Mourning The Printed Word

I love books.  I love newspapers.  I love magazines.

I like to feel a book in my hands.  I like the smell of new books.  I sometimes like the smell of old books.  I like being able to turn pages, use a highlighter or underline stuff (in my own books, of course) and I like how books look arranged on bookshelves.

If you were to visit a Barnes & Noble today...right now...you would probably laugh at the prediction I'm about to pose: Books are on their way out and will not be printed in less than fifty years.  Those books that remain will be relics of a time past.  I welcome the progress wrought by technology but I think I'd miss my books more than anything.  I think magazines are on their way out even sooner than books and I think that we may see our last printed newspapers in five years or less. 

I guess there are other things to mourn with the onset of technological advances...most of them with an attitude of "good riddance," but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for books.

I remember my geeky childhood, sitting in the reference room at the Johnsonburg Public Library (then located in a wonderful early Twentieth Century building known as the Johnsonburg Community Building) on rainy days enjoying the simple pleasures of just getting something down off the shelf for the heck of it, and reading for sheer pleasure.  The pictures, vast amounts of information, world travel...they were all at my fingertips.  I could never have imagined the incredible resource we have today in the form of the internet, but that was how my mind wandered as a child.  Books were my friends.

I love my computer.  I'm glad I can use it for so many things.  But I still can't seem--even with the Nook and Kindle--to bring myself to even say the words.  It just doesn't sound right.  "It's a nice cold, wet day.  I think I'm going to go cuddle up in the corner with my Nook."  I think I'll still prefer "It's a good day to go cuddle up in the corner with a few books."

I Can See Clearly Now

My mom and I have a special connection. 

I don't think it's because I'm her baby (I am the youngest of five children) or that there is anything more special about me than any of my siblings, but I think we have an understanding of each other now that was never there in my teenage years.

My tumultuous teenage years--particularly the years between 13-16--were years of strain and yes, sometimes even hatred, for my mother.  Of course, looking back now, I realize that it was never really "hate" in the strictest sense, but a hatred for who she was and what she did, or didn't do.  I was seemingly always in conflict with her.  Mom was not very affectionate with me during that time.  And I can't say that I blame her.

I could go into details here about the things that widened the chasm between us or tell you many individual stories about the different events as I remember them, but that's not the purpose of this essay.  I've spent enough time in therapy and with my private journals which can be examined at a later date.

What I'd like to do is to write about what my relationship with my mother is like now.

We don't see eye-to-eye on many things.  And I'm sure that is the case with many mother/son, mother/daughter relationships.  But we seem to have a respect for one another that was never present in my life as I was growing up.  I don't always understand where she is coming from but I can see her point of view so much more clearly now.  I can also see how her worldview was shaped as she came through the experience of an entirely different generation.  I can see that her religious indoctrination played a huge part in who she became and I can see how her small town values were shaped as well.  Life was very different where and when my mother grew up.  I have grown to respect that and to respect and love her as well.