The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

I knew little about this book when I picked it up. It's one of my favourite things about reading -- having something amazing unfold itself slowly before my very eyes. I chose it because I knew and loved the author, Sue Monk Kidd. Initially captivated by her writing and spirit in The Secret Life of Bees. My graduate work led me to her work in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and eventually to Traveling with Pomegranates. I seem to naturally find my way to works about mothers and daughters. Traveling with Pomegranates at once made me sad -- that I hadn't been able to travel more with my mother -- and hopeful -- for the days when Katie and I could travel together.

The Invention of Wings was so much more than I could ever have imagined, could ever have hoped for. It's intertextuality, whether purposeful or coming naturally from the fundamental feminist works, Kidd echoes Virginia Woolf's voice in A Room of One's Own in Lucretia Mott's "odd little nook of a room. A studio ... [t]he room was not for cooking or sewing or childcare or entertaining" (273). Lucretia's room belongs to her and is not shared with any of the typical womanly tasks but rather a place to study, read, and create. It is within the walls of this room that Sarah, realizes what she envies most about Lucretia -- her sense of belonging. It's the perfect setting for Sarah's question, "Why would God plant such deep yearnings in us ... if they only come to nothing?". This truly is the question that whole book is set upon --answering to that we yearn for and the price that must be paid for dreams.

The other piece of intertextuality -- again whether deliberate on Kidd's part or not -- that resonated with me was a piece by Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens". Walker speaks to the creativity found in all of us and how even in the harshest circumstances this creativity manifested itself for black slave women through singing, quilting, and gardening. Walker recalls how black women were called "'the mule of the world,' because [they] have been handed the burdens that everyone else -- everyone else refused to carry" (91). Despite Handful's small physical stature, she is left to carry the burdens of others, especially her mother and sister. But like the mule, Charlotte personifies the stubbornness of the mule in her desire for freedom and journey back to Handful.

In the same way that Kidd was inspired by the quilts of Harriet Powers, "an enslaved woman from Georgia who used African applique technique to tell stories" and whose last remaining quilts are part of the collection at the National Museum of American History. Walker's essay also refers to a quilt on display at the Smithsonian Institute, "unlike any other in the world ... it follows no known pattern of quilt-making, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling" (92-3). The artist of this quilt "an anonymous Black woman in Alabama, a hundred years ago" (93). Kidd captures the importance of the quilt Charlotte sews not only as an expression of her artistry, but as a way to tell her life story in the only language she knows -- sewing, "[g]oing picture to picture, felt like I was turning the pages in a book she'd left behind, one that held her last words?" (147). The quilt also stands as a symbol of hope for the future -- a place to hide their dreams. I think it is particularly poignant when the quilt is unintentionally revealed to Mary -- laying bare the harshness of Charlotte's life for "her owner" to see. Where Handful and Charlotte express their artistry in cloth, Sky's expression is through the soil and her gardens.

It wasn't until the end of the book that I learned how much of this book was based in fact, on the letters, diaries, and writings of the real sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke. I think it was more powerful for me to come to this realization at the end, rather than the beginning, of the book. I can only imagine their courage and the hardships they faced.

"History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own" ~ Julius Lester (quoted in The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd)

Dreams

I have been dreaming about my mom lately. This is such a bittersweet experience leaving me oddly satisfied and unsatisfied upon waking. When I wake from these dreams, which don't happen all that often, I immediately attempt to go back there but she is always just out of reach like a troublesome word on the tip of your tongue that despite how hard you try to grab at it, it simply slips a little further out of reach.

My dreams of her are always vivid and usually she has a message for me. The first of these dreams came a few weeks after she left us. I remember it like it happened yesterday although it was over 5 years ago. We were walking arm and arm on a cruise ship (hey, I didn't say they entirely make sense), she was also holding hands with Bob. She told me that I had Dave and the kids and that Mike would be okay as well.

The next time she came to me, we were at a Ryan family party -- a baby or bridal shower. She was at the fridge loading the blender with ice for a batch of her famous margaritas. I asked her when she was coming home and she told me gently she wasn't. Satisfying and unsatisfying. And frustrating, as I can't call her to me at will -- she only comes when she comes. Despite my most earnest efforts, I can make these dreams happen.

Dave and I have had long talks about these dreams. I truly believe that it is my mom coming to visit, coming to me when I need her. Dave believes they are my subconscious giving me the comfort that I need when I need it. I like my explanation better but either way the take away is an oddly unsatisfying comfort.