Have you ever had an Amy Krouse Rosenthal (AKR) moment?
I read the title and decided to buy it. I didn’t look inside. It just seemed like something I needed to read.
When I opened it this morning, I was looking for a little writing inspiration. The first piece contains a scene where Williams spends time with her dying mother. Her mother says “I’m giving you my journals, but don’t read them until I’m gone.” Two weeks after her mother’s death, Williams finds three shelves worth of beautiful clothbound journals. Each one is blank.
I had given my own mother journals during the last years of her life. I hoped that she would write secrets, messages, wisdom in those pages. Words, thoughts, and feelings that I could hold on to after she was gone. That would help me become a better mom, a better person, a better wife. I found those journals in her “office” after she died. I couldn’t wait to read them. In the few seconds it took to open and scan each one, my feelings went from joy to anger to sadness to regret to resignation. There would be no secret, paper lifeline between us. I would have to be satisfied with what I had, something far less tangible but no less real, the cells in my body that contain her DNA and the memories that are held there, not just in my head.
I think I was meant to find and read this book.
Here’s AKR’s TED talk called 7 Notes on Life (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) – First one? (A)lways Trust Magic – Pay attention to those moments in life where purpose and random happenstance seem to intersect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxWgIccldh4
Ever had one of those moments?
Jilanne Hoffmann 
Hmm… not that I can think of off the top of my head. How disappointing! 😉
Really? You haven’t walked into a book shop, not intending to buy anything at all, when suddenly a book leaps off the shelf and falls at your feet, insisting that you buy it. But it’s not until you do that you realize this was THE book you’ve been wanting to read for ages??? Fess up. This MUST have happened to you at some time.
I’m feeling deprived now! 😉
Try this for size: I was in my living room one early morning, reading Animal Speak (a book on animal totems) by Ted Andrews, and I was totally absorbed in the section about feather magic. (Basically, feathers are considered sacred objects which can help us to connect with the more ethereal energies of life.)
I finished the section in that book, thinking “Wow, how cool would it be to have a feather so I could try some of those techniques?” I left the room and headed upstairs to get the kids ready for school.
On the fourth or fifth step up, what do I see?
A feather.
Oooooooh, shiver. Guess you were meant to make that connection! Thanks for sharing that experience, Kate!