As a follow-up to my last post, I wanted to also highlight Justice in June* as an additional resource for reading and learning. Plans are broken down into 10 minutes, 25 minutes or 45 minutes a day. Learning about injustice is essential, but a reminder that we need to follow up that knowledge with action to cause change.
When not reading the news, recipes, or coronavirus statistics in June, I sped through two other memoirs. (Sped: pushed by the due date to spend a weekend reading despite having had the loan for a fourteen days.)
I loved Lab Girl by Hope Jahren! Due to our ongoing quarantine, I still cannot be outside among the trees and it was such a gift to be reading about them and imagining touching them. I can't remember exactly when it was that I started "Nature Walks" with my nieces but it's become one of our standing activities during my visits. We began with touching the bark on trees to learn how they were different, then as they grew, we moved to leaves and now we identify them by name. Her memoir was touching in its nod to science, her connection to it ,and her lab partner, Bill.
Educated by Tara Westover was a harder read. Though knowing she eventually "made it out", her childhood story and the subsequent returns to this home place made me catch my breath wondering what would be the next trauma she would have to endure before the circle would be broken.
The themes that stayed with me through both books were the power of influence of our parents, the beauty of friendship, the pain of mental illness, and the courage to advocate for yourself. We all have something special inside, waiting to sprout out if we can just get the right nutrients and be stubborn in the soil.
* Discovered via Washington Post
