A Book Review - An Autobiography by Agatha Christie

An Autobiography by Agatha Christie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An AutobiographyI just finished this last night. It gave me so much to think about. Agatha Christie is such an icon that one hates to think to write a review about something as close to her heart as her autobiography is/was. I found it interesting reading most of the time. She, as she does so well, set scenes beautifully, gave the feeling of being there and it was all easy to imagine. I really enjoyed getting to know what she thought of her own life, and reading of her adventures, of which she had MANY. I wonder if nowadays she would be published if she were just starting because the way she started was so different from how it happens now. Her tolerance of pain was remarkable and the fact she wasn't educated in schools was a stunning revelation to me. Basically she was home schooled and I enjoyed reading about her relationship with her mother. Though she doesn't get "emotional" or let us in very deep with her autobiography, she does give us an idea of what she must have been like. She doesn't make any reference to the "disappearance" which I basically expected, but it would have been nice to have her do so. She does write about a novel she wrote about a woman basically disappearing for a few days and it made me wonder if this was deliberate on her part as an allusion to her own mysterious disappearance. She gave me some things to think about on writing and I've finished this book with a sense of wishing it wasn't over yet. If you like anything Agatha Christie, I recommend this autobiography.



View all my reviews

What Is In A Face?

http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/

The Circle of Life. In my post this month on WEP (check it out at the link below the image), I need to share faces of those who have come and those who have gone. In February 2013 my sister and I lost our father (Archie) and two months later she lost a very, very dear friend (Marc) who had greatly influenced her life. After our father’s passing, a new life was born into our family (Alienor) and helped, with a strong yet gentle touch, to bring a sense of healing amidst our grief. Another new life came to us (Emma) after the loss of my sister’s friend. In January 2014 my mother, very suddenly lost her brother, our uncle Phil. We are all still reeling from this. Then, as if planned, yet again, the birth of a new life in our family (Ruby) has brought the same strong yet gentle touch of healing as before. The circle of life personified. I cry and I laugh when I think of this. I mourn, but also cherish the life gone and the life beginning. What is in a face? A whole lifetime lived. A whole life yet to be lived. Memories, and hope. Cherish the faces you see every day. Don’t be afraid of losing them, but don’t take them for granted either. The circle of life is present in every face you see.

Archie, Dad 2-12-13

Alienor, second cousin, 2-22-13

Marc, our friend

Emma, family

Uncle Phil, 1-22-14

Ruby Lu, family 1-30-14

IWSG - Frustration

Here we are again ready to support each other this month by writing about whatever we decide needs to be said or read. If you are new, or unaware of our group and care to join us, or read those of us who participate in this monthly “help-fest” please go to this link: http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html

This past month my focus has been on not giving into frustration. Frustration over not getting the time I wanted to have to finish my current work in progress and not having enough time to visit my favorite blogger buddies. One of my favorite saying is “Life is what happens when you’re busy planning something else.” So very true and that is what has happened to me this summer. I’ve done what I can and have been successful most of the time in not beating myself up too badly over my internet and “Word” silence, but still… You know how it is.

However, I hope by August to be in a better position time-wise and will endeavor to catch up and make August a slam-dunk month. That said, I still miss reading my blogging buddies, I still miss my work in progress and I still miss the sense of accomplishment that I usually feel at the end of a good work day.

So, now that I’ve indulged in my very own pity party, and I have one more month to make it through, I promise to try to make something happen within this month even though I have other commitments to honor. At the very least I will go and visit some of my blogging buddies and catch up!  

Images from:

www.themotherco.com

bookhuntersholiday.wordpress.com 

bajan.wordpress.com

Hurts So Good

Soon comes a time of remembrance as we will hold my father's memorial on the 25^th of this month. I feel like I had a “breather” in April, a time to be in my home with my husband and just let life move around me while I wrote and didn’t think so much about missing my father. I didn’t go to North Carolina for the first month in almost twenty-four. I didn’t realize how un-grounded I was in my own home because of that. I love being in NC, so it wasn’t a hardship for me and I didn’t realize this un-grounded-ness until I didn’t go.

 

This past month I found writing to be fun, a release, a pleasure to look forward to every day. I wrote on my blog and on my work in progress every day. I had a project I needed to finish before the end of May and I made excellent progress on it. I felt stable. I felt entrenched. It was a healthy, wonderful feeling that left me energetic during the day and tired at night. The kind of tired you have when you know you’ve accomplished something good that day. I felt “home.” We also had family come and stay a bit and it only seemed right for them to be here in our home at that particular time. A confirmation.

Now I, we, will once again travel to NC to share memories and the pain of loss with my family and be with others as they say their farewells to my father.  Life is constant change, always in flux and in keeping with that we have a young French girl/woman staying with us which entails me finding a new rhythm, a new stability, which so far (it's only been a week!) has been hard to do. But today I was eager to be at the computer; eager to be back in contact with my "true love." Today I came close to finding a balance, which reinforced the certainty that soon I will once again let my imagination and fingers have free range within whatever new rhythm I discover. One of my favorite sayings is “Life is what happens when you’re busy planning something else.” Perfect example!

Never

Dad 1926-2013

A bit off the regularly scheduled word I had for today, which was Noun. To preface this, my sister and I lost our father on the 12^th of February this year. I’m still, as is she, dealing with all that means. Yesterday while working on a project involving my father’s affairs, I had one of those moments I’ve come to understand aren’t going to go away any time soon, if ever, of looking into the abyss his passing has left in my heart, my life, my soul. And so today my word is NEVER.

My sister, my Dad and me late 1990's

Losing a parent is not like I thought it might be. I don’t really know what I thought it would be like, but not this guerrilla sneak-attack-type warfare with my memory and emotions. For awhile I didn’t listen to any music because I never knew what would set off my crying jags. I think the main thing that causes tears is the thought/word/concept of Never. I will never see him again. I will never touch… well, I’m sure you get the picture.

I won’t go on about this. Just wanted to say that I hadn’t really grasped the concept of “Never” and what it actually means, for some reason. It is a hurtful word and one I’m not fond of at the moment. It has a depth and longevity I had not given credence to before. “Never” is longer than I ever want to think about.

"Pat" Buie in Korea, 1950's

Until it comes to this side of that same hopeless word, the side that meets “Always.” I will NEVER forget him, NEVER forget what he was/is in my life. He is and always will be my father, and I’m okay with knowing that fact will NEVER change.  Sometimes I find peace there, and then the next guerrilla style sneak-attack hits and I miss him all over again.

Archie in the 1970's

Music and Tears

Lisa and Dad

A warning:  This is about grief. My Dad died on February 12, 2013. (I wrote this a week or so ago...)

Songs, music they are so powerful. I don’t know that I’ve truly acknowledged their power before yesterday. On Interstate 40, coming down the mountain between Black Mountain and Old Fort in western North Carolina I was listening to a mix of music on my phone when first one song and then another played and slammed me with grief. The two songs reduced me to a very wet and sad state of tears.

Cat and Dad

I’ve spent the last week completely immersed in the joyous and apprehensive process of life beginning. A new baby was born to our family, one that I hold a special interest in because of how dear her parents are to me. Being allowed to share in this experience so completely with them put my own grief and self out of mind for a while and gave me a distraction from the part of life that comes at the end of the circle.

With my father’s death I have been fairly inconsolable, not trying to be, I just can’t act as though nothing has changed, because honestly, it will ever be the same again, even though intellectually I know the sharp edge of this grief will pass with time. Having to put aside this grief for a few days has been wonderful, or so I thought until I came down that mountain with “Gitan” sung by Garou, a Canadian singer, and “Wild Horses” sung by The Sundays playing. With first “Gitan” (Gypsy in French) the tears began toward the end and I thought it just a missing of him that would pass and perhaps it would have if “Wild Horses” hadn’t played next. The lyrics of “Horses” gave my suppressed grief wings with a power that took my breath and my defenses away. "Let's do some livin' after we've died..." As I took the Old Fort exit I knew where I had to go. I turned on to the road that would take me to “Sam’s Pond” and parked where I could look out over one of Dad’s favorite fishing holes.

Last photo of Archie and his kids, David, Lisa, Duncan, Cat, Bonny

In the peace of that setting, with the water level so high he would have been tickled pink, I sat there and cried. My heart is broken. My father is gone. At this point I really don’t care that he’s “in a better place” or that “he’ll always be with me in spirit and in my heart” or any of the other words that people say to try and help make you feel better. All I can feel right now is that he is gone. I will never ever for the rest of my life touch his skin, feel his arms around me, kiss his cheek or help him shave. I will never ever again walk into his room and watch his face, his eyes light with joy just because I’m there. I won’t hear his voice tell me about his day, or sit on the phone with him for an hour to place an order for fishing equipment on the internet. Those times are gone and will never come again. How can that be okay? How can I just accept without grief these losses in my life? No other man has known me as long as he has. And even though he wasn’t always kind and gentle, in fact was quite driven by fear and insecurity most of his life, he always loved me. He always loved all of his children.

He never stinted on telling me he loved me. On telling me he was proud of me. I may not have always been able to hear what he had to say over the fifty-three years I knew him, but I do know that he loved me. That helps, to a point, in carrying this grief, but the grief is still too raw to assuage completely.

1926-2013

So I will have this grief. I will give it its way until I no longer need to do that. I will pick myself up and live with this wound. I know he would like to know he is missed. I also know he wouldn’t want me to dwell in a pity party for too long. So I won’t, and I also won’t listen to “Horses” again for awhile. I will honor his life by mourning his loss and allow myself to miss the man who helped give me life. And then someday, when I’m ready, I will write about my joy in knowing him, of his life. I will move on. I love you Dad. I miss you.

Writing to Catch Up

Archie Buie, my father

So it’s very past time to write in this blog, to update my readers, to get words on paper/screen again. First, my father is doing much better than we could have expected a few weeks ago. I am VERY thankful for that, for your comments here and the fact that I have learned a lot through this experience; not only about my dad and his amazing ability to “bounce” back, figuratively speaking, but my ability to adapt. It was a scary time for awhile there facing the loss of the one man I’ve known literally all my life. I spent much time contemplating the world without him in it. I guess you could say I was given a “test run” on this part of the life and death process.

I found much solace in nature during this time. I ended up finding many plants for the garden my husband and I started before I dashed off to North Carolina. The foliage, the rich colors of the flowers all helped me find a sense of peace and order in the midst of the chaos my emotions were going through at the time. My father has now recovered enough for me to feel good about coming home. He won’t ever be as he was, but he still “is” and I’m happy. He is too, especially because he’s back to fishing! I’ll visit him again at the end of July or beginning of August and I am okay with knowing there is no way to know what will happen next or when with him. Life. It is very good right now.

As if to affirm that, the flowers and plants that are now at home in our new Memorial garden are thriving. They continue to provide the calm and peace I needed so much while up on North Carolina dealing with my father’s failing health. They remind me of him and his strength, his love and his amazing blue eyes, still full of his essence. They remind me of the ever-changing aspect of life.

Now I’m off to write something else. More posts will come soon, as I’m eager to expound upon a few subjects now that I’m back at the keyboard again! Must say I missed it.