The Power of a Book

So I read a book. It is called In the Body of The World.

I’ve read other books recently, so that isn’t the reason I’m writing about this one now. And it by by Eve Ensler, the author of the Vagina Monologues, though I didn’t know that when I chose it, so that isn’t why I’m writing either. I’m not sure yet why I’m writing, maybe it is just because it reminded me how writing allows us to make the connections as we go. 

I bought it last year on my reunion trip with my flower friends. Peony found a beautiful bookshop in the charming pacific northwest town that hosted our meetup. We spent an hour or so in there, taking pictures and finding our favorite sections and stories. I remember smiling to myself that all of us were drawn to different areas, but still had something to say about all of them.

I always end up in the memoir section. I love hearing the author’s voice in my head and getting a window into the lives of other people. How different are they than me, how similar?

But what I love most is to think about what the author chooses to add. They’re pulling from a lifetime of events, an unlimited supply of actions and thoughts and connections. What they choose could almost be considered random, but instead in their choices always seem inevitable.

I pulled this book off the shelf at complete random. It was good small size that would fit well in my carry on home, and the light, clean cover felt simple, direct, calming. The reviews on the back jacket called it “astonishing,” “a masterpiece,” a “raw force of courage,” and when I opened it to a page somewhere in the middle, her voice jumped off the page and into my heart. I was looking to read something by someone who wrote the way she thought, who was writing to think through the small details of her life as much as she was writing to make the large connections. I was looking for a writer who would tell me what mattered in her life, an example to help me better think through what mattered in mine.

For all the uncertainty I feel every day about what I want and who I am and how to be, it is also incredible that there are also moments like that when I pick up a book in a shop of thousands and know within seconds that not only would I take it home, but that it would become a part of me for the rest of my life. Moments like that are why we have to believe in something more than all the pain and anger and cynicism of the world; I felt magic that instant over a tiny book in a tiny shop. I don’t think it matters what we call it (magic, love, connection, power, fate, design), but it matters that we keep seeking it.

I didn’t get around to reading it until last month, and even then I only read the first half and then got busy with work and stress so I didn’t finish it until last night. But every word on every page hit somewhere deep in my gut, and I know I’ll read it many more times over my lifetime – finding something new to connect with each time.

The story is structured around a year in her life when she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer, so she ties in memories and relationships and world events in a way that makes you feel like everything that happens in the world is connected to her and her exposed body, while also reminding you that she is just a few cells in a constantly dividing world of zillions.

There are a lot of quotes and ideas and connections that spoke to me, and I need to get on with my day so I’m not going to tell you about all of them. But I think the main thing I want to impart to you (and my future self) about this memoir is that there is power in loving.

It doesn’t matter who or how or why you love, or whether the thing deserves it or reciprocates. It makes you and the world stronger every time you show and feel love. When you show up for a friend, or fight for a cause, or tell a metal port that brings chemo to your body that you’re happy to see it, you’re making a difference. And one of those is no different than the other, love isn’t ranked and isn’t a result.

Love is an action that we have to chose each time, and the more we choose it the more powerful we become, as ourselves and as the world.