Operating Instructions

Continuing my mothering memoir kick, I finished reading Operating Instructions for the second time last night. I consider this a classic in the field as well--Anne Lamott's journal of her son's first year. It is quite funny. This one IS a lot about the baby--a memoir of him as well as of Anne's experiences in becoming a mother (some funny, some sad, some painful). In her acknowledgments that open the book she quotes a line she says is from an old New Yorker story: "we are not here to see through one another, but to see one another through."

This jumped out at me, because when I worked at the domestic violence shelter in Columbia, we had a modified version of this quote on the wall and I also used it when I taught volunteer trainings. I thought it was part of the DV prevention movement, not partially plagiarized, LOL! Ours was: "our job is not to see through women, but to see them through." We mainly used this as a reminder if we felt like we were being lied to.

I also quickly half-read, half skimmed another of my Goodwill books: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work.