Tag: reading

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I am home. in Marco Island, Florida.

“I am well into the book now. It is so brilliant! I feel so many different emotions reading it and I love the bits of irony and humor you bring to the stories, along with the questions you raise.

Now that I know how important water was to the story, I am pleased that I made it my first book to read by this new pool we are going to after we work out.

I appreciate the way you have moved between the dramatic passages and the lighter, witty, thought-provoking chapters of the story….changing, variously, the time frame, the tone and the location. It gives the narrative an interesting momentum and energy that for me is very engaging.

I am savoring each chapter and each story like I don’t want it to end. I love the style of writing,

I ordered Lucy, go see. and it should arrive just in time so I can roll from one to the other. Congratulations on publishing this amazing book!”

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I am home. swimming.

As I have mentioned before, there is a lot of water and a lot of swimming in this book. And a lot of a lot, really. Anyway, it was a thrill to be asked to sign it at the pool in front of the Mediterranean in Barcelona last week. And this is another from KK’s list of Scintillating Sentences.

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I am home. on the screen in Kansas.

What a wonderful reception for I am home. from the GO Book Club in Shawnee, Kansas! Because of the time difference between the Kansas City area and Barcelona, I was unable to appear live so I recorded this video in which I answered questions these readers sent me.

I could probably write another book to answer each of the following:

This book has a different format and flow than most books. What were your thoughts when creating the structure of the book?

Why did you write the book the way you did? Aka not in chronological order of how things happened… 

As I read, I felt you had such inner peace and calmness even in the midst of turmoil. Any thoughts or tips on how you achieved this?

Do you think you will move again? Is there one place that will feel like home and where you will eventually want to stay or is home what you make it?

When you move to different countries, what do you miss about other countries? What commonalities or differences do you see in different countries and what do you miss most? 

You said you think about silence as voice, as a choice, as a speechless voice or unspeakable silence. Can you explain what you mean by that? It’s brilliant. I’m curious how you came to that conclusion?

Where are your favorite places you’ve ever visited?

Again, you can link to the video with the answers here.

If you’d like me to appear at your book club, just send an e-mail to welcomewonder@mariannemaili.com .

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Coming back to home.

Another from KK’s list of Scintillating Sentences. This one hints at the humor peppered throughout the book. I love it when readers tell me they laughed out loud while reading. Cried and laughed. Two great releases. A male reader who speaks English as a second language recently wrote, “Yes, some pages made me cry.”

“That seems a good thing– a good grieving cry does wonders,” I answered.

“Yes, it’s good because you feel pain going out,” he replied.

Pain going out. I love that.

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I am home forgetting.

Another from KK’s list of Scintillating Sentences.

It’s true, I write to remember and to forget. Versatile, useful writing that does so much for the writer, and often and eventually, the reader. And what makes a writer? Writing. It can be a way of remembering, forgetting, playing, imagining, wondering, searching, asking, answering, corresponding, reading, soothing, and more. Write, I say, write. You can do whatever you want with it during and after.

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I am home. at the piscina, near the handstand.

“Sometimes you have to flip things around,” this reader said when I told him I loved the handstand in the background of this shot.

I love hearing from readers who are reading near water, in the water, in between swims, doing and watching handstands. It fits the book so well.

“I just finished your I am home.,” he wrote earlier, “which I started last night in bed after years of ‘not’ reading books. It demands a lot of bravery to expose your soul this way! I liked your ‘not mentioning’ any names in this book so the focus is elsewhere. I am really astonished at what a great writer and storyteller you are! I will now surely go for your first, Lucy, go see…”

(see p.108 in the book to understand the full context of the nots in these comments)

Available wherever books are sold.

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Scintillating Sentences

“Scintillating Sentences” is what one reader calls the three-page list of sentences she underlined as she read, and then sent to me. Rather than posting them all at once, I think I will share them one at a time when the feeling hits. The one I have chosen for today makes me feel good and reminds me it can be a prayer. I remember the wonder of hearing myself say it out loud. And later, the realization that came after writing it, looking at it on the page, and knowing that was the first time in my life I felt that. I love revision. Re-vision. That great gift writing gives us to look at what we have to say again and to see it in new ways. This simple 14-word sentence is a prism through which to consider love, divinity, body, woman, and human. The scene in which it is uttered evokes the gratitude the narrator feels for what her body does for her, what it tells her, how it helps her. The body is active, the body is divine, the body is a messenger.

“Beyond brava!!!  So so moving in myriad meandering meaning-filled ways,” the reader wrote at the top of the list.

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