Catching Up

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was reading The Secret Life of Bees. Disappointing and 50-75 pages too long. If you haven't read it, it's the story of a young white girl of 13 or so and her black nanny/housekeeper. The setting is the south just after the passage of the Civil Rights Act as they take off on an odyssey to escape the girl's abusive father. This of course after the girl breaks the nanny out of the hospital where she is being held in lieu of jail after being beaten by white men while trying to vote. Then they miraculously find the nanny of the girl's mother who was shot and killed (the mother, not the nanny) when the girl (I can't even remember her name, that's how forgettable it was) was 4 and she has always been told that it was her fault. There was just way too much going on or I've become a cynic.

I also re-read Siddhartha. Having originally read it at 16, it was a very different book at 51 and I'm glad I re-read it. There is a passage when Siddhartha wants to leave the path chosen for him by his father. His father of course disagrees but Siddhartha stands for days awaiting his father's blessing. Finally the father sees: " Then his father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his home, that he had already left him" and Siddhartha leaves on his epic journey to enlightenment. In the midst of raising young men, this scene resonated with me. Letting go is hard.

Next it was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Another journey (notice the theme here?) as she and her family move back to her husband's family home in North Carolina to live a more self-sustainable life. For about a week I was ready to move back to Ohio (actually I get those urges about twice a year) and live in a little farmhouse and grow tomatoes. But then I would often be thinking: "I don't believe you just said that!" as someone made a comment about a black or a Mexican or a rape victim or a Catholic. An example of those "pockets of the Real America" big, hairy warts and all. About the book, I admire her writing, as usual, it but it was a bit depressing as it once again reminded me that we do live in the middle of a big, dry desert which is not meant to sustain life for long.

I've also discovered a new (to me) poet, Mary Oliver, and in keeping with my journey theme here's a favorite:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save. ~Mary Oliver

You can read others here: http://www.allspirit.co.uk/maryoliver.html#journey And of course she has several books.

Much better than policies and such!

What books are on your bedside table?

~Judy