How Do You Close a Book?
As I am home (home: the world of my beginnings) a small town in Michigan, a house situated in an expanse of land, the farm, my connection to that deepest ‘I am.’ There is threat of a deep-freeze, but I am toasty by the fire. Nostalgia runs over me just glancing out of the window. The humble land lies dormant, the finches are pecking the ground, the field rolls in dirty tan, halting at the forest line. The land is biding its time until spring, for spring has turned its back in bitter gusts of wind. There is a rush inside me, this is my home. There is saturation here, everything I touch drips with the already-well-known. There is no mystery. Now I understand it to be beautiful.
Let the snow begin! This is not the gentle snow of my childhood, fluffy and white, inviting adventure as it languidly journeys to the ground. I think I will stay inside. This introduction is attempting to wind its way to another beginning; that of writing. There is a sublime concoction within all writers; childhood swirls with impressive authors, together creating a magical potion of passion, a drive, the firm installation of a germ, a literary tilt. There was no stopping what I was destined to do. Here is a story, written in fourth grade under the overseeing of Mrs. Roberts, god bless her soul!
How Do You Close a Book?
Once there was a girl named Amy. She loved to read. She went to school reading a book. When she goes to sleep, she reads a book. When she falls asleep the book falls on her head and it bobs up and down in the waves of her breath. On her desk, at school, all the books are wide open.
One day Amy was trying to close a book and she asked, “How do you close a book? It seems like my hands are fighting my eyes.”
“Close your eyes,” the teacher said. Amy closed her eyes and the book closed. Then she decided to open her eyes, but finding nothing to read the book opened again. So, for the rest of the day she had about ten open books on her desk. That day she went home reading a book and went upstairs to her bedroom, to read. And when she died in the grave, she was reading a book.
The End
Howard City, Michigan
1989
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