As I was reviewing
“hits” on my LifeCentering blog this morning, I noticed an article I
posted in July 2012 had been visited by a reader The article was my response to a book by Cheryl Strayed. After looking at the post I decided to
repost it, especially since Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild: Lost and Found
on the Pacific Crest Trail, was being made into a movie. Reese Witherspoon is cast as
Cheryl. Some of you may be following
her Facebook page and know the details.
https://www.facebook.com/CherylStrayed.Author
I found my comments from that post are still important to me
today. Maybe you will find the review
helpful as well.
Tiny Beautiful Things
I know that some of you
don’t really care about what I have read or why or how it affected me. But some of you do. It is to you that I write to let you know I
just finished, Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl (Dear Sugar)
Strayed. My previous article on this
blog was primarily about the author’s book, Wild: From Lost To Found On the
Pacific Crest Trail. Dear Sugar was
an advice column written by the author, who had remained anonymous until
recently. I read about her book, Wild,
in our local paper and it was in that review that she “outed” herself as the
person who had been writing the advice on love and life column for The
Rumpus.net.
Now why in the world would I, a
retired person living alone, care at all about advice on love and life? Actually, when I started reading the book,
it was not because it consisted of many of the advice letters she had received
and answered. It was because of how
impressed I was with her writing in general.
Since I consider myself a writer as well, I am interested in how other
authors develop their ideas. I knew
from reading Wild that I would probably like her latest work.
In a way I was not surprised by
the fact that her “advice” on love and life hit a resonant chord for me in so
many ways. I have had my share of love
and life experiences and feel I learned something about myself in each of
them. However, I discovered new ways of
looking at love and life, especially as I thought of the people I have loved
and do love. I never really felt I
deserved to be loved. Expectations
about what could be or should be the way love works were never quite
that way for me because of that lack of deserving. I spent much of my time with a therapist trying to better
understand the ways in which I really did deserve to be loved and to how love
others. I wish I could say I have
finished that part of my learning experience.
I have not.
I still am unable to articulate
what love is all about. I know though
that in the pages of this book I constantly gained insights that I strongly
felt were representative of my needs and ways in which I could have done better
in relationships and hopefully can apply from here on out to my friends and
loved ones. There is always something
to learn. Life is never finished and we
should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have arrived at some exact
point of conclusion (on any subject).
One very personal event in my
life was touched upon in this book.
Some years ago I shared with my son something that I had felt about our
relationship. I told him that I felt he
was my teacher. How I stated that at
the time is probably not how I actually felt it, but it was the clearest way I
could say it at the time. Here in this book I gained a further insight to what
I tried to convey to my son then. Dear
Sugar, in her response to “Living Dead Dad” said:
More will be revealed. Your son hasn’t yet taught you everything he has to teach you. He taught you how to love like you’ve never loved before. He taught you how to suffer like you’ve never suffered before. Perhaps the next thing he has to teach you is acceptance. And the thing after that, forgiveness.
Love is such a powerful
thing. It will teach you whether
you like it or not and whether you are ready or not. What it will teach you is personal in every case. Whether we will accept the potential lesson
and move with it is up to each of us. I
will tell you this, you do not have to have all the answers about love and life
in order to love and live! Just do it
for god’s sake! Do it as best you
can. Love everyone and every experience
that comes your way. You will never
regret having loved. If you feel regret
for having loved someone who did not love you back as you hoped, maybe there is
another way to love that person without your expectation of the way it should
be. I don’t know how it will be for
you, but I know each of us must keep loving and finding new ways to express
love. Otherwise, we are not truly
living.
Cheryl Strayed pulled absolutely
no punches in her advice. She hit so
hard it must have felt like literally being hit in the stomach for some of
those who wrote to her. It certainly
knotted my stomach more than once. But, and this is a big but, she never
attempted to belittle the writers no matter how apparently stupid, unforgiving
or judgmental their attitude may have been.
And she always caressed softly with her words the tender spots they
exposed so that each person could be receptive enough to fully consider the
possibilities within their particular challenge.
I wish I could be as clear and
caring and direct with love in my writing as Sugar is. Maybe it is because I am a retired
person living alone that this writer has come into my life. I certainly feel uplifted and blessed by
having her work in my library and in my consciousness. Maybe you would like her too.
