That Perfect Wrinkle in Time

Reading out loud to someone is such an act of love.  I adore it.  I have read to my children since they were wee babies.  I used to read prose and poetry in speech competitions in high school, which is really a form of dramatic reading up in front of judges and a crowd, and I used to be good at it; won prizes for it.  There's something about having someone hang on your words, as you breathe and speak life and heart into letters formed into words, formed into sentences, formed into deep meaning, all just printed on a page.  It's such a gift to be able to give.  These days, I am almost always on the giving end of reading, when I read to my children in the evening-time or to their classes at school, but the times when someone has taken the time to read books out loud to me... it's pure magic.  Absorbing a story through the voice of a loved one is truly a wonder.  I sometimes dream I'm being read to.  Clearly something deep in my psyche needs that. 

Tonight I finished reading out loud the last two chapters of A Wrinkle in Time to my son.  We've been reading the book a chapter or two at a time for a while now.  Not every day, but pretty consistently.  The only other time I have ever read A Wrinkle in Time, I didn't read it myself at all.  My third grade gifted and talented teacher, Mrs. Maxwell, read it to our class.  I remember loving it as she read it.  Hanging on her words, spoken to us, seated in a circle around her, in her gentle voice.  When I was home in Louisiana for this past Thanksgiving, I ran into her in the Kroger parking lot (I cannot go to Kroger in my hometown without seeing folks I know... ever).  Mrs. Maxwell somehow hadn't aged and still looked exactly as I'd remembered her, and it was this happy run in with Mrs. Maxwell that inspired me to read this book to my kids now.  My daughter wasn't interested in it, and she fell asleep every time we tried to include her, so it became something just Max and I shared after the first couple of chapters or so. 

*I certainly don't want to spoil the story for you if you've not yet read it, but there will be some spoilers in here.  Can't be helped.  So, you've been warned.  I wish you had a Mrs. Maxwell or a me to read the whole book out loud to you, because it's divine read that way, but go read it on your own.  Or out loud to your own child.  Or someone else's child.  Or come and read to me.  I'd happily take another turn listening.  Anyway... on to a few points from the book that moved me to write this.  That's where I was headed.*

I'm not going to recount the whole story here, but the gist you need to understand is the battle the characters have with IT... the Dark Thing... the thing that makes everyone it infects alike, rhythmic, makes them take the easy path... makes them give in to what isn't intrinsically them ("How am I not myself?" -- I Heart Huckabees). 

After the IT had held Meg's father captive for many Earth years, and Meg and her friend had rescued him at long last, he explained:

"Yes.  Nothing seemed important any more but rest, and of course IT offered me complete rest.  I had almost come to the conclusion that I was wrong to fight, that IT was right after all, and everything I believed in most passionately was nothing but a madman's dream.  But then you and Meg came in to me, broke through my prison, and hope and faith returned."

*And speaking of this same kind of real, true life passion, I recently wrote down a quote from my boss at work one day who said something along these lines... not quite as poetically, but still:  "Without obsession, there is no passion, and that's not a life worth living."  This sentiment keeps recurring.... Living passionately is not a madman's dream.  It's the very point of living.*

And now I'm going to, at my whim, chop and ellipses the hell out of passages from tonight's reading where Meg must save her little brother, too, from the IT... my strange run-on quotations may be a little of a jumble, but try to absorb what's there so I can give you the flow of the feeling embedded there:

"'Don't worry about your little brother.'  The tentacles' musical words were soft against her. 'We would never leave him behind the shadow.  But for now, you must relax, you must be happy, you must get well.'  The gentle words, the feeling that this beast would be able to love her no matter what she said or did, lapped Meg in warmth and peace. . . .  'You must eat slowly and quietly.  I know that you are half starved, that you have been without food far too long, but you must not rush things or you will not get well.'  Something completely and indescribably and incredibly delicious was put to Meg's lips, and she swallowed gratefully. . . .  Time no longer had any meaning. . . . 'Please sing to me, Aunt Beast. . . .'  It would be impossible to describe sight to Aunt Beast, it would be even more impossible to describe the singing of Aunt Beast to a human being.  It was a music even more glorious than the music of the singing creatures on Uriel.  It was a music more tangible than form or sight.  It had essence and structure.  It supported Meg more firmly than the arms of Aunt Beast.  It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real. . . .  'What can I tell you that will mean anything to you?  Good helps us, the stars helps us, perhaps what you would call light helps us, love helps us.  Oh, my child, I cannot explain!  This is something you just have to know or not know. . . .'  'Kindly pay me the courtesy of listening to me. . . [a sonnet] is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?  [And w]ithin this strict form [of a sonnet] the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?. . .'  'You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet?  A strict form, but freedom within it?'  'Yes.' Mrs. Whatsit said.  'You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.  What you say is completely up to you.'"

And when Meg realizes she is the one who has to go and save her tiny genius little brother from the despondent, cold, conforming force of IT, struggling with all her might through her terror of confronting the Dark Thing to get there, her guides, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which all gently lead her by her thoughts to help her realize she has something the IT doesn't have that will help her beat it, help her get Charles back.  Meg's heart pounds in her chest as she visualizes the pulsating brain on the dais that is the IT as she approaches it with slow steps, relying on pure faith that she will succeed, still wondering what thing it is that she has that IT doesn't... 

*And it is here that my son interrupted the story and shouted excitedly in a eureka of a moment: "HEART!  Meg has a heart!  IT is just a brain.  It has no heart.  That's why Meg will win!  She will use love power."* 

I don't think I have to tell you how the story ends.  But I will:  it, indeed, ends with love.  If I have been able to teach Max by my loving example through the years to recognize with such purity and excitement that it is the heart that wins before it's even obvious in the story, I swear I can do anything.