The thing was, you had to be a reader to even understand the advertisement. A book was always within arms reach, so when it aired in between Saturday morning cartoons, promoting books, I rose up from my “head in elbowed arms” position and got a little closer to the television. “Reading is fundamental,” they said. I didn’t bother to ask my mother. I had been trained by Mrs. Bergstrom at Washington Elementary, and my mother repeated it daily, so I raced to the bookshelf to pull out the giant red dictionary to “Look it up.” I put my index finger in the section marking the “f”s. My finger traced through the pages as I sounded out the words. Fe, Fo, fun, funda, fundamental! Important, necessary, I was in agreement with it all. I ran to the laundry room. Saturday meant cartoons for me, and laundry for my mother. Her head bent over pulling clothes out of the dryer, I eagerly tapped her shoulder. “Reading is fundamental,” I said proudly. “It is,” she smiled, still filling her basket. I asked her about her next load, working fundamental into the conversation, remembering that to make a word your own, you had to use it three times. I often went to four or five, just to make sure. Satisfied that I had gained ownership, I went back to the tv. I saw my library book there. I turned off the set. Grabbed my book and went back to the laundry room. Nothing was more necessary, nor more important than she was. “I better read to you,” I said. She smiled and listened. We both leaned against the rumble of the washer, gathered in the greatest importance. Together.
I was picking out an avocado when I saw her. Maybe eight or nine years old. Standing in the middle of the grocery aisle. Completely engrossed in her book. It was probably one of her first non-picture books. I remember that thrill. (It’s not lost on me that the name of the store is Fresh.)
I was so proud the day she, our librarian at Washington Elementary, introduced us to the grown-up books. All barriers were down. All worlds open. Books with spines and plots and nothing but words. Books that were entrusted to our care for seven full days. A responsibility I did not take lightly.
Even though library time was just after lunch, I did not put my chosen book into my locker, nor in my desk, but kept it nestled in my corduroy lap. I kept it open on the bus. Devouring each word. Only pulling it to my chest when the teenage boys threw balls or papers or sometimes fits.
Our driveway on VanDyke road was maybe only four car-lengths, but I read my way to the door. Then to the chair by the picture window. Lighting each words with the reverence it deserved.
Nothing has changed for me. Neither time nor country can diminish my love for books. I still let out an audible gasp when the newest release from a favorite author arrives in our local bookstore, or when gifted such a treasure by a friend. I saw that love in this little girl’s eyes as she bumped her way through the aisles to meet her father in the cash line. Never closing the book. Never averting her eyes, ripened with desire. She was one of us now, I thought, and smiled — smiled for her journey, mine, and the future.
The sun is coming through the windows now. Brightening the words I type. A daily responsibility that I never take lightly. My heart tumbles and bumps its way fresh onto the screen, and I smile, for this page ever open.
It was on the deacon’s bench, under the picture window, where she liked to read the most. The words tucked safely between arm rests and the light reflected all meaning. She bookmarked, never dog eared, these library books. When she reached a line that sat beside her, she walked it to the note pad underneath the land line, grabbed a pen from the junk drawer and wrote it down with quote marks. She Scotch taped it next to the phone and read it to me on the next call.
We were always connected with words. My mom was the first person to read to me, and so far, the last. What an intimate act, this reading of words. Because I knew them. I knew where they sat. To read them now is to be right beside them, her. Beside her. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders that melts gently into my heart. Word by word, my soul remains filled.
I began writing when I was five. Maybe it was because the words were placed within me. Maybe it was a love shared from birth. Maybe it was because it was a part of the tucking in at bedtime. Maybe I knew it was my way to the deacon’s bench.
We all travel different paths. We have different interests and likes. I can’t tell you which ones to take, but I will tell you this — be intimate in your journey. Daily. Tell your best friend, “You’re my best friend.” Tell your loved ones that they are indeed loved! Give your heart freely. Those that are deserving, have already saved a place for you. Don’t be afraid to take the seat beside them.
It was the heaviest book I bought in college — The Riverside Shakespeare. Weighing in at about 6 pounds, it would have been a lot to carry across campus for any English major, but for me, who spent the majority of my college years slinged and on crutches, it was extraordinary. Yet, I loaded it, joyfully, in my backpack, and hopped on one foot from M5, our fifth floor walk-up dorm apartment, across the quad to the humanities building, sometimes over ice and snow. I never fell. You could argue that the weight of the 2000 pages kept me stable, glued to the ground, but I will tell you it was most probably the strength of the words that held me. Still do.
When moving to France, I let go of most possessions. And it wasn’t that hard. Furniture and shoes. Clothing and decorations. Dishes and beds. Table and tv. Trading it all in for love was an easy decision. I kept personal items. Paintings mostly, and a few books. It might surprise you, that this heaviest of books made the trip. Shakespeare rests on my shelf. Do I love the book? Yes. Do I love the words, the poems, the plays? Of course. But maybe most of all, I know that you can’t let go of what got you here — what held you, carried you, gave you strength. I suppose that’s why I have this heaviest of books beside me still. It’s why I write of my mother, my grandparents, my teachers and friends. I know what brought me here. What keeps me upright to this very day.
Walking yesterday, I was listening to a podcast of Dame Judi Dench. She rattled off the words written by Shakespeare, and they lifted me over rock and trail. The announcer was so surprised that she still had all of these words at the ready. I wasn’t. The heart takes on the carry, and allows the journey, still.
After my grandfather spoke, no one ever had to say, “Well, what he meant by that was…” He was perhaps the first to teach me the strength of word economy. When he said something, without flower or hesitation, I believed him.
Even with the wide open nature of youth, the vulnerable cracks of the heart and brain are very small. So it was this simplicity that allowed the love in. Word, by compact word.
When my college professors began to emphasize the point, speaking of editing and being precise, I could only smile. That point had long ago been walked in –firm, straight and overalled. My grandfather’s words built a library inside of me. Cataloged by heart. Endlessly referenced.
And I use it still today. In my writing. My painting. My interactions. If you have to tell someone, “I was only kidding…”; “It was only a joke…”; “What I meant was…”; “The point they were trying to make…” — then there is a problem. There’s no room in the heart for all of that. What a glorious filter it can be.
I’m currently reading the book, “What you are looking for is in the Library.” When my friend recommended it, I accepted quickly. She had long ago made it past the filter. And the title itself walked easily in, wearing overalls.
I suppose that’s where all the love is stored. Here. And I pull from it daily. My grandparents’ shelf. My mother’s shelf. Husband. Friends. Family of all covers, all languages. Those whispering still and again, my heart’s truth.
We didn’t have backpacks. We had lockers. When we transitioned from the one classroom of sixth grade to the multi-class cycle day system of junior high, they gave us combinations and a stacks of books. Theft was not a big problem. Not that we were morally superior. The five minutes allowed to get from class to class was barely enough time to search your own locker. I wasn’t worried about my coat. Or my boots. But my books. My underlined, yellow-highlighted, notes in margins, heart clutched books…I loved them. My most prized possessions. I carried the stack from class to class.
At the first teacher’s conferences, I got the standard responses. They told my mother I was doing well. “But she doesn’t need to carry all of her books to every class.” My mother smiled, “Actually, she does.” She knew me.
I suppose I have always lived in the word. The comfort. The hope. The beauty. They danced from my mother’s mouth, until I learned to partner with them myself. They have never left me.
As we travel from city to city, the first thing I look for is the bookstore. Even if I don’t go inside, I do need to know it’s there. I trust a city that reads. A people that live word by word.
My suitcases are weighted with this trust. Books in every zippered flap. Some might find that silly. Some might say you don’t need them. With the assurance of heaven smiles and heart whispers, I tell you, “Actually, I do.”
They did the best they could to fill our minds, but it’s a longer path to the soul.
I’m sure we had a section about her — Rosa Parks. But to be honest, I’m certain we spent more time talking about our own bus rides to and from the very school that was trying to teach us.
In these desks, I had always assumed the word “enough,” was used in anger. Exasperation. “That’s enough!!!” — the teacher might say, often accompanied by a book, ruler, pencil, anything slammed against the desk. And we could be, well, exasperating for sure. We heard it from the bus driver who just couldn’t take the noise anymore as he drove us to Van Dyke Road, where parents, tired from a day’s work, said the same at the dinner table.
It was much later that I learned a new meaning. A calm, gentle enough. An enough that says farewell to the hurt, the anger, the torment, whatever it is pulling down on you. I suppose it takes a while to find this inner place. This inner peace. No bus can actually take you there, you have to find it from within. And when you do, you can say, just as Rosa Parks did, in the most graceful of ways, enough. To say with all of your mind, heart and soul, in a whisper that shouts louder than any slam, “Oh, but it is my place…” and take it.
We all have to learn it. But I’m so grateful for those who give us the examples of how it is done with grace. I have heard it from my grandmother. My mother. Rosa Parks. I painted the bookmark as a reminder. There is still so much to learn. So much to let go. But we CAN do it with grace. Enough of the name calling. The bullying. The fighting. The soul crushing, spirit limiting behavior.
We were taught that it was sacred, right from the start. “Children, be quiet,” she urged, as Mrs. Bergstrom walked us from our first grade classroom to the library. I don’t remember asking why. I guess I always assumed it was because the books had so much to say, we needed to listen.
With this opening of worlds, it became necessary from the start to mark our places. The librarian told us, pleaded with us, never to “dog ear” the page. Imagine, she explained, if every time you walked into your home, your mother grabbed you by the ear and folded it over and pulled you in to show you your place. We all agreed that would be terrible. I know some still did it. I can’t say who for sure, but I had my suspicions. And the proof was often there in a big crease going diagonally down the story. I didn’t do it. I still don’t. Not because I was so perfect. No, it was because just down the hall, in art class, it was Mr. Opsahl that taught us paper had a memory. When you folded it, it stayed. Everything we were being taught at Washington Elementary told us that these books, these pages with words, were alive. And it was here, that I found my place.
I still live there. Here. In the word. It’s where I find my truth. My hope. My joy. It’s here I can find company. Comfort. I can welcome you in, and with any luck, give you the same. Because I think that’s what they were always telling us, as we raced to make our mark — to listen, to be kind. We can do this. For each other. We’re all hear to tell a story.
The walk of temptation was extraordinary for a five year old. My mom parked the Chevy Impala in front of Ben Franklin that Saturday morning. I could already see the candy through the double glass doors. My impatient feet jittered up and down next to the parking meter as she rummaged through the bottom of her purse for a quarter. I rolled my eyes as she pushed aside Kleenex and breath mints. “C’mon,” I would never say out loud, but released through the clenching and unclenching of my chubby fingers. The coin dropped and the red flag moved aside. We were free. I raced past the front cashier and stood in front of the penny candy. If I saw it today, with grown-up eyes, the square plastic bins stacked on an end cap, might not seem so magical, but then, oh, then, it was glorious! It was Tinkerbell’s wand waving over a colorful rainbow of sugar. I could feel my chin drop. “Wait!” I said as she led me down the aisle. “Can’t we just get a little bit..just one color even…just a piece of red…” “Next time,” she said, “We have better things to do.” Better things, I grumbled underneath my breath. Impossible, I thought. And dragged my bumper tennis shoes along. The aisle became stacked with toys. Beautiful, plastic covered toys! Yes, I thought. These must be the better things. I began to touch everything. I wanted it all. Or anything! Something pink and shiny! Please, I begged, perhaps out loud, or just with heart-reaching urgency. I felt her hand on my shoulder again. “Better…” she promised. It couldn’t possibly be, I thought. Yet, she had never lied to me. But here, in the center aisle of the Ben Franklin, I must admit, I had my doubts. We walked through the back door. A large pillared building stood in front of us. I began to near the grass, but she pulled me to the sidewalk. “You need to see all of it,” she said. We stood in front. The Alexandria Public Library. It was beautiful, but what was inside? “Books,” she said. “They give them to you. With just your name.” I could only breathe the word, “OHHHHH…” We walked up the stairs and opened the doors. “It smells like words,” I said. She smiled and led me down the stairs to the children’s section. I could barely move. Every spine, every cover, called to me. “Take your time,” she said. Each letter tugged at my sleeve until my arms were filled. I signed (printed) my name on the small mildewed card. My heart beat sugared from the inside. “Do you want me to help you carry them?” I shook my head no and carefully maneuvered myself and the precious cargo down the stairs. I started walking up the sidewalk. “Don’t you want to cut through?” she asked, pointing at Ben Franklin. “No,” I said, “this is better.” We walked the long way to the car. Books in hand, I held the keys to the kingdom.
It just occurred to me this morning who she looks like — the woman I painted on my bookmark. Mrs. Paulson. My fourth grade teacher at Washington Elementary. Never during that entire school year did I see her undone. Hair coiffed. Dress pressed so impeccably that I waited, watching for a wrinkle to appear. She wiped the chalk from her hands on a cloth that sat on the corner of her wooden desk. Not one to plop, she lowered herself slowly into her wooden chair. Her fitted dress followed. Not fighting, as if it knew the routine, and I guess it did. When she rose again from that wooden chair (too elegant to just “get up”), she smoothed her chalk-free hands firmly down the skirt of her dress, and it responded perfectly. Wrinkles never dared the hands of Mrs. Paulson. She stood tall. We listened.
Of course she taught us subjects and predicates. But she constructed more than sentences. For those of us paying attention, and I have to believe that most of us were, (as so elegantly commanded), we received lessons that far exceeded the normal classroom. Some might say, “Well, anyone could do that,” and that may be true, but not everyone did, nor does.
In the fourth grade I began to think about things like posture and elegance. Mrs. Paulson saw to that. Shoulders high and back, I sit at my desk and try to pass it on daily. With the help of all those who came before, I have indeed found my place.
