Pretty much every morning of my entire nineteen-years living with my parents, I shuffled down the stairs toward the kitchen and walked past my mother sitting in the middle of our living room couch, surrounded by books. Bibles, dictionaries, journals, prayerbooks mounded from floor to cushion, end to end, cocooning my mom in their sagacious comfort. With one hand she held a colored highlighter and the other her ever-rewarmed mug of tea, and with her words she welcomed me to the beauty of a new day. There are many things I learned from my mom, many things I've tried to duplicate, but none more than her love for the written word, generally; for the inspired Word, specifically.
My mother instilled the love of all things bookish into me; now I have the sheer delight of passing that along to my own children. Just last week, Andrew and I visited the main branch of the Austin Public library. I kid you not when I tell you that I made Drew pull the car up to the curb because we had so many items it took me two trips back and forth from the front desk to get all of our books and music and movies out of the library and into our grubby little hands. I swear I heard the hippie couple sitting on the outside bench snicker at me when I trudged by, lugging my treasure to the car. Or maybe they were just disgusted with us for all the carbon gas we emitted into the air idling our car so long at the curb. Either way, I slammed the door quick and ordered Drew to "Just drive!" so we could get out of there fast. I think the tires squealed a bit entering Guadalupe. Drew and I should not be allowed to go to the library together without supervision.
 |
| Faulk Central branch of the Austin Public Library |
It may be telling to say that the last instance of "corporal punishment" on which I was the receiving end was directly linked to visiting the library. I had been told that I did not need another library card at the new library we were visiting. Somehow, I'd managed to pull the unsuspecting librarian aside and go through the whole procedure without my dad noticing. The justice delivered to my little backside was not because of the card, just the sneaking around and lying to my parents part of it. I knew I deserved punishment, but I didn't really regret getting the card.
To this day, Brian has to lecture me when I head out the door. Some women do shopping therapy; I do libraries. I think there's still a library in our hometown up north that has a picture of me behind the counter in case I try to take out more books without cleaning up my late fees.
I was supposed to be writing about Studying the Word and this turned into a confessional. I don't have time to write more because a new stack of homeschooling books just showed up at my door....
