Eskimo love

In addition to re-reading the Twilight saga when I should be sleeping in my spare time, I have developed a crush on books this winter.

Normally, a book has to be really special to catch my eye, and even more so for me to actually open up the cover. It has to be “the one” for me to read it all the way through. For evidence of this, you can either check out this post - and note how my reading list from two years remains basically untouched - or you can stalk me as I renew the same books from the library time and time again. I’d prefer the former; it’s less creepy.

This winter, in addition to Twilight (le sigh), I’ve read three books in a very short period of time. One was a gift, another was a hand me down, and the third was a book I got at a Border’s going-out-of-business sale this summer (waiting to become “the one,” it sat neglected on my bookshelf for six months).

• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) By Mindy Kahling
• Fall to Grace By Jay Bakker
• The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

I’ve been trying to come up with book reviews for these books, because I really like to read the reviews other people give random books on Amazon, or to talk to people about what they think about the books they’re reading. I did this for Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom recently without having to spend money on the actual book, for the all insight other people offered me. I think this – hearing a non-paid human’s opinion - is different than reading a critic review. I kind of find formal reviews tainted by the critic doing this for a living - It’s not just about the book, it’s about how fancy or witty or trendy the critique of the book can be, you know?

So I wanted to review the books I’ve read for you, with the hope that you’d take away some of the same pleasure I get from hearing what the common man feels about the literature he’s just poured over. I hope you’ll find my reviews disjointed, incomplete and wonderfully thought-provoking (as much so as something this much randomness can be!).

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) By Mindy Kahling

I wrote a long time ago that there a million and one guidebooks and websites for puberty, marriage, parenting and the health problems of the elderly, but there are very few resources for how to be a successful person in one’s twenties. As Billy Crystal said in City Slickers, “Your 20s are a blur…” This has often bugged me - as a 20-something - and this is why I like Mindy Kahling’s book. It’s written mostly about her life in her twenties - what about her adolescence made up her 20s’ identity, how she survived not having a real job or a real apartment, and how her friends loved her through all of that, so that she is into her 30s and all the better for being 20-29. In her memoir, I saw points of reference that I wouldn’t call advice, so much as indirect reminders – to be supportive of my friends, grateful for my mentors, and gun-ho about my career in my twenties. She also writes from an unabashedly goody-goody standpoint, with which I strongly relate to (I know, you’re surprised). But kudos to Mindy Kahling for being a beacon to current 20-somethings learning how to get it done sans blur.

Fall to Grace By Jay Bakker

I think I’ve always been an advocate for human rights, and in particular, equal civil rights, protection and respect for people of all sexual and gender orientations. Not that I am some guru on all things LBGTQ, but it’s an issue I think about and try to learn about. As someone who loves Jesus, and therefore loves the people God created gay, straight and in all other ways all the more, I’ve been frustrated by the hate and hypocrisy propagated by religion, especially my own. But in this book, in addition to loving the rest of it, I loved someone brave enough to promote gay rights and a gay agenda inside of the church, as well as someone who can clearly articulate why his faith and Scripture call him to do so. It’s refreshing, so refreshing, to have any faith leader chose the unconditional love of God over the bigotry of the current social world, and say that they’re choosing this love OUT LOUD. Thanks for not tip-toeing around the vital issue, Jay.

The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

One of my favorite parts of this very cool book is when August (awesome name, by the way), rhetorically asks Lily (paraphrase), “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were different words for love, instead of the same word for loving peanuts and Coca-Cola as there is for your love for Rosaleen (Lily’s surrogate mother)?”

Yes! Yes, it would be so nice, like the Eskimos - who apparently have lots of words for both “snow” and “love ” – to have more than just one type of love to express in our common understanding today.

Sometimes I secretly worry that I love too much. Certainly, other people have not understood me – how I can see no distinction in the deservingness of love between “good” people and “bad” people, how I don’t have a “type,” and how I can usually see the other side of things and learn to admire it. I have been called idealistic, diplomatic, mature and naïve for all these reasons. Mostly, I don’t care what people think of it, but I wonder for myself, if I see love in more shades and gradients than others.

Sometimes I feel like there really must be an infinite number of dimensions, and in those alternate dimensions, I’m living an infinite number of lives where I have the space to love all that I do love, but cannot fully appreciate fully in the short span of this lifetime. This book drove that home in me, and showed me I am not alone – that it is human condition to want to love deeply, fully, and more than we are capable of.