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If someone were to ask me to describe myself, I would probably say that I am a lifelong learner first and foremost. Every single day I find joy in learning new things. Whether that is a new art and drawing technique, how our lives are entangled with the vast underground mycelium network, the latest “I was today year’s old” life lesson from TikTok, or the best pairing for a glass of Guiness as I traveled through Dublin, I take immense joy in learning something new.
Sometimes I learn these things by looking them up online or through travel, but a lot of the time, I will turn to books to open up my mind, to teach myself something new. And I turn to books, not just to learn practical life lessons, but also to take in the grander lessons we learn in life, like how to understand and deal with our grief. So, the following is just a brief list of three books that I turned to when I was feeling lost and was hoping to learn something new. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but these books align with major milestones in my life.
How to Draw Cool Stuff: A Drawing Guide for Teachers and Students. This book by Catherine V. Holmes is one that I stumbled upon one day a bit more than five years ago. I had always wanted to teach myself how to draw. I had doodled all my life, but I felt that because I wasn’t born with the talent, I was just out of luck. But one Christmas, I just decided that I was going to buy a book to teach myself how to draw, because, well, why not? This book is geared toward children, and I found that that was exactly what I needed. The instructions were simple and the demos were fun and easy to follow along with. It was a book that certainly shaped my artistic journey, encouraging me to practice just a little bit each day. And this artistic journey is one that I know will last me a lifetime, bringing me joy and new knowledge every time that I sit down to practice it.
Bird by Bird. When I was laid off at the beginning of this year, so many people told me to take time off and find myself. I had been working at the same job for 17 years; I deserved a bit of a break, they said. But I found that so hard to do. I immediately jumped into freelance copyediting the day I was no longer employed. I couldn’t help it; constantly being in motion and moving forward is my default. But I also decided that I was going to spend some time going back to one of my original loves: writing. I began by writing a regular personal blog post, but I also wanted to write short stories, and maybe even a novel. I realized, however, that I had absolutely zero idea how to get started. So I picked up Anne Lamott’s book, one that promised to share “Some Instructions on Writing and Life,” and I have never laughed so much at razor sharp and hilarious prose in my life. Lamott has a wonderful way of sharing deep truths about writing, while also teaching us how to become grand observers of our own lives. It is a brilliant book on writing, and on living, and I’m only sad that I had not encountered Lamott’s lessons earlier in my life.
Surviving the Death of a Sibling: Living Through Grief When an Adult Brother or Sister Dies. T.J. Wray wrote this book and anchored it through her own life experience and a strong religious belief. At the time, I turned to this book because it was specifically about sibling grief, and that very particular and searing grief you feel when you lose a sibling later in life. I had also read through the Kubler-Ross and Kessler classic, On Grief & Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, but this book promised me answers to my overwhelming despair at losing my best friend in all the world, my sister. Ultimately, I didn’t give it a very high review, but in the words of my Goodreads review: “...the anecdotes of others who had lost a sibling, sprinkled liberally throughout the book, were small beacon fires dotting a dark landscape of grief; I gravitated toward them because, finally, here were my feelings, lit up by others who felt the same.”
I will never get over my instinct to turn to books when I feel the need to learn something. Even when a vast digital library lies just a search box away, the knowledge that I get from reading feels fixed and permanent. It also helps me to feel not so alone in this world.
What are the books that have taught you great lessons in this life? Share them in the comments; I’d love to read them!
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