But that was before I read Lessons in Chemistry. Note: the Amazon description does not do it justice.
It had been in my library queue for ages - in audiobook form because I spend a lot of time in the car alone after I drop my students wherever they are going - so when it popped up as available, I grabbed it.
I listened to the first two chapters and then texted my mom that it was hilarious and thanks for the recommendation. "Well," she said, "It is hilarious, in the same way that the Barbie movie was hilarious."
And she was right. It is. In a laugh-because-we-dare-not-cry sort of way, about the awfulness that is the world we live in.
I know not everyone - even other women - feels this way about Barbie, but I sure did.
Anyway, I finished Lessons in Chemistry on Thursday, it is now Saturday, and I've been processing it in the back of my mind for two days now. This may not have been enough; I'm still unable to articulate everything I loved, hated, identified, related, etc., about it.
I know there's a series or a movie, but I don't currently have AppleTV and I've only seen clips. I'm not sure whether a film or series could do it justice any more than the Amazon description did, but I'll find out eventually.
There were laugh-out-loud spots, especially of the rueful-because-of-patriarchy sort, and one line something like, "Harriet exhaled loudly in a mixture of wonder and irritation," that more or less summed up every conversation I've had with my own younger (and AuDHD) kid since she learned to talk (about 15 years ago).
My mom said she felt the same way, except that when Lizzy got here, she already had decades of experience in this, because of me.
We are a neurodivergent bunch over here, after all.
See? How many tangents are in my last few lines? That would be the ADHD.
And also, evidently, delayed processing, because I am still trying to figure out how to say the important things I felt/observed/identified-with while reading this book.
However, one of the things - that may seem unrelated to those who haven't followed me down my ADHD garden path here - that it made me realize/remember is that my own mental health is strongly affected by little things. In this case, the little thing that popped up was the page design of my blog, which has been indicative of Dreary Seattle Winter for a few years now. It has always been my go-to background (because I live in Dreary Seattle Winter and because my favorite color is blue), though I have switched it up a bit now and then.
This time I switched it up a lot. Brighter colors, easier-to-read text, etc.
It's like the blog equivalent of getting a new hair color or buying new clothes.
Maybe that'll hold me through the rest of Hibernation Season.
Most of the characters in the book - as well as likely being all over the color wheel that is the autism spectrum - do not enjoy particularly good mental health. Some of this is the setting - extra-super-duper-awful-patriarchy-of-1954-through-1962 - and some is intrinsic to each person. But given the stated reason for living in a given area in the book, seasonal depression is also a factor. Hence the personal blog color change.
I could move these paragraphs around to make them more linear instead of the winding garden path.
But in an effort to be true to how Lessons in Chemistry made me feel, I think I'll leave it this way: scattered, meandering, but still finding profound meaning in simple things.
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