Thursday, January 4, 2024 Bookmark

I have a lot of bookmarks, more than I can possibly use at one time (even though I usually have half a dozen or so books going at once). I like rotating them in and out of use so that I can enjoy each of them. I’m an Equal Opportunity Bookmark User, an EOBU.

One of my sons once gave me a mug that says “Bookmarks are for quitters” on the side of it. Ha ha! There have definitely been times when I’ve been so caught up in a book that I couldn’t put it down and finished it in the wee hours of the morning. That was when I was younger and could get away with such foolishness. It doesn’t happen very often anymore, so I guess I’m a quitter.

I came across an old bookmark recently that had somehow left the rotation and gotten itself all entangled in my box of stationery cards. Great was my joy in being reunited with it! I immediately put it to use, marking my place in the book The Great Divorce, which I’ll be reading through with all the young women in our family.

My daughter Ruth made this for me when she was probably about 5 years old. Wishing to express one aspect of our affectionate feeling for one another, she wrote on it, “FERENS.” Not bad for a five-year-old who just knew her letters and and was learning how to write things out phonetically. How it warmed my heart to know that she thought of us as “friends.” And how it warms my heart to know that after all these years and with all the distance between us, we are still “FERENS.”