Word girl

I think of myself as a word girl. I consume them like crazy, as I've confessed before. I've somehow managed to read a lot in the last month. I don't know how.

Well, I sort of do. Mostly by neglecting things I should have been doing instead, like doing my church calling and getting the oil changed in the car and de-spider-webbing the corners of the dining room.

(There's a story in my family history about a man who owned a sheep ranch. He mainly went out with the sheep and read all day. The ranch was most successful when he was out on a mission and his very efficient and businesslike wife took over. Some days I just shrug and tell myself I can't escape my genes.)

My little sister M (smart and beautiful girl) provided A Northern Light for me to read when I was in Utah a month ago. I was in the middle of The Shipping News at the time, but I took a break and read it.

It was a great read. Young adult fiction is really refreshing sometimes, and I've been trying to figure out why. I think it's because it's less likely to get caught up in the craft of writing and instead just tells the story. And story is what I really, really love. I love writing and words, yes. But story is the satisfaction, the payoff. (That was validated at the conference I went to in San Antonio, by the way. It made me want to write to tell stories, and it was absolutely invigorating!)

A Northern Light tackles words and story, talent and passion, love and family. How they all fit and don't fit in the life of a girl, a woman. For me, that's the daily problem of balancing my life. And the choices I made when I was seventeen and eighteen and nineteen do affect that.

I'm very lucky that I can do what I do -- balance, I mean. And also unlucky that I can't do things differently. If a few cells worked differently for me and G, I know my life would be very different. I would have had a baby in 1995, and kept going from there -- instead of adopting my first in 1999 and proceeding in fits and starts to build this family, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

It was thought-provoking for me, reading this novel, to revisit the different possibilities that existed for me when I was so young: Getting married, going to college, a career in music, a career in words. The risks I took, the risks I was too afraid to take.

I'm really glad I knew how to make those choices in the way I did -- seeking guidance from above. Because although I may look back and wonder, I only rarely look back and regret. And most often I look back with a lot of gratitude. Although I thought at different times that I had the perfect plan, life unfolded in a different way. And it has turned out pretty well, so far.

Next up: The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich. I mostly read it at the gym, and then while I was sick. I swear.