Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh

Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm (2014) is a book by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn. It provides guidance on coping with fear in our daily lives, including our fears of loneliness, being abandoned, change, separation, uncertainty, being sick, and dying.

In Fear, Thich Nhat Hahn has a gentle and understanding way of presenting his advice and teachings. He explains that we must not let ourselves dwell in the past because the present is our true home, saying,

“I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough to be happy.”

Thich Nhat Hahn explains that we should not be limited by our pasts, our presents, or even our futures. He describes how people replay old events from the past, and then react to new events as though they were the old ones. To counter this tendency, he reminds us that we can react to new events differently as fresh moments and to be grounded in the present. Although we can explore our pasts deeply, it is important not to dwell in sorrow or regret.

To cope with loss and death, Thich Nhat Hahn reminds us that those we love have not disappeared, but instead have been transformed into new forms. We must continue to enjoy life because those who have died are still close to us and have not really disappeared from our lives. In thinking of loss in this way, we can overcome our grief.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is the following advice he gives about examining our feelings:

“Observe your feelings—whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Feelings flow in us like a river, and each feeling is a drop of water in that river. Look into the river of your feelings and see how each feeling came to be. See what has been preventing you from being happy, and do your best to transform those things. Practice touching the wondrous, refreshing, and healing elements that are already in you and in the world. Doing so, you become stronger and better able to love yourself and others.”

Thich Nhat Hahn describes the Buddha’s teaching that suffering can be caused by having wrong and erroneous perceptions and gives the following example, “You see a snake in the dark and you panic, but when your friend shines a light on it, you see that it is only a rope. You have to know which wrong perceptions cause suffering.”

This example struck me. As a child, I was walking in a park with my younger brother. I saw what I thought was a rattlesnake. I was afraid and grabbed my brother’s hand to protect him from the snake. As I looked more closely at the “snake,” I realized that it was just a broken beaded necklace and not a snake after all, and my fear disappeared.


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Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Milk and Honey (2014) is a book of poems and artwork by Rupi Kaur, an Indian-Canadian woman. At the time of publication, Kaur was 21 years old. The book is divided into four thematic chapters: the hurting, the loving, the breaking, and the healing. It concludes with a final "love letter" to the reader from the author.

Rupi Kaur writes in an extremely personal, daring, and revealing way, exposing her innermost thoughts and feelings in her poetry. The book's themes cover pain and trauma as well as love and healing. Through her poetry, Kaur reflects on womanhood, femininity, family, love, race, lovers, sex, heartbreak, relationships, loneliness, and art. Most of her poems are short, and with a just a few words, they pack a punch.

One of my favorites poems from the volume is the following:

the thing about writing is
i can’t tell if it’s healing
or destroying me

I found reading Milk and Honey to be cathartic, touching, and inspiring. This book is such a good reminder that we can all find healing and purpose by writing and creating art. I look forward to reading future volumes of Rupi Kaur's poetry.

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How to Love by Thich Nhat Hanh

How to Love (2014) is a book by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn that provides guidance to nourish happiness and love in our lives. He begins by explaining that we must expand our hearts to increase our abilities to understand and accept others and to be compassionate. By doing so, we can transform and prevent our own suffering. In turn, by accepting and understanding those around us, we can help them grow in positive ways as well.

Thich Nhat Hanh explains that true love has four elements, namely: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. When love has these four elements, it can heal and transform us. He explains that we must first accept ourselves to generate our own moments of kindness, understanding, joy, and happiness, and then we can offer these same elements to those around us.

This book is a wonderful reminder of many ideas and truths that we may know internally, but rarely articulate. The book is short and the ideas are presented in a simple, fully understandable way. Putting the ideas into practice requires contemplation, reflection, and intention. It’s a profound and encouraging book, one that’s worth revisiting.

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Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls is a strange and haunting short novel that was originally published in 1982. The protagonist Dorothy Caliban is a suburban housewife in a loveless marriage with her husband Fred. Years ago, Dorothy and Fred had been happy together, but tragedy struck. Their young son Scotty died of complications during an appendectomy. Shortly thereafter, Dorothy miscarried their second child. Dorothy then bought a dog, which died when it was hit by a car. In their despair, Dorothy and Fred turned away from one another. Later on, Dorothy realized Fred was being unfaithful to her. Still, they were “too unhappy to get a divorce,” as Dorothy explained to her best friend Estelle.

As the story begins, Dorothy is hearing curious messages when she listens to the radio. These odd messages are mixed in with the regular programming but are directed at her. For instance, one message tells Dorothy not to worry and that she’ll have another baby. Another broadcast announces the escape of a giant lizard-like creature from the Institute for Oceanographic Research, named “Aquarius the Monsterman” by the press.

Soon after, while preparing dinner for her husband and his colleague, the 6-foot-7-inch-tall green creature steps into Dorothy’s kitchen. Instead of being frightened by him, Dorothy hands him a stalk of celery. She learns his name is Larry, and Dorothy decides to hide him in her spare room. The next day Dorothy and Larry talk, and Dorothy learns that Larry was abused by his captors at the Institute. She aims to protect him, and the pair begins a romance.

The romance gives Dorothy comfort. During their first of many nightly drives to the beach, Dorothy reflects “all during my teens, when I kept wishing so hard for this—to be out in a car on the beach with a boy—and it never happened. But now, it’s happened.” Beyond giving her comfort, Dorothy’s adventure with Larry gives her a new purpose. She begins planning how to transport Larry from her home in California to his home in the Gulf of Mexico where he was captured.

Everything gets more complicated when Larry kills five young men who attacked him. Dorothy’s gardener, Mr. Mendoza, gives her an ambiguous message, “That friend of yours…It will be sad for a while, but it’s better the way it is, you’ll see.” Both Dorothy and the reader wonder about the meaning. As she watches the news later, Dorothy realizes that Larry killed her friend Estelle’s son Joey.

The tragedies multiply when Dorothy and Larry are out one night and she witnesses her husband Fred having an affair with Estelle’s teenage daughter Sandra. Dorothy realizes that Fred also had an affair with her best friend Estelle because Estelle had obscurely mentioned that Sandra had taken on one of Estelle’s old lovers. Dorothy and Larry race away in her car, but Fred and Sandra end up following close behind. Fred tries to run Dorothy off the road, but another car crashes into his car, killing both him and Sandra. In the chaos, Dorothy tells Larry to hide on the beach and to meet her later.

At the morgue, Dorothy sees Estelle who accuses Dorothy of killing her and destroying everything around her. Dorothy responds, “It wasn’t me.” There’s a great sadness in this short response. Nothing in Dorothy’s life was quite as it seemed. Dorothy’s best friend Estelle was not a friend at all. Fred was not a committed, loving, or loyal husband. At the cemetery, a woman asks Dorothy what her husband’s name was, and Dorothy responds “Fred,” but then changes her mind in confusion and tells the woman she called her husband “Larry.” The reader is left wondering if Larry was real at all, or if he was just a fantasy Dorothy created to escape her reality. The novel ends with Dorothy waiting on the beach for Larry, “but he never came.”

Mrs. Caliban packs a punch. It’s on one level light, fantastical, odd, and humorous. On deeper levels, it’s a reflection on loneliness, loyalty, friendship, grief, loss, love, betrayal, revenge, and solitude. The novel’s title derives from Caliban, a character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who is a creature that is half human and half animal. The title may also echo Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the story of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway.

Since its publication, Mrs. Caliban has been forgotten and rediscovered several times. It’s been praised by authors John Updike, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Joyce Carol Oates. In 1986, the British Book Marketing Council named Mrs. Caliban one of the “top 20 American novels of the post-World War II period.” The novel was rediscovered again in 2017 when readers noted its similarities to Guillermo del Toro's film The Shape of Water, which won an Oscar for Best Picture. I’ve never seen the movie, but from what I’ve read, it sounds very similar. Please weigh in if you've read the novel and seen the movie.

Mrs. Caliban is the type of story that lingers with the reader, who’s left wondering what was real and what happens next. How do we cope with loss, grief, purposelessness, and betrayal? Should we all hand a celery stick to the monster at our door?

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Last updated: January 18, 2024.

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In the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano

In the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano is a book set in Paris in the 1950s. The book’s main subject is a 22-year-old woman named Jacqueline Choureau (nee Delanque) and known as Louki. Modiano is an atmospheric writer. His books have a sense of melancholy and are often about identity and memory.

The novel has four chapters, each narrated by a different character. The first chapter is narrated by a man studying engineering. He wants to be part of a group at Café Condé that includes Louki. The second chapter is narrated by a private detective who was hired by Louki’s husband to track her down after she left him. The third chapter is narrated by Louki herself. Louki suffers anxiety, is addicted to cocaine, and has been trying to escape and run away since her troubled youth. The fourth chapter is narrated by Roland, a writer who dated Louki. We learn that Louki killed herself by throwing herself from a window. She is a lost soul, and the other characters all try to understand her, but ultimately, they don’t know who she really is.

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Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Convenience Store Woman (2016) is a novel by the Japanese author Sayaka Murata. I read the English version of the story, which was translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. It’s the strange tale of Keiko Furukura, a 36-year-old woman who lives in Tokyo. Keiko works at a convenience store called Smile Mart. She started working at the store at age 18 and has worked there for half her life.

Growing up, Keiko has trouble understanding how to fit in, and her abnormal behavior shocks her family. As a child, when her classmates are crying over a dead bird found on their playground, Keiko doesn’t see any reason to mourn its death. She sees the dead bird as food and wants to cook it. When a fight takes place among her classmates, and the children want the fight to stop, Keiko steps in and hits one of the children with a shovel to stop the fight. Keiko has dark ideas that differ from those around her. Later on, as an adult, Keiko thinks of killing a baby to make it stop crying. These moments left me waiting for a dark twist as I read the story.

Keiko finds purpose in life when she is hired at Smile Mart, a 24-hour convenience store. The store has a calming order and routine, and Keiko follows the store’s manual to be a dedicated employee. She has little identity outside of the store. Keiko attempts to fit with people through careful observation and by mimicking others. She notices when she makes mistakes by watching the reactions of those around her, and she corrects her behavior to appear normal. Keiko is content with her life, but after 18 years working at the convenience store, her friends and family question her about her lack of ambition and encourage her to get a boyfriend and to get married and have children.

The novel’s themes reflect on how people must conform to societal pressures and norms. What happens when a person can’t fit in? In this story, Keiko finds her own unique ways to cope with her alienation from society by discovering peace and purpose in her convenience store.

However, Keiko’s careful world order falls apart when she meets a man named Shiraha at the store. He’s the opposite of Keiko. He’s a horrible employee, who is fired for his poor work ethic and for harassing customers. Beyond that, Shiraha is a misogynist and a cruel human being. Strangely, Keiko ends up taking Shiraha in and letting him live with her to meet society’s expectations. She calls him her boyfriend, and he lives off her. Keiko eventually leaves her job at the convenience store, but without the order of Smile Mart, how will Keiko find her way in life?

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