The First Pandemic Book I Fell In Love With
I wasn’t ready to read any pandemic books right away.
I knew there would be plenty of books written about what people went through and how they coped, how we all could reemerge in the aftermath. But it all felt too fresh, my heart too raw, for a long time.
So I avoided them.
All of them.
Maybe I had a right to since my whole family caught the virus within the first two weeks of it being announced as a thing in the US. We told ourselves it was a weird flu. It lasted for a month. Living in a rental house in Asheville, NC that spring, we found ourselves in one of the germ hubs and then had to move from there to Maine right in the thick of it. (We drove straight through 20 hours, barely stopping for food and bathrooms.) As a result, I created my heart’s own little fear hub. So it’s no wonder I wasn’t ready to read anything about it for a while.
Then, one day while at the bookshop in town, I saw a new book by Anne Lamott called Dusk Night Dawn: On Revival and Courage.
I took it home.
I was mesmerized by its milky pages and colored ink words, the way it made me want to hug my people more deeply and write in my journal, and how every page held the same raw, easy honesty I’d loved from Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird.
I loved it before I realized it was technically a pandemic book.
I especially loved reading in what I’ve come to know as Ann Lamott’s signature style. How she’s not afraid to say the things we’re all thinking but far too couth to say out loud — and how, right when you start to think, “Is she rambling?” the point comes around and it’s altogether, beautifully, unthreateningly profound.
It softened my heart right up.
Then, I decided I might be able to handle another pandemic-flavored book, maybe even a novel with masks and PPE and the whole nine yards. So I picked up the newest (at the time) Jodi Picoult book Wish You Were Here (the audio version was especially delicious).
I cried.
I remembered.
I loved it too.
These days, I’m guessing the pandemic is the farthest thing from your mind. We certainly all have plenty of other things to worry about. But I thought I’d share these two books anyway.
Just in case you could use some revival and courage right now.
Or just in case you want to remind yourself how amazing it is that we’re all out and about and busy, busy, busy again.
I know I sure need the reminder—and the courage.
And if I’m honest, a bit of a revival, too.
💛