The Pink Book Club

I first came across The Pink Book back in 1996, I think some time in August. I remember being focused on my mother’s upcoming 80th birthday bash, which would be in September. I was in Costco, and When In Costco, Must Browse Book Table. I remember picking up the interesting pinkish book and having a somehow familiar feeling of, “Oh, finally, there it is,” as I read the back of the cover. I like to say, it called out to me. I am so grateful I was listening. I took it home and started reading immediately.

I got excited very quickly. I could see that it was written so you were supposed to read one essay a day based on the date. Well, it was August, but the book started in January, just like everyone’s year. So I started reading August, but I decided to also read from the beginning. I started again, this time at the beginning. I would read several days’ worth from the beginning, and then finish my reading by going to the essay for the current date. I felt so – in love, I guess. I had never read anything like it. Ms. Ban Breathnach speaks often of spiritual things, and I found this out rather early as she referred to Spirit and Source, and even God. The tough part for me was that I had intellectually been an atheist for over a decade. But the rest of her words were so beautiful, spoke to me so deeply, that I decided I could handle it, that it would be a good experience for me to learn to hear the beauty and truth of someone’s words and thoughts and cull out that which resonated with me, and leave that which did not.

As I said before, I fell in love with this book. I felt so strongly that I needed to share it, and I wanted to get copies for the women in my life. Some of you know that there are many, many women in my life. I have friends and a mother and a daughter and 9 sisters. I decided to pick up a book or two at a time. Then, as I read through the book, the idea came to me to get wonderful baskets and put the book in it, along with some ‘trinkets’ that would relate to the essays in the books. I realized that I could not afford to do this for all the women in my family, so I chose to do it for the two sisters younger than me, Roni and Gayle, and the two sisters just older than me, Leslie and Teri. So for Christmas I had 4 baskets, filled with the Simple Abundance book, herbal teas, a lovely china cup, a flowered book for journaling, another for pasting pictures in, and a few other things. By the end of the next year I had given a book (sans basket and goodies) to my mother, my daughter, my aunt, and the rest of my sisters, and also a friend. I think I figured that I had purchased 15 books. I read that book eagerly and did the little activities that Ms. Ban Breathnach suggested. One time, several of us sisters, our mother, and my daughter met at one of our houses to cut out magazine pictures and paste them in our discovery journal.

I read the book probably four times through the years. I had given myself a basket also (without the goodies) and I used it to carry the book around, along with the activities – scissors, paste, magazine, journals, plus other books I was reading. After a few years I wasn’t reading the pink book anymore, but I still carried it around in that basket. This last year – 2009 – was particularly rough. I was laid off in March from a job I had had for over 9 years. But I hated that job. I went because it was a job. But after being laid off, I was emotionally drained, devastated even. I went through some really goofy things. I knew I was depressed, because I had spent many years being depressed and had been treated for it several times. But I had my own treatment now. I was through with the Pharmaceuticals. I had read and learned and associated myself with people who taught me how to think myself into a better place. So I wasn’t despondent, except maybe in July. But I was in avoidance mode. I would apply for jobs, I went on interviews, and no one wants to hire someone my age in this economy. But when I wasn’t doing the job-search thing, I spent my time in a cave. Well, not a real cave, but my cool downstairs. I read novels, and watched movies by the score (I kid you not). And, I did some sly introspection. Sly, because sometimes I didn’t want to look inside. But by mid-August, I realized I needed to get back on the horse. I started reading some personal expansion books and then I noticed The Pink Book – it was at the back of my basket, a little dusty from lack of attention for a few years. I started the process again – starting on January 1st, I read a few days from the first of the year and then finished up for the day with the current date’s essay. I read her words again, and fell in love all over again. I realized I needed to share this with my daughters. I say ‘daughters’ plural, because my son Mike’s wife, Jessica, is like a daughter to me. So I started planning baskets. My daughter Megan still had her Pink Book from when I gave it to her in the ‘90s. I shopped at the 2nd-hand stores for baskets, and for some of the things in them like cups. I told my daughter to have her Pink Book ready for Christmas, so I knew she did have an idea that her gift would be related to that.

We started reading the books a few days ago, on January 1st. My sister Roni thought it sounded wonderful and decided to read it again. I had mentioned to my sister Teri that we were starting. She told her daughter Jen, and they are reading it again. Jen let us know it is one of her all time favorite books. We talked about it online, and our niece Rachel said she was interested, so she was going to order one, too. Then we decided it would be great to communicate with each other about the different things in the book that resonated with us. One of us came up with the idea of a blog, and that is how this little pink blog came to be.

P.S. – I am smiling as I report that I no longer am an atheist, not for most of this decade. I would say that my beliefs could be considered Personal Expansionalist (I made that up).

Victoria