Émile Zola's Insight

"We're like books. 

Most people only see our cover, a minority only reads the introduction, and many people believe the reviews. 

Few will ever know our content."

~~ Èmile Zola

Do these insights ring true for you? 

They do for me. 

I know that very very few people really know my content - who I really am. I am willing, but others seem too busy being busy to spend some of their time to get to know me, or other people in their lives, people whose content is worth fully knowing.

On the other hand, I think I do not know many people, though not for lack of trying. I do make attempts to know them, to share, to show I care, to display my love. 

But so many are closed off. Why? Fear of being known? Fear of being hurt? 

Why?

I wish it were not so, this closing off of human connection. I wish we could all be brave and honest and sincere enough to dive deeply, to grapple with life's questions, to pick each other's minds for the gems within. We could grow and know each other. The result would be connection and trust and confidence and wisdom.

It would build warm community and affection.

Knowing each other is what gives meaning to life and life to meaning.

Sadly, I think Zola is correct. 

"Peu connaîtront notre contenu." 

Few will ever know our content. 

Find your courage. Open up. Discard the fakery of trying to impress people with a fantasy version of yourself, with a made up lifestyle, an untrue history.

Open up to a friend, read the pages of their soul, learn their content. Then share your own.

Be real. Be humble. Be you.

Enrichment will follow.

The Hill in Summer

Since Tom and I moved away from where my parents lived, the season we spent the most time with them was summer. 

Warmly welcoming each of us to the vast playground that was The Hill, Mom and Dad would make homemade vanilla ice cream in their ancient electric maker, salt water dripping from the little hole, our ears attuned to the strain of the motor. 

Dad barbecued and smoked tasty meats on a tiny but highly functional gas barbecue. He cut juicy watermelons into drippy wedges, rinds eventually thrown over the decking fence for cattle and deer. 

Mom kept the pool crystal clear and clean, the skimmer and her bathing cap always near at hand. 

Family came from far and wide to spend a good weekend together goofing off and telling stories. The kids rode motorcycles, gathered eggs, fed turkeys, played pool, shot guns, swam, played with cousins, and picked blackberries. 

I still hear the unrestrained laughter, the frogs, and the crickets, smell the roses and irises, taste the potluck offerings each family cheerfully produced, see the bats swooping in the evening sky, feel the thrill of sliding or diving or jumping into the pool, recollect the energy in my kids' little bodies as I teach them to swim and to see and hear life in the country. 

The hot air smelled of crispy dry grass. Electrical storms were frequent and exciting overhead, their release of delicious summer rain relaxed and brought smiles to already happy faces. 

I hope the times spent here in Tom's and my home with our family are the type that bring joy to my loved ones in years to come. It's a lovely, comforting thing to remember goodness. 

I ache for my parents, but more than that I am so grateful they were, indeed, mine.