Intelligent, contemplative spiritual memoir by a fine writer with a rich interior world.
A young woman writes of her spiritual evolution in an insightful debut memoir.
The “spacious life” of the title refers to the “immeasurable spaciousness” evoked when the author, a model and actress, practices meditation and mindfulness. Doumani was born well-off, “ensconced in the comfort of a heavenly suburbia” in Sydney, Australia, to loving parents (Thai mother, Lebanese father). An “inner restlessness” fueled her spiritual quest. The result here is not a dreary rehashing of her past but a thought-provoking look inward that includes fascinating mystical experiences and dreams. Writing in a strong, clear voice, she describes an inner journey augmented by travel and exposure to other cultures in places like Bangkok and Bangladesh. Her spiritual adventures weren’t as expansive as those of, say, Shirley MacLaine, nor do they veer into cosmic revelations, yet both authors question reality and their individual circumstances. In addition to a mentoring relationship with a Buddhist master, Luang Pu, the author had a series of male friends, three of whom are profiled here: the Italian, the Businessman, and the Fighter. These relationships aren’t portrayed solely as romantic interludes but rather as mirrors of her spiritual process, each representing a particular set of challenges. The Italian, a “livewire” whom she met at university, was possessive and ultimately obsessed with her. The Businessman was given to “maximising opportunities,” a process that didn’t necessarily match Doumani’s wishes (he remained on the sidelines during her cancer scare). The most compelling association was with that of the Fighter, who was in pain due to a freak accident; his physical suffering, sometimes moderated by overmedicating, greatly impacted the author. In time, she came to view relationships as “ultimately ephemeral, like a hologram.” Using established spiritual staples—“Sitting quietly by myself, doing nothing special, and grasping at nothing in particular, that is what the forest taught me”—the author crafts an engaging story, keeping the relationship with self top of mind and ending many chapters with an enticing hook. The result is a tale of heightened awareness and compassion. Despite her Mensa-level IQ, Doumani avoids pomposity, delivering a coherent story grounded in consistent practices and self-awareness.
Intelligent, contemplative spiritual memoir by a fine writer with a rich interior world.Pub Date: March 18, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: almer Higgs Pty Ltd.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
A unique, incandescent memoir.
A lyrical, soul-stirring memoir about how an acclaimed Native American poet and musician came to embrace “the spirit of poetry.”
For Harjo, life did not begin at birth. She came into the world as an already-living spirit with the goal to release “the voices, songs, and stories” she carried with her from the “ancestor realm.” On Earth, she was the daughter of a half-Cherokee mother and a Creek father who made their home in Tulsa, Okla. Her father's alcoholism and volcanic temper eventually drove Harjo's mother and her children out of the family home. At first, the man who became the author’s stepfather “sang songs and smiled with his eyes,” but he soon revealed himself to be abusive and controlling. Harjo's primary way of escaping “the darkness that plagued the house and our family” was through drawing and music, two interests that allowed her to leave Oklahoma and pursue her high school education at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Interaction with her classmates enlightened her to the fact that modern Native American culture and history had been shaped by “colonization and dehumanization.” An education and raised consciousness, however, did not spare Harjo from the hardships of teen pregnancy, poverty and a failed first marriage, but hard work and luck gained her admittance to the University of New Mexico, where she met a man whose “poetry opened one of the doors in my heart that had been closed since childhood.” But his hard-drinking ways wrecked their marriage and nearly destroyed Harjo. Faced with the choice of submitting to despair or becoming “crazy brave,” she found the courage to reclaim a lost spirituality as well as the “intricate and metaphorical language of my ancestors.”
A unique, incandescent memoir.Pub Date: July 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-393-07346-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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