When it's cold outside and night creeps in by late afternoon, I turn, almost instinctively, to familiar things. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that when I was feeling a bit uninspired yesterday and in need of some renewed energy, I turned to my most familiar of haunts...the book store.
I love books. I don't simple enjoy reading books, I love the way they feel and smell. I love they way they look piled in my bookcases and squeezed into every available corner from the pantry to the piano top. When I was young, my mother made it a point to take us "girls" to the library once every two weeks in the summer and as often as possible throughout the rest of the year. We lived deep in the county and, at that time, there wasn't a community branch minutes from our door, so we went downtown to the main library...a trip I anticipated with great excitement! These early adventures set in motion not only a love of books, but a ritual of spending time browsing shelves, reading book jackets, and turning pages...a familiar routine that seems to quiet my thoughts and calm my nerves.
Yesterday did the trick...I visited the Book Eddy, a local bookstore stuffed with everything from Tom Clancey to a 1879 copy of the Grange Almanac. With one of the store's cats as my only company, I took my time quietly reading, thinking, and dreaming. I came away with a 1942 copy of Mrs. Miniver and a Elizabeth Taylor novel reprinted from the 1940 original...oh, and a cookbook, of course! Refreshed and renewed, I think I smiled the rest of the afternoon.
We all need the familiar things to keep us grounded. It's the landscape of the day to day: a basket of yarn nearby for winter knitting; a cup of soup on a cold day; savanansana at the end of a yoga class; a good book and a warm blanket...you get the idea. It feeds the soul and warms the heart. There really is a little zen in the ordinary, every day stuff, I promise!
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