Beginning Again

When I was younger, I went to a school with a very limited library. When I say limited, I mean limited. We had a total of three or four books, and all of them had a Christian theme. The only one any of you may recognize is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. There was also a book about missionaries to China and a couple of Joy Sparton books. Joy Sparton was a preachers daughter, who, along with her brother Roy, got into humorous predicament with the members of her fathers church. I did enjoy reading of Joy Sparton's mishaps.

Because of the limited school library, me favorite day of the week was Saturday when the Book-Mobile would come to our neighborhood. I still remember the smell of books and the cold air that blasted into my face as soon as the door to that RV opened. I checked out and read book after book, but the Book-Mobile was limited as well. Many of their books were for young readers, so as I grew older I had to turn elsewhere for my reading material. One day, I went into my mothers closet and found some old books. Many of them were the Reader's Digest Condensed books, but in the middle of that old box was a nondescript book with a plain blue cover and yellowed pages. I took it out and opened it up to see the name of the book. "Jane Eyre," it read in a beautiful old-fashioned font. I pushed the box back into the closet and went immediately to my room. I had spent a lot of time in there since the death of my father two years earlier. My mother had gone all out to have it decorated just the way I wanted it, as if having a beautiful room would help ease the pain of being fatherless, and so I would often sink into my fluffy comforter and turn on my swag lamp (in style then) and read for hours. I would feign sickness so I could stay home and read - I finished Gone with the Wind in two days. My brothers, who were all much older than me, were not around to bother me and my mother was at work, so my life was one of solitude with books as my favorite companions. Don't get the wrong idea - I was thrilled with this set of circumstances. I loved to spend hours alone and reading. My isolation was a matter of choice. For the next couple of days, Jane Eyre was my chosen companion. I loved her, and lived and breathed to see her live happily ever after with Rochester. I hated to see the book end. Jane Eyre never left me, and twenty years later, as a college student, I picked it up again. This time armed with an idea of how to read intelligently. It did not change my love for Jane and again I hated to see it end. It made me realize how very little I have changed from that 12 year old girl that found solace in a book; a girl who chooses isolation to let a book take her to another place.

The other day, I had to answer a question on a survey about what book I would read over and over again. I did not even have to think about it - my beloved Jane Eyre. Just typing the name made me pick the same old blue, nondescript book up; beginning it again . . .