The Quotidian Life Is Not Always Easy

Depression Glass novelty pieces from my grandmother’s house.
See how the little amber bowl is a cauldron?!
My grandma always kept toothpicks in the yellow one.
And I always begged to drink milk or water from the green one
 — there were 2 of them, with matching saucers.

One-of-a-kind handmade Halloween card
from my talented sister-in-law Tina McF.

"I would hope that my readers feel a sense of awe at the quality of human endurance, at the endurance of love in the face of a variety of difficulties; that the quotidian life is not always easy, and is something worthy of respect. I would also hope that readers receive a larger understanding, or a different undertanding, of what it means to be human, than they might have had before. We suffer from being quick to judge, quick to make excuses for ourselves and others, and I would like the reader to feel that we are all, more or less, in a similar state as we love and disappoint one another, and that we try, most of us, as best we can, and that to fail and succeed is what we do." (281 - 82)

Elizabeth Strout (b 1956)
comments on her novel Olive Kitteridge

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For more about the quotidian in Olive Kitteridge
and several other novels,*

see my current post:

"Spinning the Web"

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

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*Things Invisible to See ~ Nancy Willard
The Guest Book ~ Sarah Blake
Eleanor Oliphant ~ Gail Honeyman
Olive Kitteridge ~ Elizabeth Strout
Black Girl / White Girl ~ Joyce Carol Oates
Ordinary Grace ~ William Kent Krueger

Sedem Stems from Gerry's Garden
Not ready to give up Halloween just yet!

And looking ahead to Spring . . .