By Alice Steinbach
This book gets 3.5 stars.
It tells the story of the author, who, once her children are grown, takes a leave of absence from her job as a reporter and travels. Her goal is to re-discover herself and her sense of self. What makes her tick, how she has changed, and how she has stayed the same over her lifetime. She has some adventures, but I didn’t feel like I connected with her, hence the lower star rating.
Throughout the book, I felt very judgmental of the author–why it took her until her children were grown and out of the home to find herself, I can’t imagine. To me, one’s sense of self is more important than anything else–without it, it’s impossible to contribute wholeheartedly to relationships and to the world around you. Knowing who you are and where you feel your place in the world is provides the roadmap going forward in life. But I digress.
The author does have some nice/inspiring/thought-provoking things to say. Here are a sampling:
- “What I see is a woman who is not thinking about observing life, but experiencing it.” [This is how I strive to live life–experiencing and not merely observing.]
- “I no longer believed that romantic love had the power to shape or transform me.” [This is sad. Everyone deserves happiness in all facets of life, including love.]
- “Flexibility enables lives to be supple beneath the surface, it enables people to survive.” [True.]
- Always in the big woods when you leave the familiar round and step off alone into a new place, there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. [Very true. But without that fear, you wouldn’t be truly experiencing–you’d be slipping back into observation.]
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