Do you Read?

Has anyone else ever simply fallen into a book?  I admit that I do and quite often.  Which is why at 5:30 in the butt crack of dawn I am writing this; as a matter of fact.  I just finished a trilogy that I started yesterday. I just purchased the second two books and reread the first; it was a cliff hanger and I wanted the story to be cohesive in my mind; I immediately read two but as I was reading three I was repeatedly accosted with the feelings of recognition. The story and happening seemed so familiar I wonder if I had not in fact read the book some years back.  This is always a possibility but I usually am the one to remember obscure books that I read. I do tend to reread my favorites and have series and collection that I read somewhat annually, if not more often truth be told.  I also have books in my personal library that I have not read in decades but still remember so well I could tell you how to spell the alien planets and describe the characters in detail.  I digress. My point was I can lose myself in a story and when I am finished it’s as if I was blessed by some random book deity to have been allowed into this other world. When I say fall into a book I am not exaggerating its very Alice in Wonderland or Never Ending Story.  I wonder if I have visited that story before but mostly I am truly glad to have been invited back into that world once again and left to experience the wonder and adventure anew.  I actually am looking forward to visiting it again and I only left it an hour ago.  I wish to be that shieldmaiden who becomes a mage and saves the world from darkness while falling in love with the prince and shares the duty of damsel in distress equally with him throughout the story. I mean come on who wouldn’t? I wish to turn myself into a dragon and fly above the clouds and am so happy that there are stories that I can read that will allow me that privilege. 

Anyway I guess the whole point of this narrative of my thoughts is to thank authors, bards, and teachers that gift us with the stories and the skill to read them.

My Random Thoughts on Family

Family
fam·i·ly [fámməlee] 
n (plural fam·i·lies) 

1. group of relatives: a group of people who are closely related by birth, marriage, or adoption 

2. people living together: a group of people living together and functioning as a single household, usually consisting of parents and their children 

3. lineage: all the people who are descended from a common ancestor 

4. offspring: a child or set of children born to somebody 

5. group with something in common: a group whose members are related in origin, characteristics, or occupation 

What is family? 
In my own heart and mind I understand family to be those around who help to shape our lives and form us into adults. There is an old adage that goes, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your relatives”. I disagree. While there are certain individuals that are forced upon us like a parent or the spouse of a loved one a person can make a choice as to whether they consider them family. 
My own family consists of people related to me by blood and others that I have chosen. My closest friends are my family. Sisters closer to me then anything. 
Society influences our lives and our families. They see the Family Tree and nothing beyond it. I see the web. Interconnected and spinning off in many different directions. Webs and overlap and intermingle and yet still remain separate. The people I love as family don’t all see each other as family. My sisters don’t see each other as sisters. As long as they love me as family and consider me in their own web it doesn’t matter. 
This isn’t eloquent at all but it is my thoughts and my heart. My true feelings. 
Family.


(This does make “family” reunions a pain in my ass.)