For the Love of Books!

No need for cigarettes!  No need for booze (well...sometimes!)  My 'drug of choice' is reading.  Books...can't live without them!  Don't want to.  Never will.  I am 'champing at the bit' for the day to come when Aidan and I can read together.  He has many books...mostly picture books that interest him at the moment.  That's OK.  His thing right now is to look at the pictures and tell his own version of the story!

I gently dust and 'whisper sweet nothings' to the ever-growing collection of books that are waiting for him to read.  And I learn patience!  I want him to know the stories.  I want him to love the characters.  I want his imagination to fly.  And it will...someday!

I can't remember being without a book to read.  I'm pretty sure I loved them in school (it was a long time ago, OK!)  I remember sleep-overs at my nana's house, tucked up in bed, reading Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe 'til I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.  I wish I still had those books.  For Aidan.

The list of books that I treasure is too long to share, but I did reacquaint myself recently with one I've had in my library for many years.  It is A Tear And A Smile by Kahlil Gibran.  First published in 1950, it was the last of many books he wrote, and the first of his books I owned.  I love his writings.  Especially the ones about our children...

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you, but not from you.

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

Aidan, two weeks old

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts,

for they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies, but not their souls,

for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.