The Secret Life of Bees

I read and loved Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees when it first was published in 2001. At the time it seemed one more lovely, insightful book on my long list of 'I really liked that book and wish everyone would read it'.

Last night I watched the movie. In a rare deviation from my deep infatuation with the printed word, the movie is a giant step beyond the book. For a movie where I already knew the ending and which is at its heart not truly a mystery story, it was an edge of the seat viewing from beginning to end.

There is much in the story of any life and more in these lives than some others. But the telling never winced from that which was hard or true. There was pain, anguish, anger and confusion. There was also love, companionship, respect and joy.

Looking back, one other fact distinguished the movie from the book. President Obama.

Somehow Obama's election between the reading of the book and the watching of the movie caused a subtle shift from a 'they' to 'we' story. I can't quite put my finger on the exact cause and moment of this feeling. And part of me suspects I wouldn't care for the answer and what it implies about my previous "unbiased" state of mind. But truly for me the book was "their" story and the movie was "our" story. Maybe sometimes we don't recognize the more illusive forms of exclusion until we see and touch its opposite.

I am grateful for a good read, a spectacular performance and a world in which we all can grow and change. Each of our stories should be told as well as The Secret Life of Bees.

Losing a Child

In the textbook of life, if one can learn grief, empathizing without (thankfully) truly understanding, then today was one more heartbreaking and terrifying lesson.

Jamie was 34 and his mother is my friend. Not that it matters, but death came in a car accident.

The news stunned me into silence. The funeral leaves me staring at the pictures of my own child and grandchildren with both gratitude and fear; fear which is always, has always been present, but fear usually buried beneath daily life.

My helpless words never breach the shell and while my shoulder absorbs the tears it cannot restore. Mother, Father, wife, two very small children whose lives are forever altered. My imagining encompasses a mere speck of the reality. To me, a child lost seems the most hideous of bereavements.

Even the strongest life is fragile.

A ROOM FULL OF WISDOM

One of the great joys of my retirement was being asked to join a Book Club - something a job with uncertain and long hours made such a regular commitment difficult. And I do so love to read. Every day. It is a love I come by from a family of readers. No book given to Mom, a sister, a husband or a daughter goes unread and then unpassed to all the others. We even have a system of post-it designations for ownership and who has read each book thus far. Our own private library system.

But a Book Club is special; a group for whom the express purpose is to read, reflect and discuss a common book; a group that brings, shares and mingles its various backgrounds, life experiences and points of view into one thoughtful, vigorous and sometimes hilarious discussion.

My good fortune was being asked into a long standing group of women of high intelligence, considerable passion and a wide variety of worldly wisdom and involvement. We are never "just" discussing a book, but the ideas and life that the book expresses for each of us.

The deeper we roam through and the further afield we roam from book specifics, the more I appreciate the insights and experiences of each woman; women who reach out to others, who welcome new people, who believe that expanding and including are healthy yet value the foundations of an ongoing discourse. And each month I am struck anew at the sheer mass of wisdom that resides in these women. Truly, a room full of wisdom.