. . .the axe for the frozen sea inside us . . (Camus).
For Anais Nin, reading was the alarm to awaken us from the slumber of almost-living.
As I grew up, my parents were loving, but too caught up in their own deep worries and concerns to be very present. My sister, although she tried, was enough older than I to not be available as a playmate. As a child, books were my refuge. I learned the secrets of hidden attics with Nancy Drew. I sailed down a river in Oregon with the Mercer Boys in their cruise on the Lassie. The Hardy Boys taught me how to sniff out a hidden clue in the neighbor’s woodshed. I puzzled over Pilgrim’s Progress. Early formative experiences for one who grew up to become a shrink, and play detective to the human psyche all those years!
Later, as an adolescent, I learned the values implicit in relationship and romance from the likes of Grace Livingston Hill. I fell in love with Emily Loring’s rich and sensual descriptions of rocky coasts and brilliant landscapes and the taste of lobster in New England, delights undreamed of to a mountain kid. Unbeknownst to my mother, I received early and graphic sexual education from Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead.
Books were journeys. Medicine. Parties to which I wasn’t invited. They shaped who I was, and who I would become. They inspired and transformed me.
And still do, all these years later. I recently received some dismaying news about some eye issues, and now one of the prayers I have added to my “now I lay me down to sleep” regimen is that I and my eyes last equally long.
Thank you, Books, for being!!
