Arizona
Suggested by: Karl (and Andrea)
Traveled: August 21-23

The Bean Trees was exactly what I needed this week. It was simple and nuanced at the same time, a breath of fresh air in a forgiving desert. It gathered up the darkest of the dark, the dry and hopeless pattern of the oppressed, and created a rocky soil from which something beautiful was able to grow. It was a story of hope. After the dismal stretch of Utah I had just traveled, and even moreso the constant depression of turning on any sort of news or social platform recently, humanity needed a win.

About half-way through the book, the protagonist Taylor says, “I keep finding out that life can be hard in ways I never knew about.” How do we deal with a world where pain and suffering goes to depths we may never know? How do we acknowledge the wounds that every single person we encounter carries with them? The Bean Trees reminded me that we have immense power. And that power comes in simple forms, through personal connections. The roots of sadness go deep. But the roots that we grow together as people go deeper.

For those looking for a book recommendation, here it is: read this one. The beauty and strangeness of Arizona’s plants and wildlife are almost enough to refresh one’s view of a hopeless world. The 3-year-old little girl Turtle and the rag-tag family that grows around her will push you over the edge. In this book, to borrow a quote from its own pages, “there seemed to be no end to the things that could be hiding, waiting it out, right where you thought you could see it all.”