Walking by Henry David Thoreau

Aleathia says:

My whole life has been built around the adventures in books. When we are young we don't have the ability to travel to far lands, but we have the imagination--wild and verdant--to fly there in our minds. Giving a child the give of reading and a love of books means you give them the opportunity to soak in cultures they don't have access to and understand the world in a different way.

Over the years I have made a game out of reading books...what country do I want to go to? Judging a book by its cover. Reading full collections. Trying to complete all the Pulitzer winners for fiction. These were joyful, adventurous times. I learned a lot. Several years ago when everyone started dying in my family, I lost that imagination. I lost that love of reading. In all seriousness, I was lucky if I could concentrate for more than 10 minutes. My brain was a continual three ring circus I couldn't stop from spinning out of control.

On my side table, I have about 7 books that were started over the last few years and left to sit collecting dust instead of having their words devoured. This year I take my imagination back. I take the books back. I become that explorer I remember being.

The first book finished for 2018 is "Walking" by Henry David Thoreau. I found this book recently at the Library Book Sale and though I had promised myself I wasn't going to indulge on too many books since my attic was full of ones unread, I decided to get this little gem. 60 small pages. What could it hurt?

I have always been interested in Thoreau and Emerson. Both so outspoken for the things of their heart no matter what anyone thought in return.  When you don't live your life like that or have the understanding how, people who do become these unicorns of society. I have always been drawn to a few periods in American History and the 1860-1910 is one that continues to find its way into my heart. The country in Civil War, people standing up for what they believe in, and the great migration West. How I love the look and sound of the Victorian age, but also the rugged, strong faces of pioneers.

Thoreau's "Walking" starts out as a tome about getting outside and seeing the surroundings...about pushing the comfortable boundaries of the time. As this small book ends, it is more about seeking to stay wild at heart, to find adventure, to feel the sun on your face, to look at what nature has given us. This book was written shortly before Thoreau died and knowing this makes the book feel like a deathbed lesson; a pleading to the generations to come to get it right.

"When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, --a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow of Nature."

These places we have paved over and put up buildings for people to trade stocks in, to consume home goods and frivolities. I am guilty of using these places. We go there seeking some sort of soul reparation that we don't seem to find when we'd be better walking into the woods, hiking in the desert, swimming in the ocean. That is where we will find the peace we are looking for. How easy it is to forget these things in the bustle of life.

"In short, all good things are wild and free."

Thanks for reading.
Aleathia

Recovering What Was Lost (Hello books!)

Aleathia says:

Those of you that know me or have followed me here at The Forked Road, know it has been a challenging couple of years with the loss of both my parents.  I never thought they would go so suddenly and so early, but if I look at it now maybe it was a blessing.  The both of them had multiple illnesses that in the end would have made them suffer terribly.  I am not sure I would have enjoyed watching them dwindle and cling to life.  I am not sure I would have been any more ready to let them go if they were older.  It is hard to say.

My mother's death was one of those devastating moments in life.  Our relationship was always tentative.  I believe she loved me in her own way, but her personality and my personality were on two different plans of the universe.  She did show me a certain amount of strength and perseverance that I will always hold dear, but in the end, I feel like her mental illness and drug abuse weighed more heavily on me than I liked.  Sadly and to many people's disbelief, I was relieved she was gone.  That was my struggle for the last two years....dealing with that relief plied with grief.  I should have seen a counselor, but I didn't.  I suffered alone.  I kept everyone out of my life and carried the burden on my rapidly aging back.

With her departure, she somehow took from me some of the things I loved most.  I had always been an avid reader, a lover of adventures in books, and someone with a great imagination.  I have struggled with these things over the last 2 years.  I read a total of 4 books last year.  4 books.  I could not concentrate long enough to gulp down the words to be interested in a story.  My last book of 2015 took me 6 months to finish.  It was barely 200 pages.

When I went home for my father's funeral I was able to spend a lot of time with my 82 year old grandmother.  Through all of life, she has been the rock firmly planted in my life.  She has always been a safe place to land, a lighthouse to a ship on dark seas.  As a child, I remember her apartment was always filled stem to stern with books.  At the age of 10, she introduced me to a fantasy series by Piers Anthony and my life was never the same.  I did not go on to be a fantasy book lover, but somehow it egged me into reading everything I could find.  My high school years were spent in library stacks discovering the world through someone else's eyes.  I feel I owe my love of reading to her.  I have surrounded myself with books my whole life, even when I didn't have money for food, because at least I would have some other adventure to go on in the face of hunger and dark times.

We talked about our shared loss and our shared depression over the last few years.  We counseled each other into a better place because we knew my mother differently than any other people in the world.  We knew the truth.  In these conversations, my grandmother shared that she did not know how to read until she was 10 and that her father was beside himself over it.  He used to yell at her and shame her for it.  She says that the words always looked mixed up and made no sense, so I think she had dyslexia.  She said one day, the words just straightened out and she has been devouring books ever since.

I feel like my grandmother at 10 years old.  I feel like I woke up from some deep and terrible sleep to find my love of reading again.  I feel like everyday is Christmas; every word a present.  I am concurrently reading three books at a time: fiction, non-fiction, and religion.  I finished my first book today and there is a glee in my heart that I am not sure I will ever be able to describe.  I feel like I am finding my way home.

Thank you all for sticking with me through these dreary two years.  It means the world to me that you keep coming back.  I only hope that my struggles have helped a few people over their own.  I hope to get back to sharing more art and food and books in the future.  My love to you all.

Aleathia

Quills and Frills - 11/1/2014 - A poem

Ally says:

Dog Eared

Impatient in both life and death

I dog ear the books.

As a collector of bookmarks

this drives my husband nuts.

The library books are one thing, he says

making allowances

but not ours.

Yet I find I’m always grabbing

the poetry books off the shelf and forgetting

a bookmark and beside

these sleek slender volumes

can barely hold their own words

let alone a whole bookmark.

So I dog ear,

the little bent corners

of the pages.

Sometimes nothing for whole chunks.

Sometimes one every other poem

after a quick read between subway transfers,

the corners flapping

like flags marking depots

across the dry cold waste of undiscovered land.

I wonder if later

when I’m gone

he’ll find these creases

in the books we shared

the corners still creased

rising now

my long distance death defying reminder

like a star winking at him

all the way from the past,

a message over time

a little salute and a hello

from the darkest corner of space.

Lit Bits-5/7/2014 Russell Banks

Aleathia says:

Many years ago my estranged brother sent me a letter and told me that if I ever wanted to know who he really was then I would read a book called "Rule of the Bone" by Russell Banks.  I took the bait and read that book.  It touched me.  I felt connected to my brother a little bit more.  It touched me enough that I decided to write Russell Banks a letter and thank him for writing the book and giving my lost soul of a brother something he identified with and for giving me the opportunity to understand him a little better.  I didn't expect anything back.  He was a big name writer and most likely didn't have the time.  I wasn't sure he would even get the letter directly, but I needed to send it.

A few weeks after I sent the letter, there was a return letter in the mailbox from Russell Banks.  I opened the letter thinking it would be a form letter printed off by an assistant, but inside was a beautiful hand written letter from Mr. Banks himself.  I nearly cried.  I wasn't star struck by any means, but for that moment I felt important.  Somebody who had made it took the time to notice me as a reader.  He acknowledged me.

This incident changed my life as a writer because it taught me that no matter how big you get, you always started small.  Everyone needs encouragement.  Everyone needs a hand up in the world.  I sent the letter to my brother and he thought I was the coolest chick ever.  That felt nice too.

In the wake of that, I have been reading Russell Banks for years. It has been some years since I had cracked one open though and now I am reading "Affliction".  His writing is familiar.  It looks at harsh, quiet things in people and makes them tangible.  You believe they could happen to anyone.  You know each of his characters as someone in your own life.  You have met these people before; you have been these people.

I suggest you pick up any one of his books.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.