Please... Read

In my life reading has been one heck of an adventure.  Books, magazines, the internet, read, read and read some more.  I can't help but love the feel of books, and books still hold the biggest bang for me.

I started young, reading Dick and Jane, now an antique, then every Nancy Drew mystery book published in my local library.  It was a two mile trek, often through the wooded path behind the new houses and school.  I had a few ways I could bicycle the two miles to get there, and back in those days, you were free all day long pretty much to make the journey.  They also had a wonderful thing called air conditioning, so timing on some days was crucial to get maximum comfort.  The librarians I don't recall at all, just the books, tables, smells and the cubby I would settle into and read. 

When the library was closed  I had my swamp cubby.  I would go off the dirt path from the woods crawl under a majestic pine tree, whose branches reached the ground, concealing you from anyone who might wander past.  Four inches of soft pine needles often lulled me into sleep, along with the dragonflies who could always sense something was "there" under that tree.  I can recall staring into the eyes of a beautiful blue/green metallic winged giant one day, until a dream took me too a land far away.  It was one of the most magical places I will ever know. 

Books are so good for us.  They enlarge our world, they let us escape the drudgery, they enlighten, they let us sob and laugh right out loud.    There are so many of them to choose from, it is simply amazing to me this many people can just make things up for thousands of pages. There is a vast amount of creativity in our universe.  It just dazzles your eye going into a book store, so easy to connect with people inside, you almost have to sit and have coffee with them.

One ginormous benefit of my love of reading is the "book club" I have been a part of for the past ten years.  The dirty dozen, they will giggle at that!  Once a month we hang at one our homes, eat and drink together, discuss the book, yes we do, but we get real with each other during this time.  Books became a venue for creating a new tribe that will support my sorry ass through life itself!  Who ever knew it would come to that. Every month I am  grateful to be able to unburden myself to a group who will simply hold me up and I learn things from them, very helpful!  Go try it.

I love too that now I can share my book favorites with my kids and my friends kids. Then, when they love them, I get so excited because we can discuss!  See inter-generational dialogue can happen at a deeper level, so interesting to gain their perspectives.  You can find out a great deal about a person by looking at the books they read.  Recently a relative that passed had literally thousands of books and magazines in her home, so besides being a bit of a book hoarder, she loved the classics, old leathery bound history, textbooks, cooking, quilting, sewing and gardening, I never saw a quilt made by her hands, but she really loved books on them.  First signed editions were part of her repertoire as well, that is pure book adoration.  Now I want to read all those too.  Fascinating!

I can hear Yoda say Love me some books do I.  So Please....be like Yoda....Go Read