BOOK REVIEW - The Glass Seed: The Fragile Beauty of Heart, Mind & Memory
Submitted by WebAdmin on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 09:44.
By Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
Timeless Books, 2007, $17.95
Written during the dark winter months, this memoir of a daughter's relationship to her mother begins with a vivid dream of a fabulous persimmon and a green-beaded and velvet gown. Haunted by desire, the author goes in search of materials to make the dream a reality. The process of measuring, cutting, and working with slippery fabric, as well as the time and effort spent building up the garment with a wealth of tiny beads, becomes a way of charting the terrain of loss and the path to wholeness.
Pearkes, the author of The Geography of Memory and a regular contributor to the yoga magazine Ascent, was dealing with her mother's dementia. "Alzheimer's disease," writes Pearkes, "asks for a direct experience of limitation, failure, and absence." It also demands courage and emotional growth. Hard questions arose: If a mother doesn't recognize her daughter, does it matter if the daughter visits?
As Pearkes sews and beads, she contemplates the way her mother continues to guide her. "The path toward a heartfelt life," she learns, "does not lead to a place without suffering, just to a place of compassion."
Gracefully, Pearkes' thoughts chart "a course, staying faithful to the idea that the terrain of loss can always be traversed."
Timeless Books, 2007, $17.95
Written during the dark winter months, this memoir of a daughter's relationship to her mother begins with a vivid dream of a fabulous persimmon and a green-beaded and velvet gown. Haunted by desire, the author goes in search of materials to make the dream a reality. The process of measuring, cutting, and working with slippery fabric, as well as the time and effort spent building up the garment with a wealth of tiny beads, becomes a way of charting the terrain of loss and the path to wholeness.
Pearkes, the author of The Geography of Memory and a regular contributor to the yoga magazine Ascent, was dealing with her mother's dementia. "Alzheimer's disease," writes Pearkes, "asks for a direct experience of limitation, failure, and absence." It also demands courage and emotional growth. Hard questions arose: If a mother doesn't recognize her daughter, does it matter if the daughter visits?
As Pearkes sews and beads, she contemplates the way her mother continues to guide her. "The path toward a heartfelt life," she learns, "does not lead to a place without suffering, just to a place of compassion."
Gracefully, Pearkes' thoughts chart "a course, staying faithful to the idea that the terrain of loss can always be traversed."
