This year, reconnect, renew and read

REVIEWS BY LINDA STANKARD

Why settle for one hurried tête-à-tête with your best gal pals over a couple of margaritas or for a movie with your mom this Mother's Day, when you could plan a little escape? But what books to bring along for your flight or lounge time on the beach? Read on. . . .

In 50 Best Girlfriends Getaways in North America, travel expert Marybeth Bond outlines a bevy of flexible "female friendly" itineraries that will allow you the time you need to really reconnect. When women vacation together, Bond notes, whether it's a whirlwind weekend in the Big Apple or a week-long canoe trip along the Maine coast, "what we want most of all is to be together, to catch up, unwind, laugh, have fun, and nurture ourselves and each other." When female family bonding is the goal, Bond advises carefully choosing an "excellent destination" such as Charleston, South Carolina, where she says, "you'd be hard pressed to find a hotel, activity, historical site, or restaurant that won't knock everyone's socks off—even your finicky sister's." Bond's guide, in addition to lodging and dining sections, suggests "to-do" ideas relevant to each destination, such as "Neighborhoods for Strolling," "Events to Fly in For," "Thrift and Vintage Clothing" and "Must-See Museums." There are personal narratives from other women who have taken the travel together plunge and a good sprinkling of practical tips on packing, safety, room sharing and budgeting.


A whole-new mom

There's no need to feel guilty sipping a margarita while sunning yourself if you're reading Hannah Keeley's Total Mom Makeover, since you'll be coming home renewed and ready to follow this fast-paced, feisty guide to female empowerment. Despite the daunting task of being mom to seven children, Keeley's mantra is thriving during motherhood, not merely surviving the adventure. She structures her program in pyramid fashion, with the bottom base being "Week One: Starter Mom" where exercises are geared to teaching you "how to develop a vision, how to make every motion and moment count, how to speak your way to success, and how to develop a winning attitude." Her six-week "jump-start" program includes steps that will "eliminate toxins from your diet, clutter from your home, and boredom from your sex life." Her highly motivational guide is a call to action. "Whether playing with your kids or romancing your husband there is no better time than the present. So do it now." At the end of week six, your "total mom" self will be well on her way to experiencing life to the fullest.


Writing Motherhood: Tapping into Your Creativity as a Mother and a Writer by Lisa Garrigues, a workshop leader in memoir and personal narrative, offers an inspiring yet pragmatic approach to subject matter for writers who are also moms. While encouraging women to mine material from their early years as mothers—"pregnancy and birth, baby names and first words"—her focus is on giving women the sustained belief in themselves they will need "to write at every stage of parenting." Garrigues reminds her readers that "writing is the vehicle that will take you where you want to go," so that along the way you must often "put down the book and pick up the pen." (And apropos of our subject, there's also a chapter titled "Mothering our Mothers," and two shorter pieces—"How Writers Write about Their Mothers" and "Every Day is Mother's Day: A History of the Holiday.")


Offstage lives

All your gal pal travel buddies will want to borrow My First Five Husbands... And the Ones Who Got Away by Rue McClanahan (aka Blanche Devereaux of TV's "The Golden Girls"), so be prepared to share. This joie de vivre memoir chronicles McClanahan's lifelong pursuit of love, great sex and marital happiness. As she takes us on her journey from unwed mother ("talking to the baby in my belly, telling him how much I loved him, singing to him, saying 'Daddy loves you. He'll come to his senses' ") to finally marrying her current husband and soul mate ("The wedding was ridiculous and the honeymoon was worse, but I've been Mrs. Morrow Wilson a lot longer than I ever was Mrs. Anybody Else") her unpretentious candor and wit reveal an irrepressible personality full of vitality and determination. Although her many romances weave through her story, her relationship with her son and her strong alliances with female friends, including her fellow Golden Girls, are also there, as the song lyric says, "between each line of pain and glory." Like most of us, her journey was fraught with challenges and obstacles, but McClanahan is always upbeat. "There are two things to aim for in life," she advises. "First, get what you want. Then enjoy it."


Another award-winning actress, Victoria Rowell (aka Drucilla Winters on "The Young and the Restless"), has also written a memoir. You'll find The Women Who Raised Me as drama-packed and moving as any soap opera. Rowell's story begins when she is a child in the loving care of Agatha Armstead, an "epitome of strength," a "black Bostonian born in the Carolinas, with a mix of Kickapoo Indian in her background," and a fragile white woman, shaking with Parkinson's tremors, arrives. Young Vicki does not know that the woman is her mother. "We were black," she writes. "She was not. For me at seven years old, the world broke down simply that way." Yet despite being confused by the stranger, "there was a gravitational pull between us," Rowell recalls.

Years later, a grown woman with two children of her own, that pull would draw Rowell into searching for answers to the mysteries surrounding her mother's life and ultimately, her own. Her determined and unflinching search for connection lies at the crux of Rowell's ability to appreciate the "mothering" she has received from other women. The Women Who Raised Me is a tribute to the many women—"surrogate mothers, grandmothers, aunts, fosterers, mentors, grande dames and sisters"—who buoyed Rowell's chances for success with their abundant gifts of guidance and love, but it also reminds us to be thankful for the women in our own lives who "mother" us and the power of passing on that legacy.


Linda Stankard writes from in Nanuet, New York.

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