Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Reading Whistler on my Kindle for Six Weeks
My new hobby seems to be reading the book Whistler by Ann Patchett.
It’s been nearly six weeks since I put it on my Kindle. Every night I’d read in the dark, wonder what the deal was with Eddie and Daphne, the horse, and all the other people with their brunches and rides around New York. I finally finished the book this morning.
What is this book about, I’d wonder. Who are these people – Eddie and Daphne and all their assorted relatives and former relatives? And why should I care about them? And it wasn’t until I’d finished every single word and then read a review on Goodreads that I got the point of the book. (My brain has been eroded by too many readings of Curious George Goes Swimming.)
The point is about the endurance of love and kindness – a grown woman remembers her nine-year-old self’s connection to a man who was very briefly her stepfather. And he has the same connection to her – little rubber band bracelets they kept in their pockets for forty years. We all have someone like that. Someone, who if they walked in the room this instant, we would love them like we did in that fleeting moment years ago.
It took me a while, but I got the point. It was worth hanging in there, so I’d have this reflection to ponder, wonder who those times and people are for me, and whether I could be that unforgettable, loved person for someone else. Maybe.
Meanwhile, I’m going to beef up my reading. I’m also going to go back to actual books and park the Kindle for a while. I want a paper page and a bookmark to remember my place in the world.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
You’re right. I guess that was the point. The setting is what kept me going. My husband grew up in Winchester, MA. He has no memory of a raspberry farm, but Everett Street is very fancy IRL too (the street where Daphne’s mom ended up with her Positivity Husband) Gloucester Fisherman Husband was a good character too, and I have a friend who was an editor at Houghton Mifflin in Boston for decades. The fancy New Yorkers were not as interesting or likable to me. (But maybe that’s my Boston bias!)