled and entitled individuals. I felt like Conner’s character was a bit one-dimensional as he remained the same throughout the book. Some people are not willing to forgive. Conner and Sloane (and their mother) never knew about Fiona until she arrived for the reading of the will, so they were justifiably angry. They believed she was there to manipulate and take over, and they thought she was there just for the money. She never came to Italy, after all. While Conner remains angry and maintains the bitterness toward Fiona and Lillian, Sloane begins to see the truth about her father, the vineyard at Tuscany, and the situation between Anton and Lillian for what it was. She also has a revelation about herself, her children, and her family. I liked seeing her transformation, which again reminds us that anyone can change, and anyone can forgive.
Even Fiona. After Fiona learns she has inherited the vineyard (yes, the whole kit and caboodle), she resolves the issues she had with her mother and learned to love her father (Anton). She then goes back home to deal with her stepdad. For her entire life, she had taken up the baton that her mother passed on to her. Just as her mother had given up on her own desires in life, Fiona sacrificed her life to care for her dad. He obviously needs care, but he has also used his disability (and other means prior to the accident) to prevent the women in his life from advancing their own selves. He was afraid of “losing” them, so he held them tight. So tight that Fiona was feeling smothered. She was bitter at him for losing an opportunity to connect to her biological father and wasn’t sure she could ever forgive him.
I felt like the book wrapped up everything pretty well, but the resolution between Fiona and her dad seemed a bit abrupt. Within one chapter she went from “I’m so mad at you” to “Okay, I forgive you.” It felt a bit quick after all the chapters that preceded that moment in time, like the author was tired of writing by that point.
Other than that—dealing with her stepdad issue—I really liked the book. I liked the way it ended, and I liked the overall messages one can draw from it. Lillian’s affair could have been avoided, and this is something all couples should consider, but she would never go back and change it as she has a daughter she loves. While she could have justified leaving her husband, she made the choice of commitment to her wedding vows. It’s way too easy for couples to give it up when things get tough, so I appreciated her decision no matter how difficult.
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Lessons for couples? Love your spouse. Love is an action word, so show them love in the things you do, say, and time you spend together. Hold your spouse tight but don’t squeeze the breath out of them. Encourage one another to have independence and reach their individual goals, all the while balancing it out focusing on the relationship. Most importantly (not necessarily in the book), developing a relationship with God as a couple will draw the couple closer to each other, and increase their love for each other.
I’m so glad I have a husband who has stuck with me through thick and thin. I’ve heard firsthand stories of men leaving their wives when they are diagnosed with breast cancer. But Tim has been with me, caring for me, and picking up the slack when I have been unable to follow through. He’s a champion!
We haven’t had our book club meeting yet. I would love to be there for the discussion, but I won’t be able to attend this one because we will be traveling. If I remember, I will edit this to include my book club’s review. I would rate it 8.5.
I know. I should be tired, right? We sold our house, moved all of our stuff into a storage unit, moved ourselves into our Roam Home, and now we are traveling all over the country pulling said Roam Home.
Whew! Who wouldn’t be tired?
But this kind of tired, apparently, goes beyond the normal temporary moving type of tired. I was tired before we started this whole move and Full-time Airstreaming process. It’s been ongoing since the beginning of this cancer journey. Wiped-out. Exhausted. Fatigued.
I’m the type of person who typically overlooks what my body is saying. I think of others, tasks to be completed, and ignore what my body is saying. I have to ponder really hard about what my body is feeling. Throughout the journey, I have pushed myself to keep going, and I could put being tired out of my head long enough to do what I need to do. So I could function at work, at home, on the road, and continue living each day effectively and enjoyably.
As it turns out, fatigue is an actual diagnosis for about 65% (or more) of cancer patients. It’s not just your every day, run-of-the-mill, normal tiredness. It’s fall asleep at the drop of the hat kind of tired. Narcolepsy kind of tired. Reading a book, my head starts nodding. Driving down the road, I’m drooling. (When Tim is driving, that is 😂.) Practicing my foreign languages, I have to put down the phone and just go to sleep. My body aches. It tells me to sleep. If I don’t listen, my body does it for me.
I’m not complaining, mind you. If I need a nap, I just take one. This is part of the reason I retired early (e.g. went on disability) in 2020. I didn’t need the extra stressors, and I needed the ability to rest when my body says to. My full-time job is fighting cancer, so everything else is just doing what I want.
I finally decided to talk to my doctor. He sent me for a fatigue consult.
The first time he sent me was in 2019, a few months after I had Gamma Knife radiation treatment to the brain, if you recall my history. It made sense that I was fatigued at the time, as radiation can affect your whole body. I had to go downtown for that consult (ugh). But, I was still working full-time as a university professor, and fatigue/focus was a real problem. So I complied.
The doctor I saw at the time prescribed Ritalin, and it helped a lot. I had read where Ritalin is used a lot with cancer patients for fatigue. It’s not just for kids with AD/HD. It worked! I had the energy I needed, without going over the top. I was sleeping better, and I could do my job without falling asleep during the day. I could focus. It was very helpful, and I was glad I went.
When it came time to get the prescription refilled, I didn’t go back downtown. Some time had passed and I convinced myself I was doing okay. By the time my medication ran out we were living in Vero Beach Florida (Tim was doing a temporary interim assignment there). Besides, I was going to stop working soon, so I thought that would help and I might not need the medicine.
I retired in January 2020. Then COVID hit.
Fast forward to June, 2024. I’ve been noticing the fatigue again. Not just since the move, but for the past year or more. Tim notices it more than me. He looks over at me during a movie and my eyes are closed. He sees me walking slower. He observes my focus waning. I talk to my oncologist about it, and he sends me for another fatigue consult.
I’m so glad I did it. This oncologist and her mentor specialize in fatigue treatment for cancer patients. They are the only two around who do this specialty. They have done a lot of research in this area, and recognize how challenging fatigue can be for patients. She explained some things about cancer and fatigue that made a lot of sense. For example, she said that when we have a sinus infection we go on an antibiotic for a few days. We may have some side effects, but they are relatively minor. They pass quickly. An infection is like being on the far left side of the spectrum. Cancer is on the far right. They give us more than a simple antibiotic. They hit us with very heavy drugs to attack a very bad disease. Side effects are exponentially greater. Fatigue is one of them. It’s an actual diagnosis, and when there is a diagnosis they provide treatment.
She is also willing to work with me on the refills. I can meet with her via Zoom for many of the follow-ups (as long as I’m in Texas). Pre-COVID, doctors were unwilling to do this. They had to see you in person. If anything good came from it, we can be thankful for the pandemic changing this mindset.
Some things I can do on my own to help with fatigue include exercise and diet, but she can also prescribe medication to help with the fatigue. Since the Ritalin helped me before, she decided to use it again. She gave me enough to take morning and noon daily if I need it, but I mainly take one in the morning and I’m good to go. Rarely, I will also take one at noon to give me some energy for the afternoon. And, of course, we are exercising.
I was very grateful. I can tell such a difference when I take it. I’m more focused, I have energy, and I don’t find myself looking at the inside of my eyelids nearly as often. Even though I’m not working full-time, having a fatigue specialist sure does make living retirement life a bit easier.
I do still take some naps, but it’s usually when I’ve had an extremely busy day. And I use my essential oils (En-R-Gee in particular) when I need an extra boost.
So now, je ne suis plus fatigué. (I am no longer tired.) It’s a great feeling, and I am very grateful to God for providing me with the best doctors in the world.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt picked by one of our book club members was a welcome read after a run of several serious books. It was a delight, and I finished the 368-page novel in no time. The cover is beautiful as well. We were staying on a lake in our Airstream while I was reading most of this book.
I read the author’s comments in the back, and she noted that her publisher wasn’t sure how it would go, since she was writing an octopus as the narrator of the story. Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus, weighing about 60 pounds. He was rescued by an aquarium in the Pacific northwest, where Tova works as a janitor. He starts each of his chapters with Day #### of my captivity. He longs to be back in the open sea, and I grew fond of him throughout the book.
Both Marcellus and Tova are wonderfully written characters. I don’t know why the publisher was concerned, as I found Marcellus to be engaging and very entertaining, which made me want to know more about this amazing creature. If you’ve never watched any videos or documentaries about octopuses, I highly recommend you do so. They truly are very amazing. One might think the author was making up his abilities to escape from his tank through such a small hole, unlock treasure chests, memorize names and fingerprints on the tank, and even learn to read. I found it believable after a video popped up in my Facebook feed right before I started reading the book (insert spooky, eerie music). He would escape at night when Tova was cleaning, dig through the trash and eat contraband food that had been left behind.
Tova saved Marcellus the first time she found him out of his tank (he was tangled in some cords underneath a table), and that was the start of a long friendship. Apparently, their suckers put quite a mark on your arm if they attach their tentacles to your skin, but she suffered through it, lied about the marks, and managed to keep his secret so she could connect with him on a deeper level. Tova’s son had drowned when he was 18, and there was much suspicion that he had committed suicide (although Tova never believed it). Her husband died a couple of years ago as well. She had a lot of grief going on. As Tova and Marcellus become close “friends,” Marcellus sets on a quest to solve her son’s mystery for her. He leaves her clues from objects he has found around the aquarium on his many escapades. This is likely his final deed, since octopuses don’t live long and he was counting down the days. I was cheering him on, and her as well.
Then there is Cameron. I didn’t like him at first, and I wondered why the author would introduce him at all. He didn’t seem to “fit” with the rest of the story. He was a young adult in his early 30s, unable to keep a job or relationship with any stability. When Tova hurt her foot and had to stop working for a period, he helped out at the aquarium. He lived in a camper as he had no money for rent. I assured my book club friends that his camper was nothing like ours. His was old and had a smelly mattress, something he didn’t mind but made me think ew, gross. He became integral to the story as Marcellus brought him and Tova together. They both needed someone, and somehow Marcellus managed to make it happen. Learning his true identity at the end of the story was alluded to throughout the book, but it was satisfying to watch it play out. His is a success story, as he proves himself to be a hard worker and loyal to his employer.
I think we can learn a lesson from Cameron’s character. Just because someone appears to not have it all together when we meet them doesn’t mean they will be that way forever. They just need someone to believe in them. Someone to give them a hand up, not just a handout. Tim and I are starting a new book together about evangelism using house keys. It is a bit hard in the Airstream, but we will be looking for ways to use our new home and hospitality to connect with people. Perhaps we can do it on the road as well.
I liked the way the author packaged everything up at the end. There were other characters too, of course, and even their stories were wrapped up with a neat little bow. I may not remember all of them or their exact names, but there was Terry the aquarium director; Evan, the Scottish shop owner who was sweet on Tova; the “Knitwits,” Tova’s knitting group who tried to care for her with endless casseroles; and Cameron’s aunt and mother. The twist for me was at the very end, which I probably shouldn’t tell you (spoiler alert!). I thought from the very beginning that the title referred to the octopus. But Marcellus in all of his wisdom looks at Tova and calls her a remarkably bright creature. Sometimes we may forget that we are, indeed, remarkable. We are created to be bright and clever and creative.
My book club loved this book as well. We met on the second Wednesday in June to discuss this one. Here’s the summary from our leader, Carol.
Eleven of us gathered at Canopy this afternoon to discuss Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. This is her first novel and we all loved it. It was delightful. I started out the meeting by asking everyone “What kind of person do you think Marcellus would be if he was human?”. Some of us thought that he’d be skinny or fat, he would be inquisitive; good listener; Yoda [that was not mine lol]; Sleuthing; bald; nerdy with big dark rimmed glasses; a collector; therapist; a professor especially science teacher but we all thought he was an incredible character in the book. We are in awe of how smart octopuses are!!! We thought the book was well written, the author pulled all the strings together at the end and we were not disappointed at all with the ending. We encouraged everyone to watch the academy award nominee documentary movie called My Octopus Teacher that is on Netflix.
We rated the book 8.6.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
Cheers! I’m done with everything. Just in time for lunch. Bone scan, chemo and CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis. They had my CT scheduled for 6:00 AM tomorrow so I was so happy they agreed to do it today. Whew! 🤪
UPDATE – My oncologist called, and all my scans are still coming back good. They are watching a lymph node in my abdomen which increased slightly, but they are not concerned. My body remains stable. Stable means there is no progression. But, stage four cancer (metastatic breast cancer) never goes away, so we stick with the program.
PTL . God is so good! I don’t deserve it, but I’m so glad He’s not finished with me yet.
I am living John 10:10 (living life abundantly) the best I can. I believe God is healing me, keeping the cancer at bay, and giving me strength to continue. Could I choose to quit treatment? Yes. But we don’t know what that would do. No one has ever tested it, and likely never will because who would want the risk? My cells seem to attract hormone and protein driven breast cancer, so the treatments I get with infusions as well as a daily pill protect my cells from the invasion. I’ll never stop treatment unless the doctor says, “you’re cured,” (which doesn’t happen for the reasons I already stated). Instead, I get regular scans to ensure there is no progression, doctor visits to prevent complacency, and treatment to ward off the demons.
À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!
