Tomorrow Will Be Better

Thank you to Katie Huey for today’s submission, a follow up to her review of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Smith settles this story in her familiar backdrop of Brooklyn. From dirty streets, to simply furnished homes, the author continues to untangle simple characters from histories of neglected bellies and wounded hearts. The heroine Margy, recently come of age, does all the things she's supposed to do. As she begins on the path outlined for her, she continues to swat at the nagging feeling suggesting surely, life is more than just this. 

In an era when choices for women were few, Margy tries all of the ‘supposed to-dos’. She quits a fulfilling job to get married and twiddles days away in boredom. She begs for declarations of love from a young man just as ill equipped for intimacy as she is.  She settles, instead, for companionship. When a loss envelops Margy, her perspective shifts again. The grief shatters her perceptions of what should be, and lets light in for what could be. 

As she faces her unraveling, she picks up a pen. In only the last few pages does Margy bravely begin to step into the ‘could be's’ she wants.

I can relate to the longing ache of searching for something else. Of sitting amongst friends and thinking, "I need something different." Pen and ink and words are where I start to fill the holes, to tend to the hurt, and I think, to create something new. 

The backdrop may be familiar, but my steps don't have to be. 

This book struck me as profoundly sad. In comparison to Smith's other work, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Margy's lower sense of agency gets swallowed by the societal position she inherited. You encounter her love-starved parents and shake your head in disappointment at her mother who wallows in her own attempts at tending to deep, generational wounds. 

Men teeter between bars and the arms of their critical mothers and clueless young wives.The grinds of poverty and continuous lack build walls around possibilities. Smith stops all of these characters from where they could go. They seem stuck. 

The book made me thankful for the shoulders of women I now stand on. Stories connect us through generations. Kind people and education advance us. And still, individual improvement requires saying yes to what our inner nagging reveals. This, friends, is a hard truth. All this work is a one woman job. 

In a pandemic world with incompetent leadership, it's easy to point outside for reasons to stay put. A caring friend, an acquaintance at work, a dress not of navy, and a new experience can all lift us out of our stupors. The difference, for me, and for our aching world, is we must believe tomorrow will be better. Over and over again.