Hope for a Sea Change

I was never, ever, not under any circumstances, going to buy a Kindle, or any other e-reader. Never. Well, let me tell you, when my friend, Elizabeth Aquino published her memoir, Hope for a Sea Change, I started singing a different tune. Sure, "we" have an iPad, but "we" aren't very good about sharing it, as in, I can not so much as glance its way without Wil freaking out. Sure, I have an iPhone, but you name me one over-50-year-old pair of eyes that can, and will, read a whole book on a phone! So, I put it out to the Universe that I was ready to buy a Kindle, and wouldn't you know it, in less than a day I had my hands on a super great, gently used one, for a song. It was meant to be.

I devoured Elizabeth's gorgeous book in two "sits." That's quick for me, and you need to take into account that my already slow reading was slowed even further, because Elizabeth's writing is so beautiful, you don't want to rush over a single syllable.

Elizabeth's blog, a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, is one I've followed for years. This woman does NOT experience blog inertia the way I do from time-to-time, she is a prolific writer, and I've loved being a fly on her wall as she raises her three children in Los Angeles. I love reading about Henry and Oliver, The Brothers. I love reading about the tremendous cakes she bakes (she's a former pastry chef). I love reading about what she's reading about. But most of all, I love reading about her now 19-year-old daughter, Sophie, whom suffers from a complex seizure disorder. Hope for a Sea Change is a memoir of Elizabeth's journey through diagnosis, understanding, and a new understanding of healing.

Elizabeth has educated, uneducated and re-educated me about the benefits of medical marijuana. I went from thinking I knew what it was and wasn't, learning I knew nothing at all, to learning a modicum of the profound benefits of high CBD, low THC marijuana for patients with epilepsy. I learned all about the Realm of Caring, and Charlotte's Web.

(Early November 2013/January 2014)

The memoir will make you shake your head at What People Say. It will make you ache for the torture Sophie and her family have endured. And it will make you smile deep within yourself as you read, "... it would fundamentally change the way I looked at Sophie's disability, at the integrity of human beings, and at what healing and curing really mean."

Elizabeth has done much through the years to reshape what I think about things politically, poetically and philosophically. Her memoir will most definitely affirm the integrity of all human beings.

Available on SheBooks and Amazon for e-readers (only $2.99).