One of my favorite things about summer time when I was young was reading. There is a converted church on Empire Grade, a block up from the "center" of Felton and that was our library and my favorite spot.
One of my mom's best friends was the librarian there. The library had a backyard too - big tree, little porch. My mother would take my sister and I there every week it felt like, Tessie would climb the tree and I would root around the book shelves until I'd found exactly what I wanted and could go join her. Summer was about climbing those huge cement steps and running into the still darkness of the library. It was about Dorcas's big, swishy skirts and the way she'd always compliment me on my choice of book with a smile of approval or a wink. Dorcas was my childhood sommelier.
I remember one summer, I fell down those big, concrete steps that lead to the library. I tried to walk down them and read at the same time. I remember losing the book into the bushes, horrified, my big toe purple with blood.
One summer, or the same summer?, we collected Simba and Nala from a cardboard box across the street from the library; I remember arguing over what to name those kittens for weeks.
I think about that feeling now and miss it: the feeling of devouring books like cake pieces, the feeling of waiting for a spare moment so you can put your head down and go back to whatever world you just left. I'm an adult now and my time should be my own but I don't lose myself the way I used to. It's harder for me to forget than it was then.
When I went home last week I brought a couple books back with me. Nothing for me to read immediately, just books I wanted to have nearby. Among them was a severely battered copy of Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. I have read this book more times than any other. Possibly more times than my parents read me Goodnight Moon, though maybe not. I didn't bring it to Portland just to look at it, or to spark conversation. I brought it to Portland because there always days when we desperately need to lose ourselves, need to forget, need to be ten years old and tripping over your own feet in excitement, you need to have something so wonderful in your hands you are willing to fall.
I have loved a lot of books in my life and Ella Enchanted is, by no means, my absolute favorite. But it was her favorite - that girl who had to ask Dorcas to reach to the highest shelf. It was her favorite and somedays I need to remember what it was to be her.
