Challenging Book, Interesting Movie

For the most part of two days I've been reading a new book. Women Food And God by Geneen Roth. With all due respect to the author, it has been boring me senseless. But I've continued reading it because it is work-related. Is there something here of value that will add to our weight management program at the office? So far the jury is out on that one.

I'm an incurable highlighter. Frank buys the pen-shaped painting devices for me by the bushel. If I try to read without one in my hand, alarms go off deep inside my psyche. The only way to disarm them is to inhale the smell of that fluorescent yellow ink as it caresses important inky words on the page of a book or a piece of paper.

First half of this book? Nothing worthy of the ritual. I found myself reading faster and faster, not out of enthusiasm but in an attempt to finish the damned thing and stick it on the shelf of our library as a testimonial to my suffering.

Then! It happened! On page 101 (of 204) a paragraph waved at me frantically. My grip on the ever ready highlighter tightened, and iron-rich oxygen-laden blood surged into whatever muscles are involved in the movement of damp yellow ink tip over the printed words dancing in front of my eyes. Allow me to share:

All feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story. It wants to dissolve like a thousand writhing snakes that, with a flick of kindness, become harmless strands of rope.

A weight has been lifted from me, no pun intended (as this is a book about women struggling with their weight). The author has redeemed herself in my eyes. So I read on, more hopeful now. A few pages later I read, then reread to highlight: Feelings are in the body, reactions are in the head; a reaction is the mental deduction of a feeling. And beliefs are reactions that we've had so many times we believe they are true. " (For me, Simple + Succinct = win/win.)

A few more turns of the page and I find, "The mind, as Catherine Ingram says, is mad. And this is very good news. Because once you accept the madness, once you stop trying to reform what cannot be reformed, you can pay attention to what isn't mad..."

This is where I stop to reflect on a movie Frank and I watched last night -- Accidental Happenings. It was... different. I like different. Different intrigues me. The underlying premise of this film rested on the question of madness. Was the more-than-slightly-confused love interest crazy? Or was he sharing an unconventional truth? Hmmm... my opinion wavered from scene to scene -- which was, I'm certain, the intent of the writer. In the end, an answer is provided, a verdict rendered. My verdict: good flick. Not quite but almost up there with Don Juan DeMarco.

The book I'm reading? Nowhere close to Women Who Run With the Wolves, but at least it has my interest now. Sometimes you have to sift through a lot of sand to find a seashell or two, so now it's back to the hunt, highlighter in hand. Probably won't need the backup, but you never know.