Have you ever re-read a book from your childhood that you once absolutely loved? Did you still love it? Did its world seem smaller or bigger? Did you find things that you previously missed, or miss things that were once so profound? A couple of months ago I was walking past the "free table" at work when I saw this:
I snatched it with a Gollum-like fervor and hurried back to my desk. Delighted. Wonderfully nostalgic. Eager to read it. The fact that it was old, yellow and tattered made me even happier. This is a real treasure, I thought, to hold an old book. In that moment two waves washed over me. The first was the sheer fondness of instantly thinking of Lisa, my oldest friend, and her love of the book. We email throughout the year, every few months or so when something like this spurs us, and inevitably one of us references it in some way. The second wave brought the comforts of my old school, home of the Golden Wave, Dacusville.
I could see myself in that old library, sitting Indian-style (take your criss-cross-applesauce legs and eat it kids) on the floor between those black-brown stacks. With my head tilted sideways I could read each title reverently, just waiting to judge a book by its spine; to hold it in my arms; to whip out that library card and check it out.
Anyway, when I got home from work that evening I plucked it from the depths of my purse and headed straight for my room--my real nook--to read it again.
I found that I could remember it, but I couldn't really remember what was so great about it. I don't remember how old I was when I first read it, or when I read it for the second time, but within a few pages I found myself making a cup of hot chocolate--old school style with the milk in the pot on the stove--so I could join Meg and Charles Wallace again.
And then I tessered. I haven't turned pages quite like that since I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was so fun! I mean, I basically read it like there was a gold star and a free pizza awaiting my arrival on Cedar Lane Road. Real talk. Get that Book It! button y'all.
This time around I wondered about myself as a kid. How did I miss all of those Biblical allusions? Did I miss them though, or did I just readily accept and understand them--my childlike mind untested by so many disparate viewpoints and age? I read this book for pure pleasure, long before school required us to analyze and dissect it. All those correlations, the lines of L'Engle pointing and connecting so many dots with I Corinthians and Psalms and Paul's Epistle; it kind of made me wish I'd re-read it when I was in high school. There's no better or harder time to sing unto the Lord (or anyone) a new song, to risk testing the boundaries of conformity in your circles of friends ...
And then there was Meg, who knew she was so different and despised and struggled with being so. I liked her, but in my memories she worked my last nerve; this time around I still liked her, but spent many a page telepathically blessing her heart. But I always loved Charles Wallace because, like me, he was the baby of the family and he saw so much of everything and yet kept so much of it to himself that only a few ever really knew what a treasure he was.
Do they still list this book in the curriculum? My instant reaction says no--it's far too overt--but I think that'd be such a shame. It is quintessentially a story of good versus evil, of casting out the dark with light and love, of truly knowing that you and you alone have your own special thing to contribute to the world, and that you really mustn't be like everyone else all the time or ever--that you really will be okay. Better than okay even. You just might save someone you love by being you.
This time when I tessered through those pages, I marveled at how those words still echo throughout these days. Isn't it incredible the prescience some writers have? I most often think of this every time I hear "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)." Still, this book was published in 1962 and here we are today, constantly encouraged to be our "authentic selves" in a world with so many mechanisms, messages, mediums, other-words-that-start-with-m all herding us to the same places. Read this book. Get to know Meg with her different way, her infinitely interesting way of working out a problem. You'll find her with this blistering self-awareness that she is that thing so unlike all the others--messy, gangly flailing about and stubbornly determined, defiant to be herself ... because really, does she have or know of anyone else to be?
I mean, there is only so much trying one can do to fit in--to be as beautiful as your mom, as smart as your dad, as witty and affable as your siblings, as confident as your baby brother--before the utter exhaustion of all that trying just wears you down to the point of enough.
... and there you are, at enough. The at once dark and brilliantly lit place where what you know and who and what you love are abundant enough to set you free.
I hope everyone is still reading this book nowadays, but especially kids. I mean, where else can you meet strange, sweet old ladies who "casually tosses out phrases in French, Italian, German and ancient Greek?" And reading any of Mrs. Which's conversation requires a level of concentration that should defy all ADHD. I mean, you really got to dig what she's telling you with your game face on. Sheesh. The fight against conforming really stuck with me this go-round. When you think about how kids today are literally, utterly devoted to a group called One Direction ... I mean it just gives me the greatest pause. I am not trying to be livin' on Camazotz. That word sounds like it has a gagillion side effects. Do you think there's still a place for A Wrinkle In Time in a Botox world?