You Could Make This Place Beautiful
the summary (no spoilers)
Poet Maggie Smith writes about her divorce as she is going through it, full of self reflection, grief, anger, and gratitude.
touchstones
We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside.
This is something I know to be true. I love the idea that I am continuously iterating, that what I am now is not what I once was, nor is it what I will be 10 years from now. I also recognize that although I am different now than I used to be (in ways I mostly value and prefer), I owe much gratitude to those previous iterations of myself, because without them I would not be here. Also true, when I stop to consider it, there are some ways in which I would be unrecognizable to my former self, and some ways in which I am the achievement of all her dreams. I carry those previous iterations, those nesting dolls, tenderly.
At the same time, I carry traits that are annoying even to me, and which I hope future iterations of myself will have finally overcome. The following passage was frustratingly relatable for me.
Was I easy to live with? Probably not. I craved time to myself. I thought I knew best what the children needed. I was stubborn. I disliked confrontation, so I could be avoidant or passive aggressive. If you hurt my feelings, I might have carried that pain quietly, but the quiet was loud… This is also true: I was - am - loving, honest, dependable, funny, compassionate, and loyal. But I was not my best self in my marriage, at least not toward the end.
We contain multitudes, so they say.
Sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed, my husband will prompt us to zoom out and look at ourselves from 10 years in the future. He says someday we will look back on this season of life and recognize just how hard it was, how much of a grind. I know that’s true. This week I was able to spend a couple of days at home with my 6 year old daughter while my one year old son was at daycare. It was uninterrupted time the two of us desperately needed, and it was enjoyable! Maybe that sounds like something either obvious or not worth mentioning, but it was important for me. It gave me a glimpse of what life might be like in a couple more years when her brother is also a little older, and that glimpse was peaceful, productive, not overstimulating. Enjoyable.
Every teacher is human. Likewise, parents are not wise oracles - they’re just people trying to shepherd other people through the world. We may know the right path to take, but knowing the way and consistently walking it are two different things.
We’re in a hard season right now. And it is endlessly frustrating to me when I see and hear myself acting in ways that I know are unproductive but which I just don’t seem to have the capacity to change because of the intensity of parenting very young kids. But someday the intensity will ease, I (we) will iterate, and we will carry this version of ourselves tenderly as another nesting doll in our collection.
My review
I’ve had this book sitting on my Kindle for awhile, waiting for a gap in my Libby holds and an apathy toward my physical TBR pile. I got to it at the right time for me. It felt meaningful, relatable. I could see myself in some of her reflections. I love a good memoir. I also love a book with super short chapters, where the pull of “just one more” makes you speed through it in a day or two. There were some parts that could be repetitive. I think a slightly stronger edit would not have hurt. That being said, I still give You Could Make This Place Beautiful 5 stars.