"I Never Knew Despair Could Lie"
I recently read Mary Karr’s acclaimed memoir, The Liars Club. It’s weighty. It’s probably the first book I’ve read in my adult life that contains zero unimportant words. Even with light happenings, a dark thread is woven behind them. The writing is so intentional. I finished reading it back in September (?) but one new thing I’m trying to do is go back and take notes from all the doggy-eared pages after I’m done as a way to savor some juice out of it. The simple act of typing out the inspired words of others can make them stick to my thoughts sometimes. Recently, I just finished these notes on this book. The corner of the very last page was neatly folded down like a reading tracker unintentionally over the word ‘fireflies’ - probably the most purposeful word she wrote on that particular page. She was surprised to see so many active fireflies so close to the poisons from the oil refinery in town. She was further surprised that they would show up during such a depressing season