feeling listless

Books I lost all of my grandparents at a very young age. I do remember them, but it's through the distant cloud of years. I shouldn't really relate to The Museum of Who We Were by Suzanne Freeman, but something resonates. She talks about using her grandmother's place as the home of one her young characters in her novel. The house was a place of comfort. somewhere she could retreat to, physically as a child, and in her mind as an adult:

"It reassured us, in summertime, to belong to such a solid place. It taught us much about who we were. The log house was apt to fill up on a July afternoon with uncles and great-aunts and second cousins once removed, sitting in the living room with the shades lowered against the heat, telling family stories, sometimes in dropped voices that made you listen all the harder. This was where I first heard the words paramour and tipsy. But also jurisprudence and civil rights, both having to do with members of our own family."

I know some of you don't always follow my links, but I urge you to look at this piece -- it's an extremely effective piece of writing. [excerpted from 'A Certain Somewhere', edited by Robert Wilson]