Michelle Obama's Book Becoming - a review: Part 1

I'm very late to the party in picking up Michelle Obama's autobiography, Becoming.
I've been busy with University studies, but the light is at the end of that particular tunnel on Friday when I complete the semester with the final exam, so I have been - maybe a little too early when I should be studying - indulging in some leisurely reading.

I don't know about you, but I love biographies. I like them more than novels. Real people's lives are so fascinating.

I've always liked Michelle as a person and thought she would be a pretty interesting person to sit down and have a cup of tea with, and her book has only piqued my interest. She seems so wise and very down to earth, intelligent and relatable.
But there is so much in her book that I want to talk about, so I've decided to review the book in two parts.

I've been so enjoying hearing about her childhood growing up on the south side of Chicago. Chicago will always hold a special place in my heart for the year I spent living there.

I like the way she thinks. I like her tenacity. I like her grass-roots upbringing and I like that in her book she is not afraid to talk about the things that matter. She's a straight-talker but careful in her wording and gracious. I was excited to learn that she was a Sociology Major at College! No wonder I liked her!
In her book she is not afraid to talk about the things that had social consequence on her and her family. Things like racism.

This has always been a topic close to my heart because I've never understood racism. I still remember the shock I felt upon learning of slavery in my school Social Studies Class when I was 13 years old. That feeling has sat deep with me all these years.  Taking Sociology this year has helped me understand the why's of racism and how it has impacted our world so dramatically.

One of the most interesting aspects about Michelle's book is seeing her world through her eyes and through the eyes of the child she remembered as herself who is African American. She doesn't really directly talk about racism or growing up with racism,  she just talks about her family and friends and what she did as child, but for someone like me, not having grown up in America and not having grown up as African American, several things stood out to me in her writing:

Segregation was part of her life. She talks about white communities and black communities and the white part of town and the black part of town.

At college her roommate was moved out of her room because the mother objected to her daughter sharing with an African American girl.

Through the story of her childhood, the lens she wrote through was always with an acute awareness of her difference to the 'ruling race' in America at the time and yet she seems to have written it without fully being conscious of it. That's what I found fascinating.

It brought to mind this quote from my sociology class this semester:

W.E.B Dubois - "Those who are oppressed by race develop a dual consciousness, ever aware of their status in the eyes of others but also have a collective identity as African American, for example".

She spells that out in her books - whether it was deliberate or not, that lens is there.

I like this journey with her through her youth as she grows, matures, develops. I'm not even up to the part where she meets Barack yet - the part I imagine everyone wanted to read from that point on.
I like the cut of her gib, as the old saying goes. I'm enjoying her company.

“Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?”  Michelle Obama, Becoming


She's a true sociologist. America is lucky to have had her as their First Lady, and lucky to still have her influence.

Labour Weekend - Getting the House Summer Ready

Our first summer in our new home and I am enjoying our private garden and outdoor area so much.

We haven't had a ready-made garden since we lived in the old house in Alexandra and it is wonderful to add our own stamp on things. The former owners who were retiring and going to a much smaller place left us some lovely potted outdoor plants in some big, beautiful pots, along with some outdoor seating and a shade cloth. We put the cloth up last night and already we are benefitting from it as the sun is HOT today.

Traditionally in New Zealand, Labour weekend is for putting in your summer plants, and this tradition still holds firm judging by the number of people at the garden centre this morning.

We have a lovely lot of edibles in the garden - a plum tree absolutely laden with a type of plum that we're not sure about - until it ripens. With the number of fruit on this, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on those cheeky birds and netting it when I need to. I have a Mandarin ready to go in, a Tamarillo thriving, celery ready to harvest and at the bidding of my second son today I got two raspberry vines to put in.

We are getting ready for Theo to go to NASA in December and doing some fundraising to help. I've been testing out an old fashioned lemonade recipe given to me by my hockey mum friend, Sue. It's seriously the best lemonade but I think the recipe is a bit of a secret. I've been putting the syrup into bottles and will sell them soon, but of course we had to test it first!

I hope that you will be able to come and enjoy a drink with me sometime over the summer. 

Warmth and shade from the hot sun and good company in the outdoors with lemonade (and maybe a cocktail or two) sounds very enjoyable indeed!

And of course Ginger will be here to give you a very joyous welcome.

I Am (Hopefully) Back to Blogging Again

The great thing about reaching middle age is that you do really find out who you are. It's true what they tell you about that.
You've spent quite a bit of time with yourself by now, and things start becoming clearer. What you like, who you are, how you think, feel, love, respond, what your core values and beliefs are and most importantly, how you want to spend the rest of your life. And maybe even more importantly, how you don't want to spend the rest of your life.

That's what has happened to me.

I've spent the last few years sorting out the past. Dealing with things that needed to be dealt with, and a lot of reflection and self-evaluation. I've learned boundaries. I've learned not to be so gullible. I've become a little cynical. I have learned to trust my judgement and my instincts. I've learned what sort of friend I am and how to find friends that I like and how to cultivate those friendships.

I've also learned that I need to write.
Which is why I'm picking up blogging again.

I have little side projects on the go, and I just finished writing my first academic essay - which I agonised over. Faint echoes of my old teachers telling me to stick to creative writing or fiction and not structural essays lingering in my memory. That I was weak in essay writing- my greatest writing weakness - those words linger in my past.  I have a huge learning curve ahead, but I got my first one written and achieved a B grade, which I'm trying to tell myself is not so bad for my first essay - considering the last time I wrote one was when I was 17 years old and I have a major phobia around them.

I still harbour ambitions of a New Zealand novel - and that may or may not be my summer project while I take a hiatus from Sociology studies. But like it or not. I have to write - and I think that's been my biggest lesson this year. I can't just let it go. I need it.

So, here I am. Back on beloved blogger. It's like an old familiar friend.