Last week at book club, everyone brought some books to exchange. As a lover of American history, I picked up one by David McCullough on John Adams. I’m starting to really think that there is a law bone in my body because I am absolutely eating this book up.

I have often told my husband that if I could have a wish, it would be to travel through time and see places and events in their “prime.” I can’t explain it, I’m simply fascinated by things of the past. I am astounded by people of the past and I love learning about them. This book gives such incredible description and insight into the people and circumstances of the time that I hate having to put it down.

But here was a really fun twist for me, the first night I began the book, I was struck several times with the obvious comparisons I could make to this great man in history and my daughter. There were so many similar traits between them, especially the fascination with people and social study of them. When I read this passage I got the shudders:

“My eyes are so diverted with chimney sweeps, carriers of wood, merchants, ladies, priests, carts, horses, oxen, coaches, market men and women, soldiers, sailors, and my ears with the rattle gabble of them all that I can’t think long enough in the street upon any one thing to start and pursue a thought.”

The more I read, the more I am convinced that his mind was very much like my Cid’s. Focus was difficult, social things were of extreme intrigue, friendships and deep relationships with friends and companions was paramount. And the more I read of his incredible contributions as a leader and man of integrity, the higher my inspiration for my daughter.

Thanks to this man, and his constant recording in his diary his impressions of people, I feel that I have been given a spectacle allowing me a glimpse back in time. I’m sure at the time he was recording such things he gave it no thought. I’m sure he was simply recording some of those many, many thoughts in his head. But the knowledge he has shared with his detailed accounts and journalistic flair are absolutely amazing to me. Maybe things aren’t so different now as they were then - at least not at the dismissal level I usually tend to give it. Maybe there are as many similarities of people and experiences hundreds of years ago to today as there are differences.

All I know is I am loving this book and relishing in the added bonus that maybe someone as amazing as John Adams had ADHD before we knew what it was. The bumble bee phenomenon comes to mind. You know, the truth that aerodynamically it is impossible for it to take flight and yet it does. Maybe this man excelled in everything he did because no one told him that is wasn’t possible, or gave him a diagnosis or an excuse for mediocrity. Food for thought.

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