Sticks and Stones
Recently I finished a good read. I binged the bulk of it over the wee hours of the night and couldn’t put it down as I hastily paged through the rest. What captivated me most about the main character was her resilience to what others thought of her, how they treated her and especially what they said of her. The alligator tears dropped heavily onto the paper as I felt in my core the rejection and unkindness she experienced, finally exhaling empathy and a bit of my own grief.
To be fair. novels always seemed like a waste of time to me. Why waste several hours of one’s life gaining fictitious non-facts? Research and educational books leave behind knowledge and a space for reference down the road. The two don’t compare as they aren’t comparable. One is a tool, the other is an adventure. Yet this novel captivated the attention of someone very dear to me, so I knew I had to enjoy it with her.
I soaked in every detail. The flickering candle, the fireflies, the nearly-palpable feel of the character’s determination. If the description of nature wasn’t enough to grip me, the mystery sure sealed the deal.
Closing the book, I realized that I’d dog-eared a few pages along the way. Interestingly, it wasn’t for the purpose of recalling my numerical page place, but more a subconscious acknowledgment that I related personally to that place in her story.
I’ve known the everlasting sting of abandonment. I’ve tasted the joy of unconditional love. Rejection has had its claws into me since I was a little girl, the “unacceptance” growing like a weed all these years. I’ve longed for the feeling of simplicity since becoming a mother, feeling oddly envious throughout the book of her off-grid lifestyle.
There is a popular saying , mantra if you will, that goes like this…
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words could never hurt me.
I have never agreed with anything less in my entire existence. Just as wounds turn into scars, leaving behind a physical reminder of the injury, words scar too. Once said, words cannot be taken back. The permanency of a person’s verbiage can have lifelong impact.
As I devoured the pages of one woman’s story, I recalled many times in my own life when words made or broke my day. When words spoken over me or about me changed the trajectory of my entire adulthood. Recently, someone said to me
“Some things are better left unsaid”
What a conundrum of thought. The unsaid can cause just as much pain. The wondering while given the “silent treatment” can make you just as ill as even scornful words.
I am here to admit, novels can teach us something indeed. We don’t need cold, hard black and white facts to learn about life. Sometimes we only need to hear someone’s story, to reflect on our own, and find our own way to work through it. The Bible says to guard your heart and watch your mouth (paraphrasing I know, I’m not a biblical scholar, only a Child of God) and that is the most solid advice we can accept. Kya (my new fictitious “friend” from said book) learned to read in young adulthood, and as she read a true yet meaningful sentence for the first time, she exclaimed “wow, I didn’t know words could hold so much!”
#wherethecrawdadssing
