Meeting Madeleine

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.

Madeleine L'Engle

The Man and I stumbled upon a Half-Price Bookstore today while trying to find Marble Slab.  We got sucked into the vortex for about an hour, finally emerging with a book each (after much deliberation).  I have a sneaking suspicion he picked up a couple other items for me while we were in there, but I diligently appraised Etta James CDs while he checked out.

My book of choice was A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle, the first book in her Crosswicks Journal collection.  I grew up reading L'Engle's novels, and she always managed to fascinate me with her knowledge of science, music, literature, and life.  Each book of hers that I read challenged me to look at my world from a different perspective.  Coming to her journals, I find myself intrigued by what was going on inside of her mind and what I can learn from her.  

Aside: I've found that my book taste has changed significantly due to marrying the Man, who could spend hours in the History/Biography/Military section of book stores without ever setting foot in the Fiction section.  Initially, I admit, I was a little scandalized by this.  After all, isn't a historian merely an unsuccessful novelist (H.L. Mencken)?  But after a more than a few bookstore trips with the Man, I've learned to amuse myself while he browses, and by doing so found the attraction that he finds there.  You see, the Man reads about people that he wants to emulate, namely, good leaders and men of honour.  I, on the other hand, am finding all sorts of fascinating books about people that I want to emulate, namely, good writers and women of travel.  Hence, my new obsession with journals, travel writing, and biography.

Back to A Circle of Quiet.  I picked it up this afternoon while the Man was single handedly finishing off our nap (I put in an hour's worth of effort and then decided to move on to better things: reading).   The first few chapters were fascinating.  Not only did she manage to include some of my very favourite words (ontology, green, and art), not only did she jump right in to talking about creativity and the unconscious, not only did she give me new insight into the meaning of humility, but she took me right back to a younger me, back to the me that lived in her novels.  Because, you see, the Murry family of the Wrinkle in Time series lived in her very home!  Not literally, of course, but it was all there: the old stone farm house, the glacial stones and apple trees, the star-watching rock.  Old friends come to meet me in reality.  It made me smile.

The Man is sitting next to me doing peer evaluations for class now, and I'm happy once again that I get to curl up with my Mac to write about literature and return to my childhood and, perhaps, think deep thoughts while he actually makes money for us.