Tripped over the trail of a new memoir last night, and nothing would do until I popped over to the bookstore to pick up a copy.
I tried to resist. Really I did. But I couldn't settle down to write anything, couldn't make myself clean the house or even work on the quilt I'm making for Katie's 21st birthday (which is coming up all too soon). Robert Leleux called to me from the pages of The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, whispering so loudly I couldn't hear or think of anything else.
You know what happened next, don't you? Yes. Another memoir added itself to the pile. Kelly Corrigan's The Middle Place simply insisted on coming home with me, too.
From the moment in 1964 when I turned the first page of a biography of Madame Curie until today, real people preserved in books like specimens in jars have completely captivated me. Amelia Earhart. Booker T. Washington. Sojourner Truth. Clara Barton. Eleanor Roosevelt. These people (and others) illuminated a path out of the woods for me. Not just the woods where I lived, but the isolation of feeling so different....so other from the people around me. I read every single biography and autobiography in the elementary school library, then the junior high library, and finally the high school library.
One of elementary school librarians was assigned to take me to the bigger libraries once a week. We walked together down the sidewalk behind the football field, loping during cold weather, doing a slow waltz in warm. It was a voyage to unknown territories, this trek from the safety of our one-story building with its child-sized chairs and water fountains to the land of giants, where the staircases were huge and the hallways twisted in inexplicable circles. Books were the spices I brought back from this New World. No one cared. No one but me, and I knew that books were the things that would lead me home.
Read about half of each new book before calling it a night. More about that later. For now--if you're in a state that participates in Super (Duper) Tuesday--don't forget to vote!
9 comments:
If only we Oregonians could vote! It's all but decided before anyone hears from our state, and we have lots to say! Sorry you got me started? I'm not, may need to full on rant somewhere.
Go memoir!
Great piece!
Hope you got SOME sleep!
Ooh - I love hearing about new books! Let me know which one(s) you recommend.
Love.
Preachin' to the choir, babe. lol!
:)
Love this J:
"Books were the spices I brought back from this New World....and I knew that books were the things that would lead me home."
I will write more to you later. Gotta go join the super wave of optimism and hope....
Yes. We. Can.
It's weird, in school I was so turned off by history but over the last few years I've been drawn to historical books and movies, etc.
Something about the way things "were", fascinates me.
How cool that you had your own private librarian shuttling you about to keep up with your thirst.
You are awesome!
You know what I love about you? You are as book-addicted as everyone else, you collect great books, but you also actually READ all of them. Can't recall who posted about taking a blogging break to actually read her piles of books, but I know I sure have piles to go. Still haven't read most of what you gave me last summer, but I will!
You are an inspiration.
And I'm with Carrie about the lameness of our late primary.
I dont really understand caucuses and super tuesday, but the love of the libraries, the smell of the ancient pages and wood polish and wool. The whispers and wisdom, oh I loved going to the central library, the giant one , but I didn't have a special guide to take me there. How amazing is that piece of childhood trivia?
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