Traveling With Pomegranates

I've had a hard time waiting to finish reading this book so I could Blog about it! I loved it! And there is so much of it I wanted to share! It really needs an entire Book Club discussion for all the gems hidden in this wonderful little book! (Hopefully someday that will happen too!)

It's Traveling with Pomegranates By the Mother/Daughter team of Sue Monk Kidd (who also wrote The Secret Life Of Bees, another book you know I love!) & Ann Kidd Taylor (this is her first book) Sue is about to turn 50, Ann is graduating from College. Both are at pivotal moments in their lives. They travel together through Greece & France, in search of where their new lives will lead them. For one it's letting go of her younger self & coming to terms with her grown daughter & how that might change their relationship. For the other it's finding her path in life & facing adulthood. And for both it's about reconnecting with each other. It's beautifully written from both perspectives.

It also gives light as to why Sue decided to try her hand at writing fiction for the first time & how The Secret Lives Of Bees came to be written. They search for the feminine side of God & search out places in Europe that hold answers about Mary, and Greek Mythology. The Mother/Daughter story of Demeter & Persephone is paramount to the story of Sue & Ann. (It also gives meaning to why Pomegranates are important!) As a Mother (not all that far from the big 5-0, don't tell anyone) with daughters who have just become teenagers, you can see why I clung to much of what I read here. And of course I had to throw in a picture of me & my daughters, in one of our favorite places doing one of our favorite things! :)

And let me share with you some of what I loved in this book:

"I suspect like most mothers and daughters we've participated in the classic struggle: the mother, trying to let her daughter go while unconsciously seeing her as an appendage of herself. And the daughter, enmeshed in her mother's power, compelled to please her and pattern herself in her mother's image, but straining at the same time to craft an identity separate form her."

"What is the conversation that needs to go on inside of a woman at this juncture in her life?" "I know I'm here to enter that very conversation. To face irrevocable truths and grieve a little . . . or perhaps a lot. Then start to let go."

"I realize I'm still trying to work out the boundaries. How to love her without interfering. How to step back and let her have her private world and yet still be an intimate part of it. Every woman needs to become self mothering, I remind myself. To learn to take care of herself, to love herself."

"Knowing what I would like to be free of: the part of me that dares too little and fears too much."

"I'm filled with love for my mother. The best gift she has given me is the constancy of her belief. Whatever I become, she loves me. To her I am enough."