Book Review - Three Tides - Part 2

I find it difficult to sum up the first chapter of Three Tides; Limping Through Europe. I think, to be honest, it’s mostly because of the jumping around through places and times. By the end of the chapter, the jumping makes some sense. You can see more clearly at that point the threads that run through, mentally, and tie the tales together. But during the read, I think it can seem confusing – though it didn’t help that I had a headache while trying to read the first half of the chapter.

Pineda tells about a trip through Europe, planned to attend a couple conferences, with the intervening weeks needing to be filled. Pineda fills those weeks by visiting old friends and seeing sites, most of which are places she has seen before and have meaning for her. More than once she notes that she has a feeling this might be the last time she gets to visit a certain beloved locale. But there is also, interspersed, tales from her childhood, about previous times she had been in one of the locations she found herself in during her trip, about a road trip from Northern California to the Southwest with a friend, her Godmother’s life and death, and other things which seem, initially to be only loosely connected at best. Also, during the entire chapter, there is an intermittent mention of an undefined illness she is experiencing during her trip. It began with welts, probably from a bug bite, and ends in arthritic pain that causes her to literally limp across Europe. But she is, so far, refusing to seek medical attention for it, so it is still undiagnosed and untreated.

While this has been a somewhat taxing read, perhaps in part because of that headache I mentioned, I am excited to read the next chapter, and future sections. I love Pineda’s style and word choice. And interspersed in these stories are true gems of human observation and philosophical truth. Some of those phrases which will stay with me include:

“Memories live in the places they happen.”

“How much living does it take to call a place home?”

“If I name my human origins, I name the dirt.”

“There is no way to repeat the discovery of the first taste.” And

“All the years together, he made no promises, no declarations, nothing that would hold me down, just the straight every day stuff that love is made of.”