Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Three Beautiful Things 11-16-20: Everett Update, Old Friend Returns, Westward Expansion

1. I don't have much of an update to write about Everett. Christy spent the morning and much of the afternoon with him. I know Everett was awake and that he and Christy talked about all kinds of things. The visitation policy at Kootenai Health is understandably tight and restrictive, but thank God the hospital allows one visitor and that Christy has the time to spend with Everett and the dedication to his well-being to be at his side for so many hours.

2. When we moved to Maryland, I decided that rather than move or store boxes and boxes of books, I'd give them away, donate them. Every once in a while, I long to have some of those books back in my possession. A while back, I decided I wanted Jane Hirshfield's Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry back in my life and ordered it through biblio.com. Upon ordering it, I found out that Biblio tracked down a copy of it at St. Vinnie's Charitable Books in Eugene. 

I suddenly wondered if the copy being shipped my way might be the very copy I gave away back in 2014. I liked the idea of the book coming full circle.

Today the book arrived and I excitedly extracted it from the packaging and thumbed through it, looking for any tell-tale signs that this was the copy I once owned. 

I'm not one to mark books. This copy had no marks in it. It didn't have my name in it either.

Ergo: I don't know if it's the copy I once owned in Eugene.

I'm going to act like it is, though. Why not? The book's content is an old friend and I'm going to tell myself the actual book is as well.

3. I read as much of Heather Cox Richardson's How the South Won the Civil War as I could today. I can't zip through this book. It's packed with names and events it takes time to sort out.  As the book moves from the Civil War itself to the expansion of the United States westward, much of what Richardson writes about is violent, cruel, covetous, and greedy. Even though I knew this was true before reading this book, reading about it again gives me pause. I can't zip through this book. 

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