I often think that words are powerful, how the right ones can make our day or leave us under a black cloud for the rest of it. There are favourite words and hated words, cross words and happy words. Words of hate, words of love. If it exists then there is a word for it.
Imagine a world without words, no expression of wonder, empathy surprise or happiness. No words for help, thank you or even I love you. I don't think I would like to live without words. Language and writing has always interested me. How a book or a descriptive passage of writing is formed by the author. How songs or poems are made how they flow in different ways. Words dripping off the page drifting into the ether, ready for a keen ear or eye to take in and cherish, perhaps even to inspire or uplift a weary soul with words that might be full of hope.
For most words are something we are weaned on as surely as the introduction of solid foods. We are introduced to books with brightly illustrated pictures to help us understand these funny squiggles on a page. To coming of an age where the joy of reading comes naturally. I think of my eldest girl when I write this. She reminds me of myself so much with a constant little stack of books to happily escape to. Although she is more a butterfly reader, she flits from one set of books to another enjoying them all it seems in her own way. I was very much the same when young. Due to I guess different times though I couldn't be too fussy about the nature of the book I was to read. I got my supply of books mainly through my nan and aunt who would scout them out for me at jumble sales and the like. Enid Blyton, Mandy annuals and other stories I have long since forgotten about would be duly received and devoured with great relish! It is just something I have always done, I don't really remember a time when I did or could not read and enjoy a book. As I got older one of my aunt's would pass on to me some of her books. I was reading all sorts of pap to be honest by the time I was 13 or 14. Mills and Boon type books come wincingly to mind. Might be why I have an aversion to anything overly schmaltzy and romantic they put me off for life I think. Of course I could of not read them and if there was anything better available for me to read then trust me I did.
A few times though a few gems did come into my life. The book I photographed is one of them. Yes I have managed to keep this little gem of a book since I was about 13 or 14! quite a long time now. The book is entitled Emmeline. It is about a young girl of 13 set against the back drop of a small farm in Fayette, Maine in America in 1839. Emmeline was sent to work in the cotton mills in Lowell,Massachusetts. It follows her life thereafter and all the things that happened to her whilst she was away and then back home. It is indeed a very sad story and on the inside cover says that it is a true story. It does have a shocking end. I read this book recently again and it got me thinking about how each time I have read this book my perspective must of been vastly different. At being around the same age as Emmeline herself when I first read this story I must of empathised with her absolute misery and fear at the thought of being sent away from home to work torturous hours in a loud and strange smelling mill. Something of the like she would never (or even I come to that) had ever experienced. I try to remember what I thought about her isolation she felt amongst the other girls and her subsequent friendship and downfall with one of the mill supervisors. I don't think I would of fully understood the implications of the relationship and how so much of a child she was and how so much of a grown man he was. Of course reading it now as an adult and mother my reactions to it are much more stronger of disgust and anger.
I love the way this book has aged, it has lost a bit of its flap on the inside with the blurb.The rips and tears the many creases and dog eared pages. How this book miraculously has stayed with me during the many moves and changes of my teens and early 20's. I remember a couple of other books I had at the same time, actually one of which I do still own although the story no longer seems to engage me. But a few others have sadly long since been lost along the way although the stories are still there somewhere in my head like long forgotten dreams.
Just recently I have come to the conclusion about perhaps one day investing in a Kindle. And trust me this word does not roll off my tongue easily being a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to such gadgetry. But I do collect loads of books a majority of which I have no interest in keeping once read and we do need a little bit of a charity shop cull. Its mainly books of the chick lit variety that I tend to give away. Space being short in our house although I think I would always still have a groaning bookcase. A fair few books that I collect by the same authors for instance. A few of those I have had since my late teens or early 20's and still read and buy them. One such set of books I am still collecting are by Sue Grafton are the alphabet crime books. The heroine of the story is private investigator Kinsey Millhone. She really does rock! So maybe that is the answer, I will just continue keeping those books that inspire me, the ones tatty with yellowing pages, aged and full of my memories that have thus far come along for the ride of my life.
MBBx
