Cookbooks and Surviving the Low-Carb Life

We are a house divided; nutritionally speaking. Two of us readily resist the pull of grains and carbs, while the rest of us eat what they like.

A while back I reviewed the book Keto Clarity after a friend asked my thoughts about it. We had a robust discussion here about the pluses and minuses of that lifestyle. At the end of the day, I rejected the plan for two reasons. The first is that I didn’t think I could sustain it long term, and the second is that I really enjoy eating fruit. Fruit is the thing that satisfies my desire for a little something sweet, and there’s very little margin in the keto life for regular servings of fruits, or many vegetables that I love, such as carrots.

Along the way to that conclusion, however, I ran across a lot of really great recipes in ketogenic cookbooks. These are helpful, for while I am not interested in living the keto life, I am fully committed to a lifestyle that restricts starchy, carbohydrate laden foods.

Among the keto cookbooks I most enjoyed were the wonderful Mark Sisson’s Keto Reset Diet Cookbook, as well as Dirty, Lazy, Keto. Both of these have great recipes, but most of my cooking and eating is more aligned with The Whole30 approach to nutrition than the keto approach. One thing from the ketogenic approach that I have really appreciated are the bread recipes. I have not embraced the rejection of bread the way many people seem to be able to do.

Last night’s dinner was a big salad topped with seared ahi tuna slices. Given that everyone in our house had been out for a run yesterday morning (and I’d done some weight training later in the day), I knew that the salad alone would be little light after a long, hard day. So I decided to make dinner rols to serve on the side and add a little heft.

For those who preferred the traditional bread option, there were yeast rolls:

For those of us who didn’t want the yeast rolls (I wanted them but they are antithetical to my fitness goals), there were these keto rolls from a recipe I found at Kerbie’s Cravings:

So everyone was able to enjoy a roll with their salads, and the inspiration for that came from my time perusing ketogenic cookbooks. One thing I have learned is that not all keto breads ar ecreated equal. Many taste very eggy, which I don’t like, but these rolls have a wonderful texture and mouth feel.

I don’t often review cookbooks, and I don’t often use them despite having many on our bookshelves. However, switching from the standard American diet was a revelatory transition, as I’d never really considered how nutritionally sparse our diet had been until I began to give it more scrutiny about 8 years ago. Reading cookbooks during that time helped to spark my culinary creativity.

What role do cookbooks play in your cooking and eating life? None? Some? A lot?

 

 

Audiobooks: Is it reading?

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Recently my husband, who is not much for old school paper reading of any kind, listened to the book I Am Legend via Audible. As he enlightened me on all the differences between the book and the movie, I thought I might be inclined to listen to it myself. Sci-fi horror isn’t really my thing, so I probably won’t listen to it, but even if I was interested in it, I’d check out a hard copy of the book from the library.

I have a friend who recently listened to the book Johnny Tremain after reading my review, and she told me all about the great audio reading app available through our library system. As much as I utilize our library, I’d never even considered whether they offered an audio book app. It’s my least preferred way to read.

I’ve begun listening to several audiobooks in the past, and am rarely able to finish one because I find my mind wandering off to other things. When I am able to listen to a book, and occasionally I am, it’s always in my car. In the car, I can listen attentively to an audiobook. In the house, I can listen to shorter things like podcasts, sermons, and of course, music. Earlier this year, we got a car which connects to the bluetooth on my phone, so who knows? There will probably be a lot more audiobooks in my future.

My husband, conversely, listens to just about everything. The exception is the Bible, which he says he gets more from actually seeing the words, but he considers audio books a legitimate reading activity. At the end of the day, whether you listened to a story, flipped its pages, or read it on a screen, you still took in the content.

I started listening to The Brothers Karamazov on Librivox a couple of months ago, and I was really enjoying it, but I couldn’t go the distance. I’ll be checking it out from the library when I finish my current book. Or perhaps I’ll try to pick up the story where I left off via audio book. We’ll see.

This article at Time Magazine offers expert opinion on whether audiobooks are as good for your brain as reading. Interesting, how they titled it…

What say you? Is listening to an audiobook the same as reading the words on a page or screen?

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Blogging Challenges of a Nonfiction Bibliophile

When I began this experiment of blogging for the purpose of reviewing, analyzing, and highlighting  books, I assumed that it would be easy. After all, I’d been reading several book blogs and they made it look quite easy. With the exception of my personal favorite Pages Unbound, which is hosted by two writers, these (mostly) ladies were able to churn out three book reviews a week.

Although it usually takes me a week to 10 days to read a book, I committed to using this format as a means of marrying my desire to improve my writing and share my love of books. I figured with some strategic scheduling, I could manage to review a couple of books a week.

That strategy hasn’t quite worked out, due to a number of factors. Homemaking, homeschooling, and other commitments are part of it, but those aren’t even the main reasons. I can easily put together a 1,000 word blog post, plus editing, in less than an hour.

No, the difference between my approach and the approach of most of the book bloggers I enjoy so much is that the lion’s share of of my reading is nonfiction, and nonfiction takes me a lot longer to read than fiction books, which is what most of the bibliophile bloggers I enjoy tend to review. The few bloggers I read who review nonfiction tend to offer reviews as slowly as I do, with gaps between reviews.

It was this awareness of the rate at which I post reviews which prompted me to begin interspersing book reviews with discussion posts on the related topics of reading and education, two other subjects that I enjoy discussing. Maintaining a book blog based mostly on the nonfiction books I generally read is more difficult than I realized.

When I am reading fiction, I read faster, collect my thoughts faster, and can formulate an opinion and review faster. Entertainment material is easier to plow through than informational material. There’s also a difference in the speed at which certain authors can be processed and read through. Dostoyevsky requires more concentration than Austen which requires more thoughtful consideration than J.K. Rowling.

In the nonfiction realm, Chesterton takes some serious concentration, while Wendell Berry is a little easier to work through (though just as thoughtful). Books such as my latest review, Mating in Captivity, hardly require any deep introspection at all, even if there are bursts of original thought or notable commentary. It was a very quick read relative to the time I usually spend in a nonfiction book.

I am currently waiting for one of my kids to finish a music lesson and am about to crack open The 5000 Year Leap. My optimistic ambition is to have it completed by next Friday, even amidst household responsibilities, church stuff, school orientations which take place next week, and myriad other tasks which must be done. The life stuff into which all the reading is sandwiched. We’ll see how it goes.

What about you? Does nonfiction reading challenge you much more than fiction in terms of time and concentration? Which do you prefer?

Mating in Captivity: Chapters 9-11

Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, by Esther Perel. Originally published in 2006. 272 pages.

This is the last post analyzing the Mating in Captivity since chapter 11 is the last chapter in the book. This trio of chapters also makes it very clear why Esther Perel is something of a lightning rod to those of us who marry fully committed to monogamy. She asks some pretty inflammatory questions and her answers are every bit as controversial. However, most of that is in chapter 10, and we need to touch on chapter 9 first.

Chapter 9: Of Flesh and Fantasy

This is basically a defense of sexual fantasy. The entire chapter is an exposition of various patients, most married, but not all, and one homosexual patient. There’s not a lot here worth delving into, so I’ll simply offer the chapter’s main idea, which is also its last paragraph:

Giving voice to our fantasies can liberate us from the many personal and social obstacles that stand in the way of pleasure. Understanding what our fantasies do for us will help us understand what it is we’re seeking, sexually and emotionally. In our erotic daydreams, we find the energy that keeps us passionately awake to our own sexuality p.174

The only other thing I will add about this chapter is that it underscored to me how a dangerous idea was suddenly very prevalent in this book. It was always there as a subtext, but it stood out more here, and the idea is that there is an inherent disconnect between sexual excitement and emotional intimacy and comfort. The overwhelming assertion seems to be that if a couple embraces and understands that these two seasons alternate back and forth while rarely overlapping, they can find a healthy sexual balance.

I vehemently disagree with this assertion, not only based on personal experience, but based on my understanding of marriage. Furthermore, accepting this premise as true undeniably sets the stage for what comes in chapter 10.

Chapter 10: The Shadow of the Third: Rethinking Fidelity

If I had to offer a one line synopsis it might be, You Americans might be able to save more of your families if you weren’t so dogmatic about fidelity.

Despite a 50 percent divorce rate for first marriages and 65 percent the second time around; despite the fact that monogamy is a ship sinking faster than anyone can bail it out, we continue to cling to its wreckage with absolute faith in its structural soundness. p.178

And this section, more than almost any other, flies in the face of the ideals of Christian marriage:

Fidelity, as a mainstay of patriarchal society, was about lineage and property; it had nothing to do with love. p.178

This may have some truth historically and biologically, but love is very much at the center of a Christian marriage, cementing everything from the mundane daily tasks to the sexual relationship. Our Bible makes it clear; we can be both sexually connected and spiritually connected. Perel propagates the idea that the two are different things, and again there may some truth to that but when you start from that premise, it’s a short leap from there to “rethinking fidelity”.

One thing that is crystal clear here is that Perel sees the strict adherence to fidelity as a condition of continuing the marriage as a uniquely American phenomena, including the notion that the only way forward is for the offending spouse to come clean:

In other cultures, respect is more likely to be expressed with gentle untruths that aim at preserving the partner’s honor. A protective opacity is preferable to telling truths that might result in humiliation. Hence concealment not only maintains marital harmony but is also a mark of respect. In formed by my own cultural influences, I defer to Doug’s decision to remain silent, and at the same time I encourage him to pursue other ways to reconnect with his wife. p.186

Perel tries to make the case that she isn’t promoting infidelity, rather attacking the ideal that marriage means the death of the individual self. However, the non-judgemental stand comes off as if she is an adultery apologist. She makes the case that we have set up a culture which is, in effect, disastrous to monogamy. There is a bit of wisdom tucked into all of this:

This isn’t a justification of infidelity, or an endorsement. Temptation has existed since Eve bit the apple, but so, too, have injunctions against it. The Catholic Church is expert at not only avoiding temptation but also meting out penance for those we couldn’t resist. What’s different today is not the desires themselves but the fact that we feel obligated to pursue them- at least until we tie the knot, when we’re suddenly expected to renounce all we’ve been encouraged to want. Monogamy, like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, trying to hold back a flood of unbridled licentiousness.

There is again, a grain of truth here, but the answer to the dilemma is the exact opposite of what she has promoted in several other chapters. Rather than release and indulge our erotic imaginations, we should harness, restrain and control them, saving them for monogamy where they can be explored within a legitimate context. Of course, we are living in a culture awash in the flood of unbridled licentiousness.

Chapter 11: Putting the X Back in Sex- Bringing the Erotic Home

This final chapter of the book is one with which I agree in part, and disagree in part. The overarching thesis is that people indulge in all kinds of sexual imagination and shenanigans pre-marriage and extra-marital (pornography, cybersex, affairs, etc), while being tamed and “puritanical” in their intimate relationship with their spouse.

She is in no way condemning any of the stuff I outlined above; the cybersex, pornography, or feverish daydreams.  I would, but she’s not. She is saying they should indulge these things in the context of their marriages to keep the home fires burning, so to speak.

Because, she asserts, passion is destined to be short-lived, couples have to open to one another and be more experimental and honest about what they want. She distinguishes eroticism from sex, asserting that fun, playful, erotic intimacy leaves most marriages “after the housewarming”. I’ll leave her to her assumptions, being the expert and all, but the very idea of almost worshiping a vaguely described idea of eroticism -one which includes perversion- leaves me cold.

The sum total of this book was informative, and the case studies in the form of patient stories was interesting. There were even a few philosophical gems tucked here and there. Overall, however, I don’t think help the average Joe and Jane do anything other than play act at eroticism, entertain infidelity, and believe they are doomed to enter a sexual desert unless they take her advice to heart, and not all of it is good advice.

For informational purposes and the ability to hold my attention, I’ll give it:

3 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pedagogical Errors

We’ll get back to Mating in Captivity tomorrow; Scout’s honor.

In the meantime, The Atlantic has published a piece which confirms my assertions from the post preceding this one. Specifically, that the attempts to modernize instruction away from techniques that have been proven effective is yielding poor results. After describing an example the author observed in a D.C. elementary school classroom, the article begins to state its case:

That girl’s assignment was merely one example, albeit an egregious one, of a standard pedagogical approach. American elementary education has been shaped by a theory that goes like this: Reading—a term used to mean not just matching letters to sounds but also comprehension—can be taught in a manner completely disconnected from content. Use simple texts to teach children how to find the main idea, make inferences, draw conclusions, and so on, and eventually they’ll be able to apply those skills to grasp the meaning of anything put in front of them.

This is backwards, right? It gets worse, yet simultaneously gives me comfort with the fact that our kids have 1) not been subjected to this approach, and 2) always read whole books, whether they could read themselves or whether I had to read them to them. Here’s why:

In the meantime, what children are reading doesn’t really matter—it’s better for them to acquire skills that will enable them to discover knowledge for themselves later on than for them to be given information directly, or so the thinking goes. That is, they need to spend their time “learning to read” before “reading to learn.” Science can wait; history, which is considered too abstract for young minds to grasp, must wait. Reading time is filled, instead, with a variety of short books and passages unconnected to one another except by the “comprehension skills” they’re meant to teach.

As I noted, the results are in:

As far back as 1977, early-elementary teachers spent more than twice as much time on reading as on science and social studies combined. But since 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind legislation made standardized reading and math scores the yardstick for measuring progress, the time devoted to both subjects has only grown. In turn, the amount of time spent on social studies and science has plummeted—especially in schools where test scores are low.

And yet, despite the enormous expenditure of time and resources on reading, American children haven’t become better readers. For the past 20 years, only about a third of students have scored at or above the “proficient” level on national tests.

I taught my kids to read by reading to them and also using this admittedly drab phonics book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  It wasn’t glamorous, as phonics instruction rarely is, but it got the job done and prepared them to be able to read content and then comprehend it.

Of course, it might be helpful if teachers, you know, actually teach kids something about the content they are expected to comprehend as well, which also seems to be missing from the current model. At least it is if The Atlantic piece is to be believed.

The passage and quiz approach leaves a lot to be desired, and I’m sure it’s easier on both the student and the teacher, but what about the long term implications? Why use it if it doesn’t work?

 

 

What is Classic Enough to Be Classical?

I already know the answer to my own question, but as usual, Mr. Joshua Gibbs has offered me educational food for thought. In his article Classical: A Word in Need of a Common Sense Definition, Gibbs uses his trademark -hypothetical?- conversation to demonstrate that we have woefully complicated a term that most people innately understand. Namely, what we mean when we identify our selves as classical educators or classical homeschoolers:

I would like to argue that classical educators should own up to a common understanding of what the word “classical” and “classic” mean. Rather than explaining classical education in terms of Dorothy Sayers and three stages of learning— which makes Sayers out to be little different from Freud, Piaget, or any of the other 20^th century theorists who were always reducing childhood to a sequence of stages— classical educators should happily admit that “classical” connotes “old things” and not be embarrassed by it.

I agree, because while the whole grammar, logic and rhetoric thing speaks to me as a nerd type, it’s really not revolutionary. For example, we all *get* that you teach kids their multiplication tables when they are very young so as to prepare them for more complicated math later. Internalizing the multiplication facts makes it much easier to solve complex equations which also include a knowledge of multiplication facts.

This principle can be applied to phonics, the scientific method, historical dates, or myriad other subjects. You fill the stufdent with the basic knowledge while they are young and spongelike (the grammar stage) to prepare them for later stages. Even educators who have no frame of reference for the classical education model intuitively know this.

We also know that the spirit of postmodernism tries desperately to assert that there may be new, better, more fashionable ways to transport a child from the grammar stage to the rhetoric stage. They never give up the fight to discard the tried and true no matter how well it works, and  no matter how much cultural or educational carnage their experiments leave in their wake. We all see how it is turning out, which is the reason for this current revival of classical education.

The fact that the basic stages of a child’s mental development are widely understood, even if only intuitively, is why Gibbs is inviting those of us involved in the movement to consider embracing a common sense, common man’s approach of describing to others what it is we mean by classical education. In this conversation, he invites us to listen in to one such explanation, one which proves the statement I made above. Most people basically already know what classical means:

Fellow on a train: What line of work are you in?

Gibbs: I’m a classical educator.

Fellow: What’s that mean?

Gibbs: Well, when you hear the word “classical,” what are the first things which come to mind?

Fellow: I suppose classical things are usually old things. Ancient Rome. Statues. I also think of classical music, which is old music, and I’ve heard that classical music is really good— and it probably is— but I’m not really into it, even though I probably should be. Or maybe “classical” is related to “classic,” as in “classic cars” or “classic rock.” So perhaps “classic” means something which is old, but still kind of good.

Gibbs: To be quite frank, I could not have defined the word “classical” any better myself. Would you mind humoring me by answering another question?

Fellow: Why not?

Gibbs: Supposing your understanding of the word “classical” is spot on, what do you suppose a classical education is?

Fellow: I suppose it’s an education that centers around old things and old music.

As the conversation unfolds, Gibbs explains to the fellow traveler why we esteem the old things as “good”. You can read the rest here, but there was one bit that jumped out at me precisely because it hits me where I live:

Gibbs: A moment ago, you said that you’ve heard “classical music is really good,” and that this judgement was probably true, but that you nonetheless don’t like classical music. And then you said something really fascinating. You said, “I probably should” like classical music. How come?

Fellow: If everyone says it’s good, it probably is.

Gibbs: Lots of people say Post Malone’s music is good, though. There are songs of his which have well over a billion streams on Spotify.

Fellow: That’s true, but Post Malone doesn’t seem much like Beethoven.

Gibbs: Agreed. How come?

Fellow: Because when I hear a song by Beethoven or Mozart or whoever, I always think, “I should probably like this.” But no one has ever heard a Post Malone song and said, “I should probably like this.” People like Post Malone’s music immediately, but if they don’t like it immediately, they would never say, “I should probably like this.”

Gibbs: Why not?

Fellow: By the time you learn to like Post Malone, everyone will have moved on to something else. However, if it took you ten years to learn to love Beethoven, at the end of it all, everyone would still be listening to Beethoven.

Gibbs: So, if you learned to love Beethoven, there would be a community of Beethoven lovers waiting for you in the end?

Confession: With the exception of a few of his piano somata’s, I’m not a huge fan of Beethoven. This is despite the fact that my children attend, and I teach at, a classical school.  In fact, some of my taste in music is pretty base by comparison. I really enjoy music that makes me want to move. I’ve matured enough in the years since we began our classical journey that popular music has lost most of its appeal, but I have developed an interest in Latin music because I like to dance. In my house, only. I have even considered joining a Zumba class just so I can indugle my hip gyrations guilt free.

An old, if not classical music art form that I have begun to enjoy a great deal over the past year is jazz. In particular, Duke Ellington’s compositions from the 1930s and 1940s. It’s old, it’s birth is unquestionably Western, but I know that it isn’t classical. As I read Gibbs’ piece, I wondered if a day might come when someone might consider it classical. And I wondered if I will ever, in my heart of hearts be what one might call a truly classical educator. If nothing else, I do love old books.

This is one of my favorite Duke Ellington recordings, In a Sentimental Mood, recorded in 1935:

 

Another confession: I have absolutely no idea who Post Malone is either.

 

Mating in Captivity: Chapters 6-8

Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, by Esther Perel. Originally published in 2006. 272 pages.

Chapter 6- Sex is Dirty: Save It for Someone You Love

The subtitle of this chapter is “When Puritanism and Hedonism Collide”, which bugs me because it continues the myth of the Puritans as a repressed people who hated sex and all things sexual. While it’s absolutely true that they shunned and condemned extra-marital sex and fornication) as the illicit acts that they are, the Puritans had a much healthier and robust attitude towards marital relations than most Americans do today, if the studies and interviews that spawned this book are any indication. Boston Magazine debunks Puritan myths in this interesting article.

This chapter is the first since beginning the book where I was nearly completely diametrically opposed to Perel’s positions from its beginning to its end. I say nearly because the chapter’s title takes a very insightful turn at what happens in the minds of many religious wives when it comes to marital intimacy, especially after children arrive, which is covered in chapter eight.

The politics and economics of sex and the diametrically opposed attitudes we witness daily penetrate the American bedroom and insinuate themselves into the creases of our intimacy. The couples I see live at the intersection of this ambivalence, and must negotiate amid these competing value systems. The legacy of Puritanism, which locates family at the center of society, expects marriage to be reasonable, sober, and productive. But alongside this very American notion of individual responsibility and moderation is the equally apple- pie notion of individual freedom. p.90

There’s a layer of truth in that, but the rest of the chapter felt like one long exercise in cognitive dissonance. There was a repeated insinuation (and even insistence) that any external restraints on sexual activity for anyone teenaged or older is repressive. The European standard, along with the dichotomy of their later age of first sex and lower teen preganacy rates, were offered as evidence of their superior sexual attitudes and  practices.

That this approach inherently undermines the ability of married couples to fully embrace and engage with one another erotically seems completely lost on Mrs. Perel, but I knew what I’d be getting going into this one.

Chapter 7- Erotic Blueprints: Tell Me How You Were Loved, and I’ll Tell You How You Make Love

This chapter is all about the connection between how people received love, affection, freedom and pleasure in childhood and the way it crosses over into how they navigate their adult relationships; in this context, their marital relationships.

I was slightly concerned that we were heading into Freudian territory but was relieved  that this was not the case. There are connections between childhood relationship patterns and  adult relationships. I also believe, having lived it, that when partnered with a spouse who makes you feel you can safely be vulnerable, a lot of relational challenges can be overcome. This is particularly so in the area of marital intimacy. To her credit, Perel doesn’t counsel her patients that they are stuck in their patterns.

Those of us who were raised with a strong sense of duty, hard work, and self-deprivation, Perel argues, often have trouble with the duality of marital intimacy. Specifically, she helps her clients see that you can be physically attuned to your mate without completely denying your own desire for satisfaction. Conversely, she asserts that one can be aware of and open to your own desire, acutely so (she used the wording ruthlessly so) without being unloving towards your mate.

We are socialized to control ourselves, to restrain our impulses, to tame the animal within. So as dutiful citizens and spouses we edit ourselves and mask our ravenous appetites and conceal our fleeting need to objectify the one we love. p.122

According to Perel, in a loving marital relationship, the self-absorption inherent in sexual excitement collides with our ideal of emotional intimacy. I believe openness and vulnerability frees us and reconciles that tension. But we’re taught to be invulnerable and look for ourselves because no one else will, so Perel’s patient list and popularity are set to continue to grow unabated.

Chapter 8- Parenthood: When Three Threatens Two

This is a topic that has been discussed, written about, and debated ad nauseum, so I won’t spend a lot of virtual ink telling you what you already know is in the book. That many women absorb themselves into motherhood and have nothing to give their husbands. Also, that some men (albeit significantly fewer) find it hard to connect intimately with their wife once she has become a mother.

Nothing new about that, or even about the advice she gives the couple she uses as the object lesson for most of the chapter, whom she refers to as “Warren” and “Stephanie”.

I did find this bit insightful, worth sharing and pondering, as it speaks to a large part of why so many couples find the bridge between parenting and a return to marital intimacy such a long one:

Her intense focus on her kids is not a mere idiosyncrasy–not simply her own personal style. In fact, this kind of overzealous parenting is a fairly recent trend that has, one hopes, reached the apex of its folly. Childhood is indeed a pivotal stage of life that will inevitably shape the child’s future. But the last few decades have ushered in an emphasis on children’s happiness that would make our grandparents shudder. p. 133

Amen to that, and this was also a good bit of advice to the couple she focused on. It stood out to me not because it was revolutionary. It’s as natural to us as breathing and always has been, but I’d never really stopped to consider what it indicates:

With him and through him, she potentially can begin to disentangle from the bond with the children and redirect some of her energy back to herself and her relationship with Warren. When the father reaches out to the mother, and the mother acknowledges him, redirecting her attention, this serves to rebalance the entire family. Boundaries get drawn, and new zoning regulations are get put into place delineating areas that are adults only. p. 135

That is sound counsel. Kids need to know and understand that Mommy and Daddy have a relationship that is not about them.

Until next time…

Related:

Preview of Coming Attractions: Mating in Captivity

Mating in Captivity: Intro-Chapter 2

Mating in Captivity: Chapters 3-5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rabbit Trail: Friday Faves!

I hope to have time this weekend to write up the next installment in the Mating in Captivity series. Meanwhile, I figured we’d check out this rabbit trail and share some of our favorite things. I’ll go first!

Favorite Book:

That’s like asking me to name my favorite child. When you read as many books as I do, the favorite among them changes in relation to the genres and types of books that have been read in the last year. My favorite book at the moment is a tie between A Girl of the Limberlost, Barracoon, and How to Be Unlucky by Joshua Gibbs. I haven’t reviewed the latter book yet because I want to give it a re-read before I delve into it. This guy really resonates with me, from a spiritual point of view. I never cease to be amazed by that since he is Orthodox and I am what I refer to as a raging Protestant.

My favorite movie:

At the moment? Chef, starring Jon Favreau. I wrote about that one recently, complete with a couple of video clips. My favorite film of all time if I had to pick one is probably the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma (I wrote about that one here before as well), followed lastly by the old Charlton Heston version of The Ten Commandments.

My favorite place to vacation:

The mountains win this one, hands down; The Smokey Mountains in particular. I live near the beach, so while I enjoy it, it’s not my favorite place to get away. That said, there is no place quite like the Florida Keys, my second favorite vacation adventure, followed up by our nation’s capital. There’s so much to learn in Washington D. C. that you could go there every year and learn something new almost every time.

Favorite school subject:

I suspect this one is a no brainer. Writing and literature, of course! I read mainly for pleasure, but I rarely read a book without jotting down my thoughts and opinions about what I am reading as well as any memories or feelings it evokes. I do that whether or not I post a public review of the book. Doing this is highly satisfying to me, which is why it isn’t particularly difficult or time consuming for me to review books here. I always made A’s in English and literature.

My favorite form of exercise:

High Intensity Interval Training, usually referred to as HIIT. My preferred version is a good hard run alternated with brisk walks. I used to think log jogs were the best, but I’m over those now, unless my kids rope me into doing a race. By race, I mean a race against myself. I’ve never run fast enough to win a race. Wait! I did take top place female in my age category at a 5K about 4 years ago. Hah! I am not a huge fan of weightlifting, but I do moderate amounts because it’s good for me and my husband will gently remind me of that if I start to try to avoid doing it.

My favorite beauty routine:

Currently, it’s using my jade roller, which I use after a pretty extensive skin care routine. It only takes about 20 minutes a night but my husband says it seems like it takes 45. The results speak for themselves though, so I continue to do it.

My favorite beauty product:

M.A.C.’s 24-hour concealer is my go to whether I’m getting made up or not. The stuff is awesome. My favorite –currently- hair product is Mielle Organics Pomegranate and Honey Leave-in Conditioner. This one is specifically formulated for tightly curly hair, so not a universal product. It makes my hair feel good, and it’s not unusual for someone to hug me and note that my hair smells good. Win-win!

Those are a few of my favorite things. Currently!

If you feel like it, take a minute to share your favorites in any of these categories. I’m most interested in your favorite books, movies, and vacation spots.

Have a great weekend!

Mating in Captivity: Chapters 3-5

The analysis of the introduction through chapter two can be read here.

Chapter 3- The Pitfalls of Modern Intimacy: Talk Is Not the Only Avenue to Closeness

Of the three chapters outlined in this post, Chapter 3 is the one in which I find the most valuable insights. By valuable, I mean I agreed. It basically expands on what its title implies; that talking is not the only way to cultivate marital intimacy.

Given the topic of the book, it’s obvious that Perel is making the case that sexual communication is a valid avenue to close connection. And that for some people, most notably men, it is the primary route to emotional connection within marriage. I agree with her that we both talk to much and prioritize talking too much:

Interestingly, while our need for intimacy has become paramount, the way we conceive of it has narrowed. We no longer plow land together; today we talk. We have come to glorify verbal communication. I speak; therefore I am [els: I laughed]. We naively believe that the essence of who we are is most accurately conveyed through words. Many of my own patients whole heartedly embrace this assumption when they complain, “We’re not close. We never talk.” p. 41

In an insightful turn, she notes that despite their happy union, her own parents (Perel is 61), would struggle to find the relevance in questions about emotional intimacy. She continues to explore what she describes as the “feminization of intimacy” being as harmful to women as it is men. She’s staunchly feminist in outlook but it doesn’t make this any less true:

If one consequence of the supremacy of talk is that it leaves men at a disadvantage, another is that it leaves women trapped in a repressed sexuality. It denies the expressive capacity of the female body, and this idea troubles me.

In so much as my dear fellow Christians have almost completely obliterated any notion of sexual pleasure in marriage as something women need and desire as well as (if not quite as much as) men, it troubles me, too.  When a secular, feminist psychotherapist hits on a truism that the church has denied (more accurately abandoned), something is amiss. The freedom of a wife to express amorousness towards her husband is important, because not every woman is wired to bridge the gap to intimacy through verbal chatter.

Chapter 4- Democracy vs. Hot Sex: Desire and Egalitarianism Don’t Play by the Same Rules

This chapter is most accurately summed up as “Americans are politically correct prudes who don’t appreciate that some women enjoy being a submissive in the bedroom as a counterbalance to relief from the dominant roles women now occupy in almost every other sphere of public life.”

It’s basically a passionate defense of S &M and the role it can play in some relationships as the only escape from reality the parties might employ. Apparently, her American clients and colleagues see such behavior in the intimate realm as demeaning to the women involved. She disagrees, as do I, but that’s not to say I agree completely with her conclusions either.

She tried to balance it with male and female and examples, but I stand by my aforementioned summation of the chapter. Although re-assessing realities one feels a need to escape is probably the first order of business, I don’t have the mental space to wrestle with what another married couple does in their boudoir.

Chapter 5: Can Do! The Protestant Work Ethic Takes on the Degradation of Desire.

This chapter takes on the Western idea of fixing whatever is broken by reducing it to the sum of its parts. The idea that something as existential as passion burning out can be fixed by scheduling, lingerie, more talking or even a prescription, is an idea that Perel finds counterintuitive at best:

But this can-do attitude encourages us to assume that dwindling desire is an operational problem that can be fixed. From magazine articles to self-help books, we are encouraged to view a lack of sex in our relationships as a scheduling issue that demands better prioritizing or time management, or as a consequence of poor communication. If the problem is testosterone deficiency, we can get a prescription- an excellent technical solution. For the sexual malaise that can’t be so easily medicalized, remedies abound: books, videos, and sexual accoutrements are there not only to assist you with the basics, but to bring you to unimagined levels of ecstasy. p.72

Perel isn’t intensely averse to some of these remedies, particularly if there is a clear medical reason for the dilemma. In general however, she sees our American predilection to stripping the problem into parts rather that acknowledging the complexity of desire and the unpredictability of eroticism in ways that will help couples reconnect.

Later in the chapter, after much questioning of the sexual performance industry, Perel returns to her original thesis of the importance of a level of separateness. Using one couple and a single male patient as her examples, she takes pains to invite the readers to understand how much of these issues are rooted in the mentality each marriage partner brings with them into the sexual relationship.

In general, I think she’s on to something, although our over sexualized culture places its own pressures onto couples to meet arbitrary standards set by the nebulous “they” as well as movies and other forms of entertainment media.

I also think that while she places far too much emphasis on eroticism as a gauge of relational health, she’s right that the ability keep that part of a marriage alive over time requires a level of surrender that many people find hard to achieve. More than ever, we are almost always on guard. The ability to drop those walls and *go there* with your spouse makes all the difference.

Until next time…

Mating in Captivity: Introduction – Chapter 2

Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, by Esther Perel. Originally published in 2006. Hardcover; 272 pages.

I decided to break this review up into several posts because, as with The Feminine Mystique and Modern Romance, the scope of ideas in the book are so wide-ranging I wanted offer a clear picture of what you’ll find within the book’s pages. Rather than removing the possibility of ever reading the book, in my own reading life I have found that such analyses propel my resolve to read the books for myself to better draw my own conclusions. Because of that, I have no qualms about doing chapter by chapter analyses of nonfiction books.

When considering my analysis, a few stipulations:

• This is a purely secular book written by a Belgian psychotherapist and relationship counselor.
• My opinions in these analyses are offered from the perspective of my Christian faith.
• My position on reading varieties of views and schools of thoughts can be found on my standards and quotes page.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can take a look at what this increasingly popular lady has to say about the “reconciling the erotic and the domestic”.

Introduction

The introduction of the book lays the groundwork for what lies ahead. It’s a short explanation of the problem Perel is going to describe and then aim to solve:

Psychologists, sex therapists, and social observers have long grappled with the Gordian knot of how to reconcile sexuality and domesticity. p.xiii

In essence, Perel sets out to figure out why long term married couples (in aggregate) report a sharp decrease in desire for one another over time. She explores this by offering different examples of real life couples she has counseled over the years and the suggestions and homework she gave them which helped to reignite some of what they felt for one another in the beginning.

Being almost completely unfamiliar with this particular marital malaise, I am finding the book somewhat fascinating, even as I disagree with many of her bedrock assertions.

Chapter 1: From Adventure to Captivity

At some point, we can thoroughly address the whole notion of this “captivity” thing, but not quite yet. Chapter 1 begins with Perel describing the scene at a party for authors she attended several years ago. Different writers were mingling about with each other, sharing what types of books they were writing. When she shared that she was writing about, she was suddenly the star attraction.

Everyone in her vicinity had strong opinions and wanted to weigh in, with two distinct, caricaturish camps emerging; the romantics and the realists. The romantics“refuse a life without passion”, squared off versus the realists for whom “maturity prevails. The initial excitement grows into something else-deep love…diminishing desire is inescapable. You tough it out and grow up”.

Perel makes the case that our modern expectations of marriage are wildly out of proportion to anything out ancestors would have expected, and I agree with her. The demise of religion, long held traditions and community institutions (not to mention distances between extended families) have caused the majority of people to expect their spouse to replace everything that these support systems used to provide. She conversely asserts, and I agree, that deep love and desire are not mutually exclusive; that these can be maintained in the same relationship over time.

She rounds out the first chapter with a look at two of the couples she has counseled in her practice as an example of one of the things (I presume) she is going to use as a basis of foundation for her solution to the problem. Each of the couples entered territory where they sacrificed or hid parts of who they are for the sake of the whole, new entity they were creating as they merged their lives together. Perel asserts, and again, I partly agree, that a large part of the excitement of a new relationship is the unknown factor. The unpredictability and instability of a new relationship is the accelerant for the fire that ignites the desire.

At the beginning, she mistakenly calls this phenomena love, asserting that “love is inherently unstable”.  I disagree. Love isn’t inherently unstable. Real love is the most stable thing you can build any life on, the only thing really, and plenty of people experience the fire and excitement of desire without ever getting to love. Later, she reworks her terminology, correcting this earlier misstep of interchanging love for desire. It made for a much clearer communication of her points going forward.

She’s wrong to dismiss the need of sacrificing parts of oneself for the greater whole, but she’s absolutely right that being able to see our spouse as an individual, separate and distinct from us goes a long way to fight off the malaise that diminishes desire over time. There’s a lot more to unpack there, but not without quoting the whole book.

Chapter 2: More Intimacy, Less Sex

In this chapter, Perel expands on her preceding intimation about the need for separateness as a prerequisite for desire, using the example of a unmarried couple she saved by counseling the woman to move out, and how the shift re-ignited their relationship. As if often the case when Big T truth isn’t the foundation of counsel, we skip around the edges of truth just enough to sound good, but miss the heart of the matter. The thesis, if you will, of Chapter 2 is that when we become too enmeshed, we lose the ability to see our mate’s “otherness” enough to want them:

With too much distance, there can be no connection. But too much merging eradicates the separateness of two distinct individuals. There is nothing more to transcend, no bridge to walk on, no one to visit on the other side, no other internal world to enter. When people become fused-when two become one-connection can no longer happen. There is no one to connect with. p.25

Sigh. So much potential, so little Truth! Being a Christian, I am solidly and immovably in the camp of husband and wife being no longer two but one. Merging is a beautiful thing. Mrs. Perel got that part wrong. The intertwining of souls, however, doesn’t negate the reality that the differences between men and women, coupled with the reality of growth and change over time leaves us plenty of bridges to cross to one another as well as internal worlds to enter. The problem is that we often don’t want to do the work or experience the discomfort of crossing those bridges or even acknowledging the bridges.

Marriage as a destination rather than a journey is at the heart of a lack of desire is what Perel seems to be trying to get at, and she’s not wrong. That, and the tendency we have to set up our lives where we never have the opportunity to see our spouse’s otherness, to view them with new eyes, or outside of the context of very narrowly proscribed parameters.  Christians can be particularly susceptible to this tendency. When there are opportunities to see your mate within the context of the environments that intrigued and captivated you at the beginning of the relationship, desire can’t help but re-emerge.

This one has the makings of another one of those books that occasionally parks right alongside the curb of truth, but never makes it across the lawn to the front door.

We’ll see.