Book Club Feb 2017- Goodbye Vitamin

Last week, I attended an author event for the first time in my life. I listened to Rachel Khong author of Goodbye Vitamin, speak about her well-received debut novel. I always wanted to meet some of my favorite authors and ask them all sorts of questions about what made them pen down those words that resonated so much with me. How did they know about what I was thinking and feeling? Once a book strikes big with me I always obsess about it for a few weeks (or years in some cases) and end up obsessing about that author and watching all their interviews and listening to their podcasts. Rachel's book did not draw me in as much to obsess over her or make it to my favorite shelf but she still has a fresh and un-crafted attitude and answered all the audience queries in an in-the-moment vibe with what seemed like her honest thoughts. 

Goodbye Vitamin is written in particularly fresh format. In short choppy paragraphs, not exactly like a diary entry but along those lines. It is as if she is writing down the small notes she is starting to notice about her life and also sort of rewriting her memories of her past. The book does not have chapters and sections; it does not have a set beginning or end time frame. It's just a year in the life of a lady with a father who has Alzheimer's.

Rachel talked about how personally memories are very important for her. Writing down memories and keeps small notes on it maintaining a small food journal, bu the book is not autobiographical. Fun fact, Andy Warhol maintained a smell library. I have no idea what that is but that's how he preserved his memories. More than than thinking about the characters and events in the book, I ended up thinking about my parents and my family and wondered about how I would deal with their growing old age and how my kids would deal with me in my old age. I want to set a good example for my kids to follow. But I don't want them to deal with me in the same way as my parents wish for me to be with them. Maybe I should leave a letter or blog post about how I wish my life is to be dealt with in case something happens to me suddenly. But then nobody reads my blog. So there's that. I resonated with Ruth when she moved back home to be with her family and help them through with her dad's Alzheimer's. I think she felt more grounded once she went back to her roots and revisited her old self and had time to think through each of her life decisions. I thought about my memories a lot and realized that my approach to many people in my life is based on their past. If I have a happy memory of a person a long time back, who now is a bitter resentful shrew and best avoided from my life, I am still fine with it. Should I remember people by what they were instead of what they have become now? Should I be doing that? I think I want people to associate me as being the one person who behaves the same as always. I want to be the one unwavering constant in their life. Is that normal? 

I would uproot my entire life, move my family back halfway across the globe for my parents and never regret that decision, ever. Never miss all the might have and might be's in my life and I don't even think I would have much help or support in this matter but still I would do it. I think memories became so important for me by living with my grandparents for a few years.I also miss them so much and miss playing silly pranks on them and vicariously living their past memories with them. I know more about my grandparents then any of their other grandchildren. I relished listening to their stories about life in the early 1900's and living through almost a whole century. How I wished I was a part of their life in their prime of youth. 

At the talk, I wanted to get Rachel's autograph on a color printout of an alternate book cover which I saw on Amazon rather than the cover of the copy I got to read. Just to preserve a memory of my first author event. But I met somebody I know on my way to the event and she joined me for it. I got embarrassed (I have no idea why or for what reason) and I didn't go through with it. I just went home and decided to watch "Thanmatra", Mohanlal's heart wrenching and beautifully acted movie about a brilliant man who deteriorates mentally after he gets Alzheimer's and sobbed my way through it as I have done every time I have watched that movie. 

Today was the monthly book club meeting and many of the elder members of our group who had dealt with people who had Alzheimer's mentioned they did not enjoy the light tone of the book and that the author seemed to be making light of this sad and scary disease and how they dealt with it in their lives. I felt like they all had the same lingering thoughts as me and rather than discussing the book and its characters they all had something personal to share. 

Memories definitely color a person's perception of an event in their life. If we talk to another person who was also there in that moment with us and if they have another version to say, will it change our memory also? Will our perception of that moment be skewered or will we continue to hold onto our version of it? Will there be a moment in our future when we will stop remembering a huge part of our life? These lingering thoughts are all that we are left with at the end of the book, not a thought spared about Ruth or Howard and his pants which may still be hanging off Christmas trees this year too.