In A Favorite Tree With A Favorite Book
- LadyofManyHats
- Jul 5, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 3, 2022
Turning the index-sized library card in my hands, I wondered how this piece of thick manila could be so powerful. I had dreamed of this moment since I was fifteen … volunteering as a page who carted books about and popped them into their homes on the library shelf. On the day when I turned sixteen, a scorcher by the way, I walked two miles to the town library and got a card for myself. A dream fulfilled.
It was such a precious possession to me. With this piece of cardboard, my name typed boldly on it, I could go places. I visited far-away lands, climbed high mountains and ate strange food. I traveled the ocean waves searching for a whale and rode on a flimsy raft down the Mississippi. Oh, I can’t leave out flying in a time machine and becoming a dusty pioneer girl on a wagon train. Then there was that huge volume about young women growing up …
Tucking these treasures in my arms, I would scoot up the crabapple tree in my backyard. Perched on my favorite bark-free branch, sheltered in leaves and a cooling breeze, the pages would turn and turn. Sometimes I would close my eyes and be there …
Ugh.
After slipping and falling from my favorite tree, I later nested in a cozy corner in the den, surrounding myself with books of every genre. How they teased and delighted, scared and empowered, instructed and coached me. And carried me away from the family chaos swirling around and around.
Dozens upon dozens of bound pages enticed and journeyed with me. I wondered about how those books came to be; who were those people in the small print hovering near the word "by". Maybe I could be like them.
I picked up a scratchy ballpoint pen and began writing. And writing some more. Poems and prayers, essays and short stories, snippets on torn pages thrown loosely into an old notebook. There were thoughts of finalizing outrageous composition. Then I would run to the post office, and shortly after find a bound book in my mailbox.
Not.
College had begun, its floodgate opened wide as it poured continuous classes, tests, and never-ending assignments. Writing became drudgery with the professor’s corrective red pen hovering over my work. Finding required books at times unaffordable I would speed-read cover to cover in the bookstore, filling chipmunk cheeks in my head and then scrawling it all out on a test sheet. Yes, I became educated, consuming books like crazy. But the creative juices that flowed in the crabapple tree were turned off.
About now it would have been nice to have a quick movie ending with my pen out and creating. But not so. There was the after-college stuff. Lots of life happenings … finding employment, obtaining additional education, marriage, child-rearing, home maintenance.
You name it.
But one humid summer day, I sat on out on the patio and pulled out a long, yellow tablet, and began to write. A brief article for a newspaper; a longer one for that magazine. Letters were secured, stamped, and sent off. Eyes strained upon the clock waiting for answers. Getting restless, I began to write longer stories covering many pages.
Years and years went by.
Finally, there was a book, actually, there are three in all, sitting on my lap, my finger thumbing through them. Today I invite you to take a seat in the den or your favorite tree. Then read my most recent novel, catching the attention of a young person, or anyone for that matter. Bringing words, plain ordinary words together, weaving a story that encourages, heartens, and leaves you satisfied.
My recent book was published last week and is titled,
“Secret Passages Nothing Ever Happens in Tuttlebury.”
Please find it by using these links
. Enjoy.
… and that’s how I live it.
The other two are:
“Paid in Chocolate, Tales from a Counselor’s Chair”- Johnna Anne Gurr
“Dueling Picket Fences” - J.A. Elaine (pen name)
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