A Road Less Travelled

sleep brushes my mind
with teasing touch
and darts away

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For many years now I have been a self professed book nut. I love reading books, I love holding books. I will gladly browse when I have no money to buy and I get excited when I find a really good book even when I already own it. Some of the most restful and pleasant times I’ve had have been surrounded by books.

It was only when I moved to Peoria that I became acquainted with used books stores. Either there aren’t any in Erie or I just never knew about them. I bought all of my books (gasp) new. Shopping at a chain bookstore is very different than browsing at a used books store. When I find a book I wanted at a chain store it’s just what I expected. It was supposed to be there. But when I find that same book in a used book store it’s like I’ve just discovered the Mayan temples deep in the jungle. I would dance around in joy, but then I would probably drop all the books in my arms so I restrain myself. I’m dancing on the inside.

When I first moved here Seth and I stopped in at a used book store called the Book Nook on University. Sadly it was mostly full of bad romance novels and even those weren’t very well organized. I gave the Book Nook up for lost. I was very excited then to hear that someone had bought the Book Nook and was trying to make it someplace worthy of good books. Then I met the new owner, Michael Langley, and decided that he struck me as someone who would run a bookstore well so I decided to give the Book Nook another try.

The Book Nook is obviously run by someone who loves books. I spend two thirds of my time in the store looking through the books and the other third talking about books with Michael. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a well-known regular at a bookstore. I got a jump start on being well known because we met Michael in a social setting before I went to his store, but even then he remembered the sort of books I read and had a suggestion for me the last time I was in.

The books in the store go from practically new to gently used and he has a good selection in a variety of genres. I have found several books in the store that I haven’t found at any other store. I even found a P. G. Wodehouse. I never see Wodehouse anywhere! The prices are a little more than some used bookstores I’ve been in, but he gives a comparable amount in store credit if you trade in books.

The store has been in a bit of disorder for a while because Michael recently expanded into the store next door. He just about doubled his space and still has more books than could easily fit in the store. If you ask, and even if you don’t, he’ll tell you that the best books are most likely in the stacks around the store. I’m not sure I’d say the best books, but I have found some good books in the stacks.

There are three used bookstores in the Peoria area that I have visited. The Book Nook is my favorite. If you like books and have an hour or more to spend in a store you should definitely check it out. And hey, maybe I’ll see you there.

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beautiful
is what happens
when He is there

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Some time ago I saw a trailer for a movie called Juno. Halfway through the trailer I knew I wanted to see this movie. Tonight I ventured out in the rain and cold to go see it. Juno is about a sixteen-year-old girl who accidentally gets pregnant by her best friend. She doesn’t want the baby and decides to give him up for adoption. Simple enough, right?

Plot wise the movie was very straight forward. But the characters were wonderfully rounded and full of life. These were normal people saying normal things and dealing with each other and their circumstances. Half the movie happened in Juno’s face. There’s a voice over periodically which is vital so that we know what she’s thinking because it is a very introspective movie.

I asked myself while I was trying to explain to Seth what I thought about the movie why I wanted to go see it. It looked painful; why did I actively pursue putting myself through that? The answer requires some background.

Up until I was about seven or eight my mother was a crisis pregnancy counselor. She was the woman who sat down with girls who were pregnant, had no idea what to do and who sometimes didn’t even know how they’d gotten in their situation. She tried to give comfort and help and often had to try to talk them out of killing their baby. She had all kind of stories that came home with her. She had stories that began and ended tragically, stories that began tragically and ended bittersweet, and everything in the middle. There were some stories she loved to talk about because they reminded her why she worked so hard. I grew up with these stories and now I love to tell them so that I remember and so that other people will know. My mom’s favorite story to tell was about an adoption. It’s probably my favorite as well. The story ends with the biological giving her baby to the adoptive parents and telling them they have a son.

It takes a lot of maturity to give your baby to someone else in love. I think it actually takes more maturity to place your baby that it does to have a baby. Not to raise a baby well, for sure, but to be able to look down the road and know that your baby would be better with someone else takes great strength. I’m not sure I could do it.

I knew that this was what Juno wanted to be about and I wanted to see it to know it if was true, if the movie was truth. It was. I wanted to know if the movie looked at an unwanted pregnancy and an adoption whole and without flinching from the painfulness. It did. Juno portrayed all the messiness and conflicting emotions of an adoption. And it portrayed all the beauty and the wonder of an adoption. I was all alone in the theater and I still didn’t cry. I almost cried, but I couldn’t because there were so many emotions, conflicting and confusing. There was too much truth up on the screen to deal with at that moment.

I give Juno extra points because the makers of the movie deeply cared about their story and the truth in it. At the end of the movie you know it’s good, it’s better than the beginning. At the beginning Juno has no idea who she is or what she wants. At the end she has walked such a hard path that now she understands herself and others better. The movie is glad that things are better, but makes no pretense about how hard it’s been. I give it three and a half stars out of four for truth and composition. It loses half a star because of pervasive crudity. Even then, the crudity doesn’t feel like people trying to be crude. It’s just your average, everyday teenager talking.

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I have a rant sitting in my head that will probably never see the light of day about how being single feels like the sole defining characteristic of my life right now. It seems sometimes that anything and everything I do, or think, or say, or write has, at its core, something to do with being single.

So, Raquel and I were talking last night and somehow the conversation turned to vomit stories. We merrily exchanged vomit stories until one of us asked how we got onto this topic. We traced the conversation back through several incarnations and, lo and behold, it had started with us talking about being single! We can’t even have a conversation about barfing without it revolving around us being single! Well, at least I was right. That always makes me feel better.

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Dear Readers, you are all cordially invited to The Waggle Room, a blog my sister Adiel, Raquel and I have started as a place to have discussions about movies.

Once a month we will pick a movie to watch and discuss. We will announce the movie on the first of every month (or sometime around then) and then you all can watch the movie at your leisure sometime during the month. Post your thoughts, comments, complaints, etc. about the movie and read what others thought of it.

We are hoping to having some interesting conversations here as we discuss the art of movies and what they tell us about our world and our Creator.

You can find a link in our blogroll to your right or, if that is too hard, right here.
Please come join us.

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let it be beautiful
and let that be enough
no matter who sees

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skeletons of trees
shrouded
by winter mist

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There is a thrill that comes with finding a good book. That’s why I like used books stores. You’re never sure what you might find. It’s like a game, like you’re the predator prowling among bookshelves.

There you are, moving among the shelves like a panther stalking a moose. The lights hum above you, the smell of book is in your nose. Somewhere out there is a book you would enjoy, a book you would love, a book so delightful you probably won’t sleep until you have finished savoring every page.

It’s waiting, hiding, sometimes cleverly sitting in plain sight. You whip around a corner and bounce! Nope, that’s not it. That’s just a Judy Blume. So, you move on. You’re getting close now. The book just ahead is witty, is intense, is a book you would love more than life itself. You can feel it, you can smell it, you can almost taste it.

There! You leap from your place of concealment and pounce on the book. Victory! You hold the book above your head and roar your triumph at fluorescent lights. Take that, you shout at the shelves of romance novels, I found good here, no thanks to you! And then, the magical moment when you lower your hands and take a long, lingering look at your catch, your delight, your bounty. It’s beautiful, it’s spectacular, it’s… Oh wait, never mind. You already have this one.

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For Adiel, a sequel:

dying snow
slips away
from new green leaves

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