37 Days to AWESOME

In what is probably going to be the worst book review ever, (my third-grade teacher who assigned book reports every other week would just DIE), I don’t have the mountains of time that I wish I had to write about this book.  It is “Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally”.  It’s a skirt! book, and it mysteriously arrived on my doorstep on my birthday last week, a day in which I often think about my death, (but not in a depressing way).  Just in a “oh-another-year-down-so-that’s-one-less-to-worry-about sort of way.

The premise of this book is that, at some point in our lives we are all only going to have 37 days to live.  That is profound in and of itself, to me.  But the author, Patti Digh, (who grew up in a small town in NC 20 minutes from where I grew up), delves deeper and poses the question, so, if you only have 37 days, how do you make the most of them?  And she doesn’t mean that you have to suddenly take up spelunking or run marathons or learn how to make a soufflé that doesn’t collapse.  No, this book is all about finding what out what is important to you, what matters to you.

I am head over heels in mad, passionate, dirty love, with this book.  First, for the shallow reasons: it’s really pretty.  No, seriously, it’s gorgeous.  Colorful pages with little bits of artwork designed by Digh’s devoted, (and apparently, wildly creative), blog readership.  Reminds me of a Nick Bantock book- whimsical and poignant at the same time. 

(And we all know how I feel about Nick Bantock’s books.  If you don’t, then just imagine that above statement about ‘mad, passionate, dirty love’ and apply an exponential factor to it.  Doesn’t matter which one, because I will always love it MORE than any number you could multiply it by, even if you could apply arithmetic equations to non-quantitative things, which you cannot.  But, I digress.)

Second, Digh’s writing is amazing.  Just amazing.  I have to confess that I’m probably not reading the book as intended- instead of doing the activities that go along with each story, I’m reading the entire thing through once, and then am going to go back and read it again.  It’s that good. 

Here’s a quote from one of the stories in the first section, where she is relaying the story of trying to explain to her young daughter “what makes you you?”  She summarizes the story with:

It is our stories of ourselves and of each other we keep in our hearts.  That’s what makes us us.

I had to read that sentence at least three times.  That’s how fabulous I found it.

Later on, when discussing a speech by Eve Ensler, in which Eve, (I refer to Eve Ensler as “Eve” so that I can pretend I’m on a first-name basis with her; my granny does the same thing with Tiger Woods), said: “Why are women immobile?  Because so many feel like they’re waiting for someone to say ‘You’re good, you’re pretty, I give you permission’”, Digh finishes by writing:

You are good.  You are beautiful.  You are smart.  Give yourself permission.

Wow.  Simple.  Nice.  And for some reason, it really resonated with me, which normally doesn’t happen with “self-help” books, but this book is so much more than that.  I’ve laughed a bit and smiled a lot, and she’s already made me cry three times- other ways by which I measure the quality of a book.  Seek it out, hunt it down, (try Digh’s own website, pattidigh.com, for an autographed copy, or look it up on amazon).  Just, obtain it, somehow, (preferably through legal means).

You shall not be disappointed.