Bookworm..

I have always been a reader. I get it from my parents. They taught me that it was OK to read basically anything I wanted, anything I could get my hands on, anything that intrigued me. Of course that meant that sometimes my mom would find me...under the covers with a flashlight...WAY past my bedtime...with a copy of Grays Anatomy. I was a voracious reader...devouring words...preferring books sometimes to the company of people. Still do.
My tastes are fairly eclectic...and have changed considerably over the years. But classics are classics. I spent many years in college...studying literature for a living....deciding that reading was the one thing I did well. Whatever else there is...in books there is redemption, and promise, and weight, and hope. I lean on that now....some days more than others.

Favorite Childhood Book:

For most of my childhood, if there was a lull in my reading..I could be discovered and rediscovered..in the pages of Charlotte's Web. I dreamed of living on a farm and raising my very own Wilbur. I grew to love the geese and the cows and the old horse. I don't think I have ever given up the dream of farm living. And to this day, no matter how many times I've read the book, no matter how many versions of the movie I sit through, I still weep at the end. I did as a child...and I will until my own final chapter. Some books just stick with you forever.
When I got a little older, I read a book called Superfudge.* It was funny, and fast, and dealt with home life in a way I certainly could relate to. My parents divorced when I was eleven. It was devastating to me...I wanted nothing more than to be like every other family, every other kid...two perfect working parents, living in a perfect fun house....maybe without the addition of my little brother. Superfudge got me. My husband found the book for me a few years ago...at a bookstore..and bought it for me. I re-read it. It didn't hold quite the same pull as when I was 10...but I still understood it's significance to my childhood. Some books change the landscape of your heart...that sounds fancy for a crazy book called Superfudge....but to a kid going through some pretty heavy stuff, it makes a lot of sense.

Both of those books, tattered...worn...crumpled and crinkled, can still be found on my bookshelf. Not the throw everything on it bookshelf...the place of honor one. The bookshelf where the most important pieces of my heart are placed. They are nestled among giants...Harry Potter, William Shakespeare, Leaves Of Grass, Breakfast At Tiffany's. They are home.

Reading is a gift, a privilege, a pleasure. It consumes the spaces in my brain...and allows me to escape and unwind. It gives me recess from the ugliness of the day...or the stresses of life...or the unpleasantness of people. And it always has.
I am off to finish a book right now.

See ya on the flip flop side!


XOX!!


*Google that shit.