“…I find one day and one hour exactly like another, except that the latter is still more tedious than the former. Let your experience inform me how the day may now seem as short as in my childhood, while nature was yet fresh, and every moment shewed me what I never had observed before.”

Rasselas, after a period of time between a realization that he needed to somehow find his way out to explore the world and find his own way:

“…but the months that have passed since new light darted into my soul, […] have been squandered by my own fault. I have lost that which can never be restored….”

‘Nothing, replied the artist, will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.’

—Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

When I began my bachelor’s degree at a non-traditional age, my very first class was Western Classics II at 8:00 on a Tuesday morning. I have always enjoyed books and the stories they hold but have never been a voracious reader, devouring books for purely entertainment. I have been long been one to mark and underline — annotating the text just as I annotate life.

The first book assigned to us was Samuel Johnson’s The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. (The title of this post is taken from the heading of Chapter 2.) As long ago as it was first published (1759), it was new for me. Although I could read for and process the ideas our professor was guiding us through, it was impossible for me to ignore several deep personal messages sent from the story to me. Our progressive and combined life experiences create a unique filter through which we process anything new that comes into our life. From the outside, most who knew the basics of my life would have assumed me to be content in the happy valley where I live. (I wrote the name of my town with a ? beside it the first time I came to that label —always italicized in the text— for the palace and grounds where Rasselas lived.) The discontent of Rasselas, though different from my own, and his quest to breach the walls of the happy valley to explore all the world held and to find his own choice of life (also always italicized) brought oxygen to a tiny little flame within me that had never been extinguished. And it began to grow.

I was very much at a point in life where I still felt trapped although I had taken one very important step toward making my life better: Going back to school. The obstacles to taking subsequent steps seemed overwhelming. And there was much beauty in my life even with the ugly that I kept secret. But the rumblings had begun. Scary as they were, I knew they were Good.

This post would be far too long if I shared every bit of text I underlined or highlighted. It is enough for me to put these thoughts down here and to turn back the pages of the book to read my thoughts and think about why I underlined and highlighted specific phrases, lines, or passages. The books I read over the next few years all are now like photo albums for me — full with images these markings evoke within my mind.

10. Just because people aren’t in our lives anymore, doesn’t mean they stop thinking about us and vice versa.

— Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

This is from Jeremy’s first entry in his community service reflection notebook. We could all learn from Jeremy’s drive to learn more about the back-stories of the people he meets in the course of his community service assignment. He, along with his best friend, are to return items pawned long ago by young people who felt they were at a crisis point in their lives — much like Jeremy feels he is in at the start of this story.

There are many poignant lines I could write about from this book, but yesterday this one seemed highlighted on the page for my eyes and heart. The sequence intrigues me. There are people who were part of our lives in our past whose impact is embossed within us. It doesn’t matter if the relationship was deep or surface, long-lasting or brief. If we continue to think of them, why do we often assume they never think of us too? Here, the emphasis is on others continuing to think about us before the vice versa.

I love the stories of the people I most cherish because I know the characters, the real people, from their life are woven together with all of the other characteristics I treasure. Granted, the stories that shape who we are now are not always pretty — this is real life — but the hardest times in life can enrich us like nothing else if we do not allow them to make us bitter or sour. Now I wonder even more how my presence in the lives of people from my past impacts who they are now and the stories they share.

As usual, my thoughts have wandered…..

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!”

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe __________ ,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”

— Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

When I was a little girl, one of the best parts of Christmas was wrapping Dad’s present for Mom. I found so much joy in choosing the perfect wrapping paper and in making bows from curling ribbon that I just knew were way more awesome than any found in a store. What I treasure in this memory has nothing to do with any of the things in the packages, just as my gaudy ribbon bows did not add any tangible value to the gift they embellished. (However, that my dad always asked me to do this —even his last Christmas with us four years ago— was and still is a precious gift and memory.)

I still enjoy many of the sights and sounds and smells of this Christmas season, but not when they become the focus or are used to cover truth. Yesterday while traveling, I began thinking about the made-for-television version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and decided to read the book again. Through the years, the story of the Grinch’s attempt to steal Christmas from the Whos down in Who-ville has come to have meaning for me far beyond the obvious. Thus, my decision to use the ___________ in place of Christmas in the quote above.

More and more I see that what is essential to our joy, our happiness, our contentment, our celebrations, our love of who we are ourselves as well as our love for those who share life with us, cannot be purchased or packaged. Try as we might to find just the right anything to give ourselves or others true joy, whether through material gift or gesture or words, it is never the thing that will give real joy — regardless of any ribbons or colorful packaging.

Just as was true for the fictional Whos, I believe that which brings the richest joy to life is authentic relationship. The Whos needed only the presence of each other, hand-in-hand, to have joy and reason to celebrate through their singing together. There is no store where this can be found. There is no way to package or wrap this or any place to add a ribbon. Beautiful even so, yes?

The story of the Grinch’s foiled plan holds a deep truth for every day.