Traveling with Pomegranates

I visited the Ponce de Leon Branch once again, to return the Half Broke Horses book and got sucked back in to the big shelves in the middle with all the brand new books. I was going to just return my book and leave. I don't like being obligated to return something by a certain date and don't want the words "Library" on my already overwhelming, growing To Do List. But the word is there. On Wednesday. I found this Sue Monk Kidd book there on the shelf, begging me to take it home. Pomegranates. Sue. Due back next Wednesday. Impending fines. Stress. Obligations. But new and hardback and co-written with her daughter, Ann.

Mama used to read to me from The Guidepost, most nights honestly. I think she herself liked to read the inspirational stories and used it as just a filler to get me to go to bed. I know I would do the same. Just read to the kid till she falls asleep and you may as well read something you enjoy instead of having to do all the B'rer Fox and B'rer Bear and B'rer Rabbit voices. Exhausting. So I got Guidepost. Sue Monk Kidd was a regular contributor and her tiny square picture showed a woman that looked a little like my mother and a little like Kathy Oliver, but you don't know her. Sue lived in Anderson and her biography told us that and she had two children, Bob and Ann, her daughter just a little older than me. She wrote about being a nurse, and wife and mother. Her husband's name is Sandy and I thought about Sandy Moore every time she would mentioned him, but you probably don't know him either, but he is sweet. So I imagined her Sandy to be sweet as well and loyal like orphan Annie's dog of the same name. Evidently, I did have a vivid imagination growing up, or perhaps I was just very bored because my mother read to me from a magazine. But, growing up I felt like I kind of knew this woman, who lived in the nearby town. Mom saw her a few times in the mall. She recalls one time in particular where Sue was angry and was walking far ahead of her husband and daughter at a fast pace and it was clear that she was mad. So, after the mall spotting I just imagined Kathy Oliver walking ahead of Sandy Moore all in a huff while little orphan Annie just sat there in her red dress with that shaggy dog. Wow. That is such a tangent. But pretty true.

So I got the book. It is good! I am enjoying it. Almost finished. I read her others as well. In this one, she and her daughter visit Rocamadour in France which I find so incredibly ironic because Mother and I have been there too!! It is about their travels and their finding themselves and their relationship. I can't say Mother and I found ourselves on our journey to Rocamadour. We didn't pray to the Black Virgin. I just prayed to Jesus to get us home because we flew over on buddy passes. But the book is good. Nice. Well written. Contemplative. Sweet. The fight in the mall musta blown over, because they now live in Charleston and she writes a little about that too. The marsh, the birds, the beauty. I like those parts. I think you will too.