Story for the Week
I hear a saying more and more often lately: The days are long, but the years are short. Maybe it’s an age thing. As people get older, it’s natural to feel that the years are flying by. Yet I still have plenty of work days where I’ll check the time and can’t believe it’s not even noon. And there are weeks that by Tuesday, it feels like it should be Thursday. We’ve all been there.
As Corinne prepares to start college in the fall, I still remember the day we dropped her off at preschool 15 years ago. Dennis was obsessed with taking pictures of every moment, and her first day of school was no exception. Parents were invited to explore the classroom and help their child find their seat and get settled. As Corinne looked at all the toys available, Dennis asked her to pose for pictures with many of the bigger ones—the kitchen set, the work bench. When she tired of posing, she looked at the two of us and asked, “Can I go play now?”
She was never one to cling when I dropped her off anywhere really. Despite the fact that I am an incurable introvert, Dennis’s genes rubbed off, and we raised a social butterfly.
Corinne acquired a lot of traits from her father. She will talk to just about anyone, which makes her a great server at Denny’s where she just started working this summer. She loves watching soccer, and she does like to take pictures…just not with a huge DSLR camera. I pointed out to her once the line in “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan where he sings “So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad that I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad.” She tends to spiral like Dennis before she can think about the potential upside to things.
While she has started to look more like both of us as she has gotten older, the standing joke when she was little was that it was a good thing I carried her because she was a carbon copy of her father.
Dennis was usually behind the camera, so it was rare that we took pictures of him on vacation. We took our first Disney cruise in January of 2020…two months before the world shut down for COVID, and eight months before we lost him to pancreatic cancer. He almost skipped our final dinner on the cruise because he started thinking about the fact that it could be his last vacation (it was). We got a ton of pictures of him on that trip, and he was the giddiest I had seen him in a long time.
This past Thursday (July 18th) would have been his 65th birthday, the age at which his father passed from thyroid cancer. It is our fourth birthday without him. I talked with my mother-in-law last weekend, and she couldn’t believe that September will be four years without him. I feel the same because the memories of him are still so vivid. It doesn’t feel like nearly four years have passed.
The days are long—all 1,400 of them since our last day with Dennis—but the years are short. I say a lot more now to treasure every day and tell people you love them. Life is short…sometimes too short. To quote the picture I have hung in my living room: “Today only happens once. Make it amazing.”
Happy birthday, Dennis. We will always love you.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Swimming to Lundy by Amanda Prowse
408 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: August 6, 2024
I received an advance copy of this title from the author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (thanks, Amanda Prowse).
Publisher’s Description
Tawrie Gunn feels stuck. She’s spent her whole life in the same seaside town with her beloved Nana and grief-stricken mum, all of them still reeling in different ways from the tragic loss of Tawrie’s dad at sea. Desperate for a change, she challenges herself to take up wild swimming—every morning, no excuses, from March till September.
Daring to take the plunge with the “Peacock Swimmers,” Tawrie feels alive in a way she’s never known. Suddenly it seems she might be able to step outside her comfort zone after all and let life surprise her—perhaps even dream of a future beyond the shores of Ilfracombe? Especially when, one day, she spots a man in a pink linen shirt who seems as eager for a new start as she does.
But it turns out taking risks on land is a little different from wading into the sea. Can Tawrie face her fears head-on and find her way to happiness? She knows it’s never too late to pursue your hopes and dreams, but it might be easier said than done…
************
Main Characters:
- Tawrie Gunn – has spent her entire life in Ilfracombe, lost her father when she was eight, wanted to be a midwife but has worked for her cousin Connie at Café on the Corner for 10 years, shares a birthday with her mother and her grandmother, they celebrate every year with a bonfire on the beach called Gunn Fire that most of the townspeople attend
- Edgar – visiting from London, staying in a home he and his sister own and rent out for vacationers, taking a mini sabbatical from his job at a bank
- Freda – Tawrie’s grandmother, Tawrie and her mother have lived with Freda since Tawrie’s father (Freda’s son) died 20 years prior, Freda has pretty much raised Tawrie
- Annalee Gunn – Tawrie’s mother, has been an alcoholic as long as Tawrie remembers, spends her days at the pub and usually comes home drunk and sometimes with a random man in tow
- Maudie and Jago – the Peacock Swimmers who swim in Hele Bay Beach every morning from March to September, married 68 years
- Harriet Stratton – mom to Dilly and Bear, moved her family to Ilfracombe after her husband had an affair, hoping to put her marriage back together
When I tell you that I e-mailed the author the minute I finished this book to tell her how much I loved it, I am not exaggerating. Described as “the queen of family drama,” Amanda Prowse excels at storytelling and character development and weaving words together so beautifully. Swimming to Lundy is no exception and may be her best book yet.
The story is told from three perspectives. The first half alternates between Tawrie in 2024 and Harriet in 2002, and the second half brings Harriet into the present timeline with Tawrie.
Tawrie had planned to go to university and become a midwife, but she is convinced that the people in her life need her too much for her to leave. Ten years later, on the cusp of her 28th birthday, she feels stuck. She works at her cousin’s café. She helps Freda when her mom comes home drunk. She doesn’t feel depressed, but she isn’t happy.
She joins a group of wild swimmers who swim in the harbor every morning from March to September. What she doesn’t know is that the “group” is just Maudie and Jago, an older couple she ends up befriending because she is determined to make some changes. Every morning, she swims, talks to her dad, and imagines (hopes?) that one day she will find him on Lundy Island.
A year and a half later, she still swims with Maudie and Jago every morning from March to September, and she still works at her cousin’s café. One morning at the café, she spies a man in a pink shirt and finds herself completely intrigued by him even though she only saw him for a minute. The next morning, surprise surprise, Edgar happens to be near her bike when she comes out of the water and they strike up a conversation.
These are the interactions where Prowse excels at creating such realistic situations that set the tone for relationships, and you can’t help but smile. At the end of the conversation, Edgar has something to tell Tawrie:
“‘I- I’m not sure how to say this.’ He licked his dry lips and her heart jumped.
“‘Just say it!’ She giggled like the swishy haired girls who had always felt alien to her, like the bouncy haired girl who had held a curling wand as if it were gold.
“‘Tawrie…’ He took a breath.
“‘ Yes, Ed?’
“‘ You’ve dropped your knickers.’ He pointed at the grey blob that sat by her foot and as she stooped to gather them into her hand, she made a wish that when she righted herself he had disappeared, but no, there he was and he was laughing.”
Then there’s Harriet, who uproots her family to move away from everyone who knows them after her husband’s affair. She believes that if they are away from all the reminders, all the people talking behind their backs, everyone who knows what he did, maybe their marriage can survive.
I don’t want to tell too much about how the storylines come together or how everything plays out. There are pieces I figured out that aren’t exactly secrets or twists, but every reader should discover them organically like I did. Pieces of this story are heartbreaking, and it is, at the same time, so uplifting with the overarching message that life is short, do the things that make your life meaningful, and love the people you love as tightly as you can.
I have mentioned before that I discovered Prowse’s books in 2018 when someone on Twitter commented that they were so excited to see her upcoming release on NetGalley (What’s Your Favorite [Fill in the Blank]?). When I read the description for The Girl In The Corner, I requested it immediately and I have never looked back.
Amanda Prowse is always a must-read. 💖
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