Tune your heart
Tuesday, February 4, 2014 at 10:07AM 
"I once knew someone who could tune a heart."
"Tune a heart?" I asked, wondering if I had understood him correctly.
"Yes, like an instrument. If a heart was out of tune, he would retune it."
from A Well-Tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker
It's funny how sometimes things just fall into your lap, how sometimes there just seem to be these repeated coincidences that don't feel like coincidences. How everyone is talking about just what you need to hear.
Times that feel fat with meaning, full of Whoa.
Reading A Well-Tempered Heart was just like that for me.
OK, so this story, the second in a series about an American woman in Burma, doesn't have all that much to do with me. Her story is not my story.
And yet, in the way of books, of course her story is my story. The story of all of the characters we meet in this book, their stories are my story.
Especially the bit about tuning a heart, about how our experiences can throw us off, affect the very rhythm that animates our being.
Oh, how I've been feeling that lately, feeling this strong (irrational) push to do whatever it takes to get back in tune. That's the internal voice that's been talking to me, first in a whisper, then more loudly, to stop what I'm doing, start doing something else, something better, something that will allow my own heart to beat in its own way.
I didn't even choose this book.
It's the February selection of From Left To Write, so it feels even more serendipitous, more strangely appropriate, that this book should be in front of my eyes, just now, when I need to consider these very issues in my own life.
And consider them, not by looking at them so much square in the face, straight-on, but kind of from the side, through the prism of this story, sideways, refracted.
Oh books, such a wonder! And book club: such a gift!
This particular book, A Well-Tempered Heart, might not have the same impact on you. It might not be The Book you need to read right now. I don't know: in a year, it might not do for me what it did two weeks ago when I read it.
But for me, at this time in my life, BAM. On the nose.
With a prickly feeling of near-prophecy.
And just like that, the voice I've been hearing, that whisper turned to a roar, now sings sweetly, softly, now that I'm *this* close, just eight days away, from the start of figuring out a new road for myself.
Now that I'm doing the work of tuning my own heart.
XX
This post was inspired by the novel A Well-Tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker. Feeling lost and burned out, Julia drops her well paying job at a NYC law firm. After hearing a stranger’s voice in her head, she travels to Burma to find the voice’s story and hopefully herself as well. Join From Left to Write on February 4 we discuss A Well-Tempered Heart. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.
Reader Comments (4)
The universe is definitely trying to tell you something!
it'll be interesting to see what happens in eight days!
Isn't it funny how books speak directly to us sometimes!!
All this talk of serendipity and tuning hearts in regards to this book - I'm sad I sat this one out! It's funny how something can speak so loudly to you, even if it is by way of whimsical accident!