I love reading. It stresses me out not to have a book to read enough that I have some ebooks on my iPhone so that just in case I am ever standing in a line or waiting and I have forgotten my book, I still have something to read. I’ve been known to read at stop lights and have the girls let me know when the light turns green (Katie sometimes likes to tell me the light has turned green when it hasn’t because she likes the reaction).
My girls are also big readers. This sometimes complicates the process of telling me when the light has turned green. I’ve had to remind both girls more than once that walking and reading is a bad combination, and witnessed some impressive multi-tasking attempts with a book in hand. Watching their tastes in books develop has been a wonderful process.
For this year, when I talk about reading 10 books, I’m automatically discounting the pure fluff, “mental sorbet” that I have a tendency to pick up at times. While I enjoy these books, in my mind, they are books only as much as candy is food. Technically falling into the category, but practically missing the mark. For my list of 10, I’m looking for the major food groups of books.
So, the first book I’m counting toward my list of 10 is Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. This is the book the movie 127 hours was based on. I heard about the movie first, and stumbled across the book later, and after hearing the movie was harrowing, I decided to see what I thought of the book. Harrowing? yes. Still want to see the movie? also, yes. The idea of being trapped for so long and then cutting off my own arm? Something I’d rather not think about too much.
So what can I take away from this story without focusing on the gore? The first thing is that we are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. What Aron was capable of is incredible. It was a hard choice that makes most people wonder if they’d be able to cut off their own arm to survive. The answer there seems obvious to me: of course you would. How could you not? What got to me even more than that was how much he had to do afterwards in engineering his own rescue.
The second, and larger thing I choose to take from this is the power of a cool head. The thing that struck me most about Aron was that he was able to think clearly through most of his ordeal. Even afterwards when rescue was so close he could taste it, he kept a cool head, and that helped save his life. I don’t do a great job about keeping calm and carrying on. I let myself get caught up in the minutiae and freak out about things that are really not important: at the end of the week, it is simply not going to matter that one of my girls yelled at the other one before bedtime and they got into an argument. Obviously, a cool head coming in to diffuse the situation is going to be far more helpful than me coming in and yelling to settle it. And yet… I lose sight of that in the moment because I just want it over. So I’ll work on that some.
And the last was a Goethe quote that I love and need to remember more:
Knowing is not enough, we must apply.
Willing enough is not enough, we must do.”
See above. Now is time to put the pedal to the metal.
While I was reading about Aron, I thought a lot about my little brother. There are some personality traits that the two share, as well as an affinity for the same sort of music. That Aron left a corporate day job to pursue his bliss also reminded me a bit of my brother, since he also places more importance on what he wants to do rather than what he wants to have. About halfway through the book, Aron mentioned his birthday, which is the same as my brother’s. Aron is a year younger, but it still took me by surprise. Its all about the little connections, right?
Similarly, Aron fell the day before Maggie’s first birthday, so I could picture what was doing on the days he was trapped. It made for an interesting juxtaposition.
Overall, I’m glad I read this book It was an interesting ride.
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