Two great books

Earlier this year, I decided that if I budget my time a tad bit differently, I might actually be able to read a book or two during the school year.  (I always fit several into the summer months.)  Snow days, like the one we just had on Tuesday, are helping me considerably with this resolution.  (Seriously, there is nothing quite like getting 8+ hours of bonus time in your life - time that you thought would be spent elsewhere on obligations of the paying sort.)

On the other snow day we had this year, I was in the midst of reading an amazing novel, The Help, which gave me a glimpse into southern life in the sixties, from the perspective of, well, the help...and a brave white woman.  With my bonus hours on that day, I was able to cozy up in some blankets and dive into a novel that forced me to take a fresh look at some history that I knew, but didn't really want to know.  Or maybe better put: that I just wish wasn't true.

The Help was enthralling and affected me, if in no other way than by reminding me how far women have come, regardless of race, in the last half-century and how fortunate we are to be living in an age of relative tolerance, one in which we are able to teach our children to treat everyone with respect as humans without fearing for our own lives by doing so.  Yet, it also made me question why that there is still so much hate and prejudice towards the various subsets of our culture, while simultaneously giving me hope that fifty years from now people will be just as astonished at some of the things we currently accept as I was at the concept of building an outhouse in the garage for the help.

Interestingly, with yesterday's snow day, I was also in the midst of a book.  This time:  The Glass Castle,  a memoir by Jeannette Walls, who is now a regular contributor to MSNBC.   This is a book that I will never, ever, forget.  I was completely captivated from the first pages and I read most of it with my jaw dropped.   I finished it yesterday, on our snow day, and I am still reeling from some of the stories Walls told about her life while growing up.  I am not writing this with the intent to review the book.  Rather, because it affected me so profoundly, I simply feel the need to comment. 

First of all, I find it amazing the things that people can endure and that they can still emerge with positive attitudes.  Ms. Walls never really seemed angry about her situation, and somehow presented her story in a way that both showed her love and respect for her parents while clearly illustrating their flaws.  Her story completely appalled me at times.  My first response was that she was abused and neglected and starved, and in many ways, she was.  But her story also demonstrated to me that giving your children confidence and love can be more important, at times, than even shelter and food.  While reading some online discussions after finishing the book, I came across an interesting perspective:  someone commented that overindulgence can be seen as a form of child abuse, too.  Thought-provoking.  There was also a comment that people are generally much stronger than they think they are.  I agree.

Secondly, I need to acknowledge that I AM SO FORTUNATE.  I am so fortunate to have grown up in the United States in a working middle class family with two parents, neither of which an alcoholic, neither of which selfish beyond reproach; to live in a house with more than two tiny rooms, with heat, running water, and food on the table; to be able to sleep without water dripping on me, to be able to sleep in a bed.  I am so fortunate to have had a childhood with stability, and so fortunate to know the feelings of safety and security.

Sometimes, little challenges in life get distorted and little things get taken for granted and it takes a story like this to bring things back into perspective. 

The struggles of the people of this world and those right in our backyards are some that most will never understand.  The stories of the power of the human spirit are amazing and inspiring.