Books find us

Picture: A street in Pelourinho, a historic part of the city of Salvador, in Brazil. I stayed there for two nights, and fell in love with the place! Exotic, steeped in history (built in 15th, 16th and 17th centuries!), oozing slave stories, moody, sultry....


New topic:
I've had a theory for a while, like others I've spoken to, that books work their way into our lives when the time is right. If someone highly recommends a book, and you start reading it but it doesn't grab you, it's not the right time for you to be engaging with it. You have to put it aside and pick it up at another stage of your life.

Just before I went to Brazil, my dream country, in March this year (business trip for the English school I work at), I went to a bookshop to buy myself something substantial for the trip. I was going to be taking 8 flights in total, so I wanted something gripping to read. I ended up buying Barack Obama's "Dreams From My Father", and it was exactly right for me. We were born in the same year, he explores issues of mixed 'race'/ethnicity, and he deals very explicitly with lots of issues linked to coming into one's own, walking one's own path, and gaining the confidence to express publicly that one's views have moved away from those of one's family and childhood friends. I enjoyed his use of English, his graphic, lyrical descriptions and his quirky sense of humour. He had just become the USA's first black president, and I think I was, like the rest of the world, simply fascinated by him. I still am.

Yes, I read on the flights, but I also devoured my Brazilian Portuguese phrasebook, did Soduko till it came out of my ears, watched movies, listened to Brazilian music, and - my favourite - journalled.

And now another book has found me, called "Women Who Love Too Much", by Robin Norwood. I want to take my time with this one, because it's found me at a time that I need to address certain things and put closure on others. But most importantly, I need to break counter-productive patterns in my life. In the 1980's, I had an 8-year relationship that almost destroyed me. But it didn't: I survived, and emerged thinking I knew what I wanted and what I didn't. And life moved on. And then in 1992 I met someone who seemed exactly what I needed, we got married in 1994 and divorced in 2000. As with all relationships, there were important lessons I'd needed to learn. And life moved on. And then in 2003, I entered into a relationship which was to prove just as much a learning experience as the other two. And life moves on.

As no woman is an island, I realise that we learn most of our lessons about ourselves through our interactions with others. Had I been confined to a solitary life, without a social context, I would've stayed the same. I would've thought I knew all the answers. I would have stagnated, closing my mind to the many possibilities around.

A few years ago, I excitedly shared a book that had had a profound impact on me with a close friend. It was "Women Who Run With The Wolves", and it had been given to me by a good friend and strong woman, Nisa. To my dismay, the person returned it shortly afterwards, saying she'd not gone beyond a certain point, because it had been boring. I took it personally, because that's what I did back then. Now I understand that books have to find us. I also know that if someone doesn't like what I do, it's no reflection on me.

When I read "The Alchemist" (Paulo Coelho)for the first time, it also felt like the perfect book for me at that time of my life. More recently, I've had that experience with "The Art Of Possibility" (Ben Zander and his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander), which I must have read about 8 times by now, and of course, one of my 'bibles', "Mind Power Into The Twenty-First Century" (John Kehoe).

And now I have three books waiting for me: 2 I got as birthday presents this year: "Shantaram", by Gregory David Roberts (from Juan - reading it at the moment), "In the Land Of Invisible Women" (from Jacques - waiting for me to read!), and now today's arrival, "Women Who Love Too Much".

When my friend who lent it to me pointed out that one of the central characters was "Trudi", a woman on a personal journey to break old, destructive patterns in her life, I knew that this book had indeed found me.