A collage of vigor, willfulness, conviction, and love.
Within seconds of birth, babies take in their first life-giving breath, and this act of breathing remains necessary for survival throughout their lives. Just as humans can’t live without oxygen, a life without hope can feel similarly impossible, suffocating, and directionless. For Arlaana, the idea behind A Day In The Next and finding Nichiren Buddhism was the hope, the oxygen she needed to finally breathe freely. This impassioned memoir is a series of consequential milestones, adventures, and memories that take audiences on a heart-rending journey. Starting with her childhood in a homogenized Brooklyn neighborhood and stretching forward to raising her own child, the author flits through time sharing some of the events that contributed significantly to her trajectory. Throughout the years this tenacious woman has nearly tasted death, suffered abuse, witnessed a burglary, been bullied, lost friends, and watched loved ones succumb to horrible illnesses. Her path forward from that stifling darkness was found in the calming teachings of Buddhism. While memories can be untrustworthy, it doesn’t diminish their power to shape our attitude or predict our path, and each moment in this book plays an obvious part in the author’s course.
A natural raconteur, Arlaana Black makes even the most mundane events, such as an annual visit with extended family, into a memorable spectacle. Avoiding the trap of a regret-filled life, the author chooses hope over victimization and peace over bitterness. She compares Buddhism to climbing into “the driver’s seat of their destiny, no longer a passive passenger pulled down a path dictated by the past, one’s surroundings, family, friends, or the illusion of predetermined fate.” Simultaneous themes of breath and hope are a refreshingly constant feature of this book, but the overall tone of the memoir settles heavily, weighed down by so much trauma. Since memory recall is rarely sequential, Black’s nonlinear account manifests authenticity as the narrative meanders organically from one story to another. More for posterity and enlightenment than light entertainment, key transformative events intermingle with everyday growing pains to form a collage of vigor, willfulness, conviction, and love. From being a teacher, a restauranteur, a singer, and a parent, Arlaana Black shares a journey of liberation in her revealing memoir A Day in the Next: A Journey from Brooklyn To Buddhism.
