Old Friends

A bit of an unexpected family reunion last week. We headed to Virginia to visit the oldest and her husband, and the younger daughter ended up there for a few days, on the run from the latest Florida hurricane. Thankfully, she and her cats were safe, and we all spent some overdue time together.

Not surprising for a family of bibliophiles, one common topic during our lengthy chats was books–what we’ve read recently, picked up somewhere, etc. My oldest mentioned in passing an older Irish cookbook now sitting on her shelf, courtesy of her mother. I scampered (yes, I still do that, albeit with some creaking noises these days) to her dedicated cookbook bookcase (I did mention we like books) and knew immediately which one it was. I had picked it up in Ireland back in the 80s when first bopping around Europe with her mother.

The pages are stained, the cover worn, and it falls naturally open to one particular recipe, Cottage Chicken, a dish I made when first learning to cook.

I spent the next hour or so curled up in a chair, flipping through it, chuckling at times as memories mixed with recipes. It was like meeting up with an old friend.

Once or twice a year I revisit stories from my youth and later years, and it’s like sliding into an old comfortable sweater (I have one of those too). I don’t reread every book, less than a dozen, one or two a year. Some of them are considered classics in general, but some are simply ones that I first came across at a specific time in my life and, for various reasons, they touched me in a special way. Comfort food for the mind, as well as the soul.

Friends change, as we all do, and while static words on a page may at first seem immutable, I’ve found that as my perspective changes, so too do the books. The actions or words of a minor character that once struck me as annoying now make sense and I can empathize with their perspective. Or, as is the case in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, my understanding of how the young protagonist sees and experiences the world versus how her parents do and how they handle life, shifts as I inch closer to needing a robot body to get around.

Like listening to a loved one tell the same story for the twentieth time, but this time you pick up on a minor detail you’ve somehow missed in the past. Suddenly, you have a different perspective on them, or events, or people in general. And sometimes, you end up appreciating them even more. They and the story are the same. It’s you that’s changed.

My list of rereads has changed over the years as well. But there are some that I always seem

to pull down from a shelf, particularly as frost descends upon our home, I light a fire in my office, and start simmering a batch of sauce.

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

Tai Pan and Noble House – James Clavell

Basilisk Station – David Weber

Little Fuzzy – H. Beam Piper

Chicago Poems – Carl Sandburg

All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot

Time Enough for Love – Robert Heinlein

Letters from Earth – Mark Twain

Beard on Bread – James Beard (yes, a cookbook)

What are your old (or new) favorites?