Pleasures and Ponderings: from Nun to Nudist to Now

For four years, Moreah Vestan has recorded her fleeting thoughts, intense questions and love of life in a carefree journal that speaks of the essence of living. In Pleasures and Ponderings: From Nun to Nudist to Now, Vestan offers dozens of essays that tell of the need to savor each moment and relish the pleasure in every second while still setting aside time to ponder life's tough questions.

Vestan delights in lilacs and leftovers, shares insights about lost loves and faces the discomfort of questioning her beliefs. The book is a truly inspiring hodgepodge of wisdom, with topics ranging from relationships to aging. The reader absorbs Vestan's enthusiasm for life and her appetite for variety. Her childlike sense of wonder is perfectly conveyed, as are her profound ideas about life.

She writes about finding Mr. Right, dealing with family issues and personal priorities, among many other important topics. Lessons about every aspect of living are offered to the reader. If one is looking for an honest look at life, they will find it by looking through the eyes of an independent, adventurous woman who knows how to embrace life from its most simple aspects to its most mysterious. She also tells of her musings of life from nun to nudist to now.

"You come away agreeing that assumptions can be questioned and that there may be no higher purpose than enjoying everyday pleasures, while pondering the meaning of even the imponderables with grace and/or fortitude," she writes.

Vestan began her young life believing she had a religious calling. She spent one year in a convent, moving on to pursue a career in teaching. She has worked a variety of other jobs and is currently a life coach and a relationship columnist for Seattle's Active Singles Life. She dated frequently after her divorce in the 1970s and had once-in-a-lifetime experiences, such as traveling for three months in Southeast Asia alone and teaching English as a Second Language in Mexico. Pleasures and Ponderings is her first published book.