Personal Library

"When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does."
--Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail

One of the great things about this last trip to LA is that Dale and I were able to take two 35-pound boxes of my things from my Mother's house to our home in Salt Lake.  It took us 2.6 years to do this because it is only now that we have a place big enough to store anything other than what is needed right now.  In these boxes were keepsakes from 13 years of girl scouting, a decade of journaling, my CD collection, my baby book, and my childhood library.

This isn't just any childhood library.  This is the childhood library of a kid whose first chapter book was Gulliver's Travels when she was 6. 

I should have felt the stirrings of the universe telling me something when I chose Ender's Game to keep me busy on the plane ride in. 

Ender's Game really is the most famous of the books I chose as a child.  Other's were called Silver, The Only Alien on the Planet, The entire Anne of Green Gables series, The Face on the Milk Carton (books 1, 2, and 3), anything by Jane Austin, SongMaster, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and StarBridge (Books 1-7).  I kept them on a shelf at the head of my bed, and always seemed to be reading one of them or another, regardless of how I was 14 and still reading a book written for a 2nd grade reading level or if I was 9 and reading a book for 30 year olds.  The all time favorite was StarBridge, book 1.  I re-read it this week.  No exaggeration neccessary, I think I've read it at least two dozen times.  That's 24 times.  And that's a conservative estimate.  There's nothing special about this book.  Nothing more so than your other run of the mill 300 page science fiction novel written in the 1980s.  Nothing special other than the main character became my friend when I was eight and a half.

As I finished reading the last hundred pages late last night, I noticed lines I'd cut into the pages with my nail so I could remember what paragraph I'd left off at.  Certian strategically placed dog eared pages for good stopping points.  Even bite marks left by my teeth on certian pages from when I had carried it in my mouth while climbing a tree to get to my perfect reading nook.  It's crazy to see how small I was just by the size of that bite mark.  I had thought I was all grown up, just like my friend in StarBridge.  Crazy little imperfections made in THIS book that make all the difference when reading it.

So here's to the awesome blessing it can be to see the evidence of your childhood, and having yourself as a child show up again.  And here's to how much richer it will make my home in Salt Lake to have the soul of my childhood belongings in it.