It’s a slim novel of 199 pages, a comic tragedy that reminded me a little of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn.  Both stories involve a cheating husband, a heartbroken wife, but the protagonists are very different. Nora’s protagonist is angry and funny and finds consolation in food and recipes. Katie’s protagonist is watchful, less angry, funny, and finds consolation in stories. The book title Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar makes you think of an old joke. Only when the protagonist walks into a bar, or in this case an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet restaurant with her husband, he tells her he’s having an affair with a white woman named Maggie. Soon after the protagonist discovers she has breast cancer and names the tumor Maggie.

Now divorce, cancer, not such cheery topics, but in Katie’s hands, I kept laughing, not loud, raucous laughter, but more chuckling about the narrator’s relatable observations. She hates the tiny triangular paper cups in the doctor’s waiting room that never hold enough water and the outdated cheesy magazines. She never sees issues of the Atlantic or the New Yorker. Maybe, she muses, because people who read those magazines are too smart to get cancer. She writes ‘The Guide to My Husband: A User’s Manual” and ponders whether she should give it to Maggie, the mistress, not the tumor.

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I hadn’t realized how bright, focused, complicated and worldly Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was until I read bestselling author Dawn Tripp’s latest novel  Jackie. Grounded in historical research, Dawn captures the essence of the woman behind the myth, the enigma that was Jackie.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I think it’s my favorite book this year, and I only recommend books I really like. It’s beautifully written, a captivating read, even the second time around. The Washington Post said, “To write a book on someone who has already been relentlessly scrutinized is a daring enterprise.” And all I can say is, thank you Dawn for daring. Below is our Q&A which has been edited for clarity and brevity. You can listen to the full episode on Elena Meets the Author here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Dawn: Thank you so much for having me here. I’m thrilled to be here.

Elena: I’m so excited to have you here.  Jackie died 30 years ago this year. In your book you have a quote from historian E.L. Doctorow,

“The historian will tell you what happened. And the novelist will tell you what it felt like.” Later in your excellent novel, you write: “No one wants to know the real story, the private story, the evolution of a woman’s interior life… They tell us the story of what happened to her. And in the world’s eyes, usually what happened to a woman is men.”

Dawn, I’d love to hear how you first realized there was so much more to Jackie than meets the eye.

 It was actually five years before I started working on this book. My son had brought home The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis by Caroline Kennedy for me to read aloud to my sons at bed-time.  I read from the introduction which had been written by Caroline. And while I’d known that Jackie had a passion for books, I’d never considered her mind, her psyche, her emotional life as a reader.

In Caroline’s introduction she talked about how books had been central to her mother’s childhood, and how she ensured that books were central to Caroline’s childhood. And she talked about how both JFK and Jackie shared an intimate love of books, and the power of stories, and how Jackie would share poems with Jack, and he would integrate them into his speeches. He would ask Jackie for her perspective on documents written in French.

At the end of the introduction Caroline reflected on how her parents, her brother and she had faith in the power of ideas and how the words we use to describe our ideas is the greatest power we have.

I remember reading that sentence and it was like a bolt of lightning. I thought, who was she? I thought there never has been a narrative built around this extraordinary woman’s intellect. She was so smart. She had a passion for literature, art, history, travel and not travel for luxury, but travel to learn about other cultures’ traditions and histories.

One of the things I loved about your book was not just getting to know and admire Jackie, but learning about the love story between her and Jack. 

That was a dimension of their story that I wasn’t expecting to find. In the ten years that it took to research and write this book, that was the thing that surprised me the most. They were in love. I think we sometimes forget just how young they were. It was a young, complicated marriage.

I was curious about why she was drawn to him. She knew about his reputation as a womanizer. She was drawn to his mind, how smart he was, how he was constantly asking questions. She was drawn to his vulnerability, the fact that he loved to read.

I find the way she reacted to JFK’s affairs fascinating. She was so strong and tactical. One time when JFK strayed after the children were born she told him, ‘you know, your children might hear about this. They’re going to look at you differently.’ And he ended that liaison immediately. 

Yes, when his affairs became more public, she realized how the public would react and how impactful that would be to her, to someone who was so private. As she became more aware of what was going on, she became more uncompromising. I think that can happen to women over time. Actually, that doesn’t work anymore. That behavior has to stop.

I go to events and one of the questions I get asked again and again is what about Jack’s affairs. And yes, they’re in the novel to a certain extent, but that was not what was interesting to me. I feel like we are always talking about the weight of this woman’s life and her choices through the lens of her husband’s affairs. She was so much more interesting, so much more expansive. It was a piece of her life, but it did not circumscribe her life.

Usually, when I finish a book, I’m done. I move on. But with Jackie, I’m still interested in her. I continue to be intrigued by the range and scope of her, not just her mind, but her passion for life. And her respect for the imperfect. We sometimes think of her as so perfect, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect everything.

And yet, there’s a great quote from her when she’s reflecting on the photography she did when she was working at the Times Herald. She said the picture is boring if there’s not something imperfect about it. She recognized that sometimes our flaws are where things become revelatory.

Can you tell me about her passion for life?

There’s this phenomenal video of her waterskiing in 1962. She was an incredible water-skier. It’s not just her grace and beauty, but her athleticism. She’s on one ski weaving back and forth. Then there’s another cut where she’s skiing with John Glenn, the astronaut. And a third where she’s skiing holding four-year-old Caroline (who is skiing between her mother’s legs). She wanted to introduce her daughter to the water, the spray, the sun, the light. It just told me so much about who she was as a mother.

I found an image of Jackie swinging Caroline through the surf. Jackie has a white shirt on, Chino pants rolled up. She’s swinging Caroline by the arms through the surf. Her hair is kind of crazy and she’s soaking wet. And she looks so happy, so alive, so free.

And there’s another candid snapshot of her and Jack on a sailboat. They’re scrunched together laughing. Their smiles are so big.

Your book is divided into three parts: Her marriage to Jack, then Ari and then her life as a woman who works because she wants to. Do you think she was happy in that third part of her life?

I do. She had had a lot of loss, but I think in the last two decades of her life she was finally creating a life that was on her own terms. She really loved to work. She loved routine. She was also very grounded in nature. She bought a piece of land on Martha’s Vineyard and laid out the house with a piece of string. She wanted it to be a house the children would want to come home to. She was always close to her children. In one interview she said she often thought it was the best thing she ever did. Her children were at the forefront of her mind and her life and her choices.

Thank you so much!

October 2024

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I know that when I’m meditating, I am a nicer, more present, calmer person. Case in point, I was just nearing the end of a meditation session (ie sitting on a chair with my eyes shut for 20 minutes repeating a mantra that Jillian assigned to me all those years ago) when someone came into the room, ignored my closed eyes and started talking to me. I opened my eyes, greeted him with a smile and answered his questions.

Now, I know me. My typical reaction would be sheer annoyance. “Don’t I ever get a moment to myself?!” But no, I was super patient without trying.

Jillian says that meditation should be effortless, not forced.  If a zillion thoughts are entering my head, that’s fine, that’s natural. In this particular meditation session, I could hear my thirty-year-old son on a work zoom upstairs, and I started reminiscing about his childhood and how long I’ve known him, 30 years, he was such a cute baby. Is that a failed meditation? Not at all. According to Jillian, it’s ok if a zillion thoughts come into my head, let them, but try and return to the mantra. Watch those thoughts like clouds in the sky, register them and then let them float away.

But don’t listen to me, listen to Jillian. She founded the London and New York Meditation Centres with her partner in work and life Michael Miller in 2008.

They offer a myriad of courses on-line and in person, as well as retreats in far-flung locales. They have taught thousands of people how to meditate.I love their free on-line group meditations as a way for me to reconnect and listen to Jillian and Michael wisely answer meditators’ questions. They also have tons of forensic scientific evidence supporting the physical and psychological benefits of meditation. Below is an edited, abbreviated version of our chat. You can listen to the entire conversation on my podcast Elena Meets the Author here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Elena: Hello Jillian and welcome. In your book you debunk some of the popular myths about meditation. Can you tell us briefly what those are?

I think that’s partly why I wrote the book. More and more people know about meditation, which is great, but with that comes confusion. The thing I hear time and time again is ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. My mind is crazy busy. I couldn’t sit down and stop thinking.’ But that’s not what we want people to do. Or people say, ‘I don’t have time to meditate.” That was an issue for me when I first started meditating. But what I found is that I actually had more time. I was more focused, more productive. I didn’t have to read that sentence five time before it sank in.

There’s also a myth about meditation being a belief system. We teach people from all walks of life, all faiths. And you don’t have to stop drinking wine, or start drinking kale juice, change your diet in any way.

Elena: Can you tell us about some of the positive effects that meditating can have on people’s lives?

 It’s a long list. Meditation affects every aspect of our mental and physical functioning.  You are resting your system so your body can heal, purify and rebalance. That deep rest means that we can release tiredness and stress. We’re going to be more resilient. And meditating has a big impact on the ageing process. Long-term practitioners are aging more slowly. Vedic mediators have improved memory, learning ability, concentration and focus.

Meditating has a big impact on how we can be there for others. If we go into a relationship and we’re tired and needy, cranky, it’s going to affect that exchange. It’s all about me. But if we go into it, present, listening and feeling good inside, not needy, that has an incredibly uplifting effect on that exchange.

Elena: how do you know when you’re doing it correctly?

That’s a good question because there’s a lot of stuff out there that’s not very effective. Ask yourself is this something you look forward to? Do you enjoy it? Do you find that it’s easy when you do it? Do you feel a difference when you do it? How do you feel if you missed your meditation? That’s the acid test.

Elena: You say in your book that there’s no such thing as a stressful situation, there are only stressful responses to a given situation. Can you explain?

 This is a a very challenging world that we live in. We live in a world undergoing, rapid rates of change. It is only accelerating. What is our capacity to deal with change?  What is our capacity to adapt to new information? That’s what life is asking of you. And when you’re tired, stressed, depleted, you don’t have that bank balance, that reservoir of adaptation energy.

In Vedic Meditation we de-excite. We start to lighten the load. Meditation delivers an antidote to stress by delivering a level of rest that is profound. And when you rest the nervous system, it can come into balance to meet the demands of life by not carrying this legacy of stress. Meditation helps us lose stress faster than we are gaining it. And that puts us way ahead of the game.

Elena: And finally, you talk about how meditation can help the creative process? 

 Vedic meditators report having more clarity, more insight, more lightbulb moments where you get that good idea. The universe is sending you good ideas all the time. The question is are you awake? Can you catch them? When we have all that scattered thinking in our head, it’s hard to get clarity.

So much emphasis in our society is placed on intellectual capability. But all the important decisions you’ve made in your life, the consequential decisions didn’t come from working it out in our head. It’s our ability to tune into our intuition. I did an interview once and someone asked me what was the most important thing that I have gained from meditation. And I said, my ability to trust myself, that ability to turn down the volume, go inward and access that feeling, that sixth sense, that intuition about how I’m going to decide what I’m going to do in any aspect of my day.

Thank you so much Jillian. I think a lot of people will find our conversation helpful.

October, 2024

The post Q&A with Jillian Lavender – Why Meditate? Because it works. appeared first on Elena Bowes.

The following Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity. You can listen to the whole Q&A on my podcast, Elena Meets the Author. And you can read the rest of my edited Q&A here on 26.

Ann, I loved I’ve Tried Being Nice. I listened and read it in two days. You’re a very good narrator. I laughed out loud multiple times, and I can so relate to your recovering from being a lifelong people pleaser. As I’ve gotten older, and my estrogen has disappeared, so has my patience. It’s kind of a huge relief doing what you want to do, saying what you want to say. Getting that seat on the subway, Medicare around the corner.

Your pet peeves range from smug knitters to rude tennis partners to people who let their dogs roam on your property despite you warning them about your fearful, sometimes aggressive rescue. I also loved your romantic story Shall We Dance?  And Travels Travails where your husband  navigates the perilous Italian autostrada. Your humor and empathy shine throughout these various essays. In your terrific tennis article, you talk about how competitive you are.

So, my first question is since it’s clear that you are really funny and you’re married to someone who makes a living being funny, do you ever get competitive over who is funnier?

Ann: I’ve been with my husband a long time. We met when I was 20 and he was 25. It’s been a few decades. I always know if I’ve said something really funny, if I say something that slays it. He works at not laughing. But he’ll laugh generously if I’m just amusing.

Would you recommend tennis to warring couples?

Ann: I didn’t grow up playing tennis. I started playing in my forties, and I’m completely obsessed by it. You can learn everything you need to know about a person on the tennis court… if a person’s honest, if they cheat, if they’re a blamer, or a self-hater. I mostly play doubles. Do not play doubles where your husband is your tennis partner. He should be on the other side of the court.

So, my sister is also a mediocre player. We used to go on vacation with her and her husband. If my brother-in-law was my partner and he made a mistake, I’d be like, ‘oh, that’s fine.” And he would be so nice to me. And same if my sister made a mistake, my husband would be like, ‘good try.’

But if my husband was my partner, and he’d make a mistake, I’d say, “What is wrong with you?! Why won’t you take a lesson?’ And then if I made a mistake, he’d berate me. We would be so uncharitable because I guess we felt you don’t have to be as nice. Tennis teaches you how to be in life. You should be as generous to your partner in life as you are to other people. But often we aren’t.

My husband and I played pickleball against my son and his wife last weekend. They’re much better than us. What was annoying was my husband kept suggesting that we mix up the teams.

Ann: Ah, because he wanted a better partner?

 Yup. You met your husband when you were in college? You were both at Emerson, taking creative writing, right?

Ann: I had just transferred from Bennington to Emerson and the head of the writing department at Bennington told me “You must take this writing class with Denis Leary.” He had graduated the year before. I thought he would be much older, like 50. He walked in and he looked about 20. He was super cute.

We crushed on each other, but we didn’t date until the day after the class was over. We went on a date or two, and then he stayed over, and he never left… to this day. It turned out he didn’t have his own place to live. He was shacking up with other comics.

Lol.  I loved your essay on the perks to an Empty Nest. Too often parents get morose when their kids go to college. I certainly did. But when your kids went to college you and your husband shed a few tears, and then realized every cloud has a silver lining? Can you tell us about that breakthrough?

Ann: Sure. So, we have two children. My son is the older one. The summer before he went to college, I was in a serious depression. I really felt like our whole life, our marriage, this magical thing that was our family was coming to an end. Then we dropped my daughter off. I rememeber we were driving away and I couldn’t stop sobbing. My husband was driving and then he pulled over. And after dabbing my face, I said, ‘you can go now.” And then I heard him make this sound. I look over and he has his head in his hands and he’s crying like a baby. Our daughter only went to college an hour away. When we got home  my husband went upstairs, while I made dinner and watched Seinfeld. And when he came down, he did what he automatically does which is turn that little TV in the kitchen off because it’s time for dinner.

And then I said the words he’d been waiting twenty years to hear. Let’s watch TV while we eat. And that’s when the fun began. I know a lot of people are naturally altruistic, thoughtful, kind, good people. We’re not really like that but we had to behave as if we were because our children deserved better. So, we were on our best behavior for twenty years.

We have reclining chairs for when my mother visits. Now we eat dinner on these reclining chairs in front of the TV. We walk around with no clothes on. Nobody cares. My kids came back for vacation and were shocked by the recliner eating situation, absolutely appalled.

Thank you Ann.

Readers, this is just a soupçon of our chat. The episode on Elena Meets the Author has lots more Ann gems. Here’s to laughing!!!

September, 2024

The post Q&A with Ann Leary – I’ve Tried Being Nice appeared first on Elena Bowes.

I lie, this is only one of the places- as we’ll be changing hotels (‘hotel’ seems generous) every night.

Stretch peppers most mornings now with statements like-

You’ll need to get mountain gloves as the mornings will be quite chilly.’

Has anyone ever heard of mountain gloves? Or …

“We should pack rain ponchos.”

Sadly, I know what that is, and the visuals are making me weep. From liner socks to clothes that wick to heel balm, this trip is anything but sexy.

This morning, Easter Sunday, a day of celebration or at least relaxation, I was just pouring my first cup of coffee in the kitchen- planning on bringing it right back to bed to start my daily meditation and journaling ritual- when I got distracted by Stretch who was busy trying on his latest purchase- a complicated and ugly backpack.

“So, you see it has these belts in the front, one by your waist and another by your chest to distribute your weight evenly” he explains as he snaps various buckles like a flight attendant in my kitchen.

I nod sleepily. He’s kind of blocking my way to the stairs and thus my bed.

“And then…” (He’s now taking the backpack off, walking to the sink, turning on the tap and filling a huge aqua-colored sac within the backpack with tap water) “There’s this nifty section here where you can store water. And another here where you’ll keep your electrolyte cocktail.”

Generally, with Stretch when he’s on a nerdy roll like this, I nod a lot, don’t ask any questions and try to exit the space quickly and subtly.

“You’ll need to take your bathrobe off”

“What? I ask.

“It’s too thick. This is your backpack. You need to try it on.”

Readers, I am wearing a luxurious la Perla nightgown and a thick warm terrycloth bathrobe and Ugg slippers. Not a hiking outfit in any size, shape or form.

“I am not taking off my bathrobe,” I say imperiously, moving past him with speed, Josephine in tow.

My morning zen has been shaken by this man I married. We are in some ways very different people. Do opposites really attract? Some days I wonder.

Postscript-

I just came back from an Easter day hike. Stretch said we needed to train for Spain. He told me the hike was 4 miles with ‘some elevation.’ Dear readers, if there’s one take away from this blog, never ignore or underestimate the word ‘elevation.’ We just climbed gargantuan boulders, the size of meteorites. Maybe they were meteorites.

One of these rocks had a chain to help you pull yourself up. I kid you not. I would have turned around but that was even scarier. Have you ever tried sliding down a boulder? Stretch always does this- takes me on a loop hike where the only thing to do is move forward. On the way home I asked him how much ‘elevation’ we covered. “1200 feet, the same as climbing up the Empire State Building. You should be proud of yourself” I would be if I wasn’t so tired.

So, on this celebratory exhausted note, Happy Easter! I hope you all had a great Easter with zero elevation. And if you know of a nice hotel along this Camino thing, please email me pronto.

April, 2023

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