Terribly Interesting

A few years ago, I read Anne's Permission to Speak Freely. Her words were moving and fierce. Immediately, I loved her. I love her in her newest work as well.  Lean On Me confronts our go it alone mentality. We refuse accountability and care. Honestly, it's a hard thing to do. I think our society is consumer driven in every way, even relationships. We often use people for what we can get out of them and move on. It is a challenge to us to develop honest, sacrificial, soul-satisfying friendship. Anne, in all of her boldness and beauty, lays out for us what that looked like in her life. It leaves you to ponder, plan, pray for what it could look like in yours. Personally, I found her story encouraging. She stayed with friends and went on a retreat at a couple's home when she was walking through a difficult season. She spoke of how much it impacted her to have these people make themselves fully available to her. Of course, that is near and dear to my heart. We keep ou...

Frances Mayes inspired my heart with Under the Tuscan Sun . When I saw that she was coming out with a book about returning to her roots in the South, I was excited to read it. She and her husband bought and restored an old house in North Carolina. The book did not go through that journey so much as her reconciling with her roots.  The book was not what I expected at all. It was melancholy, full of raw moments. It reminded me of Maya Angelou's autobiography. You get punched in the gut with pain and then you see redemption in it. It is psychologically fascinating to see where the woman who wrote Under the Tuscan Sun hailed from. It gives such understanding to what she traversed in life to arrive depressed and divorced at a villa in Tuscany.  This is the story of her growing up in the South with an extremely dysfunctional family. We follow Frances through the death of her father, grand father, and later her mother. Then we follow her to an all girl college. The things ...