TheBanyanTree: Book Camp

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books, but I’m sure if I was my young
self again, I would be one of those kids hanging out at a book store around
midnight on the night before the summer solstice waiting to purchase the
fifth book in the series.

I would have read and re-read each of the four other books until the covers
were worn and the pages were dog eared.  I would be able to recite whole
sections of the books from memory.  Harry Potter would be my best friend.
And waiting three years to visit with him again would have been
excruciatingly painful.

I almost went out and bought all the books as gifts for my young self.  My
older self doesn’t have time to read them.  There’s something about all the
Harry Potter publicity that reminds me of what it was like to have a long
summer ahead without school, without structure, and with nothing more than
hot and humid days to make my own plans.  I love seeing all those kids on TV
with their noses in the books and settling themselves in for a good read.

I would ride my bike to the library, check out a pile of books, and cart
them home.  If a book really intrigued me, I’d bury myself in its pages and
only come up for air if I had to go to dinner or do a chore for my parents.

Now I’m lucky if I can read a book in a month.  I have a full-time job,
full-time chores, I work out regularly, I try to spend time with my
grandsons, I try to walk the dogs everyday, try to cook good meals, and I
try to squeeze some writing in on the weekends.  I usually find a few
minutes to read at night, but after I read a few pages, my eyes begin to
droop, and soon I’m fast asleep.

A few weeks ago I was sick and stayed home from work.  I took a hot shower
and then settled in on our big green couch and finished a book.  Then I read
another one and then I read another.  I read three books in a day!  That’s
because I had nothing to do, because I was too sick to do much more than
read.  The TV wasn’t on, the radio wasn’t on, and I wasn’t playing CDs.  The
house was silent.  I buried myself in the books’ pages and slipped into
their worlds for a while.

One of things I love best about vacations is that I get to read.  I always
bring a bag of books with me.  I can read at the airport, on the plane, and
in a car.  I love cruising, because I can sit in the sun by the pool and
READ.  I love going to the beach in the summer, because I set my chair the
sand and READ.  When we go up to the North Shore, I can build a fire to ward
off the north’s chill and READ.

So I told Ray the other day, “How about if I start a book camp?”  He looked
at me like I was nuts.  But I went on, “Yes, a camp where people can come
and just read.  They can bring their books or we can have a library for them
to use.  We’ll provide the meals, they won’t have to clean-up, and they can
spend their days just reading.”

I kept thinking about this.  I wouldn’t have a lot of rules.  If people
wanted to do a book club thing, they could, but they didn’t have to discuss
their books if they didn’t want to.  We would offer 24 hour service to
people who liked to read at night or who liked to get up at dawn to begin
their reading.  I kept envisioning happy people sitting around in big,
comfortable chairs with their noses stuck in books.

Book Camp – a place to go and leave the world behind and enter a special
world of the written word.  Yes, that sounds ideal to me.  Then I would buy
the Harry Potter books and read them one by one and Harry would become my
best friend.

But for now, my Book Camp is the beautiful deck Ray built a couple of
summers ago.  It sits under a canopy of oak leaves and it reaches into the
backyard where I can watch the birds without them being aware of me.  Flower
pots of blooming colorful annuals are everywhere on the deck.  A huge
English ivy in a clay pot sits on the picnic table.  My bare feet caress the
wood as I walk over to my chair and settle in with a cold drink on one side
of me and perhaps a bag of grapes on the other side.  I read for a few
moments before I have to give up this special time and go do something I
have to do.

Then Book Camp is over until I have some free time to attend again.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
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Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two
most beautiful words in the English language.
~Henry James