Little Book o' Mine: a Memorial

    

    You look upon one of my most prized posessions. Once, it was one of those hideous school composition books with the disorienting pattern on the front and lots of useful information on the inside covers (like standard/metric conversions). Mary gave this to me. It was a prize for winning the writing contest for a kind of circle-of-friends newsletter that she used to write* (most skilfully, I may add). No other prize would have pleased me so well. She used her creative genius to make a patchwork of magazine colors and pictures, completely obscuring the original cover. (But leaving, of course, all that useful information inside.) It was the birth of a divine thing; something that took on a personality of its own. Mary had made the first of these fine little books for herself, and having no laminating paper she proceeded to very carefully laminate it with wide, clear packing tape. Properly done, one cannot even recognize the laminating as packing tape.

    I always rather regretted my laminating-job on the front cover. Should have started with the back. Never having done it before, I ended up getting the tape laid wrong, with little ridges and bubbles where it should be smooth. I used a thumbnail to flatten them as best I could and did my crying in private.

    I agreed with Mary that it must be a writing-book, in keeping with our largest craze of the time. I began to write in it. First on the family vacation to see Mesa Verde, where I wrote notes and jumbled-up scenes of a fairy-tale type story about a girl named Agnew, the idea for which came from the beautiful painting above.** Many tales came after that, all eventually abandoned for ideas of greater fascination, but I think of them all fondly, for they were all born of dreams, foolish fancies, fascinating paintings, and lovely things of every other sort. I wrote my heart into the book for two or three years, and now felt that a memorial must be written about it, for yesterday I filled the last page.

    I began my Book In A Month in it, you see. I realized that this determined effort, this story that I actually started with the intention of finishing, must be begun inside my old friend. I owe it to it.

   This book isn't the prettiest it's ever been. The glue on the back of the magazine pictures has begun to lift, and different colors of gel ink and plain inks of blue and black are scribbled incomprehensibly over its pages, cramped and with endless insertions and scratchings-out, without the waste of a single inch of writing space. But no other book for writing in has ever felt so good in my hand; has ever served me so well; has ever beckoned so cheerfully with its empty pages, saying, "write in me! Come on, don't give up! You'll be published one day!" It's like a piece of my heart that must now be set aside and replaced with something new.

    That something new happens to be another writing book. It was once a hideous school compostion book, but I glorified it with magazine clippings, laminated it with packing tape, and promised myself to one day write in it. And when I do, it'll be the birth of something divine.

    I'll treasure you forever, little books o' mine.

    Love, American Kate

    *Rebekah Caroline was the joint victor for that contest. She also recieved a masterpiece collaged composition book for a prize. I don't think she wrote a memorial for hers, though. Mary also gave each of us a little certificate of winnership that she'd made. That girl thinks of everything.

    **It's called The Lady Clare, by John William Waterhouse. The subject is Lady Clare, the woman in the poem by Tennyson. Waterhouse was a truly phenomenal painter, and The Lady Clare is a truly phenominal poem. (It has a happy ending. Gasp!) And though I don't know much Tennyson, apparently he was a truly phenominal poet. You'll have to find out for yourself; you can't expect me to know everything.