Library Week is coming up in April, but that’s not the only time I think about my lifelong love affair with reading and all things books. As a kid, books were my escape route into unexplored realms both fiction and non-fiction.
I shared that passion for reading with my own children and while my son and daughter have vastly different tastes in reading material, I can effectively converse with both of them about their favorite books.
As you might have heard, a few weeks ago I posted the amazingly fantabulous news that my daughter is engaged to a wonderful man. Well, this past week she was home for spring break and she brought her fiancé with her. While the wedding is a little more than two years away, she and I enjoyed some wedding conversations over morning coffee. And shopping. And at dinner. Between board games – fine, the men would tell you we talked about it almost constantly.
It was fun and new because she was never the type of girl who dreamed of her wedding right down to the smallest details, leaving only the question of the groom’s face.
But, Regan, what does any of that have to do with books, you ask?
Well, she and I happen to count the Bride Quartet by Nora Roberts as one of our favorite romance series. Typical of a Roberts, the friendships, the weddings, the meetings, and of course the romances in each book came to life for us. Those fictional characters became our friends and now they’ve proved immensely helpful in reality.
My daughter looked at me one morning and said, “I feel like Sherrie.” Hmm, as far as I could recall I’d never heard her talk of a Sherrie, much less a friend by that name who’d recently been married. My daughter caught my blank stare and elaborated, “You know, Nora’s bride books. I don’t know exactly what I want, I just want it to be fun!”
And instantly that scene from the first of the Bride Quartet flashed into my mind. Fiction and reality blended into an explanation I understood perfectly. (Thanks, Nora!)
Our preliminary wedding talks ranged from the outrageous to the easy, the silly to the elegant and everything in between. It was a blast raising eyebrows, but those ideas have helped my daughter sort out what she and her future husband want from their special day. (Again I say, Thanks, Nora!)
Thank heaven we have plenty of time…
Live the adventure!
