S2 E22 - Beauty of Run Rose Run
Transcription
Hi, and welcome to Graced By Rain, a podcast about the beauty in life. I'm your host, Elaine Shircliff
Hello everybody. Welcome back. If you know me well enough, you know that I absolutely love books. I have a library in my house and when I was younger, I was babysat by the librarians at Lyons Public Library. So books have been a passion of mine for a while. Thanks to the people at that library, the other babysitters we have in town, the fact that my mom always read to me. So did my grandparents, everyone just loved reading to me and telling me stories and so as I grew older, it just became very, very passionate about books.
The thing about books is you don't have to be reading Shakespeare all the time. And you don't have to read Kurt Vonnegut or even any of the books that we are told to read in, in school. You know, almost everyone has to read To Kill a Mockingbird and I know a lot of people that don't even like that book, and that's fine. Like most art, because that's what a lot of books are is art. It's the art of telling a story. It is all about your taste and what resonates within you. I don't really have a genre that I don't like, but there are books within that genre I don't like. Reading is all about what pulls you in. What resonates in your soul or in your brain, your heart. It shouldn't feel like a chore. So if you find a book, an author, a genre, any of those things that you love, embrace it, and love it. And don't be ashamed of the things that you're reading.
Another thing that you will know about me is that I absolutely love Dolly Parton. Everything about her. She is a kind, compassionate woman. Her artistry is off the board. She's just an incredible artists. I mean seriously listen to some of the music that she's written. And some of the music that she herself sings. She puts her whole heart and soul into everything that she does. She wants to bring reading to the masses. She wants everyone to love books, and I love her for that as well. There will be a podcast one day just about the beauty of Dolly Parton and I could talk about Dolly Parton for hours and why I adore her. But we will get there.
This week though I will be talking about the beauty of Run Rose Run.
Run Rose Run is a novel by James Patterson and Dolly Parton. I didn't even know that this book was in the works. I didn't even know that it had come out. I didn't know anything about this book. On March 7 of 2022, I was going out to my front steps to go outside and get the mail. And there was a package on the front steps and I'm like "who bought a package." I don't remember anyone saying that they ordered anything. I looked at it had my name on it. And I kept trying to wrack my brain like I don't think I ordered anything. I went into my Amazon account went into my Barnes and Noble account, Target, all the places where I typically buy things from. Nothing, no orders pending. I went, I went through my email just in case I don't know sometimes like
I get drunk and I send people things or I buy something for myself and then I'm like, "Oh look Elaine's got a present" but usually I get a reminder that it's on the way. So ,I had no no clue where this package came from.
I opened it and inside was this book. There was no note nothing. Let me tell you i was so over the moon because I also love those little acts of small acts of kindness. Little things. You know I was actually having a really bad day that day and I have no memory of why it was bad day. Okay? The only thing I remember about that day now is that I got this book. The little things can turn things around. And so if you're listening to this, and you sent me that book, I am forever grateful for your kindness. It was a gift that was 100% me and I do not want to know who sent it to me. To be honest. I like the idea that somebody gave me something without expecting anything in return. Expecting nothing from me. That's how I feel a lot of gifts should be given. I think it's so important that we do things for each other and not expect anything in return. All of that together just really made my day.
I'm going to give you a spoiler free synopsis about this book. This is not a spoiler episode, I want people to read this book. And then if people read it and they want to maybe come on and discuss it with me or if the authors are listening. I'm sure Dolly Parton or James Patterson are not listening. On the off chance that they are. If they want to come on and do an interview with me, that would be awesome.
Run Rose Run is about an up and coming country music star by the name of Annie Lee Keys, who eventually becomes eventually gets taken under the wing of a retired country star named Ruth Anna Ryder. The up and coming star has a past. I mean, this is just how life goes in general most up and coming stars have a past anyways. But we don't know what it is until towards the end. And I'm not going to tell you because like I said, this is not a spoiler episode. I will say that when I found out I had to completely collect myself because I had no clue it was going that way to that specific point.
And there is a slight love story in there but it's nothing wild and the book is not written around a love story. Sometimes as women when we are reading things about other women and we're like why is this a love story? Like can we just do something without it being a full blown love story? I love this because it still acknowledges that that's a part of life without making it the entire life. So kudos to Dolly Parton and James Patterson for not turning it into a massive, massive love story. Because they could have they really could have if there was a way that they could have just veered right off the exit to Love Town and turn it right into a huge, lovely romantic story. And I am so glad they didn't because if they had, I might not have finished it as fast as I did. I might not have devoured it the way that I did.
Over my lifetime with books , I have found that sometimes a book speaks to me. Sometimes a book has a lot of quotables and sometimes it's both. And this book spoke to me, especially Ruth Anna Ryder's character. Her quotes in the book were speaking to my soul. I felt like it was what I needed to hear, or things that I would say to other people. Very similar. And so I felt very at home reading this book. It felt like someone was digging in my brain and putting words onto the page. Love, love when that happens
I pulled out a lot of quotes I'm only going to touch on about maybe
maybe five of them. Almost all of them are from the character RuthAnna but one is from Annie Lee Keys because it gave me warm. It gave me a lot of warmth when I read it.
So we'll start with Annie Lee Keys one.
And in the scene, she's realizing that someone cares about her. And she says to herself, "well it made her feel nice. Cozy as if the knowledge was a sweater she could put around her shoulders when she was cold." And it's just the sweetest, warmest thought to think about. That when someone cares about you or loves you, it's like a nice cozy sweater that you can curl up in on a cold day and it just kind of hugs you and keeps you warm. Makes you feel safe and comfortable and relaxed. It's the best way to describe what it's like to be loved ... by anyone. Loved by your family, your friends, your significant, other random people in general that you just meet who just truly love others. When I read that line, I had to stop for a moment and soak it in and to let it permeate my brain and my soul. Because it was it was beautiful. I just let it
marinate. Just let it marinate and I just took it to heart. Beautiful line, absolutely beautiful.
Now Ruth Anna's character is kind of like Dolly Parton. She helps
with fundraisers for books, getting books to the underprivileged, getting kids to read. And there's a line that Ruth Anna says when she's at a fundraiser that I love. I will probably paint it or something when I get into a new place where I could just paint on the walls and put a quote up that says this : "because books, my friends, are true magic bound between two covers." most accurate statement I've ever read about books.
Reading is letting your imagination have a playground. And when that happens, your imagination gets to play. When your brain gets to fire on all cylinders and move around and enjoy itself. That's when magic happens.
Have you ever been so into a book You're reading it and the pictures just kind of go through your mind and then it's like you're watching a movie? That's magic, the creativity that comes from reading later on like that, that's magic. Books teach us so much about who we are. About things you need to learn. Life lessons.
Books teach us how to communicate with one another. And just how to have fun. How to create and use our minds to look beyond the pages, right? Some of my favorite books are the ones where they don't describe everything into complete depth. They don't describe the whole entire scene, the surrounding scenes for you. They let your brain do it. And that's when when the magic happens. Oh my goodness. I love it.
This quote is probably my favorite one of my favorite quotes in a book ever.
The next quote is Ruth Anna had given someone advice before and they kind of spit it back in her face. When this person was around again, someone was like, Oh, I don't need your advice or something like that. And she responded in a an amazing way.
"When someone doesn't appreciate my advice the first time, I'm not dumb enough to give it again. I don't waste my breath like that. Not when there are songs to be sung, or french fries to be eaten."
I love that quote because it's a great reminder, especially when it comes to unsolicited advice, right? If you give unsolicited advice once and someone really pushes back on it, don't give it again. Okay? It's waste of your time. It's waste their time. It's not worth it. Now, if someone asks you for their advice, and you give it to them, and they just kind of spit in your face about it, not that they don't take it, they don't think about it. They don't marinate about it. They just kind of brush it off. They're not open. They're not ready for the advice that they asked for. They want you to tell them exactly what they want to hear. So that it's okay for them to act or do the things that they do. Sometimes that's fine. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes those people are right, and it shouldn't be asking anyone for advice anyways.
I love it because she also puts it into a little bit of a better visual. So it's not just a waste of her, her breath or of her time. It's not just a waste of time that she could be using and doing her job which is singing, but
it's time that can be spent on eating french fries. Little joys in life. Why stress yourself out trying to give advice to someone who doesn't want it?
When you can be sitting in silence, eating your french fries and enjoying life. I have to remind myself of things like that sometimes. I very much appreciate that quote in this book. That line is very good. It's a very good way of looking at it. That there's even little ways to be enjoying your life than having to deal with this conversation which is providing no one any sort of value.
These next two quotes, I feel like they go hand in hand. So I'm going to read them together. So Ruth Anna said "how could you possibly explain the kind of armor it took to stay true to yourself?" And then a little while later, maybe 20 some pages later Ruth Anna say " I know she does. But SHE has to know she does, or it doesn't mean anything. Sustaining that belief in yourself - that's the hard part."
Staying true to yourself, and believing in yourself are two very similar things. They go hand in hand. Once you know yourself, it's a lot easier to believe in yourself. Once you believe in yourself, it's a lot easier to stay true to yourself. This is something that I talked about in one podcast when people asked for what kind of advice that I would give to aspiring sports journalists, or people that wanted to work in sports. And I said know who you are.
I expanded upon it a little bit, a few Fridays ago. This coming Friday, two episodes from now, I will expand upon it even more. Because it is important to stay true to yourself, to believe in yourself. There are so many people who will try to knock you down. Who will try to tell you who you're supposed to be and who will try to change the base of
who you are.
I always talk about human architecture. I've discussed on a few other episodes and I'm going to continue to discuss it until people
understand that when you're building there's foundation, you cannot build upon it if that foundation is not there, or if it is not strong. If the foundation is not strong and you manage to be able to build upon it , it will eventually crumble or fall. It can give you a lot of problems. Finding that strong foundation and building upon it builds a beautiful house. You and the basis of who you are is the foundation. And from there you build rooms and walls and reinforcements to make sure that when you feel old or when you feel weak or when you are met with a challenge when the wind starts blowing that your foundation will stay an your house will stay mostly intact. Obviously, there are some big things that can knock the house down but typically the foundation stays.
So to make it in music, to make it any form of art. To be honest, just to make it in life in general and to enjoy life is to know who you are, to believe in yourself, and to stay true to yourself. When you do that the right people will surround you. Sometimes bad people will completely surround you but they won't be there for the long haul. They will be offended by you. They will just not mesh. Especially if they can't control you. They can't tell you how to be and how to react or make you want to be a completely different person when they're around.
Those people will leave. But the truer you are to yourself ,the stronger you are, the deeper the beliefs you have, the better off you will be. It's all about quality, not quantity, when it comes to people you surround yourself with.
This book is a really big reminder of that as well. If people are open, there are a lot of moments that I feel will help people grow and recognize
when someone's taking advantage of you and when you're not being yourself. You're not being kind to yourself either.
Now, this last quote I have is the one that I try to portray as a beat reporter with other beat reporters. So Ruth Anna and Annie Lee were talking about the cutthroatness of the business. And Ruth Anna was explaining how she would react
if Annie Lee Keyes had been around when Ruth Anna was trying to become up and coming. Ruth Anna said "I'm retired. Don't forget that. If I were still playing now. I like to think I'd welcome you with open arms. I happen to believe there is enough love -and enough ears - out there for all of us"
It's hard to find that level of support. Too many times everyone is looked as competition. And to a point, you are competing. But it doesn't have to be to that level of compete that makes you lonely.
That pushes the other people away. When I feel like someone is competing with me, and their upset that I'm getting something that they want, I pull away. When I feel like there's a lot of passive aggressive pushing me down or pushing other people down, I pull away from them. When I feel like someone is using you. Someone is trying to take your ideas and not uplift you and work with you, i pull away. It's not just how they react to me. It's how they react to others as well. Other people that they view as competition.
Life doesn't have to be this cutthroat. Music doesn't have to be that cutthroat. Sports journalism doesn't have to be that cutthroat. We can all work together to create something beautiful.
I have no problem giving storylines to someone when I don't have the time or means necessary to work on it.
That's kind of like how Dolly Parton sold I Will Always Love You. She felt like someone else could make it better. In my opinion I like her version but also Whitney Houston's version is iconic. So, it really worked out. But there's too much ugly in this world and life is far too short for us to constantly feel like we're in competition with people. To constantly be in competition with people. If you can't have a normal conversation with someone
about your craft and look at them the whole time like "They're going to get what I want" and be upset about it. And let it stress you out. Then you need to move on.
You need to take a break.
You don't have to be friends either. That's the one thing, in this, in this situation and
in this story it worked out that way and sometimes it doe.
You can still look at people without having that cutthroat competition. Healthy competition is great. A good way of thinking about it. When it comes to the sports world, sports journalism, or even music is you can say like
we're competitive. We want the same goal. We want to have the best record or one of the best stories or win awards. You can win them together. And what I mean by that is you each can equally work hard and use each other to drive each other in a healthy manner, to have healthy working practices, to encourage each other to take breaks when you need them, to keep trudging through when you need to. And if one of you gets it before the other one, then laud them then you know, put it out there and be like what a great job they did. They deserve this.
Most people deserve what they get. I know people don't like to hear that. But even if their parents have been around and they're famous, it doesn't necessarily mean that their kid is going to make it just because they're famous. Yeah, they might get that extra step up. They might get that extra push that extra nod. Someone might take the extra look at them. But if they're not good, they're not gonna last.
Most people deserve the joy they get. Most people don't deserve the crap they get.
I think that's something that we really need to think about.
So let's lift each other up.
It's like she said there are enough ears and love to give. There's enough ears to hear, enough love to receive. There's no shortage.
Working together to create something beautiful because each person in this world provides a unique view on a situation. Whether it be minor, little tweak, everyone brings a unique way of telling the story. A unique way of living life to its fullest. So let's start supporting each other. Let's start lifting each other up. And like I said, you don't have to be friends. You don't have to work at the same company. You don't have to work for the same people. But to view someone as a threat to your survival over your jobs, it's not ok.
And if you are constantly feeling that way, then it might not be the place for you to work. It might not be the place for you to do anything. It might not be your passion anymore because you're too worried about what the other person is doing and what you're doing. Tthen you have to make the choice. Do you stop doing it? Do you change your mindset to take a break, to recalibrate?
I really hope a lot of you take some of this to heart, but also what I wanted you to see is how books speak to everyone individually. Someone may read this book. They may read Run Rose Run after this podcast and they may not like it. Nothing may hit them in the soul. Nothing may speak to them. They may not like the writing. They may not get the creative buzz that I got while reading it. And that's okay. That's what art is. This might not be your brand of book. Read it from cover to cover and decide. And you'll know and that's okay. You don't have to like it. The point here is books can speak to anyone in any way. So if you're looking for a little bit of beauty in your life, just a walk through the bookstore, walk through the library and just feel the energy in the library or the book store. Let the books speak to you. Let the books call out to you and decide which one to read. Most of the books I buy it's because I bought them. I walked past them, I liked the cover, the cover spoke to me, or a light was shining down on it and I was like "Oh what's this. this could be interesting." Or sometimes, I run my hand across the books as I'm walking down and a jolt of electricity comes out and hits me. Not actual electricity but metaphorical electricity. It just hits me. This is it. This is the book you're supposed to read.
Books find their way to you.
So, if you're walking through and you see a book that's calling to you. And you look at it and it's a subject you don't typically read or you don't typically like the author, READ IT. You should read it because it was meant for you.
Reading is magic
That's exactly what she said in the beginning of this book. It was one of the quotes I read to you guys. "Because books my friends, are true magic bound between two covers"
Find that magic today.
Go find a book and let it speak to you before you even pick up.
Thank you for your time everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you enjoy your day.
And Remember
Be Kind and Love Always
