The BookFetish Blog

Malala Yousafzai is a true heroine. She had the fortune, however, of being born into a family that already respected girl children more than was common for the culture. I Am Malala recounts the Taliban rise to power in Malala’s community,  her fight for girls’ education, the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate her, and its aftermath.

When I started reading I Am Malala I began telling friends, almost immediately, that everyone should read this book. We know the news cycle details- that the Taliban boarded Malala’s school bus and shot her in the head. What the book gives us beyond that is insight into the Pashtun culture and details about how the Taliban came to power in Pakistan.

To me, those details are the power of the book.  It’s easy for us to judge people who let the Taliban come to power so easily. But we forget that when a devastating earthquake hit Pakistan in 2007, it was groups supported and funded by the Taliban who were first able to get aid to desperate citizens. That sets a good foundation on which to spread propaganda.   And it is easy to point out the group mentality and absurdity of burning secular CD’s, DVD’s and Books, except…. conservative religious groups do the same in this country. So perhaps we aren’t as far removed from fanaticism as we might like to pretend that we are.  Then we see the further isolation and dehumanization of women in the culture. Twisting the Q’uran to justify their treatment of women- the rigid social behavior expectations, the denial of education- the Taliban used that and brute force to take over the government, intertwining religion and government.  That’s another danger in this country- again, not so dissimilar in some areas as we might like to pretend.

That Malala’s father believed so strongly in education for everyone certainly gave her a different world view than she might have had otherwise.  And her father, while protective, at the same time encouraged his daughter to speak out and stand up for her beliefs.  The death threats against her father were not unexpected. That the Taliban would target his daughter? Unthinkable.  The book doesn’t delve into it, but I wonder how all of that impacted Malala’s father. Does he question his decision to let her protest so vocally? And, of course, being shot aside, would he want it to be any other way?

The other part of the book that I found very interesting is the aftermath of the shooting- what it took to get Malala out; how long it took her to be reunited with her family. The lasting ramifications of the shooting on Malala’s religious beliefs and on the life of the family.

The book is written in a straightforward, matter of fact manner. Malala does not set herself up as a superhero, nor does she wallow in self pity for her experiences.  She mourns the homeland of her youth.  She calls out the Taliban for their manipulation of the teachings of the Q’uran.  She maintains her own set of beliefs.  And, as I mentioned earlier, if we pay attention to what she says, we recognize how deluded we might be about  religious fanaticism in our own country.  This book should truly be required reading for everyone.

Welcome to this week’s brief recap or download of all the things in my mind.

While I did finish Carry On, Warrior I didn’t blog about that or I Am Malala.  I had an unexpected death in my family this week, and it threw me big time.  I am hoping to get those written this week.

I am almost finished with Inferno, which I will wait to review until after my book club on Thursday, so that I can include some thoughts from the other attendees.

The big thing on my mind this week is the death of my cousin.  Out of respect for her family, I am not planning to say anything more than what I posted earlier this week.  I still don’t have any life lessons about it, except love, as hard as you can, as much as you can. Because in the end, that is all we really have.

A longer post next week, when things are back on track.

When I was very young, I would sometimes get a feeling that “something bad” was going to happen overnight, and it made me afraid to go to sleep. In my mind, this “something bad” was often a house fire, and it terrified me.

In the early hours of this morning, I lost a cousin to a house fire. We don’t know much of the details right now, but apparently she was just steps away from an escape when she- I hope– succumbed to the smoke.

This has devastated me today.  I feel so much for my Aunt- my cousin’s grandmother- who lost her home, all the tangible memories of her late husband, and most importantly, her oldest granddaughter. Is there a point when life are too much to bear?  Is this one of those instances when my Aunt will learn she has more courage than she ever knew simply because she wakes up tomorrow morning and puts one foot in front of the other?

Am I supposed to take from this some grateful life lesson of living each day to its maximum? I don’t think so.  My cousin just lived her life. Although, I am glad that 6 or so hours before she died, what she posted on Facebook was a video that made her laugh. No matter how much terror she must have felt in the last moments of her life, I’m glad that when things were ordinary, what she did made her laugh.

I have no life lessons to offer from this. Only the observation that sometimes life sucks. And when it does, I try to remember love triumphs.

This week’s Win(e)d Down is starting without wine. It is, after all, not quite eleven o’lock in the morning, and I am not on vacation.

I posted my review of Allegiant this week, and for the first time ever in a review, I gave away the ending of the book.  I’ve started reading Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed  and I still need to write the review for I Am Malala, and a friend asked me to join her book club so I need to get through Inferno before November 21. It’s all about pacing.

I had brunch yesterday with women I’ve known for years.  If you ever read my Mourning What Might Have Been piece, it’s the two women I mention in there that I am still friends with from that group.  We got deep quickly yesterday. L’s mom is very sick.  Like the kind of sick you sometimes don’t recover from.  And as we’re talking about that, we’re talking about all the things we’ve learned over the years, as if we’re 80 and looking back on a life well-lived. Except we are nowhere near 80 and probably don’t really know what we’re talking about; but  one thing I do know is how much I don’t know.  I also know that none of us get out of here alive.  One day, hopefully very far in the future when we’re tired and ready, we’re going to die.  None of us wants to be the last one standing- that’s so hard to contemplate, isn’t it? Outliving all your friends and family, so that at the end, it’s just you?  I don’t like to think much about that. It hurts my heart.  But, that was part of our conversation yesterday and it led to other conversations about the things that really matter to us right now.

We’ve paid a lot of dues over the years.  Weeks spent away from family and friends so we could work really long, stressful hours and rack up hotel and airline points for vacations we never had the time to take. Until we pushed ourselves so far that we nearly broke and we took that vacation or gave ourselves permission to quit or changed jobs.  We  finally realized- because we were finally with people who get it-  that it is OK to not respond to non-urgent emails during non-work hours. We also realized that we had to remind people of the definition of emergency.  We decided it is not OK to stay in a culture that sort-of rewards people for working way too many hours for way too many months on end for no good reason. We weren’t saving lives or curing Cancer.  We’d prefer to have a life, thank you very much.  So I walked away.

And now I work to live. And I cherish my friends.  And I get nostalgic. I get scared for the future. I don’t want  to be alone, but as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not the best at opening up.  I am beginning to see the path I want the rest of my life to take. The kind of memories I want to look back on one day. The things I want to do to create those memories. The things that, when I look back on my life, won’t cause me to say “I regret not doing that.”  I am figuring out how to do. How to be. How to feel it all.  And maybe, how to share it.

“Sydney Ellen Wade: [as they head to the state dinner] Do you do this often?

President Andrew Shepherd: Well, we had a state dinner for the prime minister of Japan, who died shortly thereafter, so we stopped having them just in case.

Sydney Ellen Wade: No. I mean, do you date often?

President Andrew Shepherd: Oh. No. You?

Sydney Ellen Wade: Yeah, well, lately I seem to be going out on a lot of first dates.”  – The American President

I’ve been doing a lot of first dates lately, too.  I’ll tell you a secret. I don’t love dating.  I especially don’t love first dates. I’m envious of people who think dating is fun. Of course, most of those people are in their twenties, when, indeed, dating IS fun.

Now, though, it’s – not a job, but not precisely fun.

For one thing, I’m awkward with dressing appropriately for the first date. I know, I know. Guys love the skirt or dress. The trouble is, a skirt or dress is almost always either a little too much or too work  or too casual for a first date.  All my dresses are dressier.  My skirts are either work appropriate or casual. There’s not much middle ground. So it’s stressful for me to find a cute, not-too-corporate, not-too-casual, not-too-dressy (and yes, there is such a thing) outfit for the first date.

And then there’s the conversation. One recent first date brought up politics on the first date. Really?  I tried to not engage, and keep things light, but it was obvious quite soon: we do not agree.  I did go on a second date with him.  We were talking about cooking and I mentioned that I don’t grill often because it’s a lot of effort (I was going to say for one person) – at which point he cut me off and said “for a girl?”. Which is a little funny, but…not.  I digress.  When the conversation is good, you discover some things you have in common- music you like, places you’ve visited, other random things you have in common. Interesting differences between the two of you.  But the kiss of death in first date conversation? Talking a lot about your jobs.  While jobs are a part of getting to know the other person, they’re generally not the main topic of conversation of any good first date I’ve had.

But the worst thing about (most) first dates? The disappointment. When you’ve hoped to be excited, you’re only meh. Where you’ve hoped for connection, you feel like you’re stuck making random conversation at a cocktail party where you know no one.  When you’ve wondered if this guy might have potential, and you’ve had a good time and all you get from him is “have a good evening.” No “I’ll call you.”

First dates- the things we do because some part of us believe- or want to believe- in love. Because no matter how bad the last first date was, we can’t help but hope the next one will be different.