I'm not trying to turn this into a book club or anything, but I've been reading and it gets me to thinking. Right now, I am in the middle of a revival of sorts. For years it was a summer tradition to read To Kill a Mockingbird. A few years ago, I must have gotten out of the habit but, thankfully, I picked it back up this summer.
For Scout, "Summer was Dill." For me, summer was Dill, Scout, Jem, Boo Radley, Calpurnia, Ms. Maudie Atkinson, Tom Robinson, Bob Ewell and Atticus. For a kid born and raised in New York in the 80's, man did I want to be running around the dusty roads of Maycomb County. As I grew older, my focus switched from the kids to the adults. As it always does. I remember reading, and loving, the early parts where the kids were finding new and ridiculous ways to interact with Boo Radley and lamenting how boring the trial portion was.
I was on the subway yesterday and almost missed my stop because I was just about to get to my favorite part, the very end of the trial when Reverend Sykes tells Scout to get up, because her Daddy was passin.' I am now thirty years old.
As I make a major transition in my life, I often wonder why, exactly, did I decide to go to Law School? Before I even stepped foot on a college campus "I knew" I wanted to go to Law School. The obvious answer is that my father went to law school late in life (probably around the time I was Jem Finch's age, actually), and I admired him exceedingly. Fathers and sons. It's what we do, I suppose. He tells a story about when I was younger and we were out for a walk, he further ahead of me, and he turned around and started walking backwards to keep an eye on me. I turned around and started walking backwards, too.
The other, not-so-obvious-to-me-at-this-point-in-my-life reason was Atticus Finch. I'm willing to admit that at one point when I read the book I thought, yes I want to be a lawyer like Atticus Finch. I don't remember that internal discussion, but I'm comfortable saying it probably happened. The reason for this comfort is that I wanted to be a public defender. I wanted to provide a service to the Tom Robinson's of the world. I felt, and still do feel, that everyone is entitled to a defense no matter how guilty they are, or appear to be.
These values were instilled in me by my family, and a fictional character.
I am no longer an attorney. After several years toiling away in a career and jobs, where, not only did I not provide a service to the Tom Robinson's of the world, but often times impeded their attempts at justice, I gave up. I did not see it through no matter what. It makes me sad to think about, really. For the longest time I wanted it. To come to the realization that you were wrong, or that you no longer want it is just sad. It's as if I lost a dear friend; A piece of me. It also makes me angry sometimes, for a number of reasons. Angry that I felt compelled to take jobs I didn't want for financial reasons. But mostly angry at myself for giving up.
Am I a coward? The line that precedes that quote is "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand." Did I give up because I didn't have the courage to see it through, no matter what? Or did I simply realize the practice of law was not for me? I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Maybe I am seeing my happiness through, no matter what and thus what I did was the very essence of what Atticus described to Jem as "courage." Whatever the perspective, I know its not time to worry yet.
When I started, I noted how I had not read To Kill a Mockingbird as part of my summer tradition for some time. And now I realize, I had not read it for the entirety of my career as an Attorney. It stayed on the bookshelf collecting dust all those summers, until this one. My first since leaving the profession.
