Book lovers are a particular breed of people

So glad to see that somebody stopped by to chat! But I wasn't at home! Sorry to miss you.

Anna and I just got home from Nashville where I exhibited my book and advertised my new web site at the Southern Festival of Books at the Legislative Plaza.
I've recently joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I volunteered at the SCBWI's booth at the festival. Nice group of people-- these children's writers and illustrators-- full of helpful information and lots of heart to heart encouragement for writing.

I met a woman yesterday named Patricia Wiles. She is lovely! Among other things, she has written a series (four books) for kids. The main character is a boy whose parents own and operate a funeral home. The books look so fun and I know kids would be intrigued by the whole notion of dead bodies and funerals!

I watched the crowd at the book festival and I realized that book lovers are a particular breed of people. I hope we never die out. While this web site, the internet and Word documents are so handy and helpful-- there's something so deeply satisfying about holding a book in my hands and turning the pages. Even the smell of books is pleasant to me. I collect books. I have this idea that the books on my shelf help to define me and enlarge me, even connect me to others and make my world more meaningful-- just by being in my home.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Benefits of Conversation

I welcome you, first readers and posters to my new blog! I am so proud and excited to have a place to talk, to listen, to learn how other people are connecting to each other, building trust in hopeful communities-- whether in cyberspace or in actual neighborhoods with sidewalks, dogs and grass that still needs to be mowed.

I recommend a book I recently received as a gift and have found to be inspiring and informative...Social Intelligence: The Revolutionary New Science of Human Relationships written by Daniel Goleman. Years ago I read Scott Peck's Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. That book sparked my hunger for something more in our relationships at churches, neighborhoods and civic gatherings. Goleman's book has re-inspired me and given my hope a jump start. Quoting from his work: (Page 11) "Whenever we connect face to face (or voice to voice or skin to skin) with someone else, our social brains interlock." He says on page 5 "...we create one another."

We don't have to focus on terrorism and all that is unknown and frightening in our world. We can focus on meeting and knowing the people right next door. By way of this blog our neighborhood can be extended across miles, state lines and continents. We can meet and encourage each other to meet face to face with those who live within walking distance from our front doors. This is not something that I find easy to do. I will need support. It will cost me precious time in my demanding schedule. But my schedule holds empty and meaningless appointments if I do not value relationship building and trust in my community.

When I was a child, growing up in Gainesville, Florida, I lived two doors down First Avenue from the Haig's and their boarding house where people sat on ladder back chairs and cushion filled rockers in the morning and during the evening hours as the sun set and while supper digested in our bellies. Men whittled on pieces of cypress or pieces that fell from the pecan tree in the yard. Mrs. Haig did needle work. Children raced around catching fireflies in jars, searching for toads at the base of oak trees. Talk came and went with periods of comforting silence. It was not a perfect time in our nation's history. African Americans were giving their lives for the right to be recognized in churches, neighborhoods and civic gatherings as equals. But it was a time when we knew the faces of those who lived around us. We recognized the sound of their voices. And we had some idea of their routines and values. That kind of knowing provided a balance and a stability that we no longer enjoy. The ground beneath us has been tilled up and the seeds of trust have not been replanted.

Martin Buber, Jewish philosopher and existentialist, wrote I and Thou. In it he says (page 11) "All real living is meeting." He tells us that we can only become who we really are by being in true relationship with others-- meeting the real other and discovering the real self in the act of meeting.

I am hopeful that my web site, http://www.porchswingstories.com/, my Blog and my Podcast will re-inspire others to know your self, to meet your neighbors, to host a meeting, to read books that draw people together for talking and knowing who we are-- really are. I hope we find each other on this space and that we learn from each other. I hope we can create communities of trust. I'm willing to try. I give no guarantees. Only a desire to try and do something to drive away the feeling that we are no longer real and connected to each other.