Stories

I love to read. I can devour books in hours, and I feel lost when they are over. 


I have affairs with new books. Books that  are crisp and untouched and unloved. I hold them and read them and love them until their pages are worn; folded over and wrinkled and read and reread. 


I adore children's books.  The simplicity, the color, the way there is a children's book for every subject and holiday and special moment. I love to read them aloud to my students, and I wait for their eyes to light up and the laugh to come. In fact, it steals a special place in my heart when I catch someone laughing to themselves as they read because I know that feeling, too. 


I cherish old books.  Books with a history. Books that someone else has already loved and marked and folded. I try to imagine what it must have been like for them the first moment they picked up the book and pressed down the spine with their hand. 

This book smells like my granny. I can remember scanning through her shelf of books and finding this one day. I was eleven, maybe twelve.  It was a scandalous book, and I was huddled up on her couch and giggling at the words that I wasn't allowed to say. I don't remember ever finishing the book, but the story it holds for me is priceless.