I read or heard somewhere. I can never remember which anymore. Growing up in an internet generation has made this even more difficult. My grandmother used to be amazed at her young whipper-snapper who could remember what everyone was wearing last Thursday when the tornado warning made the weather radio go off at 4:30 pm. She's not so impressed with me anymore. Least of all my memory.
Anyway, I read or heard that Laura Ingalls Wilder used to keep all her journals in a trunk, and that her series of books were a semi-compilation of her journals. I'm glad she did. The "Little House" books as my family refers to them were the first 'grown-up' books I can remember my mother reading to me. The only ones actually. They had chapters. And pages without any pictures. I remember several, several books my mother read to me before Ms. Wilder's books (most of which we still have by the way-- my family is fond of books.) But I believe these were her favorite to read to me. I have in my mind that she waited for the right time to introduce them. I'm sure we read them at least twice through.
I remember when she started that I slept on Sesame Street sheets. I remember these mostly because of Burt and Ernie who continue to be my favorite residents on the block where I spent a lot of my childhood. They always smelled like fabric softener. Even before I recognized the smell as being fabric softener, I subconciously knew I liked the smell. My mother didn't tuck me in, but layered me between the bedding. I was terrible to toss and turn and upset the bed, which my mother never required to make in the morning. The sheets would be in knots. I would lie in the bed, and she would parachute the sheet over me, then the blanket or comforter. Whatever was above the sheets. I don't remember.
Then she would sit beside me and read to me the 'Little House' books. My mother had the best reading voice you ever heard. I still can't hear someone else read to a child without thinking of my mother. I don't know if her mother did this, probably not. Granmother had four children, and is a lot less sentimental and a lot more practical than my mother. But my mother read the book as if it were the most important document on the Earth at that point. She didn't do voices, that I recall. But her inflection and tone were better than voices.
I remember the pictures in those books as well. They're done by someone named Garth. They looked as though they were done in pencil right in our copy of the book. We found out sometime later that he also illustrated one of the picture books that my mother read to me. "No wonder I liked that book," she said. Come to think of it, he may have illustrated, "I'm Terrific!" which is about a bear with an ego issue. Another of my childhood books that I still have.
I've had it in my head to start writing. Or maybe in my heart. I've never had this urge so stongly before. I remember journaling in elementary school, but that was really just a time waster. I'm now writing out a more pressing need. I need I don't fully understand.
I woke up last night thinking about Laura Ingalls and thought that I needed to write about her books. I went back to sleep thinking that would be gone in the morning. It wasn't.
