A word about book groups. . .
If it hadn’t been for mine, The Gift of an Ordinary Day might never have been completed. Month after month, my book group friends in my old hometown urged me on. They provided some of my better lines: “It’s not enough just to be normal anymore!” (Thank you, Caroline.) When I wondered if I had anything meaningful to say, Sue pointed out, “There, the story you just told about stopping to cut Henry’s fingernails on the way to the college interview, that needs to be in the book.” When I threw out half of what I had written, Deb reminded me, “It doesn’t have to be the greatest book ever written, it just has to get done.”
And so it was quite a moment when, at long last, I had copies of the bound galley in hand and an assignment to write some questions for a Readers’ Guide for the back of the book. Who better to help me come up with provocative discussion topics than the seven passionate readers with whom I’ve had the pleasure of trading books and opinions for the last nine years? Since our first, memorable meeting -- circled around a crackling fire, while a late-winter blizzard raged outside -- we’ve shared nearly a hundred books and countless hours of good conversation. We’ve told one another our secrets, confessed our fears and failures, celebrated milestones and happy moments, and mourned the inevitable losses and disappointments that are a part of every woman’s life journey. In a funny way, I think we may even feel closer to one another than to some of the friends we see on a daily basis, for together we create a sacred space each month, a place in which who we are and what we say will be neither judged nor betrayed. We know that what’s said in the room stays in the room.
It has been almost a decade, and much has changed in all our lives since that first meeting. Our group has been touched by death and divorce, illness and infidelity, unexpected good fortune and heartbreakingly bad luck. Jobs have been lost, new careers begun. We’ve worried over children who have lost their way, and breathed sighs of relief when they’ve found the path again. We’ve sent ten kids off to college; at this writing, there are still nine more to go. And as the years roll by, and the books get chosen and discussed and passed on, we also continue to teach one another what we’ve learned, each in our own turn, about letting go -- namely that life always seems to demand that we release our grip on the old before we’re afforded a solid handhold on the new.
I will not soon forget the cool spring night that my book group gathered to discuss The Gift of an Ordinary Day. The evening was bittersweet, for soon my friend Stephanie’s house would be on the market, to be sold, in accordance with her divorce agreement, after her second child departs for college. Stephanie isn’t sure where she’ll be going, but we all knew that yet another change was around the corner, that we would not meet in her cozy, candlelit living room again. My friends’ copies of the galley were highlighted and book marked and scribbled in, testament to the seriousness with which they’d tackled their task, of coming up with themes and questions. We poured wine, filled our plates with pasta and salad, and settled down to talk. The questions that follow grew out of our conversation that night. I hope they inspire you and your reading friends to pause and reflect on your lives, to attend to ordinary moments as if they mattered, and to come up with some questions of your own. For one thing we’ve realized is that sometimes the questions themselves are more valuable than the answers, which are always changing anyway.
1. Trying to describe the restlessness she felt as her sons approached adolescence, Katrina admits:
“I longed for something I could scarcely name but that our orderly, well-defined life seemd no longer to provide. Watching my sons growing and changing so visibly, almost from one day to the next, I sensed something inside me breaking loose and changing as well, something no less powerful for being invisible. It was almost as if, having strived for years for predictable comforts, urban conveniences, and the security of our well-established routines, I was suddenly haunted by all the things I hadn’t done, the dreams that might never be realized, the sense that the tidy, civilized life we’d worked so hard to create didn’t quite fit the person I really was, or, rather, still thought I might be.”
Have you experienced a similar unrest in your own life as your children began to claim their independence? What kind of movement resulted from these unsettled feelings?
2. “If you want to grow,” wrote Gail Sheehy in her self-help classic Passages, “you must be willing to change.” Change is a theme that runs throughout this memoir, changes both sought and unsought. As Katrina comes to realize, “our lives are always in the process of becoming something else.” What changes have you resisted in your life? What changes have you wished for, and then regretted? What unsought changes have turned out to be blessings in disguise?
3. When Katrina’s older son scores poorly on a standardized test, she knows that the numbers do not really reflect his intelligence or his character. And yet, so often our children’s potential is judged by how well they perform -- on tests, in schoolrooms, and on athletic fields. How do you measure success in your family? Do you believe that attitude is as important as aptitude? Given the competitive culture in which our children are coming of age, how can we help them grow up knowing that who they are is even more important than what they do?
4. Katrina falls in love with the dilapidated red cottage at first sight; her husband thinks she’s lost her mind. In the end, she prevails, but then doubts all of the impulses that drove her to want it in the first place. How do you make big decisions in your life? Do you trust your intuition, or do you listen to an inner voice that is more practical and well reasoned?
5. The solstice party is an act of desperation, an attempt to cheer a demoralized family at the end of a long, hard week. And although only three people show up, it works. What do you think makes for a good party? How do you create magic in less-than-ideal circumstances?
6. While stripping the paint off a collection of two hundred year old doors, Katrina allows herself to peel away some of the protective layers of her own persona as well. In solitude and silence, she initiates a long-postponed conversation with herself. In the process, she begins to practice a more mindful cultivation of gratitude. What layers might you be willing to strip away in order to look more deeply at who you are in this moment? Do you take the time to befriend yourself? What would it mean to become a better friend to your authentic self?
7. As we begin to honor our everyday experience, to value the ordinary, we become more open to the extraordinary. What ordinary moments did you notice and appreciate today?
8. Marion Woodman has written: “A mother who is identified with being mother has to have children who will eat what she gives them to eat and do what she wants them to do. They must remain children.”
A central theme in The Gift of an Ordinary Day is the challenge all mothers face, of learning to let go, so that our children can grow up to be the adults they are meant to be. Where are you in this process? How difficult is it to step back and trust that your children will find their way? What part of letting go has been the hardest for you?
9. You could say that the author’s search for a home is central to the book’s story, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her real quest is to arrive at a new understanding of what home truly means, once home is no longer a place where children are growing up. How do you define home? How has your vision of home changed as your children have grown up and away? How much of your idea of home is attached to a physical place? How much of it is a state of mind?
10. Katrina comes to see that the years of moving and transition have enabled her to avoid some of the hard questions she needed to ask herself as her children moved through adolesence, questions such as “Who am I now?” and “What am I called to do?” Have you had to answer those questions in your own life? What finally prompted you to ask them?
11. Perhaps it is human nature, but most of us fail to appreciate our ordinary days until something happens that robs us of the very life we so easily took for granted. Have you had such a wake up call in your life? What was it, and how did it change the way you view an ordinary day?
12. In an early morning conversation, Jack muses about how much he’s come to care about people he never would have expected to be his friends. Debbie and eQuanimiti Joy appear as characters in Katrina’s new life, but become unexpected friends. How do you make new friends as an adult? Have you welcomed people into your life whom you might not have embraced when you were younger? What unlikely soul mates have aided you on your journey?
13. Throughout her book, Katrina draws on the wisdom of many other authors whose words have inspired and supported her. Which quotes resonated with you? Whose insights help you to live the life you aspire to?
14. Hard as it was to leave a home and a life her family loved, Katrina eventually comes to see that for everything they lost, they have gained something as well. What have you been asked to release in your life, and what gifts have been placed into your open hand in return?