It’s been one of those weeks of self-doubt, frustration, stress, unprofessional idiots, regrets, and dealing with a lot of back & forth about what to do & where to go from here. This piece by Rudyard Kipling (it’s for us daughters too!) is exactly what I needed to feel like Aaliyah..and dust myself off & try again.
“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”
-Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father’s Advice to His Son
I have had this up on my wall in every room I have ever lived in, from home to college dorm to medical school housing, serving as an important source of wisdom for the past 18 years. Thank you for your skill of pen & strength of woman, Dr. Angelou. Rest in Peace.
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, & it will be better tomorrow.
I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, & tangled Christmas tree lights.
I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.
I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.”
I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.
I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
I’ve learned that every day you should reach out & touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
“Sometimes I wish I had learned everything earlier and that my real life could have started sooner. Other times, I’m glad that the first part of my life lasted as long as it did. It doesn’t really matter, though. None of it could have been any different.
As for fate – or not-fate – I’m still not sure about it, but it’s not something that keeps me up at night. I’ve lived it, and the people who still wonder about that kind of thing can call it whatever they want.”
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband & a happy home & children, & another fig was a famous poet & another fig was a brilliant professor, & another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, & another fig was Europe & Africa & South America, & another fig was Constantin & Socrates & Attila & a pack of other lovers with queer names & offbeat professions, & another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, & beyond & above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each & every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle & go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Once upon a time, I was lucky enough to travel to Cambodia, drive through a phantom tollbooth, do some detective work with a girl named Nancy, be in awe of a girl named Cam’s photographic memory, be a part of a club of babysitters and a sleepover club, hang out in abandoned boxcars, meet five people in heaven, travel 20,000 leagues under the sea, live in a castle for 7 years, learn about the southern USA during the slavery era, learn about magic with a gypsy woman named Brida, hang out with a sweet award-winning pig, interpret various maladies of numerous people, fall in love with a hundred men (whoa), and embrace many of life’s lessons from a brilliant alchemist. It’s been a wonderful 28 years of a life full of imagination and intelligence, new perspectives and introspection; and I never needed to physically leave the place I was in.
Since you’ve probably already figured out what I’m talking about, let me dive right in. When someone tells me, “I hate reading for fun!”, I genuinely have trouble understanding them. I pride myself on being quite adept at putting myself in other people’s shoes for a myriad of things, but this one thing? I DON’T GET IT! But then again, I hate football, eggplants, and reality show celebrities, & no one gets that either. For me, reading is an innate love carried over generations on both sides of my family (somehow skipping my mom & brother). My dad started me off early & the love affair took off right from the get-go. The ability to escape into other people’s characters, their minds, other realms, cultivate and nurture my own imagination and creativity is the greatest asset to an introvert like me. Externally, I’m an affable, sociable, strange person, but when I need hermit time, books are my favorite partners. They offer an intangible, inexplicable, but incomparable comfort that is akin to cuddling with your pet or having your mom take care of you when you’re sick; and thank God for that because my dog is moody and sometimes, so is my mom.
I’m a crazy quote-monger (if that’s not a thing, it is now); I like to see how similarly or how differently someone else can put my feelings to words, & when words fail me (it doesn’t happen often, but my words are not quite quotable, perhaps more bleep-able at times), someone else’s lines do just fine. I also truly wish I could meet some of my favorite authors, but only a handful are still alive (Paulo Coelho, Mitch Albom, Mindy Kaling, Jhumpa Lahiri, JK Rowling, BJ Novak, Cecelia Ahern, & Nick Hornby to name a few), & so I have to settle for imagining Dickinson/Hemingway/Milne’s lives, Rumi & Kahlil Gibran’s real theories on love, Shakespeare’s creative process, Thoreau’s experiences, Frost’s decision-making processes (wink wink), & especially so, Plath’s thoughts (I believe Sylvia & I are kindred souls, minus the level of heart-wrenching depression and the whole suicide situation, of course). Though all have done a remarkable job of recording the aforementioned in beauteous poetry, prose, and stories, you can bet that my ideal dead dinner party guests would most definitely include those people. Recently, I asked to join a friend’s book club because it was something I had been wanting to do for years and because apparently, I’m okay with inviting myself to things I see on Facebook statuses. To find like-minded bibliophiles, but with their own interpretations of a work and its characters is like free cone day at Baskin Robbins to me (comparing the happiness here, not necessarily the satisfaction of reading a book versus the satiation of inhaling a large chocolate chocolate-chip with whipped cream & rainbow sprinkles).
As long as I can remember (& I’m like Dumbo with the memory..& maybe also some of the self-doubt), one of my favorite dreams has been to own a house that has a large mahogany library full of slouchy armchairs, a crackling fireplace, a ginormous [hypoallergenic] rug, a bay window/nook with a view of the pool guy (jk jk), Marshmallow Man sized & consistency-d throw pillows, and thousands and thousands and millions of books. Old, new, classic, nouveau, fiction, non, biographies, autos, children’s, adults’, hardcover, paperback, leather-bound. I want a place to travel when I can’t, to breathe when I can’t, to flop on the floor and leave everything behind when I can’t, basically to just fly away when I can’t. My other favorite dream is that those newfangled battery-powered contraptions won’t render my smooth covered, musty fragranced, underlined, worn to the spine, dogeared, page filled, ink misprinted companions obsolete. Fine, admittedly I do own a Nook, but in my defense, it was after everyone else, it was a gift, and I fought a long & valiant battle against it. Plus, I can’t do the heavy-lifting required of me if I took all the books I wanted to with me everywhere I go.
Anyyyhoo, I’ll end this with some of my favorite titles, maybe some coincide with some of yours, maybe you have other suggestions, please let me know either way! And thanks to whoever coined my favorite term to elementary [school] & beyond; “Reading is FUN-damental.”
It’s a beautiful love affair and it shall last ’til happily ever after.
The Alchemist, Brida, The Witch of Portobello, Veronika Decides To Die, Eleven Minutes, The Manual of the Warrior of Light, Aleph (all by Paulo Coelho), Tuesdays With Morrie, The 5 People You Meet In Heaven, The First Phone Call From Heaven, The Time Keeper, For One More Day, Have A Little Faith (every book Mitch Albom has written), The Interepreter of Maladies, The Lowlands (both Jhumpa Lahiri), A Long Way Down (Nick Hornby), Wicked (Gregory Maguire), The Time of My Life, There’s No Place Like Here, The Book of Tomorrow, The Gift, Thanks For The Memories, One Hundred Names (all by Cecelia Ahern), Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns (Mindy Kaling), One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories (BJ Novak), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (both by Sylvia Plath), And The Mountains Echoed (Khaled Hosseini), The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran), The Witch’s Daughter (Paula Brackston), the Harry Potter series (shut up, it’s not Twilight), The Casual Vacancy (both by JK Rowling), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky), Little Women (Louisa May Alcott), The Gift (Andi Buchanan), 13 Reasons Why (Jay Asher), Sweet Valley Jr. High/High/University (Francine Pascal), Dream a Little Dream (Antoinette Stockenberg), Where The Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak), Oh! The Places You’ll Go!, The Lorax (both by Dr. Seuss), Where The Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein), Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl), The Gifts of Imperfection (Brené Brown), 2Bro2B (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.), The Mistress of Spices (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni), The Death of Vishnu (Manil Suri), The Diary of Anne Frank (Anne Frank), The Book Thief (Markus Zusak), Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson), Catcher In The Rye (J.D. Salinger), Number The Stars (Lois Lowry), Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret, Tiger Eyes, Blubber, Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great, Deenie (all by Judy Blume), Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton), To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee), and on and on and on and on..
Today’s Interlude: Beauty and the Beast, “Little Town (Belle)”
champagne & cookiedough 