I FALL INTO THE RABBIT HOLE--Confessions of a Bookaholic, II

Poor Alice!


A kindly neighbor of my grandmother gave me a beautiful copy of Alice In Wonderland with the original illustrations.  I was thrilled!  I placed it in my nearly empty personal bookcase alongside Cherry Ames, Student Nurse and Trixie Belden.  Then Nana gave me a full collection of Louisa May Alcott's children's books--Little Women, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Jo's Boys  and several more--which had come to her from her mother (years later I realized these book may have been First Editions but at the time I was just thrilled to get them.)  There were also several collections of small books bound in golden leather which I treasured.  They had names like Dottie Dimple and were far too young for me, but I thought the books themselves were lovely.

Years later I won a drama scholarship and went off to Wesleyan College in Georgia, leaving my beloved books behind.  When I came home for Thanksgiving, I rushed to my old room and found it quite changed--my two older brothers slept there now.  My books were gone.

"Mom, where are my books?"  "What books?"  "My books that were in my bookcase.  Are they in the garage?"
"Oh, no, they were old.  I threw them away," she said.

CONFESSIONS OF A BOOKAHOLIC - Part I

I Only Love Books - My original collage




 

The best thing my father ever did for me (although he didn't know it at the time) was to buy a complete set of classic books on the day I was born.  How he paid for it I cannot imagine, but the books saved me and gave me a view of the world.  Tom Sawyer, Jane Eyre, Green Mansions, David Copperfield, Huckleberry Finn, She (who remembers H. Rider Haggard?  Aha, no one!) and at least fifty others.  I eventually read them all before I was ten although Wuthering  Heights was a tough read.  I had no idea what was going on between Cathy and Heathcliff, but my girlish heart knew it was pretty intense. Wherever we moved, that set of classics went with us and had a place of honor in the living room. Although my father never read any of them, he was proud of those books.  And I loved them all; I was addicted to books.

GOODBYE, MAHOGANY TABLE

houzz.com via Pinterest

nicety.livejournal.com via Pinterest

This is the bedroom and the kitchen I would like to have had as a child, but our actual decor was different.
I am sure that some of the furniture in the Fifties was lovely, but we didn't have any of that kind.   We had one beautiful antique table of polished, mellow mahogany which I treasured.  Where we had gotten this lovely piece, I cannot imagine for surely it was created in Furniture Heaven.  We had brought this exquisite table all the way from New York to grace our living room and I admired its beauty daily.

Then, on one never-to-be-forgotten afternoon when I came home from school, I discovered that my mother had painted the mahogany table a glossy black and adorned it with two Chinese figurines in black and a very brilliant chartreuse.  I was speechless.  Mom was beaming with pride and said, "Isn't it beautiful?"  A silence fell and then I said the only thing I could say, "Yes, it's really lovely, Mom."  And I fled to my room to hide the hot tears I didn't understand.

I still hate chartreuse.

THE GREENEST THUMB IN THE UNIVERSE

Our house

Every other house in the neighborhood

Before my father dragged my mother to Florida, she had never been out of New York City.  She knew nothing about gardening, had never even thought about it.  But someone gave her a cutting and she stuck it in the ground.  And it grew.  And grew.  The Greenest Thumb in the Universe was born.  Mom knew nothing about fertilizers or pesticides; she just knew she liked to grow things.  Everything she put in the ground grew like Jack's beanstalk and every home we ever lived in soon looked like the house above.  She had created beauty and I loved it.  Gardening is my refuge to this day although I have never enjoyed my Mom's success.  I find peace and happiness among the flowers.

I Go Into the Garden - My original collage

                                           

LIVING IN A COTTAGE

When I was a little girl, I wanted to live in a fairy tale cottage just like this (I still do.)  But I didn't.

Linda's ideal cottage.

Our family lived in a series of boxy concrete block horrors which were painted flamingo pink or brilliant turquoise.  This was Florida in the Fifties!  Carports.  Picture windows.  No heat, air conditioning or charm. I can still remember my little brothers and I huddled in front of the small wall heater in the bathroom while we dressed for school.  My father painted my bedroom the color I had picked out--a muted blue-green, the color of the Gulf of Mexico.  I was thrilled!  But he ran out of paint before the room was finished and he never bought any more.  For all the years we lived there I had three and a half glorious blue walls and one neon pink patch crosshatched with blue brush strokes like a very bad abstract painting..

FLYING BY MOONLIGHT

All my life I have had dreams of flying at night--effortlessly--no wings, no arms flapping, just a small leap into the air.  I think about rising higher and I do. I sail through the inky blue sky, the stars blinking above me, the trees below, looking deep green in the moonlight.  I am fearless because I know nothing can harm me in the night sky. Drifting through the cool breeze which is always with me, ruffling my hair, I feel invincible.  I am filled with the beauty of the night.  I am at peace. 
                                                                     
But then I wake up and the dream is gone in a wisp of smoke and I am just an aging woman who will never fly.  Some days I can barely walk.  Aches have appeared in places I barely knew I had.  What gets me out of bed is the comforting thought of coffee and the morning paper.  A paper full of conflict, devastating weather disasters, unexpected tragedies and always more bad news; sometimes I wonder why I read it.  And yet...my three black cats are making little squeaky noises which means, "Give us more food!"  The deep red cardinal at the bird feeder appears thrilled to find fresh birdseed.  I take a fresh look at the three collages I created and realize with a small shock that they are lovely.  The day lies ahead of me full of possibilities.  I am not flying by moonlight, true, but I am beginning this blog and who knows what other joys this day will bring.