Gratitude 2.3, 2.4

Thursday May 21 (2.3)

This day got away from me a bit!

Today's appreciation: J also got away from me while I was putting his swimsuit on him, and streaked through the lawn. It was so cute -  his chubby little toddler legs running, hauling his little butt away from me and the paddling pool. 

Friday May 22 (2.4)

I finished Min Jin Lee's Pachinko (after, well, a long time). It's an incredible intergenerational epic about belonging and family, and focuses on a Korean family in Japan - in so doing shedding light on the experiences of Koreans colonized by Japan, and then those naturalized by Japan. 

My favorite passages:

"Yoseb could understand the boy's anger, but he wanted another chance to talk to him, to tell Noa that a man must learn to forgive - to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement" (314-315). 

"[Sunja] had loved Hansu, and then she had loved Isak. However, what she felt for her boys, Noa and Mozasu, was more than the love she'd felt for the men: this love for her children felt like life and death" (339). 

I'm grateful for the opportunity to read fiction again, for a few minutes to myself, for this book making my world a little bit bigger.

I'm also grateful for the 30 minutes I spent outside in the yard with a glass of white wine and my laptop, solo, to write.