Destiny Rewritten

Destiny, Rewrittenby Kathryn Fitzmaurice

Des-tin-y: (noun) The hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate.

Who do you think has control of your destiny?  Does it depend on your choices or is it already set?  Should you wait for it to happen, or should you help it along?

If you are Emily Elizabeth Davis you believe that you make what happens in your life.  If your Emily’s mother you believe that what happens is supposed to happen in its own time, unfolding when it is ready.  She says you can’t rush your destiny but Emily has other ideas.  She has some things she’s been waiting to discover for a long time – like who her dad is – and she thinks the time is now.

The day before Emily was born, her mom discovered a first edition Complete Works of Emily Dickinson in a book store followed by a gleam of light.  Emily’s mom chose her name in that moment and wrote then and there: Emily Dickinson is one of the great poets.  The same will be said of you one day.  From that day on, Emily’s mom has marked down all of her important life events by the poem that seems most fitting.  Next to “Angels, in the early morning”Emily’s birth is recorded.  Beside “We should not mind so small a flower” the celebration of her first word.  “I’ll tell you how the Sun rose” commemorates her first steps.  Her book with that first inscription has been with her all her life, but Emily doesn’t really like poetry.  Emily wonders how a person who is destined to be a poet can not understand them so completely.  By accident Emily’s book is given to Goodwill.  An upsetting turn of events.  Her mother says it was for a reason, but, rather than accept that fate, Emily takes action.  Through that action she realizes how much she has and does, shares and desires.  There is something to be said for organized predictability AND there is something to be said for mysterious unfoldings.  Can a life be guided by both?

I love Emily, her family and friends.  Emily is a collector of happy endings.  She loves romance novels because of this and writes frequently to Danielle Steel asking her advice in all things.  (Emily is sure Danielle Steel has some of the best endings) Mortie, Emily’s 8-year old cousin, knows he is destined for a life in the military. He only has 3,752 days until he turns eighteen and can join the Army.  He’s an expert on recon and spy stuff.  Wavey, Emily’s best friend is an excellent student.  She takes pride in doing her best and achieving all she can.  She is committed to making our world a better place – she is the secretary of the Berkeley Middle School Pick Up Trash in Your Neighborhood CLub and is working to write a 32-page paper on the many reuses of packing peanuts.  Celia Ann, another classmate, is a poet and everything she does and sees calls a poem to mind.  Quirky? – maybe, but deliciously so.  The characters blend and weave together creating a story that is happy, sad, thoughtful and surprising.  Sometimes it is good to just let life happen, but sometimes it is better to make a choice and set a new path in motion.

Destiny Rewritten is a book to be read, reread, and pondered. Words like: ‘You can only do what you can do.  You’re one person, but you make a difference by doing these small things.’

and passages  like:

” The only way the army would approve that kind of strategy is if the clouds didn’t rain every once in a while and instead did something unexpected to confuse the ocean.  That would be an excellent strategy because the ocean would be expecting the clouds to rain, so this would throw everything off.”

“I never though of it like that.”

“That’s because you’re not the one joining the army.

I studied the post, trying to see if like he did.  “You think this strategy could work for other things too, like maybe – I don’t know – people?”

Mortie squinted at the ceiling and nodded.  “Affirmative.”

are worth considering.  Destiny Rewritten is a flash and a sparkle – a gem to be savored.