On Babies, Problems, Anxious People, and Answers

Babies and dogs are good listeners. Even when they aren’t paying attention, it is really easy to talk to them, to tell them your problems. They don’t care about anything other than their own needs, but at least they don’t offer advice. When I spent time with my granddaughter in July, I told her all about my worries. I described all the moving parts in my life and how I couldn’t quite get them to settle and mesh.

While I rocked her to sleep, one of the songs I sang was “The Wheels on the Bus Go ’Round and ’Round.” I never used that song as a lullaby when my kids were babies, but anything long and rhythmic seems to work. I made up verses for my granddaughter until that bus was very crowded. It not only had the driver saying “move on back” and a dog saying “woof, woof, woof,” but also a cow saying “moo, moo, moo,” as well as many other assorted other animals and people. A man who was “on his phone, on his phone, on his phone,” and a lady who went “knit, knit, knit,” etc.

And then I got to the grandma on the bus. What did the grandma on the bus say? Well, due to all the moving parts in my life, all I could think of to sing was “the grandma on the bus says ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.’”

Because this grandma doesn’t know how she’s going to resolve all her concerns.

My granddaughter didn’t seem to care that I didn’t know, that most of the problems I told her about did not have answers.

One of my favorite books is A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman. I’ve had his Anxious People on my to-be-read list for some time, so I was happy when a friend selected it for one of my book clubs. A few weeks ago, I launched into reading Anxious People, chuckling on almost every page at Backman’s humor, dark though that humor often was.

But one day as I read Anxious People, I found myself too anxious to read it. For a few days, I had to put Backman’s novel aside for another fluffier book.

A few days later, when I felt stronger, I returned to reading Anxious People. Finally, I reached the last few chapters.

Near the end of the book, one character has just made a major life decision. Another character asks her, “What are you going to do from now on?”

The first character responds, “I don’t know.”

And the other character says, “Not knowing is a good place to begin.”

Which was a sign to me that it’s all right for this grandma not to have the answers to her problems. And it’s okay for this grandma on the bus to continue to say, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

One finds wisdom and answers in the strangest places.

When have you found wisdom in a novel?