It dawned on me that I have neglected words. I’ve treated them as a means to an end, nothing more. That realization is just one of the lessons Henry led me to. Reading with a child, I’ve discovered, is a continual learning experience for everyone involved.
By the time I moved to Nashville, I had laid the groundwork to not immediately sound like I was from New Jersey, if I wanted. It also left me open to picking up a Southern inflection or two. Do I say “y’all” every now and then? Sure, I do.
Long before the evangelical and Pentecostal Christians of my childhood held tent revivals, my forebears built booths and tabernacles in the desert, sides open to Ruach ha-olam, Breath of the Universe that animates and sustains us, that blows life into adamah and all the creatures on Earth.
This spring, I returned to Paris for the first time — with almost two decades of marriage, three kids, a freshly minted technical college diploma, and a new career in construction under my belt. The city looked very different.
The Southern Festival of Books is the place I came from and the place I return to, and it is the place where my literary forebears live on through the miraculous immortality of books.
My unread books had all survived several cullings, which meant that I must have repeatedly decided they were worth reading. So it seemed time to do just that.
