To Kill a Mockingbird, Part 1

I dreaded today. Dreaded it because it is the day after the election — and because I have never actually covered an election, I was not quite certain how to go about it. Factor in the part about how I basically detest politics, along with the fact that I had a couple of photo shoots scheduled for this morning when I knew I would be busy putting together our election coverage, and add in how I am (somewhat) dreading tomorrow night as well because I have to attend a banquet (I cannot stand banquets, but not quite on the same level as politics; I mean, at least there is food at a banquet!), and there you have it: I dreaded today.

And everything went fine. I LOVE when that happens!

And why does that happen, anyway? Why is it that the things we dread most are never quite as bad as we had feared, and the things we look most forward to never quite seem to live up to the hype?

Well, I take that back. Oddly enough, without even meaning to, I have circled my way back to the topic I wanted to write about: an obscure little novel called To Kill a Mockingbird.

OK, so it’s not that obscure. In fact, in addition to my co-worker Lea, I am probably the last person on the planet who had never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Before yesterday, anyway.

And now I’ve read it. And what makes me smile and renews my faith, on some level, in just about everything, is how this book not only lived up to but actually surpassed any expectations I had of it — expectations that, quite frankly, had kept me from ever even wanting to read the book in the first place.

Everyone I had ever talked to about this book loved it: “Oh, it’s a Classic!” and “Oh, it’s so Wonderful!” And they would go on and on with various favorable adjectives, but no one would ever actually talk about what the book was about. And I had read just enough about it to know that it was about growing up during the Depression and racism and The South, and any time I had ever seen video clips of all-time great movies, the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird would always be included: dashing Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, wearing glasses and a suit.

I bought a paperback copy of the book a few months ago. Maybe longer. Not even sure why, except that I saw it at Barnes & Noble (I think it was Barnes & Noble), and I am pretty sure I had also considered buying The Catcher in the Rye at the same time but did not, for whatever reason. Took it home, laid it on my nightstand, next to the Nave’s Topical Study Bible I have permanently borrowed from my parents and the engraved Bible I received when I entered 3rd grade (or was it 5th?), tried to read the first few paragraphs but lost interest, and then didn’t pick it up again until this past weekend. And really, the only reason that I got started on it then was because I had been doing some cleaning, a bit of rearranging (I put the Nave’s Bible on top of the engraved one, this time), and suddenly thought, Hmm, maybe I should read this book, finally.

I don’t even know what I can say about To Kill a Mockingbird, really — other than I loved it. Because it is such a great story, and the characters are so unique and distinct, and the writing is vivid and honest and real. And funny, in that honest, real way in which situations in real life are funny. Except when they’re not.

And the book is insightful, too: As I read, I found myself making discoveries right along with Scout, and the instant I would realize that she was realizing something — well, obviously, I was not watching myself in a mirror as I read, but I am pretty certain that had I been, I would have seen my forehead make that little flicker of a furrow that 10-month-old Kameron makes when he is trying to figure out just exactly what the nutty adults around him are trying to do ... even though Kam is quite a bit younger than Scout Finch, and God knows I am much, much older than both of them, combined — anyway, as soon as Scout made a realization, it suddenly would click with me, even in those instances when she spoke of things that I had long, long ago realized.

As I closed the book, I realized it was about me. A little bit, anyway.

And so, when I was raving about it yesterday at work, before I had even finished reading it, and Mona was saying what a great book it was, I could not help adding, “When I grow up, I want to be just like Scout Finch.”

“I could see that,” Mona said. “You are like her.”

I am not sure anyone has given me a higher compliment.

: )

There is a part in the book, right near the end, when Scout stands on the front porch of the Radley house and looks out at her neighborhood. And my mind did that thing that makes it difficult to read, for a few seconds, anyway, in which I am reading the words but visualizing my own world, my own memories ...

And suddenly, I am not on the front porch of the house I grew up in — mainly because our front porch always seemed to be in a state of constant remodeling (still is, actually) — but on the front porch at Mabel’s. Her porch is covered but open, with a white wooden swing hanging by two chains from the ceiling at the north end, facing the street, and one of those slidey-couches at the south end, facing the swing. The porch is white, like the rest of her house, and the smooth floor of the porch is bluish gray, or actually more like grayish blue, sort of like this, only a little darker. And at the corners of the porch are wide square columns, and in between, the railings are wide enough to sit on, if the swing and couch are already occupied.

And if Mabel is home, she always has iced tea or lemonade, and sometimes cookies, and if she is not home, she lets us come up on her porch anyway. It always feels cooler up there, even on the hottest days, because the leaves from the two giant maples on her boulevard provide plenty of shade.

And as I sit on the north railing on her porch, my back against the house, my bare feet out in front of me, I look toward Chestnut Street. I see two little girls who could be mistaken for boys, if I didn’t know better, riding girls’ bikes — little red ones, up and down the sidewalk, and then, a couple of years later, a teal bicycle with a banana seat and high handlebars for the girl with the lighter hair, a fuschsia bicycle with the same banana seat and high handlebars for the girl with the darker hair (who’s actually younger but a little taller than her sister).

I watch them playing “pitch ’n’ catch” in the yard, and badminton, too, at their own personal Wimbledon, which is relocated to the street once they take up tennis. I see various dolls and cars and accessories hauled out and in, out and back in; other kids come and go, from across the streets on both sides of the girls’ house on the corner, from catty-corner, from ’round the block and up the hill. “No running in and out!” I hear the dark brown-haired woman say (she is barely more than half my age, but she is already so much smarter than I will ever be).

I look into the house, my house, and see, at the north end of the windowed-in porch, leaned back in a rocking chair, feet propped up along the window ledge, a girl wearing glasses.

She is reading a book.

No, wait: She is writing one.