"Mamma, did you ever love us?"

I finished Sula maybe four or five days ago, the reading is going really well. The writing, not so much. I guess that lack of wanting to get all my thoughts out on paper comes from not being a writer. Whatever.

Aside from the plot of Sula, I found myself really focusing on the friendship between Nel and Sula. Because I moved at the ages of five and twelve, and to different states both times, I don't exactly have friends from birth or from a young age. I wonder if that's something I missed out on as a child. As much as I think their friendship has the potential to be a great thing for both of them, Sula seems to have different expectations from it all. Maybe it's her mother, maybe it's Eva, but I think Sula has an interesting take on what she needs in order to be successful in life. She knows she needs to get out of the Bottom, so she does. She goes to college and sees the country. Sula knows that one key to getting ahead in life is getting an education. But even before she acquires some sense of how the world works, Sula has a kind of warped view of how one deals with people. From the moment she overhears her mother saying that she doesn't really love Sula, it catches Sula off guard and hurts her really deep. When she watches, in fascination, her mother burn to death, Sula believes it's deserved on Hannah's part. Sula seems to have second thoughts about trusting people from this moment on. For Sula, Nel is more like a wingman than a friend. To her, cutting off the tip of her finger is not even a sacrifice for what she is able to gain from Nel, her trust.

Sula was able to obtain and hold on to Nel's trust, and for her that's enough to keep her from caring what her reputation is in the Bottom upon returning after college. Nel's ability to keep trusting Sula, even when she foresees the damage Sula is about to do in her life, is remarkable. Although Sula, the novel, contains so many more elements, I found myself applying the lesson of trust to my own life. I think my generation is a generation that often doesn't think about the future; how our actions and choices will alter our lives in the years to come. I guess this also applies to the people we surround ourselves with. Sounds drastic, but thinking on it some of the people I've trusted myself are people I now wish I never met. I suppose in regards to trusting others, one must remember to trust themselves first at the end of the day.

As you can see, pediatric psychology has already got me diagnosing the world. Or maybe that's my Winter Term boredom. I started Song of Solomon last night, so we're making the transition from chick book to dude book. The novels are getting harder, but there's definitely consolation in the fact that by the time I finish them, I'll be super close to returning to school. Praise Allah, chaa digg?

Chinwe