My favorite summertime read

"The sky is flesh.

The great blue belly arches

above the water and bends down

behind the line of the horizon.

It's a sight that has exhausted its magnificence

for me over the years,

but now I seem to be seeing it for the first time..."




image via flickr (crazyhorse)


So begins the book I Was Amelia Earheart

by Jane Mendelsohn,

a story I turn to as the heat of summer

slams into this part of the country like a

merciless wave.




image via flickr (drp)


From the opening sentence I was hooked.

The book tells the rest of her story,

the one not reported in the papers or

on the radio.





image via flickr (ecstaticist)

"More and more now, I remember things.

Images, my life, the sky...

Whether life is more real than death, I don't know.

What I know is that the life I have lived since I died

feels more real to me than the one I lived before..."

This book has the languid pace of a humid summer day.

The lyrical prose is to be savored slowly,

allowed to percolate into one's consciousness

like the residue of a dream.

There is a seasonal pattern to my reading,

which I have gradually come to realize over the years.

This book is one I turn to only in high summer,

and it has become a launching pad for my latest reverie.

Until next time...
Anne