The Possibility of Everything
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Synopsis:
http://www.thepossibilityofeverything.com
In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her place in her marriage, her profession, and the larger world. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, she was primed for change. Into her stagnant routine dropped Dodo, her three-year old daughter Maya’s curiously disruptive imaginary friend. Dodo is ever-present and becoming more aggressive by the day, forcing Edelman to confront the possibility that something is going seriously awry with her child. After consulting mainstream health professionals for help and getting nowhere, Edelman and her husband made the unlikely choice to bring their daughter to Mayan healers in Belize, hoping that they might help banish Dodo—and, as they came to understand, all he represented—from their lives.
Examining how an otherwise mainstream mother and wife finds herself making this unorthodox choice, The Possibility of Everything chronicles the magical week in Central America that transformed Edelman from a person whose past had led her to believe only in the visible and the “proven” to someone open to the idea of larger, unseen forces. A deeply affecting and beautifully written memoir of a family’s emotional journey, it explores what Edelman and her husband went looking for in the jungle and what they ultimately discovered—as parents, as spouses, and as ordinary people—about the things that possess and destroy, or that can heal us all.
Book Excerpt:
Introduction
Cayo District, Belize
December 24, 2000
A ragged, mostly dirt road twists through six miles of rainforest in western Belize, linking the villages of Cristo Rey and San Antonio. If you make this drive a day after a heavy December rain, as my husband, Uzi, and I do, the road will still be gluey and ripe. Its surface will be the color and consistency of mango pudding. You might focus intensely on these two elements, mango and pudding, to divert your attention from how the white van you’re riding in keeps sashaying across the slippery road. And you might look down at the three-year-old lying across your lap and think about how she is a child who loves mangoes and loves pudding but that you have never thought to put the two together for her before. You might look at her and think, Mango pudding! Great idea! Let’s find a way to make some tonight! Or you might think, If you’ll be okay, I’ll make you mango pudding every night for the rest of your life. Or you might look down at her and just think, Please, and leave it at that.
Topics/Categories:
Alternate Spirituality, alternative medicine, Body Mind & Spirit/Inspiration & Personal Growth, Central America, Central American travel, Family, healing, Mothers and Daughters, Personal Transformation
Genre:
Ancient Culture, Family - Relationships, Healing, Holistic Medicine, Memoir, Motherhood, Narrative Nonfiction, Parenting, Travel, Travel Literature, Women's Literature
Type of Work:
Publishers:
Purchase From:
The Possibility of Everything web site
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Amazon
Original Publish Date:
September 15, 2009
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