Today I get the Paris Review. Each one a treasure. Words and pictures. Stories and poems. A world held in the palm of my hands. Often clutched to my chest, as if the turning of the pages could not insert deep enough. You could think that it was simply the couture of all things France, but I will tell you, that I felt the same in our unfinished basement on Van Dyke Road in Alexandria, Minnesota, chubby hands wrapped around the newest issue of the Reader’s Digest. 

Seeking relief from summer’s heat, I curled into the damp cool of the cement, and traveled my way slowly, armed with the directions given in the previous school years, from Mrs. Strand, Mrs. Bergstrom and Mrs. Erickson. I sounded out. Acted out. Laughed out loud to gather in the medicine the funny section claimed to offer. Lived out loud on every page.

And the thing is, it didn’t tell me my future. But it gave me the assurance that I would have one. Each letter a small taste of what was to come, if I dared the turning. 

I don’t know what this day will bring. It may be the Reader’s Digest version of something glorious to come, or simply the cool comfort of what is. Either way, I will be saved.