Books and Bugs

Ok, I know, we are a day late in blogging, but I, at least, have a good excuse. I have succumbed to the bug that has been traveling around these north coast woods. Yes, I am sick and if you know me at all you know what a horrible patient I am; I moan, I complain, I roll around on my bed or on the couch, I panic when my asthmatic lungs seize up. Another thing I do is read. I would show you some cool photos of my ravaged face and oily hair, only thing is we are on internet probation again. So no photos. Sorry.

I love to read. It doesn't even have to be a good book. Just any book. I love the way the pages sound and smell as I thumb through them. I have been known to wander around bookstores and libraries with my nose in the air sniffing in sensual bliss. Yea, I am certifiable. I also cannot NOT finish a book and I never, ever read ahead. EVER. And what I start I finish. I am a little compulsive about this. Mark has no problem skimming and reading ahead, or just laying the book down for any number of months or years before he picks it up again. He also can have more than one book at a time started. Not me. I am monogamous with my reading. One book at a time, started in the beginning, read through page by page until the end and in the quickest possible amount of time. Obviously, sometimes I just have to not let myself read, because nothing else gets done. But when I am sick I have no such restriction. Like I said, I read just about anything. Except I don't really like trashy books. Not too often anyway. LOL.

Here are some of the final paragraphs of the book I finished yesterday, and no, it wasn't a bodice ripper. Sorry. See if you can figure out what book it is. The first one to guess right gets my copy, that is, if you want it.

The author is reminiscing about times spent at the Lincoln Memorial and goes on to say:

At night, the great shrine is lit but often empty. Standing between marble columns, I read the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address. I look out over the Reflecting Pool, imagining the crowd stilled by Dr. King's mighty cadence, and then beyond that, to the floodlit obelisk and shining Capitol dome.

And in that place, I think about America and those who built it. This nation's founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.

It is that process I wish to be a part of.

My heart is filled with love for this country.

Ours too.