BOOK OF THE WEEK
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger
Meg Kissinger, a noted journalist who spent several decades covering mental illness issues, bares her soul and that of her family in While You Were Out, a candid and raw account of her family’s travails. Children of the 60’s, she and her seven siblings lived with alcoholic parents and a mother who was also subject to depression. Life in their household was chaotic yet punctuated by moments of fun and levity. Problems were never discussed and no one’s behavior or issues was ever really questioned.
When several of Kissinger’s siblings had their own mental health problems, treatments were tried, but nothing much changed, and there was no chance to query or understand the what and the why. Even after a self-inflicted death, no talk or therapy was undertaken.
This can be a hard book to read at points. To her great credit, Kissinger presents each of her siblings as a multi-dimensional individual with pluses and good traits as well as shortcomings. It is a tribute to her own strength of character that Kissinger navigated through this thicket of surrounding illness to create the successful life and journalism career she has. Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)
MY LATEST VIEWING
POLITICS OF FARMING AND BIG AGRICULTURE
Circles of Power (PBS Passport)
Circles of Power, a recent French series (2022), is sometimes more like a documentary than a drama series. Claire Lansel is an investigative journalist for Quotidienne, a daily newspaper. When a class of school children visits a grain silo in the north of France, several of them become overwhelmed and collapse. Thus begins a focus on what caused their sickness. Small independent farmers, a large agricultural cooperative, the minister of agriculture, union leaders, and a rabble-rousing group of young environmentalists are all players in this many-threaded story. I wondered if it were based on real incidents, but couldn’t find an answer to that.
This is a drama of painstaking research and difficult interviews with affected individuals, many afraid to speak out. Add in mothers with sick babies and the human side plays out against the politics of likely corporate greed. The pace is measured with lots of scenes of Claire driving through the countryside, but it kept my interest as I rooted for the “good guys” to prevail.
NEW ADVENTURES AHEAD
Next month, the Chief Penguin and I will begin a new adventure. We will move to a retirement community in North Carolina. We didn’t anticipate making this kind of move this soon, but the right opportunity presented itself and we accepted.
Now, we’re deep into downsizing: identifying which furniture pieces will work and in which rooms; going through decades of scrapbooks and memorabilia deciding what can go, what to digitize, and what to just toss; winnowing down and culling kitchen equipment (how many fry pans does one need?); reviewing cherished fine china and glassware to either pass on to family or give up; and making umpteen lists about what to take in the car, which vendors need to be notified, and so on. Some of it is a process of reducing “clutter,” although one would never call these “precious” items clutter!
We look forward to living in an urban area where we will be able to walk to stores, restaurants, parks, and the public library. And a first-class bakery! We will have family nearby, and, as long as we can, we will travel both here and abroad. And yes, I plan to continue Jots & Jaunts (www.jauntingjean.com) with regular posts once we get settled. I’m not signing off yet!
Note: Header photo of ibises on the hunt ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
