Warm Comfort

This morning I woke up to a brilliant email telling me that good things are happening with Situation #1 from yesterday's post. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I guess sometimes things have to come out, ugly and raw, before a peaceful resolution can be pursued. Not the preferred method of evolution but hey, if the end result is a beautiful one then I say it is all worth it.

In other news, "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch finally arrived in the mail the other day (Amazon reported some sort of delay). As predicted, I love it. His voice is pure and true. It's lovely.

I read four books while I was away last weekend. Indulgent stolen moments in airports, on airplanes and during car rides. Quiet mornings and sleepy nights. I read and read and read some more. I'm still reading. Nothing can concurrently quiet and replenish my soul like a lovely book can. I can at once lose and find myself within a book's pages. No matter what the topic or genre, I always learn something. Always. It's a cycle for me. I tend to always have "a book going" but ever so often I somehow find or make the time to read insatiably and then I binge with a capital "B." Fervently reading one book after another after another after another with nary a pause in between. It is a delicious and comforting remnant from my self-insulated childhood. For me, books are a portable "happy place." I can safely say they saved my life as a kid in a turbulent home. The best gift our Mother ever gave us was the gift of knowledge. She brought me books by the armful and let me spend entire weekends holed up in my room reading them all. Like a magical time machine, when I had my nose stuck in a book I was safe and happy in a cocoon of beautifully crafted words. Now, I have nothing to escape but the seed has long been planted and the feeling is blessedly the same: warm comfort.

The best part of it all? Natalie inhales books*. She even gets in trouble sometimes in school for reading in class. he he I rarely take credit for any of her wonderfulness but that one trait? Oh yeah, that's all me. :)

Comments

[SabineM]

My parents divorced when I was 7 or 8 and it was WWIII for ever!
Divorce is always soo hard on the kids. IF ONLY ADULTS would think of the kids instead of our Pi$$ed off they are at each other!
Glad that things are improving!
Happy mother's day tomorrow

[Leta]

I SO get the book love. I spent countless hours escaping into books as a child as well. I adore reading and always have something on my bedside table. I hope my kids inherit this trait (without the need to escape, of course!). I used to laugh at my mom because she always kept a paperback in her purse and read while waiting to pick me up and now I do the very same thing.

[Tanya]

I'm so with you on loving books! I adore reading. And I always have at least 2 or so books that I'm in the process of reading. Unfortunately I can't read as often as I'd like to now, but when I'm on vacation? That's like the thing I DREAM about. lol

[andrea]

Yeah books! Would love to know your top 10.
a.

[Rebekah]

My mom gave me a passion for reading books as well. I remember having the "Anne of Green Gables" series in a stack by my bedside so that as soon as I finished reading one I could immediately pick up the next. But not before heaving a deep sigh of satisfaction that can only come after reading a great book. Nowadays, I do a ton of reading in the summertime when we're in CA. I'm going to have to start looking for my "stack" for this summer SOON! =)

[wenders]

I love books, too.

Being a child of a librarian and a professor, I think it was required. But I remember being enthralled by certain books - Mandy, by Julie Andrews and Heidi, to name two of my favorites. I love comparing lists of childhood favs with my friends, I think you can learn so much.

And, I'm listening to Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart on my walk to work and it's really good...