Daily Mantra:
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
{Henry Wadsworth Longfellow}
I ran around to the left side of her body and clutched her free, gloved hand. The other was occupied by her old-lady style black purse. She was an old lady; my grandmother. At 6 years of age, everyone is old except your new guinea pig. She was a well dressed large woman with a black purse, because it was winter, and in the winter it was only appropriate to don a black one…white for spring and summer, and tan for fall. Purses were as good of an indicator for seasons changing as a groundhog.
“You will love this place,” she didn’t looked down, but grabbed my hand tighter to share her excitement. I squeezed back.
In a dinged yellow building, right next to the closed 5 & 10 Store, was what would become my sweet oasis for years to come; my escape from all things real. “The Personal Bookshop”, as it was appropriately named, was run (and still is) by a divine English lady named Marty, her cat Mr. Thomaston {Tom}, and her English Sheep Dog.
Marty, her real name Martha I would suppose, was probably the only adult in my life to never make me feel like a child, even when I was one. And when you are a child, that is the stuff that truly matters. She would special order The Babysitters Club books for me (I read them all), then Nancy Drew (making her comeback for a short time in the late 1980′s), and she would let me sit in her fancy wing back chair and talk to her about the latest book in absurd detail. She sipped her tea, filled me up with English love, and then handed me the next paper delight. Two weeks later, I would return to her stoop, open the door, and do it again.
When I was 15 the shop moved up to the brick blocked Main Street. I would volunteer there on weekends and summers, drowning myself with the artistic culture that those four walls would offer. Local artists, the town’s eccentric people, and visiting tourists would flood the shop daily. It was as if I was traveling without leaving the ground. I remember every book I ever read while I was there. My final book…a gift from Marty, Accordion Crimes by E. Annie Proux, my favorite author at the time. The last page read on my last day at the shop before leaving to live in Bangor to attend my first semester in college.
I haven’t been back since that day…we kept in touch with letters at first, and then Christmas cards, and then nothing. I pass it on my way home, and think of stopping but don’t. The kids screaming in the back of the car, pelting my head with the plushy toy, or maybe we are in a rush, but I never feel like its the right time. Do you ever fear that maybe something you held close to your heart…so completely special, might have changed while you weren’t looking? I don’t want to go in, because I don’t want the shop to change, or Marty to change, or my memories of me and my grandma and the times we had there to some how morph into something different.
Yeah…I guess that is how I really feel.
by amanda.b.
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