Lessons from Harper Lee

​I could never be considered a “fan girl” of any band, television show, actor, actress or athlete. I don’t watch enough t.v. to get drawn into things deeply. If I were going to be an obsessive, obnoxious fan of anything, the object of my obsession would be Harper Lee. She only wrote two novels and for decades, we only knew about one, but she is absolutely my favorite.
Lee was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame last week. The honor is well-deserved for the Alabama author, most famous for the beloved, yet controversial novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.  As I reflected on Lee’s influence on American literature, I considered a few lessons that can be taken from her life.

1. Live modestly. In 2015, Harper Lee’s net worth was estimated at $35 million. You’d have never known it from looking at the outside of the small, modest home that she shared with her sister Alice in Monroeville. Many of us who don’t earn $1.6 million quarterly in royalties have homes that surpass that of a millionaire. Not every millionaire chooses to build more than they will ever use or need.
2. Travel. While a student at the University of Alabama, Lee participated in a program that allowed her to spend a summer at Oxford University in England. She also left the small town of Monroeville in the rearview mirror when she moved to New York City to work as an airline clerk. Lee also traveled to Kansas to aid childhood friend Truman Capote in his research for In Cold Blood. We often use lack of time and lack of extra money as excuses for never venturing out, but it’s okay to start small. How long has it been since you’ve gone one of the local museums or spent some time on the river?
3. Cultivate deep friendships. Joy and Michael Brown were friends of Lee’s that she met in NYC. We have them to thank for the gift of TKAM. They believed so deeply in Lee’s ability to craft a novel that they gifted her one year’s salary in 1956 and encouraged her to write her story. Lee and the Browns maintained a close friendship that spanned sixty years. That friend you’ve been meaning to call? Call them.
4.  Embrace diversity. Apart from summers spent in the same small town, Harper Lee and Truman Capote didn’t share many things in common. Lee didn’t seek accolades or praises for her work, whereas Capote wilted without attention. He was loud and often overbearing. She was reserved and quiet. Yet, each saw the other as worth getting to know.  Connect with someone who is different from you. It could turn into a lifelong friendship, but even if it doesn’t, your life will be enriched by the other person’s. Just an aside, Truman fascinates me! I’d have loved to have been friends with him.
5. Read. Lee never finished college. She left the University of Alabama six months before she would have earned a law degree. However, she continued to read and research and could hold her own in any conversation as a result. In a rare letter to Oprah’s magazine, Lee wrote, ““In an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.”
6. Live a simple, quiet life. A Pulitzer prize, a name that is widely recognized, a movie based on your novel (starring Gregory Peck), honorary degrees, countless requests for interviews and Lee chose to stay quiet and live simply. She went to her childhood church and had coffee at her favorite hometown deli. Often journalists labeled her as a “recluse” because she refused their requests for interviews. Her close friends would vehemently disagree with the assessment of the out-of-town journalists because their “Nelle” was warm, witty and wise. She just did not seek the spotlight. In a social media driven world, we often seek the spotlight too much and it sometimes makes us miserable.

One of the less quoted snippets of wisdom in TKAM are the words of Miss Maudie Atkinson to Scout and Jem when they are in awe of their father’s marksmanship, “People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”
Yet another lesson from the captivating Nelle Harper Lee.