Flipping through the pages...

The Hardcover

I just received a copy of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The opening line seems promising: 

"Linderwall was a large kingdom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable"

My book list keeps piling up and because they're all electronic books, I find it hard to figure out what to read first. You can't peruse through your Kindle books the same way you can through the hard copies; you can't look for interesting chapters or take a one-second peek at the end to gage what you're getting yourself in for. I find it hard to decide which book to read without my computer present to make pro-and-con lists.

And so the pile keeps building but I haven't been reading. 

I love my Kindle, god knows I do. I love highlighting my favorite passages and having all my favorite books with me everywhere I go. I love the e-ink technology and the instant dictionary. But it feels so limiting when all I want to do when I finish a book is go flip through the pages and re-read all my favorite parts. Clicking through your bookmarks just isn't the same. 

So today this old, used, library-version of some highly-rated, young adult stories has made it's way to me and I can't do anything but read it, because this book in my hands- the feel, the smell, the weight-
 it feels like home.  

Someday, they will perfect the ebook, they will simulate everything I love about real books and that will be the end to this debate, but until that day a hardcover will always take all. 

The Truly Wild

This was the second to last weekend at our cottage before we must close her for the winter. This morning, while her fuses (no, she has not yet heard of circuit breakers) went a little haywire, I took the opportunity to wander around the forest nearby while the men folk did their magic. 

And what I found was a magic of my own. 

There is nothing quite so peaceful as waking amongst the trees. Our cottage is built on stilts into the sand dune and my little nook sticks right out into the tree heads. I wake to the birds singing and the fluffy black squirrels playing around in a way only the truly wild of their species know how to. I always try to burn the sight into my mind so that I can pretend I am always there but there's no replacement for the quiet joy that spreads through my body as my eyes behold the new day. 

When I wake each day, it's with a sense of relief. 

When I wake in the forest, it's with a sense of being. 

Perhaps, someday, when my wings have been tired from all their adventures,

 I will build my home somewhere tucked deep away in the forest, 

and I too will play, as only the truly wild of my species know how. 

Michigan 2012