One of my summer reads for 2022 was the novel Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult.
Here are some excerpts from the book that resonated/landed with me.
- “Inside was my father’s wallet, his reading glasses, his wedding ring. Identity, insight, heart: the only things we leave behind.”
- “It’s almost as if I had to stop running in order to see myself clearly, and what I see is a person who’s been driving toward a goal for so long she can’t remember why she set it in the first place.”
- “Busy is just a euphemism for being so focused on what you don’t have that you never notice what you do. It’s a defense mechanism. Because if you stop hustling—if you pause—you start wondering why you ever thought you wanted all those things.”
- “Well, I know why you love art, even if you don’t,” Kitomi continues, as if I haven’t spoken. “Because art isn’t absolute. A photograph, that’s different. You’re seeing exactly what the photographer wanted you to see. A painting, though, is a partnership. The artist begins a dialogue, and you finish it.” She smiles. “And here’s the incredible part—that dialogue is different every time you view the art. Not because anything changes on the canvas—but because of what changes in you.”
- “Grief, it turns out, is a lot like a one-sided video conversation on an iPad. It’s the call with no response, the echo of affection, the shadow cast by love.”
- “We don’t know what reality is,” Rayanne says. “We just pretend we do, because it makes us feel like we’re in control.”
- “Everything you’re seeing up in the night sky happened thousands of years ago, because the light takes so long to reach us,” Gabriel says. “I always thought it was so strange… that sailors chart where they’re going in the future by looking at a map of the past.”
- “I also know that when you’re in the thick of living your life, you don’t often get to push pause and reflect on it. It’s just really hard to sit in the moment, and not worry if pause is going to turn into stop.”
- “If you define art as something made by the hands of men, something that makes us remember them long after they’re gone, then this wall qualifies. The fact that it is unfinished or broken doesn’t make it any less striking.”
Author’s Note
On writing a novel that centred around experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic:
“The most pervasive emotion that we have all felt this past year is isolation. What’s odd int hat it’s a shared experience, but we still feel alone and adrift. That got my thinking of how isolation can be devastating but can also be the agent of change. And that made me think of Darwin. Evolution tells us that adaptation is how we survive… The last question I asked each of my interview subjects was, “How has this experience changed the way you think about the rest of your life?” Their response brought me right back to the concept of isolation. When you find yourself utterly alone on a rocky outcropping or on a ventilator, the only place to find strength is in yourself. As one woman told me: “I’m not looking for anything outside of me anymore. I’m like – this is it – I’ve got everything I need.” Whether or not we’ve been hospitalized for COVID in the past year, we all have a much clearer sense of what matters. Go figure – it’s not the promotion, or the raise or the fancy car for the private jet. It’s not getting into an Ivy League school or completing an iron man or being famous. It’s not adding an extra shift or staying late because your boss expects it of you. Instead, it is taking the time to see how beautiful frost looks on a window. It’s being able to hug your Mom or hug your grandchild. It’s having no expectations but taking nothing for granted. It’s understanding that an extra hour at your desk is an hour that you don’t spend throwing a ball with your kid. It’s realizing that we could wake up tomorrow and the world could shut down. It’s knowing that at the very end of life, no matter what your net worth is and the length of your CV, the only thing you want is someone beside you holding your hand. When I try to make sense of the past year, it feels to me like the world pressed pause. When we stopped moving we noticed that the ways we have chosen to validate ourselves are lists of items or experiences we need to have, goals that are monetary or mercenary. Now, I’m wondering why those were ever even goals. We don’t need those things to feel whole. We need to wake up int he morning. We need our bodies to function. We need to enjoy a meal. We need a roof over our head. We need to surround ourselves with people we love. We need to take the wins in a much smaller way. And we need to remember this, even when we’re no longer in a pandemic.”
Wish You Were Here, Jodi Picoult, March 2021