Sublime

My journey from expert-level fitting in to true belonging

“It had been her fortune to possess a finer mind than most of the persons among whom her lot was cast; to have a larger perception of surrounding facts and to care for knowledge that was tinged with the unfamiliar. It is true that among her contemporaries she passed for a young women of extraordinary profundity. She had a theory that one should be

Where are you, Brené

“Do you really believe that Franklin has a political future?” asked Eleanor. “I believe someday Franklin will be President,” Howe replied.

Later Eleanor said, “Whatever I have become had its seed in those three years of contact with a liberal mind and a strong personality.”

Here was the theory of racial equality about to be put into practice, and she only hoped she would be equal to being equal.

From her grandmother Eleanor derived “a new sense of belonging. Out of the chaos of her parental home, Eleanor felt for the first time secure and wanted.”39

Years later Eleanor acknowledged that she had been completely unprepared to be a practical housekeeper, wife, or mother. “If I had it to do over again, I know now that what we should have done was to have no servants in those first few years.… However, my bringing-up had been such that this never occurred to me, and neither did it occur to any of t