Hello friends,
Do me a favor and think about all the important things in your wallet. Do you remember getting your driver’s license? A car was the real ticket (to get a ticket too, I got my first one the first month after I turned 16) to freedom. With a car, you can go almost anywhere.
Do you remember getting your first voter ID? I have to say turning 18 was huge for me because I could finally vote. I have never missed an election since. It meant that while I was just one voice, I was strong. I could say something and be someone. I could complain about the people in charge. It was HUGE.
Do you remember your first credit or debit card? The one with your own name on it? What did it mean to you? Independence? Security? It clearly meant more than just having money. There was more to it.
Of all the cards in my wallet, the one that has changed me the most is the one that cost me nothing and for which I had to have little to no training to use. It was the card that not only gave me the chance to go anywhere in the world, but it introduced me to people I would never meet.
There is a card in my wallet that can help me grow as a person. With it, I can visit strange new worlds. I can keep up with the news today and I can learn what was in the news five hundred years ago. This card will help me fix a toilet, watch a movie, listen to music, and learn a foreign language. This card beats the heat, beats inflation, and beats the competition. Nothing in my wallet can do more for less. With this card, I can go anywhere and see anything and I can do it all for free.
Of course, I’m writing about my library card. Friends, it is library card sign-up month. If you don’t have one, get one. If you have one, find someone who doesn’t and take them to your local branch, and get them signed up. While you are there, join a club, use the maker space, make friends, play games, browse the internet, learn how to crochet, get a movie, read a newspaper from your home town or from London, or New York or wherever you wish, and of course, pick up a book. The world is yours and it is totally free.
Notes from my Bookshelf
Brenna Thummler’s brilliant final work in her Sheets Trilogy, Lights is out now. I’m not crying, you’re crying. You can hear us talk about it here.
As I am finishing up my Book Bingo card for this quarter, I challenged myself to read the final book by an author. I read Charlotte Bronte’s final book Villette. It was so good. I’m not a big fan of her seminal work, not because she is a bad writer, she is amazing, but because I don’t get all the hubbub about an old guy who locks his wife in the attic while hitting on the nanny. Gross. None of that in Villette.
I read Shirley Jackson’s collected short stories and they are amazing (of course) and I read her biography called A Rather Haunted Life. Wow. Spoiler alert. The patriarchy is bad. I then used my handy dandy library card to get the biopic starring Elizabeth Moss. I have not watched it yet, but she is always good and it looks like a winner.
Notes from my Desk
Well friends, I’ve been super busy at work and I’ve written likely 20K words of curriculum and student feedback in the past month or so. Thus, I’ve been neglecting the third installment of The Austen Chronicles a bit. I’ve been writing mostly on the weekends. I was able to write 7,000 words this way since last you heard from me. Not bad for just a handful of days.
Finally, I wanted to share that I will be a keynote speaker at Mount St. Mary’s College in Newburgh, New York on October 4th where I will talk about contemplative practice. There will be a whole week of events where I visit classrooms, speak at a lunch, have drinks with nuns (this is real), and end with a reading and book talk for the community. It is an honor and I am very excited about it.
As always, thank you for being a subscriber and if you haven’t already, please request that your local library pick up a copy of Welcome to Mansfield.
ARF
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