Sometimes, it only takes a word. I was getting to the end of reading Ann Lamott’s, Almost Everything Notes on Hope. It has taken me four months to read this book. I think part of me was convinced, “What does this little book on Hope have to offer me? Is it really going to help?” I would pick it up every so often in hopes that the magic Hope pill would jump off of the page.
In every chapter she shares anecdotes, beautiful stories and memories all about hope—where to turn to, what to look for, how to embrace hope—or not. And I don’t know what I was looking for exactly. Well that’s not true, I was looking for hope, something to be hopeful for, a way to embrace hope again. And as I get to the end of the book literally two paragraphs away I read the line “Life is way wilder than I am comfortable with, way farther out, as we used to say, more magnificent, more deserving of awe and, I would add, more benevolent—well-meaning, kindly. Waves and particles, redwoods, poetry, this world of wonders and suffering…“
It was the last word I read “suffering” that took me out and back to that familiar feeling and quote “suffering in silence” that made me think of how women suffer in silence, that also made me think of women from my culture—suffering in silence, taking everything and saying nothing. It forced me to write in the margins, “suffering in silence—men do as well. Men also suffer in silence.”
I had never considered this before. The ways men suffer in silence. The ways they choose to deal with their suffering.
Every time I visit them I see the sadness, the grief, the loss, the worry, the dread, the emptiness that consumes my family home. Every so often I bring up therapy or my sister brings up therapy and how we need therapy or they should go to therapy and he responds the only therapist I need is Johnny Walker and I speak to him daily.
(Unfinished, excerpt from IDGAF)
Readers, share with me your thoughts, reflections or quotes. Thank you for reading and sharing.
I love you.
Alicia