The other day Natalie sent Elisabeth and me a selfie of her and her youngest Autumn and Elisabeth's oldest Remi. The picture warmed my grandma soul. I pinched the screen of my phone to zoom in closer. She was reading a book to the little girls. "I recognize that book." I thought. "Actually....I think that is MY book." Elisabeth replied, "I neeeeeed that book!".
"A Surprise for Mitzi Mouse". Probably one of my all-time favorite books. Not just favorite children's books. Just favorite all around. Just looking at the cover conjures up all the emotions of my young motherhood. And though the book is about a little family of mice, the illustrations of the little mouse family in their traditional clothing, it is easy to get lost in their lovely home and relationships and forget that they are in fact rodents. Which lately, here in our love shack on the mountain, Dave continues to be my hero in his rodent abatement skills.
Natalie texted "I'm pretty sure this is your book Mama." Yes...I'd already figured that to be the case. And I'd already quickly gone on-line to try to find it and purchase another copy for Elisabeth. I love that she has fond memories of the book. Realizing I needed to replace mine, I added another copy to my order.
Mitzi is an only child (a mouse child, which already along with the fact that she wears clothes and has a little pink bow tied in a little tuft of her hair, of course makes this fiction). One day her parents announce that she will soon be a big sister. She isn't pleased. She loves being the center of attention and adoration of her parents and extended family members. (Which by rodent standards would likely be zillions, but in Mitzi's case only includes her parents, grand-parents, and a few aunties and uncles. And they are all smashingly well-dressed). Like most toddlers, she learns to love being an older sibling, showing the new tiny pink baby all the ropes of fitting in to the the mouse family. By then end of the book another new mouse baby joins his sisters, and I end up wanting to curl up in a corner and cry for a little while over the fact that my babies are grown and having babies of their own and how time passes much too quickly.
My introduction to Mitzi and her family came one hot summer day in Arizona. I had just had my second baby. She was also itty bitty and pink and woke about every forty-five minutes to feed. I was exhausted and trying to recover from a bout of mastitis and an accompanying high fever. Just a few days after her birth I was lying on the couch; I heard a soft knock on the front door of our apartment. I could see the figure of my mother-in-law Pearl through the sheer curtains. "Natalie, hop off the couch and go open the door for Grandma."
Her arms carrying a cardboard box, Pearl walked into the kitchen set down a warm loaf of her homemade whole wheat bread, a steaming jar of her pinto beans and a pile of children's books she'd checked out from the library earlier in the morning; She scooped Natalie up into her arms and looking directly at me said, "Let me have the baby and you go lie down and take a long nap." My eyes burning from the fever, were now filling with hot tears of overwhelm and gratitude. Too weak to protest, I muttered, "Okay." I handed her my tiny swaddled infant, trusting that having nine of her own babies, she'd be able to watch both of my girls. "I just need a few minutes." I told her. "The only way for a mother to recover from child-birth quickly is to sleep and rest as often as you can." I weakly replied, "Well....I'm not really a person that takes naps, but I'll go lie down for a few minutes and see if this fever won't go down."
I pulled my blanket up around me and closed my eyes. Pearl's voice crooned softly as she told Natalie to bring her some of the library books she'd brought and climb up next to her on the couch. Pearl reading, then asking Natalie to turn the page. I drifted off to sleep. The deep sleep of recovery.
Pearl and my baby number seven Bronson
"Core memory". I've heard that term a lot lately. "Core memories," in particular, refer to a specific set of memories that hold more emotional value. I seem to have an over-abundance of them. The stages of my life are marked by both books that I've read and books that have been read to me. Mrs. McDonald, my third grade teacher, reading to our class while we sat cross-legged on the squares of carpet as her voice took us through the trilogy of E.B White, Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web. Mrs. Fitzgerald, my 11th grade High School Language Arts teacher; reading out loud The Scarlett Letter, and The Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer to us; pausing occasionally to glance up at the class over her half-eye readers and ask us questions. Questions that helped us learn how to think and to see how the world, in the past, was so different and yet still, so much the same.
Mostly though, my love of literature comes from my parents. I can't remember a time that either of them didn't have a few books on their respective night stands. My father, with at least two novels going at the same time and usually completing them in under a week. My mother's a mixture of history, fiction and self-improvement; dog-eared and underlined with a pencil. She even had an embossing tool she'd use to brand her more precious hard-backs that she'd occasionally lend out. She worked for a few years at a book-store. I think most of her pay-checks lined our family's book-shelves. Before "ordering on-line was a thing, she had a "Book-of-the-month Club" account for each of her grand-children. We'd get the catalogues and she'd fulfill the children's reading wishes.
T.V.'less during much of my child-hood, weekly trips to the library in town were the norm. I'd sneak my books to the dinner table and hold them open on my lap and read while the older kids chatter hummed around me. At night I'd read under my blanket, to not get caught staying up too late on a school night. On Sundays, Mama would read biographies of important people out loud to us while we ate our dessert of yellow cake with chocolate frosting, knowing she had a captive audience. But best of all were the late evenings Daddy would be reading on the couch and she'd call to my little brother and me to come lie beside her on their bed and she'd read to us. To have my mother read out loud is something I always appreciated. She loved acting and would make different voices for each character. Joel and I would giggle which would make her giggle; often to the point of making her cough her wheezy cough. Always a wheezy cough. I felt in those moments nothing but her pure love of motherhood and for me and my little brother. Adored. Safe.
Pearl tended to me for a solid two weeks that hot May in 1989. She took my laundry and my toddler to her house and would bring them both back two hours later; the laundry clean and folded and my little girl fed and read to. I promised her I'd sleep during that time, and I did. Eventually after our third and fourth babies were born, she and Grandpa Joe would have the littles over for two hours at lunch-time each Wednesday. Tucking two $20's in my hand she'd lend me her car so I could go get groceries. Sometimes before going to the store I'd go to the library. I'd browse through decorating and gardening books dreaming of having a house and yard someday. I'd grab a few cook-books, then usually end up in the Classics section. I wanted to re-read some of the High School required books that at the time, I either couldn't or didn't care enough at the time to understand.
While we are in the midst of adding on to this small cabin, all of my books are still in boxes. I'd be happy living in a house that was wall to wall bookshelves. Listening to books with ear-buds or on the car speakers while I'm driving is a miracle to be certain. But it can never replace the senses that opening a book opens in me. The smell of new print. The smell of musty old print. The feeling of satisfaction when you anticipate what the next page holds in store and so you keep the upper corner of it between your thumb and forefinger. The weight of a hard-back book as it lay across your ribs when you become too sleepy to continue reading but know that you will resume your journey when you're eyes have rested a while. When a child curls up next to you and rests their hand on your arm and their head on your shoulder as you read aloud stories of little mouse families, little girls that live on prairies, swans that have to use a trumpet to communicate, or spiders that spin words into their webs.
I had a package arrive in the mail today. My new-to-me copy of "A Surprise for Mitzi Mouse". I'm going to give it to Elisabeth. I've actually ordered two more; and come to think of it, I should probably order one for each of my children. That way they won't have to steal (I mean long-term borrow) mine. I think I just might take this one to bed with me tonight; I won't even have to sneak it under the covers.
The only thing better, would be to have my mother read it out loud to me.
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