It is morning and I begin my daily ritual. Beside my bed, piled a bit unsteadily upon the
round marble-topped table that was my mother’s, is a stack of books. Nine books to be
exact! Why nine? I make no apology for my book choices, nor for the unwieldily pile.
The explanation is simple: one never knows which book(s) are a fit for what life is
dishing out on a particular day, season, challenge.
And in regard to books and the unwieldy pile I am my mother’s child. She loved books, I
love books. She read voraciously and variably. She had a bent toward poetry more than
I, particularly Emily Dickinson’s poetry for which she was a self-taught student. I tend
toward good novels (excellent writers depicting characters rich with flaws and flairs and
who provoke me in my own sojourn). I find historical non-fiction to be eye-opening,
cautionary tales for the present. And memoir, the story of a life fascinates. I need
inspiration, too, a way to sort out earth’s Troubles, great and small.
So what AM I reading now, from my stack of nine? The Bible is a must and usually the
first thing I touch in the morning. Today I read Psalm 139 again and marveled at the fact
of God’s great knowledge of me, even before I was “formed in my mother’s womb”.
That, in and of itself can take my breath away, an Other Worldly Knowing that sets in
place needed perspective for the day ahead. Then I picked up Anne Lamott’s latest
Dusk, Night, Dawn. Her writing is dense, funny, completely original and worth
underlining every other sentence. I own her books. I write in the margins, mull her take
on life, may find my self smiling one minute, in tears the next. I am reading slowly
Michael Dyson’s Tear We Cannot Stop, a book on race relations, truly provocative
calling me to examine my conscience deeply.
I am a person who goes to the library, particularly since Barrett’s old room and the
family room have bookshelves that are nearly full. I recently turned in A Farewell to
Arms by Ernest Hemingway and picked up James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and
Small. Both of these reads were inspired by PBS series which I watched as well. I read
A Farewell to Arms years ago, I think! Or did I watch the film? This time through, the
tedium of war, the senselessness of it, the lose, lose essence struck me anew, far more
than the star-crossed love story the book portrays. And what am I getting out of All
Creatures Great and Small? A dose of England, Yorkshire country in the 1930’s. Good
writing, picturesque, full of humanity and animals, humor and a bit of intrigue. This is a
book to read before sleep. Nothing jarring, issues resolved.
I like that I am my mother’s daughter in regard to books. I like that she encouraged me
to read Jane Eyre at age ten. I like that my parents paid attention to what I wanted most
for Christmas; Albert Payson Terhune’s dog books and Walter Farley’s Black Stallion
series, riveting tales, perfect for a young girl’s love of horses.
I like glancing at the pile of books beside my bed and remembering.