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The Possibility of Everything, a memoir by Hope Edelman

I don’t often agree to review books that are written at an 8th grade reading level or above, because I am afraid that I won’ t have time to actually sit down and read it.

But when I was told about The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman (on sale 9/29/09 from Ballantine Books), my interest was piqued.

The Possibility of Everything is a memoir about Edelman taking a trip to Belize in 2000. She was on a quest for change.

She had tumble weeds blowing through her marriage due to her husband’s long hours at the office. And her 3-year-old daughter Maya was becoming unmanageable, with a dark imaginary friend named Dodo as an accomplice.

Is a vacation in Belize the answer to these issues?

I identified strongly with some aspects of The Possibility of Everything.

Difficult, intense preschooler? Check. Mine had sensory processing disorder. Hers had a disruptive imaginary friend named Dodo.

Phantom husband? Yes. Hers worked 16 hour days. Mine was on a different continent all summer.

Trip to Belize? Hey, I did that too! I spent 3 months in a Mayan Indian village (what I would call a “reservation) in 2002. I learned a few words of Mopan, washed clothes and dishes in a river, used an outhouse and slept in a hut. I watched a grandma burn hair off of a dead rodent in anticipation of a feast. I made gingerbread over an open fire and gathered jippy-joppa fibers for basket making in the rain forest. I lived without running water and electricity, and forgot what it was like to not have insect bites all over my body.

Hope Edelman went to Belize to reconnect as a family, see Mayan ruins, and take her daughter (named Maya- somewhat confusing in this context) to see a shaman, who could possibly rid her of the troublesome imaginary friend.

When I was in Belize, the Mayans referred to the shaman as the “bush doctor”.  There wasn’t a medical clinic in the village where I stayed, so the bush doctor was typically the first line of defense. I never consulted one myself, but I did have LOTS of villagers come to me for medical help. I am not a doctor. But I treated ringworm, conjunctivitis, and other minor ailments. They came to me because they knew I had resources.

I also had an interesting and frightening how-to book called Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook.

I walked for about 4 hours one Saturday to accompany my friend Theresita and her child Robert to a clinic in a neighboring village. Robert was 2 by this time, but on the day he was born, Theresita had been airlifted to Belmopan when her life was endangered by a difficult labor.

I say this to explain that I see the bush doctor through a different, less romantic lens than Hope Edelman.

Over all, I enjoyed the narrative in The Possibility of Everything. I felt stressed in the beginning chapters, which take place in California and deal with Edelman trying to decypher Maya’s odd behavior. She feels alone and overwhelmed. I think a lot of moms can identify with that.

In describing her city of residence, Topanga, Edelman made an offensive remark about her enlightened New Age peers, who were, “liberated from both a wrathful God and a benevolent, omnipotent Christ.”

This made me worry that the rest of the book continue to revisit how every conceivable belief system under the sun is superior and more evolved than Christianity. This is an attitude that I have found to be unique to Westerners. In all of my seven years in Asia, I have never heard an East Asian or Southeast Asian make a disparaging remark about Christian beliefs.

Happily, the “liberated” statement was the only part of the book that I read as off-putting.

Edelman’s writing style felt like a peek into my own inner running narration through which I process things.

As they attempt to travel to Belize, the family meets with nightmarish airline scenarios that delay their arrival by two days. I’m glad I was only reading about it and not living it! They definitely won my sympathies.

Once in Central America, they meet some lovely Belizians and Guatemalans, visit two different faith healers and mingle with other tourists.

I really enjoyed the visit to Tikal National Park in Guatemala. It was an educational look at the Mayan Ruins.

What I love about traveling to new places is that it changes you.

Reading Hope Edelman’s travel memoir of her time in Central America, I saw new parts of Edelman’s beliefs open as full blooms.

I completely understand why she wanted to write it down on paper and share it with the world.

Random House Version of POE trailer from Jeff Wynne on Vimeo.

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