and we will time travel.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”   - albert einstein 

hello, love.
    one day
       i would like a library 
                   a whole library, in our very own house.

I've already started collecting, you know
(things like that take a lot of planning)
books, i mean. collecting books
from second-hand bookstores and thrift shops.
floor to ceiling to floor, the room will have books
and millions of golden threads leading from the pages, 
connecting our little corner of the world to the rest of it.
to London in 1854, and Iran in 1990, and India tomorrow.
we can walk into our library any old time
and amble right on through to...well, anywhere.

mom didn't like to buy me many books as a child

oh, yes, she taught me the importance of reading

we read every day, and for that i owe her my life.

but we didn't buy them

books, i mean

because i'd read them too quickly

a day or two, maybe

and so we used the library

want to know something nerdy?

i was probably the only nine-year-old in the city 

to have the library card number memorized,

all fourteen digets. 

did you know they max out at 30?

books, i mean.

30 books at one time.

We will read to our children every single night. we will act out the stories; we will help them see that the stories are just as alive and breathing as they are. you can be Peter Pan, and i'll be Frances Hodgson Burnett's Sara Crewe.

and when they are old enough, they will read to themselves every day as a chore, like making their beds or unloading the silverware. hopefully they won't see it like that, like a chore. hopefully they will become addicts. they will sneak flashlights into their rooms and read underneath the covers after bedtime every night.

but we'll never ground them for that.

instead, we'll take trips to the library

and teach them how to dream.

all my love.