This is my symphony

What I read

I’m a little late to the party judging from the nearly 13,000 Amazon reviews for Sue Monk Kidd’s Invention of Wings. The historical novel provides an imaginative back story for the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, Southern aristocrats turned Abolitionists and feminists. Kidd adds to their story a difficult and demanding mother, a spirited slave Hetty, and a glimpse into the social constraints of the South. Young Sarah, intelligent and headstrong, wants more than anything to take up law when she grows up–just like her father and brother. But that dream is punished out of her early when eleven-year-old Sarah writes a manumission letter for her personal slave Hettie. Such things aren’t done in the South. And certainly not by a girl.

Eventually, jilted by a suitor, torn by her father’s death, and weary of her mother’s cruelty, Sarah make her way North. She rooms with Abolitionist Lucretia Mott, then tutors the children of Quaker Israel Morris, becoming active in the fight to end slavery. After several years, Angelina joins her and together they inspire (and appall) audiences with their fiery speeches.

Invention of Wings is loosely based on the Grimke sisters lives, but the story Sue Monk Kidd weaves is captivating. It wasn’t until the novel’s end that I realized I had heard about these famous-not-so-famous women before. The Grimkes are the “G” in My Town’s public art project titled Rad Women A-Z which I wrote about here.

I also just finished a tender story about two young sisters titled This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash. I found the story reminiscent of Catherine Hyde Ryan’s novels: orphaned girls, fathers who failed, and attempts at redemption. Throw in a little baseball, 14 million missing dollars, and a bad guy–and you’ve got a story worth reading.

What I lived

We had a tree that we loved.

It was a majestic willow that grew far beyond our expectations. I gifted it to my husband nineteen years ago for his first step-father’s day. She shaded our beloved Trixie and got in the way of many a game of ladder ball. I grumbled after storms left her switches all over the backyard. Each summer the orioles would cling to her branches for cover before landing on their feeder.

But last week, after a stormy winter, wet spring, and windy September, I noticed her leaning. Then “Hmmm. Those roots are buckled more than I thought …” and later the same day, “Oh my goodness–it’s even worse.” Not a good sign.

Two days later the arborist came out and declared removal an emergency. Her branches leaned on the garage. She was a danger to people and property.

Over nearly twenty years, Willow watched our lives unfold–the good, the bad, and the ugly. We found a measure of grace in her shelter–and I hope her mercy remains with us still.