gifts from abroad

Recently, I almost broke my neck on my way out the front door.

An unexpected package with a strange stamp was on the porch, and I should have known it could only have been from one person:

My friend Merm!

(Actually, it's Miriam. But somehow it became Merm over the 15+ years I have known her.)

Merm is a rare sort of friend. She was my study abroad companion in Italy and has been my "book-and-words friend" since high school. She's been abroad in the UK for the last four years working on a Masters in Creative Writing, a Masters in Publishing, and now a PhD in Creative Writing. She's good stuff. Very generous, frank, reflective, creative, funny, adventurous and ever-striving in an inspiring way.


She's still traveling the word on weekends, living the life of academia continually...
and I must admit I am a bit envious. In the photo above, she's in Dubai with a Camel Crossing sign.

However, there's one thing I have that she doesn't: a better sense of GRAMMAR and PUNCTUATION. (NOTE: I didn't say perfect; just better by comparison!) She knows she's bad, so she sends her work (including a novel I'm in the process of proofreading) to me. It's such an honor that after all those fancy degrees she still sends her work to lil' ole me for critique!

So, what was in the package?


An old book.



But not just any old book.

A book from 1864 that smells of dust, time, ink, human hands, cozy homes and crisp, yellowed pages.



I love the marbleized cover pages. I bet it was considered very elegant in 1864.
It's such a work of art and such a fascinating, enigmatic emblem of an era and will sit on my shelf as just that: Art and History.



The stained pages, dotted and smudged with years far before me,

The cracked binding, separating from a century-and-a-half of being in existence,

The lovely, bent and torn corners,

Thank you, Merm! I consider this gift a rare treasure.

(And I will be stopping by its new nook periodically to smell the pages!)