The Ever-So-Satisfying Last Word

The last word has been read and the cover closed; it’s time to move on to something new. How many times have I been here before? Whenever I finish reading a book, I feel a mild sense of accomplishment and whether I loved the book, or simply waded through, I do have an appreciation for authorship. Someone has taken me into a world different from my own or taught me something new.

I’ve been reading, and reading more, all my life. Years ago, when I was a little girl living in the South, I spent lonely, Sunday afternoons reading – The Five Little Peppers series, The Boxcar Children, Bobbsey Twin books and many, many biographies written for children. I learned about Clara Barton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abe Lincoln, Daniel Boone, Betsy Ross, and so many more. Books allowed me to peer into the lives of some amazing people and if I try really hard, I can almost see the orange volumes lined in a row yearning to say, “Pick me!”

As a youngster back in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, I loved visiting the library on Saturday mornings, scooting back to a large room behind the stacks, and being given a task: to cover aging books with thick, wide sheets of colorful wallpaper. The books my pals and I covered had fraying edges, cracked spines, and corners bent ever so slightly inward. Books such as these had been clutched, handled or mishandled, and gripped in too many hands to count. Yellowing pages were loose and corners were dog-eared.

“Why keep this old thing. It’s seen better days,” one might have said. “Why not toss it?”

Not a chance. For the library lady these books were priceless, and on some level, they were for us as well. So we folded, taped, and labeled, giving more than a few, old volumes a chance for one more round.

Memories about reading, about books, abound, and now that I have authored a few of my own, I cherish them even more. Times have changed though. I seem to live in front of a computer – composing, rereading, rewriting, editing, over and over. I completed another novel recently. The last word has been written and the file has been closed; it’s time to move on to something new. Not one word of a new project has been processed yet, but I am writing anyway. I have been for days. My mind has been very busy, and quite soon, I will sit where I am now and begin again . . . word by word until it is done and that, for me, is satisfaction, pure and simple.