We go to literature to be changed. -- Maggie Smith I was taken captive by a book last week. I tried to resist. Every couple of hours I turned off the light and closed my eyes, but sleep would not come. The book kept whispering to me. When I squeezed my eyelids tighter, the whispers grew louder. I thought a few more pages would satisfy the whisperer and tire me out, but no! At 5 AM, I closed the cover on the last page and then lay in the light of early dawn savoring what I had consumed. I was tired the rest of the day, but I had no regrets. The story still stirs in me today. Language is a miracle. And so is the power to read and to write. It is a gift I would like to give to everyone. It is the rich inheritance I leave to my daughter who is a reader too. When you are a reader your life and your thinking are shaped by a chorus of voices, of possibilities that give flexibility to thoughts and points of view. Words change us. Yes, they have the power to harm, but more often, they teach us and guide us and heal us, and sometimes they save us too. Words on a page are a commitment. Handwritten, or printed and published, there is no turning back. A writer exposes and is exposed making writing an act of bravery. Committed words on a page encourage us to speak and to speak up. And it takes perseverance to write a book and to read one. Mariann Edgar Budde wrote that perseverance is the hidden virtue of every courageous life. Rarely do we see what it costs others to do what seems effortless to us. Books heal shame and give hope when we read of the perseverance of others. We find pathways and solutions and people like us. We know that if another endured that, than we can endure this. Through words we live more fully in the here and now even as we relive the past and enter the future. Books open another person’s heart and mind, and we peek inside. In doing so, we see our own lives more clearly; we understand the impact of history, circumstances, and choices on people, on ourselves. It makes us wiser and more forgiving. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote: I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests; the library was open, unending, free. I was not much for school either, but give me the library any day. And it is at the library that words are gathered, categorized and catalogued. Words are there to serve us. Someone left their words behind so that we might go forward smarter, more thoughtful and better prepared, changed by examination and re-examination. We find words to grow into and words that expand our own web of knowledge. There is meaning and purpose on the shelves. Our own lives are faced as we explore the lives of others and the knowledge they accumulated. Books are good friends to me. Each fits into my own story and speaks to me at a particular moment in my life, a particular stage of my own development. Some friends were with me at the beginning, some as the plot thickened, and I know that some will accompany me for the entire ride. Each of our lives is a storybook in progress. Everything that we see, hear and experience is stored in memory, the bookshelf of the mind. Hope and worry are make-believe stories we tell ourselves. Grief and pride are what we feel when a chapter ends. When we lose memory, individually or collectively, that is how we are erased. Books and good writing comfort me in these difficult times. I marvel and give thanks that there continue to be so many gifted writers, so many wonderful books. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I cannot live in a world without books,” and I thank the forefathers for our library system. And I want to thank Dr. Seuss for teaching me to read with words and rhymes that tickled my mind and my imagination. And a thank you to Nancy Drew for making me a page turner and introducing me to chapter books and the pride of reading a “big” book, and for showing me that girls born in the 1950s could be smart and do interesting things, live adventurous lives. Reading a book is a private experience with public consequences. It requires effort and introspection unlike the loudspeaker of social media contrived to fill us with outrage in order to sell advertising. I have read that the ultimate freedom is to imagine and think for ourselves. That is the foundation of democracy. When we read, we are reminded of how much we have in common. The Republic of Imagination is a country we can all believe in. On the worst days the state of the country and the world seem hopeless, and then I read a wonderful book or hear the lyrics to a beautiful song, and I think: that came from inside someone’s mind, someone’s heart, and it gives me hope that hatred and careless people will not get the last word. So, please, let's tell a new story.
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Looking for a chance to stick it to the oligarchs? Saturday, April 25th is the 13th Annual Independent Bookstore Day. And April 13th was the birthday of Thomas Jefferson that champion of American independence and a reader who said: “I cannot live in a world without books.” I’m with him! I know that I cannot live in a world without books or a country without independence. And I know I do not want to live in a world without the spirit of community that small shops and local businesses create. Find your local independent bookstores and make a visit. And while you’re at it, maybe stop in a locally owned coffee shop or café. Greet the shop owners and thank them for the contribution they make to our lives and to our world. Chat with some of the other patrons and booklovers. Many of us are feeling frustrated if not helpless with the state of the country and the world. Here is a chance to joyfully engage, to take back some of the things that belongs to all of us—independence and community. Don’t let the wealthy oligarchs make us strangers to each other. Times are tough. If you can’t afford to buy a book or some of the other charming merchandise on display, show up anyway and look around. Your effort and your presence say that independence and community matter. Books and the arts matter. Words matter. Consumers have power if we take it. See you at the revolution. See you at the bookstore! During the recent presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris came clean and admitted she owns a gun, a Glock, in particular. Glock advertising promotes a firearm that is safe, reliable, and simple to use. In a spirit of solidarity, I thought I should come clean as well. I, too, have a weapon that is safe, reliable, and simple to use. I am a registered book owner. I prefer a good hardbound tome. Come into my house, and I might throw the book at you. My shelves are loaded, and I keep one in my nightstand drawer and another under the seat of my car. I am dangerously enthusiastic and known to wave a loaded book around in a crowded room. I am a card-carrying member of the NRA, National Readers Association, an informal but large group of people devoted to keeping both a diversity of ideas and the written word alive. Members are not ashamed to have their entire book-borrowing histories subpoenaed and reviewed by the authorities. We firmly believe that anyone who has never read a book should not be licensed to speak sparing us the barrage of words and the assault on our minds. We prefer thinking heads to talking heads. Members of the NRA understand that while it is the job of social media is to infect its users with outrage, the job of a good book is to inject its readers with insight. Unlike the chaos of social media, a good book calls our minds to order. We know that good books have been thoroughly reviewed and thoughtfully edited. In times of crisis, members of the NRA take to opening lines of communication and sharing book titles, beautiful poetry, and stirring essays. Our members know that on the internet, incendiary ideas are not policed—“free speech” its users demand, but some of those same free-speechers seem to want to go after our rights to carry a book. Some posting free-speechers claim social media conspiracy theories don’t harm people, books do. They worry our kids will be harmed by a book tucked away on a library shelf—if those kids ever get off Tik Tok to look for a book that is. Many of our members have seen t-shirts and vanity license plates with more inflammatory ideas than To Kill a Mockingbird. Even as we hear over and over about the declining mental health of our children, some parents and authorities fear children will get “ideas” from books, and so they seek to ban those books. NRA members believe it is naïve to think that children are not getting bad ideas every day from social media, the internet, television, and each other. We believe a teen might be safer in a private space reading a book to sort through an issue in their lives rather than having to live through it. A kid can feel less alone with a book, less self-conscious. A book provides context and perspective. NRA members believe we should be thanking librarians and turning to them to find out what’s on the minds of our children so that we can be better parents, better teachers, better adults, and better political representatives. We live in a time when fiction and truth are dangerously blurred. Too often, important decisions are made based on shared wild imaginings alone. We members of the NRA believe it is an act of bravery to open our minds and open a book before making important decisions. Interested? The NRA welcomes new members. Our motto is: “Let’s exchange ideas instead of gunfire.” There are no membership fees and no background checks. All you have to do is open a book. We are confident that opening a book will open your mind. Be brave!  (In memory of Allison St. Claire who loved books, her library card, and bringing our words into print.) Fueled by SPAM and saltine crackers, we made our way from California to Ohio in the back of a Rambler station wagon. Our father had orders to deploy to Pakistan. Amidst the upheaval, I deployed to first grade. While my father had many years of military experience and was ready to go, I did not have the benefit of basic training—no preschool, no kindergarten. A shy and quiet child, I was not just reluctant, I was terrified, but there was no choice. And so, like my father, I donned the uniform. He marched off to Pakistan, and I marched off to Catholic grade school. Dressed in her traditional 1960s nun’s habit, the teacher was every bit as intimidating as a drill sergeant. Following orders, I sat up straight, eyes forward. We turned our attention to a large flip chart that seemed to be the height of a first-grader. Sister Eulalia turned back the cover page, and with her long pointer, she tapped the word at the bottom of the page: “Look,” she read aloud. We all repeated, “Look.” And so it began. I was officially a reader. Never again have I felt so powerful and proud. I had no idea that Dick and Jane and the Catholic school version John and Jean would soon be on their way out along with Spot and Puff. I had no reason to be aware of the debate going on in academia about methods for teaching reading: site reading versus phonics. I was too young and my world too small to be aware of the biases and stereotypes depicted on the pages filled with white faces and white picket fences. I, along with 85 million other American children, learned to read with Dick and Jane and John and Jean, Sally and Judy, Spot and Puff. Unaware of the catalog of faults, I enjoyed my school books with the watercolor art, sweet stories, and urgent action words: Look! See! Run! Come! Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I cannot live in a world without books.” And since that first day when I was ordered to look, I cannot stop looking at books. A lifelong student of human behavior, I have maintained a preschooler’s incessant need to know why. Why do people do what they do? Why do I do what I do? Inside a book I can mingle with unsavory characters and walk away with my reputation unscathed. I have the privacy to get to know myself. Without an audience and without shame, I can get down into the dark corners of my own dusty layers. I can sort out what I know, what I think, and what I might do next. Books allow me to see myself, but they don’t demand that I mount a defense. Though books now come in many forms, I still love print--the firm cover that cracks when opened for the first time. I love the smooth pages and the dog-eared ones that remind me to look again. I am awed by the power of words and the importance of order in giving meaning to language. The words liberty and death can be “Death to liberty,” or “Give me liberty or give me death.” I melt into the pictures painted by the brushes of gifted writers. I swear I have tramped through the marsh Where the Crawdads Sing. I have traveled through time with Kristin Hannah and felt the grit in my eyes blown there by the ferocious winds of the dust bowl in The Four Winds. I have wept for the curse that was slavery as I rode The Underground Railroad with Colson Whitehead. I have learned history and geography in meaningful and memorable ways not possible in the classroom. I also love the companionship that books provide. Every character becomes someone I know, a wise old friend. There are authors I trust. They give me confidence and something to look forward to. I turn to them again and again. William Zinsser wrote that writing is a public trust and that truth is a gift. He speaks of clear thinkers with a passion for their subjects and notes that how we write and how we talk is how we define ourselves. Yes! “We can write to affirm and to celebrate or we can write to debunk and destroy…nobody can make us write what we don’t want to write. We get to keep intention.” Character is revealed through writing. In this crowded world, it can be hard to find your people. I find mine in books. And I find solutions. I am better prepared for the future having walked the unfamiliar path upon a page with someone who has been there, with someone who knows. And when I am weary, and fresh out of dreams, I find something new that restores my spirit. Without books, my mind is homeless. It is Read Across America Day! Thank you, Sister Eulalia, for teaching me to read. And thank you Dick and Jane for inviting me to Look!  Over the years, my children and I have enjoyed watching sports-themed movies, especially the ones where the underdogs triumph in the end. There are so many titles to choose from. Some of our favorite films include: Hoosiers, The Blind Side, Miracle, A League of Their Own, Remember the Titans, We Are Marshall, and Coach Carter. Often these stories are about a ragtag collection of players down on their luck, and sometimes they are about both a team and a coach in need of redemption. It was when we were watching McFarland, USA in 2015 that I voiced a lingering question: “What could my sport be?” Without a moment of hesitation, my son shot back, “Power of the Pen.” We had a good laugh, but that was not what I had in mind. Each time I watch one of these films, I feel inspired but regretful. I never had a sport. There was not much to offer girls of my generation. I did try field hockey briefly but that sport did not resonate with me, and I had a lot of responsibilities at home which included after-school duties caring for my younger brother and sister. For a time after high school graduation, I tried jogging for exercise. Later, I started walking which I continue to this day, but thus far, no one has tried to recruit me for an Olympic walking team. When Jane Fonda and others made work-out videos and exercise classes cool, I tried those, too, but I was doomed to failure. I spent a lot of time listening to the music and walking in place. While I enjoyed the company of my friends during those classes, the situation was a nightmare—all of that raise your right arm, lead with your left foot…the teacher facing the class instructing us, the large mirrors with the reversed images…a real house of horrors! The truth is that my gross motor coordination has been off-kilter since I was six years old. The problem began in Catholic elementary school when it was discovered I was left-handed. To save me from the fires of hell, the good sisters attempted to exorcise the devil and my leftist leanings by forcing me to be right-handed. The effort scrambled my brain. Gross motor movements no longer came naturally. I had to think about which hand to use, which foot to put down. I had to think about how to skip and walk up and down stairs. I became terribly self-conscious, fearing that a mistake would bring the ruler or rubber-tipped pointer down on me at any moment. I lost confidence in my abilities. Fortunately, we moved and I was able to use my left hand again, but by then the mental wiring was in place. My right-left disability did not make me lazy. I enjoy physical labor, especially when there is a point to it. If someone needs help raking leaves, shoveling snow, painting the house, packing and moving…I am the gal for the job. And while I am lost as a player, I do enjoy watching sporting events. Both of my children engaged in sports from preschool through high school. I rarely missed a game or event. I relish the enjoyment others get from their sports, and I enjoy spending time with my favorite fans, drinking in their company and enthusiasm as they drink in some beers. Game day snacks are not too bad either. Another deficit inhibiting a career in sports is that I have no competitive spirit. None. While I am an ardent supporter of playing by the rules in life, I am always wondering, Can’t we all just get along? I find it difficult even to compete with myself. Topping my personal best? I’ll do what I can… But all is not lost. It took the pandemic of 2020 for me to answer the question--What is my sport? During the peak of the pandemic, parents and college athletes began protesting and demanding a return to competition. To me, they seemed more worried about their careers than their lives. I just didn’t get it. But then the libraries closed and stayed closed. Month after month. Sure, they began to offer pick-up services and drive-through windows, but that just wasn’t enough for me. I needed the library to open as much as those college athletes needed to return to locker rooms and stadiums. Bring back game day! Browsing at the library brings me all the fulfillment of a sport and none of the agony. Books are shelved from left to right. The pages move from left to right. The words on a page are printed from left to right. The library is a dream world for the left-handed and right-brained. Like other sports, browsing at the library enhances memory and thinking skills, grows brain cells, and improves brain function—all without the risk of concussion or physical injury. I reach and bend and flex as I go up and down the stacks of books. Time goes by quickly and with each visit, my stamina increases and my self-esteem improves. And it is a great weight management strategy—no eating or drinking in the library. The rules of the game are clear and well-known. There are no red cards or yellow cards, just library cards. Those cards don’t get you thrown out, they invite you in, make you a member of the team. And the game ends when the library closes. There is no official referee, but a skilled librarian can take down an out-of-bounds customer with a glance or a “Shh!” A good librarian is like a great coach, she can get you down the field with a good piece of information, and she knows her stats and Dewey decimal system. Can’t find what you are looking for? So easy to punt at the library, so many other plays, so many other choices. There are even benches at the library. But unlike field sports, there is no shame in warming the bench. There is no official off-season when browsing is your sport. A book store makes a great second choice. Retail store browsing can offer some down-time conditioning. Whenever a salesperson approaches me with the question, “How can I help you?” I reply: “I am just shopping for ideas.” That gets the salespeople off my back and keeps me in top form for my return to the library. Perhaps I should have realized my athletic calling much earlier in life. I’ve learned that there may be a genetic predisposition to Olympic-level browsing. When my daughter was a toddler, she asked me one day: “Mom, can you just drop me off at K-Mart?” When I asked this smart, verbally precocious, and very independent two year old book lover what she planned to do at K-Mart all by herself, she responded, “I just want to look around.” I was raising a future first-round draft pick.  During my recent musings about Nancy Drew, I contacted several members of my unofficial Nancy Drew fan club and asked them to share their memories about our beloved teenage detective. Each woman eagerly shared still vivid memories about Nancy Drew and the entire series of books. We felt like kids again swapping tales and recreating the excitement of all that youthful sleuthing. While reading remains my favorite past time and greatest pleasure, no fictional character has ever filled the gap left when I outgrew the Nancy Drew mystery series. Pondering this I asked a fellow fan, “Who might be a new Nancy Drew for this stage of life?” My friend considered the question for several minutes and came back with, “Jessica Fletcher?” Jessica Fletcher? More pondering. Could Jessica Fletcher be a new sleuthing idol for my geriatric years? I had been a Jessica Fletcher fan and regular viewer of Murder, She Wrote. Every Sunday night for 12 years beginning in 1984, I and 30 to 40 million other people tuned in to CBS to see what Jessica Fletcher was up to that week. I did love that Jessica Fletcher was a smart, fearless, bike-riding, world-traveling, single gal. It didn’t hurt that she was a successful mystery writer and crack amateur sleuth. Just as I envied Nancy Drew and her small town, speedy blue roadster, good friends, and apparent lack of homework and curfews, I envied Jessica Fletcher’s lifestyle: retired, free of obligations, surrounded by the beauty of coastal Maine, living in a big house in the small town of Cabot Cove, a town where everybody knew her name and the sheriff stopped by for coffee, a place where a woman could safely get around town on a bicycle. Jessica sure seemed to have it all, but a substitute for Nancy Drew? It just wasn’t working for me. I guess the kid in me expects an old high school English teacher to have all of the answers. Nothing to marvel at there. The grown-up in me is not surprised when a mature, educated woman is self-assured and wise, capable of freely traveling the world as a best-selling mystery writer. And the final obstacle? Jessica Fletcher’s life was not about mystery; it was about murder. No matter where Jessica went, someone died. While I enjoy a good adventure, I am not fearless. I tend to shy away from homicides. I don’t want to risk getting into the line of fire or spending my golden years in the slammer. Who can take Nancy Drew’s place? My guess is that no one can. Some things and some people are irreplaceable. Another mystery solved. But Nancy Drew’s influence continues. She provided me with many happy memories. Memories are the currency of the geriatric years. The puzzle has become how to hang onto them. Often, we fail to value remembering until we begin to forget. I hope I never forget Nancy Drew or the names of my children or where I live. Until someone solves the really big mystery of Alzheimer’s Disease, I guess Jessica Fletcher does make a pretty good role model for growing older with grace and vigor.  “We seldom leave places we understand.” I came across that quote during my morning time of prayer and reflection. It is from the early works of the psychologist Jordan Peterson before he fell off the deep end. Those words sink in; they explain a lot. No wonder I am a wanderer. I never know what the hell is going on. On the outside, I am a focused, tea-drinking, worker-bee. I miss the scoop to be had at the coffeemaker, the closed-door gossip sessions, and the after-work drinks at the bar. I have a quiet, orderly, and rich interior life; the outside world can be so loud, chaotic, and mean. With the added layer of social media, I sometimes feel that words have become a spray of bullets from an automatic weapon. I try not to travel extensively in that world. And so, it all remains a mystery to me. Perhaps that is why, as a school-age girl, I was so taken by Nancy Drew, and why I love her to this day. She loved a mystery, and there was nothing holding her back. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, Nancy Drew turned 90. Since the world was preoccupied with a mysterious new virus, Nancy’s birthday did not get the attention it deserved. If only someone had put Nancy Drew on the case…If only her father had won the White House, we’d know where and how this pandemic got started. For nine decades, Nancy Drew has remained a teenager. Detective work aside, one would think that many years of adolescence would exhaust anyone, even a super-sleuth. I suffered four quick years of high school. That was enough. Why anyone would do it for longer remains yet another mystery to me. I try to imagine Nancy Drew, the idol of my youth, growing older, getting old. Would she have survived to the age of 90? Survived the pandemic? Would she still be driving? If so, would she still favor a sporty blue convertible? Would she color her hair or proudly flaunt the gray? Would Bess and George still be her best friends? Would any of them be married? Divorced? Have endured breast cancer or other health crises? Would they have become parents or grandparents? Would they still be rocking sweater sets and pearls? And what of Nancy’s boyfriend, Ned Nickerson? Did he graduate from Emerson College, or did he get drafted and shipped off to Vietnam? If so, did he survive the war? Did Nancy and Ned’s relationship survive the Women’s Movement? Did they ever marry? Did Nancy’s mind remain active, clear, and clever? How did she cope with the changes of aging? Was she ever lonely or sick? Did she have regrets? What was it like for her when her father retired? After he died? Did Nancy remain faithful to the housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, as Hannah got older? What happened to River Heights, Nancy’s hometown? Would Nancy have solved mysteries at Wal-Mart? Shopped at Bed, Bath & Beyond? Would she have cursed the increasing traffic on those old, familiar streets? Did any creepy mansions remain with secrets left to expose? Did Nancy remain able to live on her own into her eighth and ninth decades of life? Or did she move into an assisted living facility or require a skilled nursing home? What mysteries might she have found in those places? Did she still find the answers to everything? It is difficult to imagine Nancy Drew grown old because I am young when I think of her. As a child, Nancy Drew allowed me to forget about my own life and enter hers. While I remember many of the book titles, I don’t remember too much about the actual mysteries. What stayed with me? Her spirit and her lifestyle. She was free to gravitate to what interested her. She was not weighed down by life and chores and homework. She was not limited by age. Adults sought her help and advice. Nancy’s lawyer- father trusted her, and Nancy was the one to look after his safety. Nancy had company in her adventures; she had resources and encouragement. Nancy Drew fed my hunger for an interesting, active life. I am not alone—Hilary Rodham Clinton and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are among the many gals who took Nancy Drew as a role model for smart women. But Nancy wasn’t just smart, she was self-assured, the quality most lacking in children, teens, and women of my generation. Nancy was free of all bondage and baggage. She didn’t just try to solve problems, she went looking for them. Try as I might to imagine it, my mind resists the image of an aging Nancy Drew. I prefer her gumshoes to my orthopedic shoes. It was never in the program for her to become more like me. The real mystery was how to become like her. She was an early female superhero. Her superpower was helping young women to believe in themselves. I really don’t want to see Nancy Drew in the nursing home—unless she is there to bust me out. We’ll go to a garden patio and eat dainty sandwiches and drink tea served from a silver tea set. We will discuss missing figureheads, missing grandsons, and missing violinists, spooky mansions, and our suspicions about the traveling circus. We will find the lost sheet music, the stolen statues, and the hidden wills. We will pour over the mysterious diaries and ominous notes. We will not be deterred by cryptic warnings of danger. We will live on—smart and self-assured with good friends, a swell car, the right clothes, and no homework. And always, always, always--we will fight for what is right. Nancy Drew can see what the world cannot. It is no mystery to her that there is still a teenage girl in me.
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August 2026
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