Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

That’s why I wanted to use Supper at Six to teach chemistry. Because when women understand chemistry, they begin to understand how things

Too many brilliant minds are kept from scientific research thanks to ignorant biases like gender and race. It infuriates me and it should infuriate you.

Just as people have a bad habit of dismissing others’ problems and tragedies, so too did they have a bad habit of not appreciating what they have. Or had. He missed his wife.

Despite what Elizabeth Zott will tell you, Supper at Six is not just an introduction to chemistry, he wrote that day on the plane. It’s a thirty-minute, five-day-a-week lesson in life. And not in who we are or what we’re made of, but rather, who we’re capable of becoming.

Your job is to question things—to search for answers. But sometimes—and I know this for a fact—there just aren’t any. You know that prayer that starts ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change’?”

Chemistry is change and change is the core of your belief system. Which is good because that’s what we need more of—people who refuse to accept the status quo, who aren’t afraid to take on the unacceptable. But sometimes the unacceptable—your brother’s suicide, Calvin’s death—is, in fact, permanent, Elizabeth. Things happen. They just do.

“But I’m betting Marjorie would agree,” Elizabeth said, raising her voice again, “that the hard part wasn’t returning to school, but rather having the courage to do so.” She strode to her easel, marker in hand. CHEMISTRY IS CHANGE, she wrote.

Courage is the root of change—and change is what we’re chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back. No more subscribing to others’ opinions of what you can and cannot achieve. And no more allowing anyone to pigeonhole you into useless categories of sex, race, economic status, and religion. Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future. When you go home today, ask yourself what you will change. And then get started.