Literary Love Affair...

     “Joan,” my mother says my name.
     “Joan,” she calls a little louder.
     “JOAN!”
     I startle, blink, and locate the source of my name. “Huh?” I reply.
     “I want you go outside for a while. You’ve been shuttered up inside all day. You need to go out and get some sunshine.”
     “In a little while.”
     “That’s what you said an hour ago.”
     “Just let me finish this chapter.”
     “Alright, but I want you to go out and move a little. Your blood is puddling.”
     Five minutes and five pages later, I uncurl myself and stand to stretch before heading outside.

*      *      *

     Hundreds of characters have at one time or another held the lofty, yet short-lived, honor of Joan’s Favorite. From Nancy Drew to Huck Finn, from Anne Frank to Ender, from Frodo to Alice, many have had their 15-minutes in lights. Am I fickle? I don’t fall in and out of love, rather, I have intense crushes on the courageous, adventurous, lovable, and wise inhabitants of the stories I read.
     “This week’s Bookademy Award for Best Female Character in a Dramatic Role goes to… the envelope, please…”
     It’s not that I love too little; it’s that I love too much. After a while, I can’t even remember all their names. In my mind’s eye, I can see their adventures, their trials and their triumphs, their brushes with death and their love affairs as clear as if it were just yesterday when we met. But details like their names escape me.

*      *      *

     I save my deep love for authors. I have had lengthy affairs of the heart with writers, gone on binges with storytellers. Certain authors, I have returned to time after time, never able to satisfy my desire for their bewitching words, their siren voices, always yearning for one more chapter, one more story, one more book.
     Storytelling is a sacred art, a gift from the gods and inspired to great heights by the Muses. Some write well enough, some quite well, but only a rare few angelically. A well-crafted story, though not always pretty, is beautiful. It has the power to transport me to times and places where I have never been and to immerse me into those times and places so powerfully that I know them intimately. I have traveled to distant solar systems, ancient villages, concentration camps, and magical cities. I have dined at banquets in the courts of kings and lay with the bloodied and dying in muddy battlefields. I have hiked through pristine forests of unexplored lands, felt the magic of fairy dust tingling on my skin, and ridden behind smoke-belching locomotives. I’ve been joyful in triumph, mournful of loss, giddy with love, and despairing of all hope.
     Words, eloquent and exact, are the sacred medium of the writer’s craft. I savor the way they flow over my tongue when I read them aloud. When I read them silently to myself, my mind’s ear hears them just as clearly, as they flow over my mind’s silent tongue. Well-chosen words, strung together with great care, create emotions, make connections, unveil brilliant ideas, and dare to change long-held perspectives.

*      *      *

John Steinbeck. Jane Austen. Ernest Hemingway. John Michener.

Ken Follet. Mary Stewart. Leon Uris. Orson Scott Card.

Neal Stephenson.

Barbara Kingsolver.

Pat Conroy.

Demigods all, in Joan’s Wordsmith Hall of Fame.

     Each of them has laid claim to a piece of my heart. Each of them is a teacher, a guru, a mentor, from whom I have learned about the workings of the world and my innermost intimate self. Witnessing, through their words, acts of courage, I have learned to be courageous. From their stories of pain and deprivation, I have learned empathy and compassion. I have been inspired towards creativity while immersed in word pictures of beauty and become galvanized by images of injustice. Between the lines of their stories, I have found truth and the roots of wisdom.
     Good writers compress time and space for us and reduce the “degrees of separation” between ourselves and others. With authors’ able assistance, we expand our minds to wrap them around new perspectives, the traditions of distant cultures, and the lives of people and civilizations long dead. In ways only possible in stories, we get to “know” strangers better than our own neighbors, because we are privy to their secret hearts’ desires and learn what motivates them. The paradox of this simultaneous compression and expansion starts us on the path to changing, first our perspectives, then our world.

*      *      *

     The reading lamp at my side carves a golden cave of light from the darkness. Curled comfortably around a book, I had not noticed the sun set nor the window fade to black. I had not noticed the room go cold, nor did I hear my stomach grumble. Looking up, I am surprised by the time. Knowing I should head to bed, I pull the fuzzy warm throw more tightly around my shoulders and tell myself, “Just one more chapter… Just one more chapter… Just one more chapter.”

*      *      *

     After some early crushes, James Michener was my first true literary love. In a youthful and lustful binge, I consumed several of his massive volumes, some of them double volumes, one right after the other. Starting with Hawaii, I savored my way through The Source, Caravans, Chesapeake, Centennial, and The Covenant. I was mesmerized by the way he takes the reader to a specific place, and then recounts the rich and enticing history of that place from nearly the beginning of time to the present. Volcanoes explode and dinosaurs roam in chapter one. Generations, after generations, of fascinating people are born and die, or move in and out of the place. I became a firsthand witness to the multitude of interconnections and layers of causes-and-effects that drive history forward and move people to progress with it, eagerly or reluctantly, peacefully or violently.
     I felt my mind expand to accommodate the vast timeframes Michener compressed between the covers of his books. A dawning awareness of the mysterious threads weaving people and events together over vast numbers of years came to me in epiphany-like moments of realization. For the first time, I knew myself to be a part of the fabric interconnecting us all through time and space. Those transcending moments of clarity in my young life have had, to this day, a lasting impact on my personal life philosophy, as well as, fostering in me a powerful desire to visit distant places to witness firsthand the stories of their peoples.
     In a departure from his usual format, Michener wrote The Drifters about a group of young world-wanderers during the 1960’s. In this tale, instead of limiting place and allowing time to stretch over eons, he limited time to allow space to stretch across the globe. It was with this story Michener made his greatest mark on my heart, feeding the fires of my wanderlust, fueling a yearning to follow in the gypsy footsteps of “the drifters” to become like them, citizens of the world. Practical constraints limit my world-wandering, but within the covers of books, I can travel limitlessly. Both forms of travel minimize the "degrees of separation" between "us" and the different, or distant, "them," broadening my perspective and enhancing my sense of empathy and compassion for all members of the human fabric.

*      *      *

     The Aborigines of Australia believe that, gifted with the power of speech, people are the voices for all Creation, and as such, we have the responsibility to tell stories for all of Earth’s inhabitants and even for Earth herself.
     Writers are my heroes; they go about changing the world one story at a time, one reader at a time. When I grow up, I want to be one, too. I want to be a writer, a storyteller. And I want a Muse of my very own to help me be heroic in my writing, to help me be one of Creation’s clear voices.

Silver in the Sky...

"The aim of life is to live,

and to live means to be aware,

joyously,

drunkenly,

serenely,

divinely

aware."

~ Henry Miller

     Lying on my back on a granite slab high in the Sierra, a narrow rocky peninsula reaching into the inky blue waters of Loch Leven, I gaze lazily upward to the clear blue late-August sky, clearing my mind and taking in the glory of the brisk and breezy day. The air is pristine, infused with the crisp scent of pine. Breathing, I feel the clear, cool oxygen molecules enter my lungs, my bronchial tubes, hitch a ride on red blood cells, and deliver a burst of energy to each and every cell in my body, down to the tips of my toes. I am intensely aware... aware of the hard sharpness of the earth beneath me... aware of the vast blue space extending above me... aware of the soft cool breeze sweeping away the warmth of the sun's rays... aware of...

     Suddenly, the sky around the sun is filled with iridescent and sparkling fairy dust -- no, not dust -- floating strands of fine thread. Millions and millions, perhaps billions and billions, of silvery silk strands twinkle in the afternoon sun. I hold my hand aloft, blocking out the blinding light like a palm-shaped eclipse, to better see the morphing, shimmering shapes. An illusion of the eye, I'm sure, they appear to fly only in concentric circles around the sun, creating a huge, shining, spiraling vortex of silky wisps. I am mesmerized by this totally unexpected and miraculous phenomenon.

     Watching the floating vortex dancing weightless above me, images of the planet Pern, from fantasy novels by Anne McCaffrey, come to mind. Pern is a distant human-colonized planet that is home to real, live dragons. Every several decades, in a pattern as regular as clockwork, Pern passes near her sister planet, which is populated exclusively by fungi. When the planets pass close to one another, long shimmering strands of fungi spores float and drift across the short distance of space and passively land on Pern's surface. Shifting to aggression, the fungi voraciously devour all they contact. Dragonriders, astride their flying dragon steads, are the planet's only defense. Though her description is eerily similar, certainly, the fantastic phenomenon I am witnessing is not the advance guard of a fungi space invasion of Earth.

     A much more benign image, also from fantasy literature, arises next in my mind. The closing scene in E. B. White's classic story, Charlotte's Web, has Charlotte's progeny taking to the air. Millions of baby spiders, riding on air currents, each with its own delicate spiderweb parachute, are whisked airborne safely to new homes.

     It is much more likely that the singularly mysterious phenomenon I am observing is a mass migration of miniscule spiders on iridescent web filaments, rather than an army of invading fungi space aliens, but in either case, it is magically beautiful. I wonder, were similar real-life observations by storytellers McCaffrey and White the inspiration for their delicious novels? If so, one author described the actual natural process that he witnessed, while the other, like me, chose to remain under the magic spell created by her own sense of wonder.

Books, Beautiful Books...

You may have tangible wealth untold; 

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. 

Richer than I you can never be --

I had a Mother who read to me.

(Strickland Gillilan)

     I had a Grandmother who read to me. I hadn't thought about Grandma Edna for some time, nor of the beautiful books I have inherited from her. It wasn't seeing those books on my bookshelves that reminded me of her just now. Strangely enough, it was the aroma of macaroni-and-cheese that transported me across time and space to my childhood and her company.

     When my parents would go out for the evening, my sister and I would be left in Grandma's care, and since Grandma didn't really cook, that meant a dinner of macaroni-and-cheese and Lawrence Welk or Lassie on the TV. Sometimes Grandma lived with us, in a tiny set of rooms that used to be the "maid's quarters" when the rambling old house was new decades in the past. But much of the time when I was small, she lived in equally tiny rooms on the second floor of the Porter Hotel in downtown San Fernando.
     The aroma of macaroni-and-cheese bubbling in the oven always starts me down a wispy "stream of consciousness" trail in my mind. From mac-n-cheese nights, I'm drawn to the memory of another scent, that of Grandma's sweet talcum powder. In my mind's eye I see the two of us sitting on her bed in that small apartment on the Porter Hotel's second floor. I was little, a preschooler perhaps. We'd push the bolster and pillows up against the wall and sit on the woolen blue-and-white bedcover, whose rough and bumpy texture I can still feel. Leaning back against the pillows and snuggled up together over a book, we were warm and cozy. I loved listening to her read aloud to me, while I looked at the pictures. A gifted storyteller, she magically pulled me into the tales, her voice rising and falling with the rhythm of the plot, bringing the characters alive by giving each of them a unique speaking voice.
     Grandma would read modern stories like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham to me, occasionally, if I asked, but both of us really preferred it when she read from an old book filled with fairy tales. Book House For Children volumes, edited by Olive Beaupre Miller and printed in 1925, were filled with stories handed down for generations and from cultures around the world. The tales were accompanied by beautiful multi-colored illustrations in bold hues, their borders and scrolling reminiscent of ancient illuminated manuscripts. Between the covers were familiar fairy tales like "Sleeping Beauty" and "Little Red Riding Hood," but there were also many lesser known stories as well. My favorites, the ones we read over and over and over, were "Snow White and Rose Red" and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."
     These same books sit, today, on my own bookshelves, along with others of that same vintage, My Book of History and Tales from... . Originally purchased for my mother, back in the days before the Great Depression reduced my grandmother from prosperity to poverty, they are still in beautiful condition.  The covers are embossed fabric, each printed with a brilliantly colored illustration; the pages are made of thick paper rarely seen in modern books.
    
     When I was about nine or ten, Grandma Edna came to live with us. Her eyesight, as a result of glaucoma, was nearly gone, so she could no longer read. I would sit in the living room with her and read to her from my favorite Nancy Drew books, beginning with The Mystery of the Old Clock. I'm not sure, in hindsight, how interesting she found those children's mysteries to be, but she sat with me and at least feigned great interest as I read aloud with emphasis, giving each character a different speaking voice, just like she had taught me how to do. Those old Nancy Drew books, the old, dark blue ones with the cloth covers, not the newer yellow and blue ones, sit in the bookcase adjacent to the Book House tomes, each representing a different phase in my young life.

     Decades later, when my son, Dean, was little, I read aloud to him every day. We read newer children's books like Jamberry and Heckety Peg, but it was from the pages of the Book House volumes that we discovered the fairy tales and legends that captivated us both. Dean's favorites were different than mine; he favored hero's adventures rather than princess stories. We'd cuddle up all warm and cozy to pour over a story and its pictures. Like Grandma, I'd read in voices and with great enthusiasm. Dean grew up to be as voracious a reader as I was, and still am.
     When he was about seven, in an effort to make room in his bookcases for newer acquisitions, I began packing up some of the preschool level books, with the intention of donating them to the local library. Dean interrupted my project and asked what I was going to do with the big box of his "baby books." When I explained my plan, tears began to well up in his eyes, and he said with heartfelt passion, "You can't give away my books! My books are my life!"
     Needless to say, I returned the books to their honored places on the shelves and never again even considered giving them away. As a result, both he and I could be considered prime examples of "bookaholics," having homes filled with overflowing bookshelves, towering piles of books, read and unread, on nearly every flat surface, beside the bed, on the coffee table, next to the comfy reading chair.

Bookaholic:

1. someone who loves books and reading, 
2. someone with a vast collection of books,
3. someone who keeps buying books to add to a stack of unread books

     If I'm going to have a vice, I'm just as glad that this is it. Though expensive and time-consuming, it's rather harmless and a great source of pleasure.