"You know there's a name for this," my friend strongly assures me as we hike up hill number three. "It's called bibliotherapy. Getting well from reading books."
I've shared a book that helped my daughter. I suggested the book with hope that it might help her daughter.
Over the past year, I've watched my daughter grow stronger after she turns the last page of yet another recommended book. She even started a book club for friends in her situation.
I've recently rejoined a former book club with women who carry confidence in the voices they've developed. I leave in a half hour to join them for the first time in two years. I'm looking forward to their company, to feel of their strength. To be buoyed up by their differences of opinions. To travel the different roads of experience.
The funny thing is that I joined another book club, started recently by a neighbor. Two books a month, and it doesn't seem like enough. For I am ready to heal. Ready to heal from the little tsunamis that hit my shore. Ready to be bolstered with courage from an author who wrote her story through fictional characters, who worked through pain with a woman who seemed to be a lot like her. I'm ready to look personally close and apply the philosophies to my own life. I'm ready to re-read a paragraph if it resonates. And oh how I will annotate the phrases that ring like carillon bells in my heart.
I look back on the best companions I've had throughout my life. My parents always. My Linda, Dodie, Melissa, Kevin, and ultimately my Tony. They are my humanity. But I have found humanity from my books. Rarely have they let me down. I learned courage from Laura Ingalls Wilder; I learned adventure from Harold and his purple crayon; I learned playfulness from Dr. Seuss. I felt empathy from Anne Frank. I looked deeper through Markus Zusak's lens. Betty Smith made me grateful.
I've been in bibliotherapy my entire life.
Comments