It’s 10 PM on a Saturday night… Max is finally asleep… I find that I get most done when he has yet to wake in the morning and is slumbering late at night… of course, I’m also most tired at these times…. it’s a good tired… kinda like a dry heat in Dallas… you know what I mean…
… the wind is blowing outside… and it just started to rain… I’m reflecting on my day.. my week… nothing out of the ordinary happened today… lots of little things… read Max “Where the Wild Things Are”… great book from Maurice Sendak….he’s the kind of people I want to hang out with …folks with that kind of imagination…. a couple of things jumped out at me today from this book that I’d like to share… first it was written in ‘63… the year I was born… I only discovered this book in college thanks to a wonderful teacher who taught Children’s Lit… Bob Hallquist…. he made books come alive and taught me that a lot can be learned from children’s books at any age…this book starts with Max causing mischief… and his mother calls him a WILD THING… like any good book I don’t want to give anything away.. but I can’t help but share more.. he is sent to his room without dinner….
…. there, he has a fantasy of his room being transformed into a forest… and of sailing to where the wild things are… and wild things he meets … he tames them and is made king of all wild things… I love the next part.. they dance and played and finally Max was lonely … “and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”…. I missed this line for so many years… the friend who gave me this book…. she underlined this line…and I am so thankful… I have missed it for so many years…Max was lonely …. “and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”….thinking about it now … in the quiet of the night makes me a little teary eyed… I realized how much love I have in my life…
… not only that I have felt loved… best of all but more importantly I have loved by giving the gift of love to others… in the movie “Marvin’s room”… there is a scene that has always moved me…the older sister, Lee and her two boys are visiting her younger sister, Bessie… Bessie has recently found out she has Leukemia…and her sister has been estranged from the family for many years… Lee and her boys are there to be tested as a bone marrow donors…Bessie has spent most of her adult life_taking care of their ill father and frail Aunt Ruth….the two women are in the kitchen late one night and Bessie says to Lee… “I’ve been so lucky to have had Dad and Aunt Ruth… I’ve had such love in my life.. I look back and I’ve had such love”… the older sister Lee, looks down and says, “they have loved you very much”… but Bessie corrects her by saying, “that’s not what I mean… I mean I loved them… I’ve been so lucky to have been able to love someone so much”… what a gift to be able to loved someone completely… to love someone best of all… that’s when love comes our way.. that’s when we don’t feel lonely… that’s when I forget about myself and, like the leaves I hear tossing outside my window, I am carried off by this love… love I feel from my family… and friends of course.. and God who is ever present… but, best of all, love I GIVE as a gift…
….. that’s the kind of love I want for Max… my friends… my family… for you… and for me….
…other favorite children’s books… (it’s a long list I know)…Runaway Bunny, Good Gorilla, GoodNight Max.. by Rosemary Wells… she has lots of Max books…Pat the Bunny… Velveteen Rabbit… I Promise I’ll Find You, by Heather Patricia Ward…. Anno’s USA, by Mitsumasa Anno… great pics… Santa Mouse… my folks read this to me when I was a little wild thing…. The Paper Bag Princess (a must have), by Robert Munsch, who also wrote I Love You this Much… Berenstein Bears… Oh The Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Seuss… The Giving Tree (and any poem books), by Shel Silverstein… A Fly Went By, by Mike McClintock… Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst… There’s a Monster in my Closet, by Mercer Mayer.. and my favorite picture book … The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg…
enjoy my wild friends… celia