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Review – The Common
Loon by Kay Kindall, Editor
The secret parts of anyone’s life have their comforts as well as their burdens.
Make them public, and judgments are certain to follow. In The Common Loon,
Rachel Corday dares to tell a story that intrigues, fascinates, reveals.
As we share it with her, we cannot help but realize the critical need to
air our thinking about mental illness for, in the light, our misconceptions
wane. We meet heartwarming, simple, complex people we might otherwise pass
by and likely do in our dayto-day lives. Who is that person who always comes
to church or concerts late and sits at the very back. Furthermore, she even
gets up and leaves before the event is over. Doesn’t she own a watch? Doesn’t
she have enough respect to be on time and then wait until the end? Can’t
she get her act together?
Well, unbeknown to our limited thinking, maybe she just did. Maybe she just
made a great overcoming to be in a crowd at all. Oh! Or was that an arrogant
person with bad habits after all? How do we know? How can we tell the difference?
We learn that maybe we can’t; maybe we can’t tell the difference. Not until
the difference is so vast that this being is shut away in the darkness of
mental institutions where we don’t have to think about her.
As we move well into the 21st Century, if we are honest, we find ourselves
on the inside and on the out, mixed in with friends and relatives. Where
is the line? Where is the demarcation where the degree of imbalance becomes
so great that it cannot be ignored? After all, simply put, mental illness
is a brain chemical disorder.
In The Common Loon, we struggle with this question as we become acquainted
with a world of people from whom we could well learn the art of genuine
kindness. We could certainly use more kindness, maybe especially toward
ourselves and our own follies. Then maybe our judgments can become gently,
surely transformed into insights. We risk becoming more aware people by
exposure to the wisdom in The Common Loon. Besides, it’s a good read.
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