survival story

“You Can Do All Things” by Kate Allan

September 16, 2021 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Drawings, Affirmations, and Mindfulness to Help with Anxiety and Depression

Recommended to me by: The Latest Kate tweet

I liked the image of the little hedgehog lying in autumn leaves saying, “Please try to be on your own side today,” so much that I immediately looked into Kate Allan’s books.

This is a small book, six inches square. Each chapter has brief interludes of text about the author’s experiences of anxiety and depression, followed by a generous number of pages starring a whimsical cute animal saying something encouraging. The chapter ends with three brief tools or coping mechanisms, like “Focus ONLY on what needs to be done TODAY,” followed by a few more encouraging animals.

I was doubtful about some of the sayings, like, “It’s all going to work out fine.” Err, maybe? The book is copyright 2018, so it doesn’t take a long-running global pandemic into account. Some hit closer to home, like the white silhouette of a cat with its back turned, saying, “Being lonely doesn’t mean you’re unloved.”

Some of the animals are fanciful or realistic cats and dogs. Some are mythical, like dragons or unicorns or a mix of different creatures. There is the occasional seasonal tree. There is only one drawing of a person, a young Black woman in a bathing suit saying, “There is no one I need to change for except myself.” In the author photo, Kate Allan appears to be white. I wish an editor had mentioned to her that it’s questionable to include a sole Black woman among images of animals, even if it’s well-meant.

From the introduction,

This is a guide I wrote to younger Kate, the person who hated herself and had no idea how to cope with what troubled her. I’ve included every strategy, affirmation, and coping skill that has gotten me through hard times, from slight worries about how well I’m doing, to incessant suicidal ideation.

Recommended if your brain lies to you regularly (depression or anxiety) and you don’t already know how to cope with that, and you don’t mind that the book assumes all your problems are internal rather than some of them being external, like a pandemic or systemic racism or runaway capitalism or all those at once.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Noopiming” by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

July 21, 2021 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: The Cure for White Ladies

Recommended to me by: RadiantFracture’s series about Native authors

This book is woven together with brief recurring scenes and thoughts and symbols from eight main characters, plus some geese and raccoons at the end. The characters are Native Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg in Canada, like the author.

Official synopsis:

Mashkawaji (they/them) lies frozen in the ice, remembering the sharpness of unmuted feeling from long ago, finding freedom and solace in isolated suspension. They introduce the seven characters: Akiwenzii, the old man who represents the narrator’s will; Ninaatig, the maple tree who represents their lungs; Mindimooyenh, the old woman, their conscience; Sabe, a gentle giant, their marrow; Adik, the caribou, their nervous system; and Asin and Lucy, the humans who represent their eyes, ears, and brain.

The characters are formally introduced at the beginning, and then we see them up close as they go about their lives and interact with each other. Their lives weave in and around and through the invasive white people who have changed their world. The story is confusing on the surface, like a turning kaleidoscope, and makes a deeper kind of sense underneath.

Stories tell us how to live, how to see each other, how to care for each other. They point out when we are falling short. This book has layers of knowledge and wisdom that would reward rereading and study.

Recommended to take a step away from colonialism and toward Nishnaabeg ways of connecting with the world. The “cure for white ladies” in the subtitle is never directly addressed.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Care Of” by Ivan Coyote

July 17, 2021 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Letters, Connections, and Cures

Recommended to me by: Muccamukk

This book made me cry a lot in a good way, a heart-opening way. Ivan (they/them pronouns) says when they are about to go onstage to tell stories, first they imagine their chest opening right up so that the stories can come out of their heart to the audience, collect bits of the audience’s hearts and come back to Ivan.

When the pandemic hit, they were fortuitously at their partner’s home between gigs. There they stayed during pandemic lockdown, answering the special letters they had received over the years with stories and tidbits about lockdown life. The letters are vulnerably open, and the replies are warm, kind, loving. They touch on the loneliness and dangers of growing up trans, the need for mentors and safe community and chosen family when the larger community and blood family are intolerant and cruel.

Highly recommended.

Available at Amazon.

“As We Have Always Done” by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

June 13, 2021 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Subtitle: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resurgence

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist who has taught and lectured across Canada. With story and analysis, she carefully lays out how Nishnaabeg ways of living, learning, and experiencing are intrinsically suited to reestablish their communities and place-relationship that have been intentionally disrupted and stolen by colonialist settlers.

A single quote out of context doesn’t do justice to the way she steps out of whiteness to center the Nishnaabeg way of thinking and doing, but here is a taste.

Governance was made every day. Leadership was embodied and acted out every day. Grounded normativity isn’t a thing; it is generated structure born and maintained from deep engagement with Indigenous processes that are inherently physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Processes were created and practiced. Daily life involved making politics, education, health care, food systems, and economy on micro- and macro-scales. […] The structural and material basis of Nishnaabeg life was and is process and relationship—again, resurgence is our original instruction.

The book addresses kwe – the embodied experience of being an Indigenous woman – and the ways capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy have suppressed and damaged that experience. It also includes 2SQ – people who are Two Spirit and Queer.

I feel changed by reading this book. It affirms that there are right ways, sustainable ways of living, and Indigenous people still know and practice those ways. It supports my own search for connection to place and right ways to live. It reminds and teaches me that Indigenous people are brilliant modern thinkers and doers, interrupting the stereotypes of “primitive,” “lost,” and “in the past.”

Highly recommended!

Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation (pdf), an article by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson published in Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson website

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Catfishing on CatNet” by Naomi Kritzer

December 8, 2019 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Marissa Lingen

This book is based on the short story Cat Pictures Please, which touches on serious issues but is basically lighthearted and positive.

The book, less so. Yes, there’s a benevolent AI (artificial intelligence) who loves cat pictures. There are delightfully depicted internet friendships, and in-person friendships. Some of the characters are non-binary, and (almost) everyone is respectful about pronouns.

There’s also an 11th grader whose mom moves them all the time to keep away from her stalker dad, and some just barely off-screen domestic violence. It all comes right in the end, and I’m glad the book addresses those topics. At the same time, it felt jarring to me to have these deadly serious issues juxtaposed with a lighthearted cat-picture-loving AI who can fix all the problems.

It’s well-written. Recommended if you don’t mind fictionalized, simplified domestic violence. For me it was too realistic to be fun but not realistic enough at the end of the book about how difficult it is to escape.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“shadow daughter” by harriet brown

March 23, 2019 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Memoir of Estrangement

Recommended to me by: Body Impolitic

A powerful, lyrical book about Harriet Brown’s complicated relationship with her difficult mother, including estrangement, and about family estrangement in general. She describes her ambivalence and self-blame in the face of anecdotes demonstrating dramatic emotional abuse, as well as the long process of naming her own truth.

The book also covers estrangement in general, both the pressures against it and the reasons for it. She interviews and quotes from other people who have gone through estrangement, and researchers into the topic.

She brings in estranged parent forums with both clarity about their self-deception and defensiveness, and empathy as well. There is a sense of bending over backwards to be fair.

The lower case title and author name on the cover make me sad on Harriet Brown’s behalf. I wonder if they were her choice, or a marketer’s design.

I am fascinated by the way Harriet Brown continues to put a lot of effort into family relationships, despite the ruptures and judgements stemming from her estrangement with her mother. She skillfully navigates those tricky waters.

I read the book cover to cover in an evening. Highly recommended if you have had to walk away or strongly limit an important family relationship, or if you want to understand that process better.

More stories by Harriet Brown on her website.

Available at Powell’s Books.