When a book hits

Today I spent most of the day reading. My sister recommended the book Traveling with Pomegranates. I got through it in a day.

This memoir hit me between the eyes. A mother and daughter write about their travels to Turkey, Greece and France. Each writes of their thoughts and experiences as they travel through these countries, visiting ancient sites. That sounds rather dry, but it is even more accurately a memoir of a young woman coming to terms with her dreams, and her middle-aged mother dealing with her entry into the final third of her life.

The writers struggle with their need to write, their identities as mother and daughter, and women’s place in the world as they age. I share so many of the struggles they describe.

My sister and I discussed the book a little bit when I was about half-way through it. We agree that we feel as though we are definitely cruising through life, as neither of us are anywhere near as introspective or philosophical about our lives. Both of the women in the book have a preoccupation with the Virgin Mary, and black Madonnas in particular. The mother is Sue Monk Kidd, who wrote The Secret Life of Bees. That book has a black Madonna as a central part of the book. Both my sister and I loved Bees, and this book describes how she came to write that novel.

There is much reference to religion within this book, but even when that portion is stripped away, it is very insightful and thought-provoking. These are universal struggles. The mother-daughter relationship, becoming an adult, choosing a career, dealing with aging and the changing role of a parent as a child becomes an adult.

My life is in the throes of almost all of those struggles. I am at a stalemate in my career, my children are now all adults, and the reality of aging has certainly come to the forefront of my psyche.  I am even struggling with the love of writing, which is another of the themes of the book. Both mother and daughter wonder if they are good enough to be writers, to write in the way that they long to write. I know the feeling.

It is not often that a book hits home in so many ways. This is one that will stay with me for a while.

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