Part Five- Passing the torch

My mother read to me as a child and it was always important that we read and discussed things such as books and current events. It was good for my literary development but also for my interaction with my mother. It helped us stay connected and, as a child, made me feel important. My grandmother read fairy tales to me, but not the Disney-fied stories. In our The Little Mermaid, she dies and Cinderella's stepsisters cut off pieces of their feet to make the slipper fit. While that sounds scary to some, my husband for example, I'm very appreciative for those stories as each one has a moral and a life lesson. 

I read the fairy tales my grandmother read to me to my baby before she was born. I did it in secret since my husband objects. Now that Maggie is here and I can see her reactions I've found that she loves Shakespeare. This is probably because I do the voices but I'm glad she enjoys being read to. It's our time together where I have her undivided attention.

Part Four- Isn't antiquing for retired people?

Whenever I travel I make it a point to go to flea markets and antique stores in search of old books. My collection began with a found book that belonged to my great grandmother (a school teacher). It is a beautiful copy of Dante's Paradise Lost. On our honeymoon I found a lovely copy of The Faerie Queen in Savannah, GA, a trip to Wilmington where we decided to start our family yielded copies of Vanity Fair and a leather-bound pocket copy of the poetry of Robert Burns. Even though I now own an electronic reader and carry around over 200 books at my fingertips, I hate the idea that actual paper books might become extinct. I love the feel and smell of books and I like the idea of how older books may have travelled. Of course, I do encounter some characters on the excursions and bless my husband for going with me!

Part Three- Exhibitionism as a gateway drug

I enjoyed performing in high school. I dreamt of performing on Broadway. The downside when I performed was that I paid little attention to the scenes that didn't involve me. I was able to be in Little Women, The Crucible and Much Ado About Nothing. 

It was during this time that I began to read plays the way one would read books. It started as a way to find monologues for auditions and I would get wrapped up in the stories. I recently read The Importance of Being Earnest and loved that it makes me laugh just as hard as any comedy on TV or in the movie theatre. When you're watching a performance you get lost in the actors' interpretation of the plot, but when you read a play the story can unfold in your own head and in your own time.

Part Two- Nerdom, Past, Present and Future

My favorite books throughout my life have centered on a female narrator, strong or not. As a child I loved the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In high school I discovered Edith Wharton and Maya Angelou. The Buccaneers is still one of my favorite books and I currently own three copies of it. 

Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors and I can nearly recite Pride and Prejudice by heart. I still have very little love for her Emma, but Persuasion still makes me melt. Coincidentally, I own several copies of her works as well. I was resistant to the Bronte sisters until I took a class on them in England. I still struggle with seeing Wuthering Heights as a love story, but I have found a new love in Jane Eyre.

I like to buy different versions of the same book to read the editor's notes and see if I agree with them. This can create a storage problem. My husband and I moved into our house in 2011 and I still have not moved in all of my books.

Part One- Writing my story, so to speak

I began writing in a journal at an early age but I've never been able to stay committed and focused on it. I thought that I might be able to stay with it when I did my semester abroad; reasoning that I wouldn't want to forget any details of my time in England. I was good for about two weeks. I thought I might do the same to chart my pregnancy and now my experiences with motherhood; I've yet to write a single word. I suppose that if I have the time to do this I would rather read someone else's words than jot down my own.

In high school I wrote poetry furiously and I wrote it on anything I had handy: paper, my hand, a wall, etc. My works were always fueled by teen angst and the unhappiness and melancholy that usually accompanies adolescence. My poetry as I've gotten older and less miserable has also become sparse, as if my inspiration is derived from unhappiness. I find that my "happy" poetry tends to be pandering and I throw away more than I keep. My teens were a mish mash of black lipstick, grunge music, dark imagery and unrequited love and I poured that into my writing.

The above link seems to sum up my teens so eloquently. I am glad that those days are behind me, even if my well of inspiration is tentatively dry. I'd rather be happy and uninspired than the alternative.

life seems to cut into my reading time...

My reading patterns when I was younger were a bit sporadic, I would go through spurts where I couldn't read enough then I would stop for a couple months. Now, I read in every spare moment I have and I tend to keep more than one book going at a time. I re-read my favorites, like The Outlander series, I usually keep one piece of Tudor historical fiction going, and then something I didn't expect to like or something completely out of my character. I tell my stepson that the brain is a muscle and reading is how we work it out. Right now I am reading Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Galbadon, Her Highness, The Traitor by Susan Higgenbotham and The Borgias by Jean Plaidy. It may take me some time to finish these books, what with the baby and work, but this is how I unwind, relax and escape the hustle and bustle of a very hectic life!