What's on your bookshelf?

Antique collection

My love of books started on my mother's lap.  It isn't the stories I remember nor my mother's voice, but her hands as she turned the pages. We sat together on an old rocking chair and I loved that time when it was just my mother and me.

When we were children my mother took my brother, sister and me to the library every two weeks.  We walked up some creaky stairs to the library, which in the late 40's and early 50's, was on the second floor of a building in downtown Shelby.  We were able to pick out several books and I remember one time when just my sister and I were at the library with my mother.  When Nancy and I looked up at the librarian and gave her our books to be stamped she said, "You two have the most beautiful eyes."  Who wouldn't love to go to the library when we were told that?

My love of books continued into grade school.  I was fond of the biographies of famous people that lined the bookshelves in fourth and fifth grades.  My favorite was one about Jane Addams.  I wanted to be Jane Addams.  Jane lived from 1860 to 1935 and became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is known as the founder of the social work profession in the U.S.  Jane established Hull House in Chicago where she made social services available to immigrant women of the neighborhood.  I was fascinated by her story and for many years thought I would follow her path.  In many ways, my teaching career had elements of social work.

Books from my childhood became pathways for our own children beyond the stories.  The Laura Ingalls Wilder series took us during summer breaks to Walnut Grove, Minnesota (On the Banks of Plum Creek), DeSmet, South Dakota (Little House on the Prairie, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie), and Mansfield, Missouri (These Happy Golden Years).

I just finished rereading The Long Winter in order to compare our winter with the dangerous winter the Wilders experienced on the prairie.  Laura was writing for children and never sensationalized what happened to her family, but The Long Winter shows how close they came to starving to death.  For months they had nothing but brown bread and tea to eat each day.  They were forced to twist hay for heat and grind wheat for bread and the effort of that daily routine took more energy than they really had.  When the train stopped running before Christmas and didn't come again until the last day of April because of unending blizzards, their supplies quickly ran out and they had no meat nor vegetables.  It made me realize that complaining this winter about the cold and snow shows the average American knows nothing about a tough life, me included.

A book that took us on a long road trip across Canada to Prince Edward Island was Anne of Green Gables.  The island was delightful but we also drove up Cape Breton and toured Fortress Louisbourg at the northeast end of the island.  Unlike PEI, there was a bridge crossing over to Cape Breton Island. We came back to Nova Scotia and circled Halifax to go to Peggy's Cove, a small picturesque fishing village on the Atlantic.  That trip was more than just experiencing Anne of Green Gables. It was broadening our horizons to see that there were different landscapes and jobs that people had. We also learned about the unusual high tides of the Bay of Fundy, which separates Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

After finishing a good book I have been immersed in for days, I always have a sense of loss.  I miss the characters and the apprehension of where the story will take me.  Such was the case of a recent read, The Goldfinch, a novel by Donna Tartt.  It was a rather tough story with dysfunctional characters.  Even though it had a somewhat satisfying ending, it was complicated as the main character explained his view of life. This was Donna Tartt's third novel.  I was so intrigued by this book that I am now reading her first novel, The Secret History, and discovering that her characters in this book also have complicated problems.  I keep turning the pages.

Books overfloweth at our house.  My husband favors history.  My half of the bookshelves contain poetry, fiction, travel books and my journals.  We have shelves of children's books that we bought for our own children and grandchildren.  We have bookcases in our den, a big bookcase in our family room and I have books tucked here and there in piles in out of the way places. That does not count all the novels in boxes stored away.  Their value is in the pleasure or pain the words have brought me over the years.  They will all eventually go into someone else's collection, but I hope never discarded. Holding a book is like having a little world in my hands to explore at my leisure.  What's on your bookshelf?  I'd love to know.

 BOOKS, BOOKS AND MORE BOOKS!

Overstuffed bookcase in den

Books read this winter

Book case in family room

March Mischief

Rivulets of water
Running under edges of ice
To latte mud puddles
Sucking in boots

Sap coursing through
Branches and trunks
On a forty six degree day
Sweetness in the air

After a wink and a nod
From mother nature
The night will freeze
Into tomorrow's cold

Next week will bring
Fifty degree days
Fingers crossed
No looking back

Winter Interlude

Heads bent over
Steaming cups
Of coffee
A joke
A reminiscence

Secrets spilling
From the gut
Knowing there
Is trust in the
Confiding

A break from
The chill 
Of winter
Totally relaxed
Settling into an
Hour or two
Of just being
Themselves  

               -Joan Ramseyer

Unplug the Children

Summer days
watch clouds
running to nowhere
hop scotching driveways 
rubbing grass stained hands
cool water hitting bare skin
from backyard sprinklers

Autumn swishes
through piles of leaves
to be pressed in books
taking in smoky smells
of fires unknown
skipping down lanes
just because

Winter weather
dares red mittens to
grip sleds
catching snowflakes
on tongues while
skating across 
frozen ponds

Spring teaches
baby bird lessons,
mud puddle jumping
throwing coats aside
to twirl and feel the
breeze turning back
into summer

                   -Joan Ramseyer

Analyzing poetry:  My eleven year old granddaughter read this poem and I asked her what she thought the title had to do with the poem.  Her idea was that the poem explains what children do and adults need to unplug that inner child.  It was not what I meant when I wrote it, but her interpretation is another layer and so good.  Her analysis reveals that poems can be read on many different levels.  We bring our own experiences to poetry and that is what makes a poem sing to us.   

Everyone Has A Story

There was a big crowd at the West Michigan Symphony as only one concert was being played in February.  We were there on Friday night sitting in different seats than we usually do when we attend on Saturday night.

I watched as three older women worked themselves slowly up the aisle.  
The last one was using a cane.  They stopped at our row and my husband and I moved into the aisle to let them in.

As they settled into their seats I realized how hard it must be for elderly people to even get out on a frigid snowy night and then get comfortable when they sit down.  I asked the woman with the cane sitting next to me, who was also balancing a program and purse, if I could help her get her coat off.  As I held her cane and helped her with her coat she asked me my name. She told me hers was Alice.  She thanked me profusely for helping her.  She said, "I hope I don't fall asleep."

I told her, "Just don't snore."

It wasn't until intermission when I learned a small part of Alice's story.  I asked her if she lived in Muskegon and she told me she had lived there all her life and had graduated from Muskegon Heights High School.  The two women she was with were her classmates.

I asked, "What year did you graduate?"

The look on her face was one of amusement.  "You don't want to know.  It was a long time ago."

I pushed her to tell me and she said, "1947."

"Oh, I was born in 1946 so I was just a baby when you graduated," I said. 

She told me that she and her friends had been going out for breakfast and lunch once a month.  She laughed and said, "But we decided that wasn't often enough so now we're going out once a week."

"Who is the driver?"  I asked.

"I am, but my kids don't like me driving," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.  Alice seemed the most frail of the three women so learning she was the driver surprised me.  I wondered if her children might not have cause to worry.

Her life story deepened when Alice told me she had a child, who at two years old, was diagnosed with cancer.  She and her husband were told he wouldn't live very long, but she said he is now 57.  However she had a son who died of cancer at the age of 35.  Unfortunately her 57 year old son is not in good health and she was worried about his chances of living too much longer.

When Muskegon was more an industrial city, Alice worked at several of the major factories in Muskegon, including Continental.  I uncovered all these details about Alice's life in a ten minute conversation. She struck me as a sweet woman who had tasted the bad and good of life and was now enjoying her women friends who had been her classmates.

When we said goodbye after the concert she seemed genuinely glad to have talked to me as I was to listen to her story.  She reinforced what I have known and that is that old friends can take us into our final years with memories of shared experiences and a lifetime of love.  Those friendships can be our joy as we near the close of our lives.  An Irish Proverb seems to sum up Alice's story of her companionship with her high school friends.  


 May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.  May good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam....

Delta Blues

When you called

I was listening to
The sounds of 

The Delta

Those backwater places

Where notes

Signify the hurt

Of that soulful place

Leaning back in wooden chairs

Guitars twanging with voices

And harmonicas 

Playing counterpoint

Time stood still

And nothing could

Ease the world

Except the music

Doing a slow toe tapping
I was listening to 

Sleepy John Estes

Wail Floating Bridge

But you called and

I slipped out

Of muddy waters

Into now

                  - Joan Ramseyer

Last Night's Concert

When the pianist played
Brahms,
My blond headed
Granddaughter
Sat next to me
Tapping her fingers
On mine

Her silky peach dress
Matching her skin
Flowed over her
Nine year old frame
Reminding me of the
Pale pink frock with ruffles
I wiped my sweaty hands on
At my piano recital
So many years ago

When Rachmaninoff's notes
Filled the air
I thought the
Russian darkness
Might permeate her soul
But she yawned
Leaned her head
Against her grandfather's shoulder
And fell asleep


                             -Joan Ramseyer