pomegranates and letting go
Mother Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and The Secret Life of Bees) and daughter Ann Kidd Taylor team up in Traveling with Pomegranates. It's odd to imagine a travel memoir about women's spirituality (and representations of women in spiritual traditions) being something that could come from two authors' viewpoints in alternating chapters, but it works beautifully. Though occasionally I was distracted by imagining the editing to make it so, most of the time I was immersed in their two complementary journeys. Sue is transitioning into an acceptance of old age as she turns 50, and Ann is transitioning into adulthood in her 20s.
As they travel to Greece and France and in their home lives as well, both are delving deep into what makes them who they are. After college and breaking up with her fiance, Ann is discovering the triadic symbolism of Athena, Joan of Arc, and Mary as the iconic women who inspire her to be true to herself. Sue is looking at images of Mary as not only the mother of Jesus, but also as the hag, the crone, the old woman who lived long past the famous manger scene and into old age. Her reading of Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror is astonishing, seeing "The aging mother reaching for her own grown daughter. The way she tries to make a lap for her younger self." (p. 151) She describes the "ricochet" of the feeling that deep knowledge of mortality brings (p. 163), and how "One day I will have to forgive life for ending." (p. 169) She describes the feeling of sending off part of a novel: "...I should lay down my ego and let happen what will happen. It is just life. It's time to settle more fully into my own condensed truth and find my strength and boldness in that." (p. 215) She feels "the curse of my own introspective nature, and its obstinate demands, how it wants to be allowed, wants my unhurried and undivided attention, how the moments of life insist on being metabolized and given expression." (p. 218)
Sue Monk Kidd has gift of making the long arc of life seem like a dance, but Ann Kidd Taylor is pretty good herself at capturing the raw honesty of a 20-something in search of meaning. Along the way, Sue further embraces her mother and the Hestia-like goddess of the hearth that she has always been, while coming to accept herself and her own ambitions as a writer. And Ann finds her vocation as a writer, at least for now, though impending motherhood and all of life could change anything. Here's hoping for more books from her. She pointed me to this beautiful quotation from the poem Sweet Darkness by David Whyte: "Give up all the other worlds/except the one to which you belong." The poem continues and concludes:
Mother-daughter relationships can be a fraught subject, and there are moments of tension. But it's a joy to read about Sue refraining from invading Ann's private world, even when she knows something is wrong, out of respect for the young woman that Ann is becoming and needs to become on her own terms (p 118). It's good to see Ann becoming herself while seeing her own mother more fully. It's a delight to image the three-generation trip of grandmother, mother, daughter that ensues.
Ultimately, this is a book about peace between the generations. One need not have experienced that joy in one's own family to appreciate it in written form. In fact, I think there should be a special word for taking joy in someone else having what you cannot or have not chosen. The opposite of jealousy. Jealousy-free joy for someone else's delightful path. That's what this book inspired, for me.
*****
I spend longer than I wish to on the simple task of letting go of expectations about how I thought "now" would be, back when "now" was still "then," in the future. It's hard to inhabit now when I'm doing this. Yet, of course, that also is what's now, whenever it's happening. So here I am, letting go of the true last of the summer memoirs...
Cherry by Mary Karr is a follow-up to The Liar's Club, and I know I want to read it sometime, because it's about her adolescence. The Liar's Club was amazing.
The Stations of Solitude by Alice Koller looks good except for its insistence on stripping oneself of all social contact in order to achieve "real" solitude. Her earlier memoir, An Unknown Woman, might be better, as it seems to be what brought her acclaim and is about post-phd uncertainty and wandering.
Too Late to Die Young by Harriet McBride Johnson is about a muscular dystrophy survivor who has, against the odds, lived to have a full adult life and become a renowned disabilities activist. Her voice and spirit shine in the first chapter.
As they travel to Greece and France and in their home lives as well, both are delving deep into what makes them who they are. After college and breaking up with her fiance, Ann is discovering the triadic symbolism of Athena, Joan of Arc, and Mary as the iconic women who inspire her to be true to herself. Sue is looking at images of Mary as not only the mother of Jesus, but also as the hag, the crone, the old woman who lived long past the famous manger scene and into old age. Her reading of Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror is astonishing, seeing "The aging mother reaching for her own grown daughter. The way she tries to make a lap for her younger self." (p. 151) She describes the "ricochet" of the feeling that deep knowledge of mortality brings (p. 163), and how "One day I will have to forgive life for ending." (p. 169) She describes the feeling of sending off part of a novel: "...I should lay down my ego and let happen what will happen. It is just life. It's time to settle more fully into my own condensed truth and find my strength and boldness in that." (p. 215) She feels "the curse of my own introspective nature, and its obstinate demands, how it wants to be allowed, wants my unhurried and undivided attention, how the moments of life insist on being metabolized and given expression." (p. 218)
Sue Monk Kidd has gift of making the long arc of life seem like a dance, but Ann Kidd Taylor is pretty good herself at capturing the raw honesty of a 20-something in search of meaning. Along the way, Sue further embraces her mother and the Hestia-like goddess of the hearth that she has always been, while coming to accept herself and her own ambitions as a writer. And Ann finds her vocation as a writer, at least for now, though impending motherhood and all of life could change anything. Here's hoping for more books from her. She pointed me to this beautiful quotation from the poem Sweet Darkness by David Whyte: "Give up all the other worlds/except the one to which you belong." The poem continues and concludes:
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
Mother-daughter relationships can be a fraught subject, and there are moments of tension. But it's a joy to read about Sue refraining from invading Ann's private world, even when she knows something is wrong, out of respect for the young woman that Ann is becoming and needs to become on her own terms (p 118). It's good to see Ann becoming herself while seeing her own mother more fully. It's a delight to image the three-generation trip of grandmother, mother, daughter that ensues.
Ultimately, this is a book about peace between the generations. One need not have experienced that joy in one's own family to appreciate it in written form. In fact, I think there should be a special word for taking joy in someone else having what you cannot or have not chosen. The opposite of jealousy. Jealousy-free joy for someone else's delightful path. That's what this book inspired, for me.
*****
I spend longer than I wish to on the simple task of letting go of expectations about how I thought "now" would be, back when "now" was still "then," in the future. It's hard to inhabit now when I'm doing this. Yet, of course, that also is what's now, whenever it's happening. So here I am, letting go of the true last of the summer memoirs...
Cherry by Mary Karr is a follow-up to The Liar's Club, and I know I want to read it sometime, because it's about her adolescence. The Liar's Club was amazing.
The Stations of Solitude by Alice Koller looks good except for its insistence on stripping oneself of all social contact in order to achieve "real" solitude. Her earlier memoir, An Unknown Woman, might be better, as it seems to be what brought her acclaim and is about post-phd uncertainty and wandering.
Too Late to Die Young by Harriet McBride Johnson is about a muscular dystrophy survivor who has, against the odds, lived to have a full adult life and become a renowned disabilities activist. Her voice and spirit shine in the first chapter.
