Burnt Toast: Teri Hatcher

‘Burnt Toast and other Philosophies of Life’ by Teri Hatcher is my recent read. You all know Teri Hatcher. Don’t you? Okay, let‘s say ‘Desperate Housewives’…ahh the bulb clicked. Right then..Teri Hatcher is a celebrity, beautiful, successful and rich and she’s also a human being, a mother and a woman.

This post was hard to come by, I liked this book immensely, I was so with Teri every moment of reading and by the time I finished I felt like I know her so well! But writing about this experience I find myself so short of appropriate words. It’s like you and your bestest girlfriend had a sleep over after a long time and you talked long into the night and shared your innermost thoughts and now you want to tell another friend about it…

I finished reading this book yesterday though I have been reading this in parts before for many days. Every time I’d take up a chapter and every time I’d be set thinking…

‘The Burnt Toast’ is a metaphor for a psychology of self sacrifice, poor self image, insecurities and other complexes and failing to realize your own self, own wants, your own wish. We women are only too aware of this, sometimes willingly choosing to eat the burnt toast for love and sometimes conditioned into accepting it … .why does a woman’s life is so much about living up to the expectations of others. Most of the times undermining herself as an individual.

Teri Hatcher has revealed a very vulnerable side of her in this book, starting from her childhood seeing her mother deliberately taking a back seat, putting everyone and everything before her, accepting the burnt toast of life as a matter of course. Sometimes as parents we unknowingly pass on our bias, our insecurities to our children and they live their lives with them.

Here’s an excerpt:

“In early high school, when I was taking geometry, I remember showing my math-genius dad a problem I’d solved correctly. I probably hoped he’d be proud that I was learning a little bit of his field. He looked at the paper and said, “You know, there are three other ways to solve that problem.” I said, “I got it right, didn’t I?’ I wasn’t really interested in alternate solutions. I’d managed to do it the way the teacher had taught us and that was enough. He handed the paper back to me and said, “You’re a brick.” He didn’t mean it in the jolly old English use of “brick” as a dependable chap. Nor was he referring to my abs. He went on, “You should be a sponge, but you’re a brick.” He meant that I wasn’t as open minded or curious as he wanted me to be. I had shown my dad my correctly done math homework, and he in turn found something wrong with me. Getting the right answer wasn’t enough.”

Teri realized that this tendency of ‘not looking after herself’ was not just making her life miserable but could be a stumbling block for her daughter as well. Chapter after chapter you learn how Teri overcome her own prejudices and pieced a wholesome life together for her and her daughter.

Quote from the book:

“I try hard to move peacefully through the world, and I’m sensitive to that kind of judgment from a stranger. If we could all spend a little time thinking people might need a little help, instead of assuming they’re selfish snobs, we might live in a nicer world.”

We generally take celebrities for granted, we think it’s easy for them, they have the looks, name, fame, money what not. Sometimes we simply can’t see the person behind that aura. Sometimes we are so busy living our lives we don’t see people around us as fellow human beings.

Another Excerpt:

“We went to New York for New Year’s a couple of days later. I was walking down Ninth Avenue when I saw a woman drop a full bag of groceries. It was dark, cloudy day, and the street was full of people hurrying their separate ways, dull and unanimated. Several oranges rolled out of the woman’s fallen bag; the only bright spot of color on the street. Nobody stopped to help her collect her groceries. They just walked past, oblivious. Then something happened. The clouds broke, and a double rainbow appeared. A double rainbow! In New York City! That’s two more rainbows than you ever see in New York. They arched perfectly over the Chrysler Building. There was a collective gasp on the street. People pointed and smiled. Some ran into stores to buy disposable cameras. We all watched until the sky clouded again, then went on our own ways. But then the second miracle happened. The whole way down Ninth Avenue strangers stopped each other to say, “Did you see the rainbow?” and “You can still see it over on Seventh Avenue!” A twin rainbow. That’s what it took to get people to notice each other, to bring them together.”

What do you say..