Chomp, Press, Pull by Elaina Battista-Parsons; Sensate Memoir About Sensory Issues

 

Chomp, Press, Pull by Elaina Battista-Parsons; Sensate Memoir About Sensory Issues

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery 

Spoilers: Sensory dysregulation can be a very difficult condition to live with. The body has trouble processing and interpreting sensory information from the environment leading to unusual or uncomfortable responses. It can lead to oversensitivity or under sensitivity to stimuli and difficulty distinguishing different sensory inputs. The person with it could respond by having emotional meltdowns, anxiety attacks, motor coordination problems, and often avoiding certain environments or activities. It is caused by neurological disorders such as Autism, sensory processing disorder, developmental delays, trauma, and early life experiences. Occupational therapy, environmental modifications, sensory integration activities, and medication can be used to treat it. 

As with many neurological and psychological conditions, it is something that causes people to view the world differently but can be controlled or diminished if too overwhelming. Unfortunately, this was not always the case as Elaina Battista-Parsons reveals in her amusing and moving memoir, Chomp Press Pull. When she grew up in the 80’s, her condition was barely understood or treated. Battista-Parsons’s book is rich in personal experiences and sensory detail from someone who had to look at the world in her own way.

The Introduction gives us a compelling glimpse of what it's like for someone to live their daily life with such a condition. In 1995, Battista-Parsons sat in her classroom, sweated, and shifted uncomfortably because of the class’s heater. Despite her objections, the teacher wouldn't let her leave the room or open the window in January so she had to endure this miserable time in class growing ever more uncomfortable and barely paying attention to the dull lecture on Jack London.

When she was very young long before she was diagnosed, Battista-Parsons used a variety of means to deal with the sensory complications like chewing and biting on anything whether it was edible or not, pressing down hard on things such as crayons to paper, and pulling on objects like hair and string. She also had various comfort objects to hold and take comfort in their texture. Chief among them was a Mork doll from the sitcom, Mork and Mindy. Battista-Parsons carried Mork around so often that she referred to him as “(her) husband.”

Since Battista-Parsons spent much of her childhood in the 80’s, the book refers to many of the trends of the era. She describes banana clips on big hair, Swatch watches and neon bright colors, going to the mall, dancing to music videos like “So Emotional,” “Control,” and “Rhythm of the Night,” and scented merchandise. A delightful chapter is devoted to that favorite fad of many 80’s girls: scratch and sniff stickers. Battista-Parsons loved and collected them, probably because they gave off a nice smell that wasn't too overpowering for her. Among her favorites were plump strawberry, pizza slice, and two bananas. This chapter showed that despite her sensory difficulties, Battista-Parsons was able to find delight in things despite or even maybe because of these issues.

Because of her awareness of senses, Battista-Parsons associated senses with certain times and places. She had a love for apartments and sometimes stayed overnight at her grandmother's. The taste and smell of tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, braciola, and olive oil filled those days and reminded her of her grandmother's apartment and other small spaces. Small apartments and sheds gave her a sense of coziness that still resonates within her.

Battista-Parsons’ sensory dysregulation gave her the ability to focus on and be aware of people and things that others are not. While Christmas can be a fun time of togetherness, it was also a draining time. Her very large and noisy family’s voices were exuberant but cacophonous. The Christmas music was present and merged with the voices of her family. This is a reminder that not everyone processes events and places in the same way and although they might be having a good time, they can also feel anxious and overwhelmed. It takes great understanding, acceptance, and accommodation to live with such a condition for the person who has it and those who are near it.

As with many young people, Battista-Parsons explored the concept of sexuality, something that her body, particularly her senses, made her very aware of. She cites Billy Idol’s music video for “Cradle of Love” with its beautiful alluring female protagonist for introducing her to the concept of sex. She recognized the power that the girl had in the video over a male onlooker and that a female body can spark certain feelings and turn people on. The sight of “Cradle of Love” and other videos became gateways into Battista-Parsons ' understanding of sex which culminated in various dates and losing her virginity at 19. 

The book is a cornucopia of associating senses with past interests and experiences. She associated linoleum floors and Hela Young reciting lottery numbers on television with her family room. Her father’s green tree air freshener made her nauseous. Though he told her that she would be fine, he took her to the nearby hardware store where sawdust and cedar wood were a reliever from the artificial plastic odor from her dad’s car. The sight of figure skaters dressed in their beautiful costumes, skating on the cool ice impressed her enough to imitate them on the living room floor. The taste of sugar bubble gum recalled a babysitter who indulged her interest in the tasty treat. Her mother’s hands touched store fabrics with great care like they were the finest silk. The book is definitely about someone who had no choice but to experience the world strongly and share with others how it looked, smelled, heard, tasted, and felt to her. 

Even though the book is largely about how Battista-Parsons coped with sensory dysregulation throughout her life, that is not by any means her sole focus. She takes several opportunities to recall other important times through her life, many that any reader would relate to. She discusses familiar issues that many Readers understand like conflicts with her family, first crushes, and academic struggles with other kids and teachers. One whole chapter is devoted to many anecdotes that illustrate her various teacher’s specific sense triggers, and sometimes more objectionable behavior like telling bawdy jokes, groping and flirting with students, or dividing classrooms by gender or ability.

Her experience with her first love, Gregg, combines early romance with her sensory details. Gregg inspired her to enjoy various musicians, particularly female musicians but he became very possessive and jealous of her. Her overdeveloped sense of smell attracted her to his cologne and the wood in his parent’s house. Because she associated people with certain scents, she often caught the odor in other boy’s much to Gregg’s chagrin and lack of understanding towards her condition. After about a year, they broke up in the usual pattern of early boyfriends and girlfriends falling out of love as quickly as they fell in.

Battista-Parsons had brilliant clever ways of writing about her sensory issues. One whole chapter describes alphabetically some of the difficulties that her condition caused. Her arm hair felt uncomfortable so she constantly shaved it. Biting fingernails and cracking air pockets became sources of stress relief. Certain colors like green and gray were soothing while red was too overpowering. Anything as simple and innocuous to others like Play-Doh, dry lips, zippers, suitcases, lemons, and sandals could help or hinder her.

Identifying her condition, understanding the symptoms, and realizing that she was not the only one with such problems, helped Battista-Parsons learn about and treat her condition. She attributed many different techniques including Reiki and chiropractic methods as huge factors in helping her treat her sensory issues. She also holds no animosity towards her family for dismissing her problems. It was not discussed or identified much throughout her childhood and if medical professionals didn’t understand and study it, then her parents wouldn’t have been able to let alone herself. 

The chapters describing the research and diagnosis reveal how liberating it can be when you learn about a condition and how you can master it.

New Book Alert: A Kite at The Edge of The World by Katy Grant; Moving, Beautiful, and Lyrical Juvenile Book About Youth, Death, and Summer Days That Never End

New Book Alert: A Kite at The Edge of The World by Katy Grant; Moving, Beautiful, and Lyrical Juvenile Book About Youth, Death, and Summer Days That Never End

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews



PopSugar Reading Challenge: A bildungsroman




Spoilers: We all remember when we were kids. The best friends that we made just by being at the right place at the right time, on the swing set at the playground, in line on the first day at school, or sitting next to you in class. We remember the summer days that seemed to never end. When life was all about the next game, the next imaginative adventure, the next trip to the movies or the library, or the next ice cream cone or frozen popsicle. The sun seemed brighter, the sky seemed bluer, and the days always seemed better. Nothing could bother us and we could live forever.


That magic is captured in A Kite at the Edge of the World, Katy Grant's beautiful and lyrical juvenile novel about those days. It's a simple story about two young boys meeting during a summer vacation and spending their days having fun, going to the beach, and flying kites. Children, about ages 8-12 will love the kids and their friendship and adventures and how they use their imagination to have fun and get out of trouble (As a bonus, the book includes instructions, so children will learn how to make a kite.)

But there is a sad wistfulness throughout the writing that adults will understand. Similar to another children's book that I reviewed, The Voyage of Gethsarade by M.G. Claybrook, this could almost be considered a children's book with an adult audience in mind. However, unlike Gethsarade which is an edgy satire of heroification, what will appeal to the adults in this book is the longing nostalgia of those days. The desire of the narrator to relive those days and bottle them up now that he is older and weighed down with maturity. The children reading the book haven't yet reached that longing (one hopes) but the adults reading it to them have.


The unnamed Narrator is an old man who is nearing the end of his life and thinks back to the best day of his life. It happened when he was a boy and on holiday with his parents. Grant's lyrical description gives her writing an almost poetic feel, as though describing an Impressionist seascape painting. As an old man, The Narrator recalls the sights and sounds of that beach: "Rows of little wooden cottages painted white with roofs with red shingles. A great many wooden boardwalks. The lovely thumping sound they made under bare feet-despite the very real danger of splinters. Along the boardwalks, decks with wooden chairs, also white. Tables shaded by blue striped umbrellas. An occasional gazebo.

But mostly sea, and sky, and sand. The turquoise sea, the azure sky, the buff sand. The salty taste of the breeze. And the smell of fish, not unpleasant in the sea air. Dots of white on the ocean where the waves peaked. The sky-a blue suffused with sunlight-expansive, endless. Sands glittering white at noon, tawny at sunset, shapeshifting. Sea and sky and sand all meeting at the confluence of that little white seaside village."


While playing on the seashore, The Narrator makes a new friend Ilio. Ilio is brave, adventurous….and dying. Ilio is very ill and it is clear that his illness is taking its toll on his body, but he is determined to make the most of the little time that he has and that includes receiving a new best friend.


The first item on the friendship itinerary is to fly a kite. The Narrator has a book that gives detailed instructions on how to make a kite, unfortunately they don't have the money to purchase some of the things that are needed. No matter, the ever resourceful Ilio says, we'll find some. So the Dynamic Duo go through the seaside town looking for loose change under the boardwalk, inside the Penny Arcade, and a water fountain. (They make sure that when they take the coins from the fountain, they make a wish that the person's wish will come true so they don't deprive anyone of a wish.) During their journey to get money and to buy supplies, Ilio shows off a feisty charming nature. He is feisty when he is ready to fight a bully for their money and charming when he shares details of their adventures to sympathetic adults. His exuberant mental state belies his physical weakened body, which is revealed whenever he has to stop for a breather.


When the two finally get their kite in the air, it is a sight to behold, a splash of various colors in the blue sky. The moment enchants the adults on the beach as they watch the kite dance along the air. The boys imagine what it would be like to let it go and allow it to fly forever into the sky. The boy's musings contemplate the existence of many things. The Narrator wonders: "If all the words that had ever been spoken by all the people who had ever lived were floating around the Earth above us. If that was true, was there some way to hear them? Like the way Ilio imagined others might see our kite? Once a thing like a kite or a word was gone from you, was that the end of it? Or was it a part of you forever?

.....I felt like the kite was a part of me, and it was there, but here I was, far below it, standing on the beach. Only this string from the general store kept us together.

And yet-how could that be? Was I the kite? Was the kite me? And what about Ilio? Was he the kite, too? We're he and I connected forever?"

These words suggest the transience of things how objects like kites as well as people don't last forever. Like that beautiful kite in the air or words like "I love you" or "You are my best friend" can disappear and float along. Eventually, they disappear. Objects get destroyed. Words are said and forgotten. Bodies die. But our memories are what last. Those things are still there as long as we are there to think about them and remember how they made us feel.

The kite flying ends what The Narrator describes as the best day of his life. His friendship continues even as Ilio's health gets progressively worse. The two still spend time together, building a sand castle that they know won't last and swimming just so Ilio can exert himself. (In his cheeky way, when an observer points out Ilio could have drowned, he answers "But I didn't.")

A particularly touching moment occurs when The Narrator tells a bed-ridden Ilio a story from his own imagination. With Ilio's prodding, The Narrator tells his friend a story about a boy's adventure at sea. Through his words, he gives his best friend an adventure that he can experience in his imagination, if not in reality. (The Narrator's recall of every detail of this story suggests that he too never got to have his adventures either, but his gift for imagination continued into old age and remains a soothing balm through an adult life of responsibility, stability, sameness, and tedium.)


A Kite at the Edge of the World is a true tear jerker and even the hardest of hearts will sniffle a little by the end. The Narrator realizes that even though Ilio did not live long, he left an impact on his life that allowed him to examine love and life and to be grateful for those moments even if they last only for a little while.

Banned Books Special: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; A Moving Novel About Friendship in Time of War and Conflict

Banned Books Special: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; A Moving Novel About Friendship in Time of War and Conflict

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: When we are kids, we are told and believe that everything is going to be okay. We believe that our best friends will be our best friends for life, our families will always be together, and that the bad things that happen in the world that grown-ups talk about on the news won't possibly affect us. We look forward to our favorite games, cartoons, summer vacations and holidays like Christmas with great excitement. As we grow older and are hit with the realities of death, divorce, poverty, war and so on we become more aware how dark life really is and look back on those childhood days with an idyllic nostalgia.




Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is about that. It is told from the point of view of Amir, an Afghan man who recalls his childhood friendship with wondrous detail and how that friendship changed because of world events and Amir’s own weaknesses.




Amir’s best friend growing up was Hassan, the son of his family's servant. The two grew up in 1970’s Kabul and even though they are separated by class, ethnicity, and religion (Hassan’s family are poor Hazara Shiite Muslims while Amir’s are wealthy Pashtun Sunni Muslims.), the two share some things in common. They both lost their mothers as infants (Amir's died in childbirth and Hassan's walked out on him and his father shortly after he was born.) and their fathers were also childhood friends as well as master and servant. Amir and Hassan share many interests such as American Western films, adventure stories which Amir reads and Hassan listens, and kite flying. Kite flying is a particularly important past time as the two participate in the annual Kite Flying Festival Events in which Amir flies the kite and Hassan runs after it. Hosseini develops his two lead characters really well as he explores their childhood games, interests, and families. Even though there are some conflicts, the two are portrayed with the innocent idealism of childhood. They are ready for fun days, adventure, and dreaming of their future until life and reality hits them in the faces forcing them to mature long before they reach adulthood.




The two families become affected by the Soviet attack on Afghanistan and the constant days of bombs, armies, and fighter planes that fill the Afghan landscape. They are also affected by the increasing racism that Amir’s classmates feel towards other ethnic groups like the Hazara. One classmate, Assef openly admires Hitler’s Final Solution and is fond of taunting and physically bullying Hassan for being from a different ethnic group.

Besides the troubles from the outside world, Amir also recognizes conflict at home. While Hassan swears unconditional loyalty to Amir, Amir feels guilty that he doesn't feel the same. As an adult, he is filled with guilt for all of the times that he teased Hassan for being illiterate or pushed his loyalty by bossing Hassan around. Above all, he feels remorse for his jealousy that his father, Baba treated both Hassan and Amir equally and that he got along with the active practical Hassan better than the introverted literary Amir.




Both the political and the private struggles culminate during the Kite Flying Festival when Hassan is attacked and raped by Assef and his friends. Instead of defending his best friend, Amir ran in fear. Ashamed of his actions, Amir orchestrates the dismissal of Hassan and his father, Ali from Amir's family home and his life.




Even though the two friends are separated, the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict and Hassan's rape followed by Amir’s inaction continue to follow Amir. Even as he and his father flee Afghanistan for America and live a life as impoverished refugees, Hassan continues to haunt Amir like a ghost. Even when Hassan’s not there in body, he’s still there in spirit and in Amir’s consciousness.




Despite the troubles both in his former country and in his mind, Amir begins to settle in America. He rekindles his relationship with Baba as the old man mourns his former life, befriends only other Afghan refugees, and health declines. Amir becomes his caregiver seeing a man who he once thought of as having a high honor code, shriveled into despair. Amir also marries another Afghan immigrant with a troubled romantic past and begins a career as a talented best-selling author.




Just when Amir begins to settle in his new life, he receives a letter from an old friend that forces him to return to Afghanistan. The chapters when Amir returns to Afghanistan are among the most heartbreaking as he sees a country torn apart by war. He travels among destroyed buildings, little vegetation, the Taliban ruling their country with violent and religious dogma, adults with missing limbs and gone mad with grief, and children who have been deprived of their childhoods. Afghanistan becomes like a giant graveyard as Amir recalls his youth which seemed so pleasant at the time and contrasts it to the destroyed country before him.




Amir's return to Afghanistan also gives him a chance to confront his past guilt. He learns the truth of some family secrets involving his father, Amir, and Hassan and also learns of Hassan's current whereabouts. In one suspenseful passage Amir encounters a former enemy turned Taliban leader, and Hassan's young son. This moment and the aftermath when Amir bonds with the boy give Amir a second chance to face his old fears and atone for his past inaction in running when Hassan needed him the most.




The Kite Runner is a moving novel about a friendship that is torn apart by war, deception, and conflict. But ultimately it is about getting beyond that conflict and reconciling with and forgiving others and oneself.