If a spirit is going to visit me......

...it would make sense for it to come in a book. When I moved to Los Angeles, about half of the weight of my move was books. I left more than 80 percent of my books back in North Carolina and my heart yearns for each of them. Books have always embodied the very spirit of my life. If I was interested in something, I'd buy a book about it and read it cover to cover. If I wanted to share something important with somebody, I'd lend or give them a book. I've been like this since I was a very young adolescent. My books are part of me, I am part of them. Each one is special, not a single one is unimportant.

Over the years, other than children's books, my mom gave me a couple of dozen books that she felt I'd like, or could use, or needed to have. I brought many of them with me when I moved to Los Angeles. One book she gave to me that I hadn't seen in years is called The Complete Book of Sewing.

When I was a teenager, I made almost all my clothes. The style of clothing of the day just wasn't what I liked to wear and she'd taught me to sew years before. She bought the book for me so I could refine my sewing skills. I left it at my parent's home when I got married in 1974.

I'd personally packed all my things from my apartment when I left North Carolina. I packed each book. I had three bookcases that I brought with me. All the boxes and furniture were taken from my apartment on a small truck. Then they'd been moved to the warehouse and a week or so later all the furniture was re-wrapped in blankets and put on the big moving van to come across the country.

So... the moving van arrives in South Pasadena. One by one the pieces of furniture come off and the boxes come off and everything gets checked off the inventory sheet. One bookcase is unwrapped and there, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, lying flat in the middle of the shelf, is my sewing book. The driver unloading the truck was absolutely amazed that it was there. He said that it couldn't have been there when they re-wrapped the bookcase. He had wrapped them himself and he'd have noticed and secured the book elsewhere if it had been there. He was dumbfounded.

My younger brother (15 years younger) had gone to design camp when he was in high school. When I opened the book, there were certificates of his from when he'd gone to camp. He'd taken it to camp, and then brought it back to my mom and dad's house.

Somehow, the book followed me to California. It did so in dramatic fashion (not just showing up in a box or on the bookcase).

Mom, I'm glad you know where I am. I suppose my trail of scents worked...

Peace. Mona