A Moon Every Night

This post is a summary of the chapters in A Moon Every Night. If you don’t like spoilers, please ignore it.

At Christmas, Paul and Marie, Marty and Hanna come to stay in St. Paul with Mother, at Ellie’s house. These siblings, along with Line, have Dad’s nonconformity, while Ellie and Kristen blend into their surroundings more. Mother is enjoying her status in the city. The next day they drive up to their lake cabin, have a meal around the Ben Franklin and enjoy the stars and dancing on the thick lake ice at night.

The Cohen family, including Poppa, gathers from California, Minnesota and Edinburgh, where they have each spent the school year, in Tuscany at a rented villa. Sitting in the evening sun, Poppa tells about his film club, Stephen about his historical studies, Heather about wine-making. They visit Siena and Florence, with Siena being their favorite. They find delectable food at a restaurant in Greve.

Marty is lonely as she tries to become her own impeccable self. She practices tai chi several times a week in class, enjoys Chinese food with the international mix of class members and reads about Taoism. She has taken off a year, but is about to begin another job at a big architectural firm. She and Matthew go to a gallery of fine art photographs. Matthew tells her stories and they share a bottle of wine.

Paul and Marie go down to St. Paul where Mother lives, to meet Hanna’s new partner, Faith. Hanna and Faith plan a cheese-making operation at Faith’s family farm in upstate New York. Marie’s sad background surfaces, as well as Mother’s growing disability. An unseasonal heavy snow arrives at Halloween, which Paul enjoys. It does prevent Hanna and Faith from flying out as planned, however.

In Edinburgh, Line visits a garden with her friend Kerry. Another evening, Fern brings home a friend who is pregnant and hasn’t talked to her family about it. Line counsels her to do so before she makes any decision. The Cohens wrap up their two-year sabbatical with a trip to the Isle of Man, where they walk the ancient royal way of the Manx kings in honor of the 1,000 year history of their parliament. 

Marty is surprised when Doug Henderson takes her out for dinner. They talk about wine-making, their families, finding themselves able to be quite honest with each other. Marty is proud of her ambitious architectural firm, but she also has a strenuous tai chi practice. She experiments with eating less and believes that she is finally developing the “sound mind in a sound body” advocated by the Romans. 

Line and Ivy repeat the Reiki mantras before going to work and school. Line is impressed with the idea of “hands of light.” She uses it on her hospice patients, a woman who is 98 and dying, and a young man with AIDS. She counsels the families of the dying as well as trying to ease their suffering. At night she picks up Ivy at the roller rink, who says Mackenzie, Doug Henderson’s wife, was there, pregnant.

Marty and Doug have a brief affair, which shakes Marty to her core. Doug takes her to a wine-tasting at a San Francisco hotel. But he is not free. When Doug’s wife has her baby, even though it is not Doug’s, he accepts the little boy as his own and tells Marty the affair is over. He can only be friends. Marty understands she must let go, must let Doug have his life and his family.

At Thanksgiving, Paul and Marie go to Bemidji where Grace is now awaiting her fourth child. Paul helps deliver meals out of the St. Phillips church, before coming home to their own meal. Gerald’s Ojibway mother and aunt are also present. Marie insists on singing after dinner. When they get home to Ely, Paul takes his dog out for a walk around the lake, thinking about the fishers he saw that year, and evolution.

Line, Stephen and Poppa all go to Minnesota for Christy’s graduation, very proud. Mother and Paul are also there. Christy is planning to go to Peru, in the Peace Corps. Two weeks later the California relatives convene for Heather’s graduation from U.C. Davis in enology. Doug Henderson brings Marty. Heather will go to Chile for an internship. Line is sorry that her children all seem to settle so far from her.

Paul, Marie and Mother drive out to visit Hanna in the Mohawk Valley in New York. They help with Faith’s family cheese-making operation and watch Hanna act in The Importance of Being Earnest. Paul and Marie make excursions up into Quebec and finally down to Concord, to Walden Pond. Paul realizes that Thoreau’s observant science no longer has the value it once did.

Two French friends stay with Marty, and they all go down to the annual tai chi week at a youth camp, once a logging camp in the redwoods. Four practice periods a day make it intense. After a few days, when their legs have stabilized, Marty enjoys the camaraderie, the lightness. They are a forest of mirrors, reflecting each other. When they get back to the city, there is more practice and Ted spirits Marty away one night.

When asked what she wants most for her birthday, Line realizes she wants to spend time with Mother. She and Ivy go out to Minnesota, where Mother, Paul and Marie are spending the summer. Mother spends her time in a recliner looking out at the bird feeders and the lake below, less mobile all the time. But she, Line, Ivy and Marie go into town to a frothy tea shop where they have cinnamon rolls and tea.

Marty is thrilled by a discussion of Flaubert after a dinner with friends, intellectual fodder. Doug comes to the city and they go to a new art museum. They talk intimately, but “you can’t build your life around your love,” Doug tells her. Marty works, does tai chi, finding absence and silence refines her love. She cannot deny it. She calls and finds that Mother is living with pain, in her back and her joints.

Ellie finds Mother dead of a heart incident on a September afternoon. All of the Mikkelson siblings gather, except Line, who is in Europe. Paul speaks for the family at the large funeral at Mother’s church. Afterwards they each take some of Mother’s possessions. Paul and Marie take Marty and Hanna to the airport, talking about their family legacy. Mother had relied on Paul, a pleasant weight which has now lightened.

Line picks up her daughter Heather and her friend from Chile, Pablo, at the winery on a rainy night. Pablo tells them that Heather has agreed to marry him. They want to be married soon, when Pablo’s parents can come. Line is even more surprised to learn Heather wants to become Catholic. The wedding is simple, but special, at Line’s house. Line believes Heather will be happy, but sadly will move to Chile.

Marty picnics at the arboretum with her cousin Sarah, her partner and toddler. When they leave, Marty takes tea at the Japanese tea garden, thinking about how much her preoccupations have turned toward the East. At work, Marty feels pressured, but happy. She is competent and useful in the high powered architectural firm. She also takes a calligraphy class, copying a meaningful Shakespeare sonnet.

Paul and Marie wake up in a campsite on the grounds of a Renaissance Faire. They have a paying gig there on the weekends, singing songs from Elizabethan times. They have researched these songs carefully. Back at home, Paul works at the computer lab at the high school. He walks with Archie, thinking about the cabin (which is not in good shape), his position, evolution, Christianity.

In Edinburgh for another guest lectureship, Line and Stephen have a cottage with a garden, but Line does feel she has little responsibility, waits for the mail. When they go to Glasgow for research, Line stops at a botanical garden and meets an older woman who has some relationship to Stephen’s research. He laughs at how Line finds people, while he has to rely on books!

At the cabin in the northern woods, Paul and Marie and Grace’s family have a cookout at the end of summer. When the Hickman’s leave, Paul and Marie pack up, but are surprised by a visit from Christy and his girlfriend. They all have a political conversation late at night over cocoa. Christy loves the progressive Paul Wellstone, whom he has worked for. Marie sings as everyone packs up and moves on.

Marty enjoys planning the Christmas party for her office with her committee. They have an elaborate spy skit planned, to take place at an art gallery. Marty is being pressured at work to be more “strategic.” She does her usual round of work and tai chi, spending an afternoon with Doug at Thanksgiving. The party comes off well. At her apartment, Marty’s neighbor is taken away, leaving a horrific apartment mess.

In Edinburgh, Line enjoys the blooming spring at Kerry’s cottage. Kerry joins her and Stephen for dinner, decrying the situation in Bosnia and Kosovo. She is working with refugees. Paul calls Line to say that Marie is having a double mastectomy, wants to talk about her treatment. Line goes to Minnesota on her way home to help. Marie wants to refuse chemotherapy and radiation. Line washes Marie’s hair.

Doug asks Marty to meet him at a restaurant near the Bay. He asks her if she would be willing to move in with him, at the ranch in Boulder Creek. Mackenzie wants a divorce, doesn’t want custody of the kids. Marty quits her demanding job and has a few months of openness before arrangements are made. Doug takes her to a bed and breakfast, and an amazing Japanese-style cedar enzyme bath and massage.

Marie longs for warmth and sunshine as winter comes on. Paul makes arrangements to drive down to Oaxaca for the winter. The car manages, they find a place to stay and have a quiet time, going to mass in the mornings, resting and listening to music. On St. Cecilia’s day, the whole town turns out for a procession behind a statue of the saint. Marie loves this saint, and she and Paul wend their slow way with the others.

On New Year’s Eve, 1999, Line and Stephen gather their daughters, Marty and Doug’s family, and Alice and Poppa for a party. Several people go to an evening service of peace, and the rest talk about what kind of year each of them have had. The year, in which everyone is worried about the calendar turning over to 2000, slips away quite benignly nevertheless.

Nature’s Stricter Lessons

This post is a summary of the chapters in Nature’s Stricter Lessons. If you don’t like spoilers, please ignore it.

Marty goes to Santa Cruz to help out while Line studies for, and takes, the tests necessary to get her California LVN license. Marty takes the kids on a picnic, which quickly turns into a Lord of the Rings trek, to her surprise. Once home, Marty helps set up the new company, Design Logic, which intends to bring computerized drafting to architects. She and her friends are very excited about it.

Paul and Marie drive to Quebec, so Paul can meet Marie’s family, including her daughter Grace. Many of them, farmers, speak little English. But Paul is helped by a brother-in-law, Pierre, who explains the complicated history and current politics of Quebec. Paul can see with his own eyes how the small community is ruled by a pretentious Monsignor, who influenced Marie’s early troubles.

In Santa Cruz, Line and Stephen have added an au pair from Kenya, Cathy, to their busy household. Stephen is working on a biography of Bayard Rustin. Line works several evenings and every other weekend, now that all the kids are in school. At the community hospital, Line sees ordinary patients. She also notices more than one gay man with skin lesions and pneumonia.

Marty and Erik go to a hot springs for the weekend, even though they have just moved into a new house in the East Bay. Marty loves the house, unpacking while Erik explores, especially the bars! A neighbor comes over to introduce herself. But Marty is confused. Is it enough to live for yourself in beauty? When she misses the city, she has a literary brunch with friends in San Francisco.

When they hear that Dad has been diagnosed with liver cancer, Paul and Marie, Hanna and Kirsten arrive home to help Mother plan. Paul believes that he has the most chance of being able to stay with Dad during surgery as Mother is teaching. Paul stays near the hospital and things go well. Dad is optimistic, but cancer is usually a death sentence. Paul tries to be to Dad the caretaker Dad once was to him.

Marty and Erik plan to go to Minnesota at Christmas, but before that they enjoy an epic Halloween party at Lana’s. In Minneapolis, Marty feels the full weight of Dad’s illness and aging. All the siblings, even Ellie, are there, except for Line. Erik finds a historic bar in St. Paul; Hanna gets them to put on a Chekhov play; and Marty goes cross-country skiing with Paul, in a beautiful twilight full of rabbits and their tracks.

When Line arrives in Minnesota at the beginning of summer, Dad lies in state at the cabin. Paul, Marie and Hanna have packed up the parsonage and moved their parents to their retirement home at the lake. They manage to get Dad down to see the lake once, but he is very weak. They take him to the hospital, his kids gather around and he is lifted out of life. Line, Mother, Uncle David and the others visit the quiet, grassy cemetery where he will be buried.

That summer, Paul and Marie, Marie’s daughter Grace, Hanna and Mother try to reclaim the emptiness Dad has left. Mother will live during the winter at Ellie’s new suburban house. When the women go down to the Twin Cities to shop, Paul takes the canoe to explore Ely, at the edge of the Boundary Waters. He camps on an island, thinks about science, life and loss, and dreams of moving to Ely with Marie.

Overcoming the loss of Dad was perhaps hardest for Marty, who hadn’t gone home at his death. She works dutifully, but economic woes are affecting the new company, Design Logic. Jill displays her frustration at a meeting, sensing the rapid growth of technology all around them. Marty is fascinated by West Coast culture, but wishes she had some work of her own. Erik is no better off, becoming more depressed.

The Cohens, Line and her four kids and Stephen, attend a non-violent protest at Lawrence Livermore Labs, singing and making origami cranes. When Mother and Hanna come to San Francisco for a visit, Line and Marty take them to Ghirardelli Square. Line’s girls don’t get to the city often, either, so they are thrilled by the chocolate factory.

Paul works on the literature review for his master’s thesis on sand hill cranes in a university library in the Twin Cities. He is thrilled to come home and find Marie waiting up for him. They talk about everything, partners. Together with Grace, they go to choir practice at the Lutheran church in Bemidji. An extraordinary choir director has made this exciting for Paul, and Marie gets to use her wonderful voice.

Just before Christmas we catch Marty on her way home from work. Things are changing, Jill and Peter have left and Marty is sure she must look for a new job. She and Erik drive down to Big Sur, stopping to see Line’s family for a meal. The Cohen’s house is festive, the kids growing up. On the coast, Marty and Erik stop at the Nepenthe, go to the beach, stay at Deetjen’s. But they find it difficult to talk.

Paul opens up the cabin for Mother and Hanna for the summer, but then plans to move to Ely. He and Marie cannot figure out why this makes Grace unhappy, but Hanna finds it is a guy she has fallen in love with. The move goes well and they celebrate with strawberry rhubarb pie! Both Paul and Marie have jobs. When they return to the lake for Mother’s birthday, Grace becomes engaged to her Gerald.

The Cohen family is all affected by the widely-publicized famine in Ethiopia, deciding to forego holiday outlay this year. Christy comes home one day having helped pull a dead young surfer from the ocean. Line goes with him to the funeral and the paddle-out. At Hanukkah, Poppa arrives with news. He has begun to plan his retirement for the following year and wants to move to California!

Marty sets up personal computers at her new job in San Francisco. She has some experience, but not much backup. It scares her. In the evening she goes to an Al-Anon meeting, surprised to find that alcoholism has a family pattern and that she has willingly participated in it. She must begin to speak, rather than keeping silent. She agonizes over this, while watching Miami Vice, Erik asleep beside her.

When Erik doesn’t come home from a ski trip, Marty doesn’t worry right away. But soon she hears from Kirkwood that people there haven’t seen him either. With his brother Brad, she goes up to Kirkwood, finding nothing. They must wait. Marty goes to New York for a training class, visiting with Meredith and then meeting Hanna at the oyster bar under Grand Central station. At home there is no word from Erik.

Line takes Christy to the airport where he gets a flight to Minnesota. He is 18 and has ideas of his own. Marty, whose husband’s body was found in the Sierra, arrives for a visit, exhausted, and now alone. Then Poppa comes, teasing the little girls and telling them all he wants to buy a new house in Santa Cruz with an in-law apartment for himself. Line and Stephen are glad he wants to live with them.

Christy’s exploration of Ely sparks Paul to think more about work. He is doing administrative work for an outfitter and substitute teaching during the winter. Marie returns from Bemidji where she has been helping her daughter Grace with a sick baby. They practice a song Marie has written, Paul on guitar. They do a set at a local bar on the weekend to some acclaim.

Marty has moved to Russian Hill. She is stubbornly single, trying to find out why she gives up too much of herself in relationship. She goes to Angel Island and lies in the sun. When Meredith comes for a visit, they both go down to Carmel for a staff retreat. Marty internalizes the coming conflict she sees in the principals. She meets her old friend Nathan for a drink. When he kisses her, she is moved, but resistant.

Line engineers a trip to San Francisco for her girls. She takes Ivy on a long walk through Berkeley, tasting as they go. Heather goes to art museums with Poppa, and Fern goes to work for the day with Marty. They have pizza for dinner, and they all go to a movie Poppa is fond of, The Princess Bride. Poppa and Line are house-hunting in Santa Cruz, Poppa leaning toward an extravagantly beautiful house.

Paul and Christy take a last camping trip on Burntside Lake before Christy leaves to work on the Democratic presidential campaign. Soon after he leaves, Leon and Marcia, from Alaska, visit. Paul and Marie walk them around Ely, pointing out landmarks and ending up at the co-op where Marie cooks. Marie has made food into a science and Paul has taken to gardening.

Line and her family are getting used to the new house. Line spends extra time at the hospital as her friend Ben is dying of AIDS. She sweeps her patio, thinking about the tensions surrounding her young girls. When Fern doesn’t come home one night, Line can’t sleep. She and Stephen sit up and Stephen asks whether Line would like him to explore overseas options for a sabbatical. Fern returns safely, to everyone’s relief.

As a part of her job, Marty goes down to Los Angeles to load computer software at a new branch office. She stays with Nathan, whom she is in love with, but admits he doesn’t really love her, doesn’t want to share his daughter. At home she is happy to hear from Hanna. When she has tea with her old friend Lana at the Clift Hotel, Marty is surprised to find herself telling Lana she is thinking of leaving her job.

Paul comes to the lake in September to help Mother close up the cabin, appreciating her quiet dignity. When she leaves, he and Archie, his dog, walk into the back country behind the road, observing all they can. When he picks up Marie in Bemidji, they drive home, Marie singing and trying to learn a Leonard Cohen song. Paul helps pack out a group going into the Boundary Waters, and he and Marie play pool.

During the 1989 earthquake, Marty, at work in a reinforced building, doesn’t feel it much. Outside traffic is gridlocked and power is out. She walks home, and gathers with her neighbors that night for snacks and wine. Two weeks later, she drives down to Santa Cruz and is thrilled to spend the weekend with Line’s family. Back in the city, Marty investigates a tai chi class and joins, shy and diffident, but determined.

On Mother’s 70th birthday, all of her kids and their families gather at the cabin. Line, Marty, Hanna and Line’s girls accompany Mother out to the cemetery where Dad is buried. The men plan an “Iron Man” canoe trip down a chain of lakes into Leech lake. Kristen bakes and frosts the cake. A storm is coming, but there is time for a cook-out before it breaks. Afterwards everyone watches, enjoying the thunder and lightning.