This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story - Jackie Shannon Hollis

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Résumé :
As a farm girl in eastern Oregon, feeding bottles to bummer lambs and babysitting her little sister, Jackie Shannon Hollis expected to become a mother someday. After a series of failed relationships, she met Bill, the man she wanted to spend her life with. But he was a man who never wanted children. Saying I do meant saying I don't to a rite of passage her body had prepared her for since puberty.
Told in short nonlinear chapters, This Particular Happiness explores the fracturing of female identity as Shannon Hollis questions her childless decision, navigates her roles as daughter and wife and sister and friend, and ultimately learns to listen to her own heart. This debut memoir is about what we keep and what we abandon to make space in our lives for love.

Biographie:
Jackie Shannon Hollis, a lifelong Oregonian, resides with her husband in a home her friends call the tree house. Her education and work as a counselor pushed her to hold up the mirror to her own self. In addition to thinking she would be a mother, she once dreamed of being a June Taylor dancer or a racecar driver.

Sommaire:
I. THE SHOUT OF MOTHERHOOD

1. THE WOMAN THINGS
2. WE PRACTICED, WE PRETENDED
3. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
4. FLICKER SHADOWS
5. THIS UNLOOSED THING
6. A PLACE TO SLIP THROUGH
7. THE KNOWING WAS IN ME
8. A PLACE FOR A GIRL
9. LEAVING DOESN?T MEAN IT?S GONE FROM YOU

II. MAYBE THIS WILL MAKE ME HAPPY

10. FALLING APART
11. THE MAN HE WILL BE
12. THINGS TO DO WHEN I FALL APART
13. IMPORTANT THINGS TO TELL YOUR DAUGHTERS
14. LIKE A BADGE, LIKE A STAR
15. THE MUDDY GROUND
16. CLEARLY, BOLDLY, NO APOLOGIES
17. LIKE I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING
18. RED DAYS CIRCLED
19. ANOTHER THING TO DO WHEN I FALL APART
20. GET A GLOW ON
21. LEFT AS IT WAS IT WOULD COME APART
22. THE LAST THING TO DO WHEN I FALL APART
23. THIS IMPORTANT WEIGHT
24. SHINY BOWS OF BLUE AND SILVER
25. HIS PLACE OF BETTER SUNSETS
26. LIKE AN UNASKED PRAYER
27. SECRETS AND CALCULATIONS
28. HIS DREAM CHILD
29. THE QUESTION OF MY FUTURE
30. PRECIOUS THINGS
31. RED INK AND SIDE NOTES
32. ON THE WAY TO A GROWN-UP LIFE
33. FAULT LINE
34. THINGS THAT COME IN THREES
35. STAND UP AND CARRY ON
36. LIGHT IN THE CHAPEL
37. ROOTS TOOK HOLD AND RAN THE LENGTH OF MY BODY
38. OTHER PEOPLE?S CHILDREN
39. CRAZY MAZES
40. THE TIMING WAS RIGHT, I WAS ALMOST SURE

III. A FULL STOP AT THE CORNER

41. WHAT WE KNEW BY NOW
42. THE THINGS PEOPLE THINK
43. THE SYMBOLS OF MY NAME
44. THIS WAS NEW, THIS WAS SCARY, I WANTED MORE
45. AN UGLY, MESSY, HURTFUL THING
46. CONDITIONAL SURRENDER
47. THE PLACE WHERE UNGIVEN LOVE IS HELD
48. THE HEART OF A WITNESS
49. ALL OUT, ALL IN, ALL OVER
50. NO BELTS FOR SAFETY
51. A FULL STOP AT THE CORNER

IV. WHAT COMES WHEN WANTING STOPS

52. MAKE A LIST
53. A WHOLE LOT OF PERFECTION
54. MAYBE A LOVE SOUND, MAYBE A HEARTBREAK
55. THE TURN TO MY HOUSE
56. LANGUAGE I COULD SPEAK SO EASILY
57. THE DAYS OF EASY FALLING
58. HOW EASILY I COULD HURT
59. IN A NEW COUNTRY
60. I DO, NO MATTER WHAT
61. WHAT COMES WHEN WANTING STOPS
62. THE BALANCE OF THINGS
63. THAT LOVE WAS A MEMORY, TOO
64. THIS MOMENT
65. FAULTS CRACKED OPEN
66. THIS PARTICULAR HAPPINESS
67. TEMPORARY ALLOGRAFT
68. MOST OF THE TIME, THIS IS ENOUGH
69. TINY TADPOLES OF LIFE
70. A CURE FOR HIVES
71. BABYLAND