By Lori Hahnel
The Old Moon in Her Arms: Women I Have Been and Known
by Lorri Neilsen Glenn
Nimbus Publishing (2024)
Lorri Neilson Glenn’s new book is a beautiful and thought-provoking collection of creative nonfiction that captures moments, fragments, and images gleaned from her life and experiences. Over a hundred short pieces are divided here into five thematic sections, and the collection’s lyric and nonlinear flow suggests the shape of memory and recollection. The phases of life, like the phases of the moon, are seen to flow almost imperceptibly into each other and yet with the wisdom of perspective, are seen as distinct from one another. The body, family, friends, the constructs that make up our society, aging, sexuality, our interconnectedness and our connection to land and nature are among the many topics the author explores here, with an eagle eye and a poet’s ear.
The Old Moon in Her Arms is a memoir of being a daughter, wife, lover, mother; a memoir of the different experiences and the shifting realities of the different selves that make up a life. Neilson Glenn explores transitions, from one life stage to another, or to the end of life. From “Moments of Glad Grace”:
A bright yellow bird appeared on the deck yesterday, stunned from the impact of a crash against glass, ending its spring busyness. I picked up its cooling body, felt the miracle of its soft intricacies, whispered a blessing before placing the body under a budding bush near the shore.
Readers are sure to hear many echoes of their own lives here. Pre-GPS / cell phone readers will appreciate “Drive South” which begins:
Although he loved cars, highway travel flummoxed my father. Road trips in my childhood always ended in wrong turns and bad decisions; he’d infuriate my mother, then drive in icy silence.
The author’s experience with a brain MRI, ordered after struggling with strange and disturbing symptoms, is explored in “You Did Well”:
You good? That too tight?
Nope, I say. My skull is cradled in a plastic cage against my ears. I insert the ear plugs, and pads clamp on my head…I attend closely, suspend judgement, and stop thinking about the next second or the next minute.
There is also humour here. One topic Neilsen Glenn addresses at different points is that of life in an aging body. In “Lookin’ Back”, she writes:
Decades on, she notices she isn’t noticed; she could be a rock or a stump, no one looks back to see if she is looking back to see…She strides past the coffee shop, a fugitive from fuckability.
The Old Moon in Her Arms is a gorgeous book that can be savoured all of a piece or dipped into at different times for the pleasure a few short reads at a time. Either way, the reader will appreciate the observations and memories Neilsen Glenn shares with us in this unique and kaleidoscopic collection.
Lori Hahnel is the author of the following books: Vermin (a short story collection), After You’ve Gone (a novel), Nothing Sacred (a short story collection), which was shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Award for fiction and Love Minus Zero (a novel). Her work has appeared in over forty journals in North America, Australia and the United Kingdom. She holds a BA in English from the University of Calgary. Hahnel lives in Calgary where she teaches creative writing.