The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingsolver

“Moonlight was pouring in through the bedroom window like a watery version of my mother’s potato soup. Moon soup, I thought, hugging myself under the covers.”
There is, within all of us, a desire for our home. (And by home, I mean the place where you felt the most secure or the people with whom you felt the most loved) Yet, simultaneously, we long for adventure.
This is the story of Taylor. This felt very similar to my story. Taylor takes off on a road trip intending to find work and a new life away from her home state. What she finds along the way is a child dropped off in her hands as if it was a pet lizard that the owner no longer wanted.
Certain things are constant no matter where we are: Moonlight. Sunlight. Problems. Desires. Questions. Taylor becomes good friends with her boss, Mattie, at a car repair shop. When Taylor questions whether or not she can take care of the child, Mattie tells Taylor she’s asking the wrong question...
“You’re asking yourself, Can I give this child the best possible upbringing and keep her out of harm’s way her whole life long? The answer is no, you can’t. But nobody else can either. Not a state home, that’s for sure...Nobody can protect a child from the world. That’s why it’s the wrong thing to ask, if you’re really trying to make a decision.”

“So what’s the right thing to ask?”

“Do I want to try? Do I think it would be interesting, maybe even enjoyable in the long run, to share my life with this kid and give her my best effort and maybe, when all’s said and done, end up with a good friend.”

Taylor also meets two of Mattie’s “housemates,” Estevan and his wife Esperanza, who are running from immigration laws and a rough life in Guatemala. Estevan, who, in another life was an English teacher gives Taylor his own advice:
“Mi’ija, in a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is to make things as right as we can.”

When I wake up from one of my various life-like dreams I have here, I grab the covers and remind myself where I am and what life I’m living. Sometimes it takes a while to realize that my dreams are not my life and that my life is not a dream. Moon soup is a weekly delicacy for me.