The Difference a Letter Makes

When I am tired or rushed I tend to misread words. I'll see "fried" for example, where "friend" was written. I realize this particular example may point to underlying issues other than fatigue, but regardless, when this happens I'll go back and reread the sentence, sometimes two or three more times ... pregnant fried?  She brought apple crisp to a pregnant fried? ... before I'll realize I'm reading it wrong.

Last night, I was finishing a book by Cami Walker called 29 Gifts, about the author's experience with the transformative power of giving and being of service to others. It's a good book, part memoir, part call-to-action, and I like the idea behind it (an idea which can also be found in the teachings of any major religion but is presented here in practical terms). In the back of the book, Walker includes personal stories from others who have joined the 29 Gifts movement, all of which are very touching and well written essays, by thoughtful and intelligent people.

So I'm reading one of these pieces, by a woman named Pamela Rosin, and it starts out like this:

"It had been my dream for many years to visit Indiana, so when my friend Juliana said, 'Come with me!' I jumped at the chance."

It was ten o'clock at night and I actually said out loud, "Indiana? Who spends years dreaming about visiting Indiana?" Not that there's anything wrong with Indiana, but I was beginning to feel a little sorry for this small-town woman. Jesus. Somebody take her to Indiana, already. It's her dream. I read on ...

"I wanted to drink in the beauty and the chaos, to breathe in the air of a culture and spirituality with a depth of history far greater than my own."

WHAT? I'm sorry. Are we talking about the same Indiana? If so, maybe I need to go to Indiana.

"More than anything," Rosen writes, "I wanted to expand my sense of the world through contact with a place so starkly in contrast with what I knew."

Good God. Where is this woman from? I scrolled back to the top of the page to see if maybe I'd missed the name of her hometown ...

Ohhhhhhhhh. (Ding-ding-ding! Oprah "ah-ha" moment.)

INDIA.

She'd dreamed for many years about visiting INDIA.

Well that certainly changed the story. I wonder what would have happened if I'd continued reading, watching in my mind's eye as the woman handed out free shoes to the throngs of impoverished Hoosiers, some of whom had "never worn shoes in their lives."

I also wonder how much else I'm missing, or how much I'm changing how I feel about people around me by "leaving out a letter" or substituting one tiny misconception where the truth should be.