Challenged and fed

"It was just minutes later that the dolphins came. ... I had never seen wild dolphins before, and I laughed out loud as they swept past Iduna. ... they leapt at her bow and dived beneath us ... they would turn their heads on one side and look up, and at the same time I could reach down and touch them. This is what being here is all about, I thought."

These are Ellen MacArthur's words as she left port one morning on her first solo sail of considerable length (around the island of Britain) at the age of 18. Ellen's love for sailing and the sea came early in her life and quickly developed into a consuming passion. She tossed aside her thoughts of becoming a veterinarian, or anything else for that matter, and turned all of her energy toward her goal of accomplishing all she could as a sailor.

Taking on the World is Ellen's personal story of her journeys - both internal and external - as she learns about herself, about sailing, and as she tackles what to me seem unimaginable goals including a solo trip around the globe. She speaks with clarity, not shying from struggles and heartaches, but her joy and love of the sea and sailing come through.

How inspiring, how motivating to read someone's story as they pursue their goals with passion and vigor! What would I like to accomplish in my life? What goals lie hidden inside me? Do I have the energy and stamina to pursue them? Perhaps my goals are of a much smaller ilk, but I nevertheless feel energized thinking about the small steps I can take. I love what books do for my mind! :-)

And the there's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight - Alexandra Fuller's autobiography of her childhood in Zimbabwe in the 1970s and 80s. I related to so much in this book - being a white child on a continent of brown-skinned people, feeling like a native but knowing I somehow am not fully so, struggling to find my place in my ever-changing world. But unlike mine, her story is filled with heartache at the death of 2 siblings and the toll that took on her family, her mother's struggle with depression, the war and revolution that surrounded her. Yet she tells all these stories with such a light hand - not making light of life's tragedies, but taking them in stride, not allowing them to kill her spirit, finding a way to keep going with joy and perseverance. The book's closing sentence says it all:

This is not a full circle. It's Life carrying on. It's the next breath we all take. It's the choice we make to get on with it.

Once again, a book inspires me to not give up, to not lie down, but to keep going - and perhaps with even more vigor and perseverance than I had yesterday.