A LIFELONG LOVE AFFAIR

 I have had a lifelong love affair with books.  My earliest memory of the spark that lit that flame of love was when my mom sent me to my Aunt Elsie’s house.  At the ripe old age of six, my mom put me on a bus, armed with a paper bag containing my weekend clothes, and I would wait for the bus driver to tell me when my stop came.  I don’t remember how often my cousin Marianne met me at the bus stop, maybe it was only that once, but she did something I had never done before, she made a stop.  The stop was at a tiny little storefront library filled with more books than I’d ever seen in one place, and Marianne let me take books out on her library card!  I remember borrowing a Madeline book, still popular today.  And so my love affair began.

 

The next memory I had was going to the main library in my town, twelve blocks away from where I lived.  I don’t know how old I was then, but I must have been young enough to still frequent the children’s section, yet old enough to walk there by myself.  It became my favorite place.  It was cool on those summer days before air conditioning and it smelled, just like books!  

From that point on I was never without a library card, and never without a book.  I lived for summer vacations so I had time to indulge my favorite pastime.  While my brother, the more gregarious people person, was hanging with friends playing ball, I was inside reading.  Reading transported me to other places, inhabited by other people, and I loved that.  My favorite early books were the Nancy Drew series of mysteries.  Mysteries have continued to be my favorite genre since.

My mom, because she had worked much of my growing up life in banking, the hours of which were sometimes irregular and included at least one evening, encouraged me to become a teacher, so that I could be home on school vacations when I had a family of my own.  I did become a teacher, but was nearly a decade before I had children of my own. In the meantime, all that time off for holidays and summer meant hours and hours of reading time!  I had picked the PERFECT occupation for passing the time in a book!

When my first daughter came along, I was not prepared, in so many ways, for how time consuming it was to take care of a baby!  Reading on a quiet afternoon, or before going to sleep at night became a thing of the past, unless you counted reading, “Tubby the Tugboat” a billion times as “reading”.  Both of our girls incorporated "reading" when playing with each other, and their dolls and stuffed animals, not because they were reading yet, but because they had memorized story lines from their favorite books!

When my girls were older, I took them to the library and got them a library card, though they could barely print their names.  We would come home loaded with books and read them over and over till it was time for the next library trip.  We participated in all the library summer reading programs in the towns where we lived.  We took books to the town pool and read them while we dried off or had a snack.  There is nothing like an afternoon with Ramona Quimby or Amelia Bedelia to pass a summer at the pool. 

Then, when they were in grade school, I began to structure their summer days by insisting on at least a half hour of quiet reading every day.  One of my favorite things to do now is to talk books and share favorites with my youngest daughter Becky who has inherited my love of reading.

A few years ago, for a reason I can no longer remember, I was convicted about my reading tastes.  I had always been more of a fiction fan, and not surprisingly, mostly of mysteries – with the occasional non-fiction thrown in.  I began to think that I needed to expand my reading to include more non-fiction books, so now I challenge myself every January to read a certain number of fiction and non-fiction books, and I record their titles and authors in my journal.  That way I can read authors I especially enjoy, and avoid those I don’t!  At first I thought I'd have trouble finding enough non-fiction books I would enjoy, but it seems that one topic leads to another until I love both genres equally now.  And I love to watch my lists fill out over the course of a year and celebrate when I reach my goal, especially in those years when I finish ahead of year end!

When we left New Jersey for Florida, one of the first things I did was get a library card.  I have a kindle which is convenient, but I still prefer the feel of books, the smell of books, and the quiet atmosphere of a library, to reading my kindle, and I still make my regular visits.

Today I was sitting on a lounge chair at the pool, having had a luxurious swim, enjoying lovely breezes and reading (of course!), a book entitled, “When Books Went to War”, appropriate for a book lover!  And I was thinking how awesome it is to love reading, and now have all the time in the world to indulge in my most favorite love affair, the one I have with books! 

MY HEART OVERFLOWS WITH PRAISE!

Before we moved, I suspected that it would take me quite a long time to make new friends, and I wasn’t quite sure how that would happen or how long it might take.  I can’t believe I left this important consideration to “chance” when we thought of where in Florida we might move.  We have visited a number of communities about which I said, “They basically are all the same.”  I have since discovered from others who had settled in some other community first and then moved here, that that is NOT true!  When it comes to making friends, all places are apparently not created equal!

There are lots of reasons why someone might choose a place to live.  Would you like to know mine?  The major reason we chose this community was because it had the model home layout I was looking for.  We didn’t want a big house, but I did want one with an open concept living space.  I fell in love with this home where you enter at the front door and from there walk into the living room, which blends into the dining room, which blends into the kitchen.  In thinking back to that choice however, I wonder why it never occurred to me to ask, or investigate, or talk to other residents, about whether this was a friendly place to live!  Thankfully, the Lord knew how important that was to me, and was looking out for me, even when I wasn’t thinking!

Once we got here, one of the first things I noticed as we walked through neighborhoods, or visited the clubhouse, or just drove our car, was that people were so friendly!  In northern New Jersey, just a hop, skip and a jump from New York City, we didn’t experience that much.  When going anywhere, but especially in New York, we were used to staring straight ahead or down at the ground instead of making eye contact.  Here people you don’t even know say, “good morning”, and they wave at you.  Clerks at Publix call you sweetie and offer to carry your groceries to the car!  It’s like living on another planet!  Once I got over the shock (I actually had to look around at first to be sure they were talking to me), I came to love it!

I still didn’t know though whether this wonderful friendliness would apply to actually making friends.  I decided that I wouldn’t wait for others to act first.  Just a month or so in, the Lord put it on my heart and the heart of another neighbor to partner together to organize monthly coffee and breakfast dates for women.  We had our first in my home, but have graduated to a local café.  This has turned out to be a big hit with the women in our neighborhood.  We are always finding new women to invite who have just moved in and some lovely relationships are forming.  I’m so grateful to the Lord for providing this, not only for me, but for each of us here who have longed for connection with other women and are far from family.

There is a weekly Bible study here in our community.  Seeing the notice for that on the board at the clubhouse when we first got here was so exciting to me!  There were other women here who share my faith and love for God’s Word!  Whoo hoo! 

 I have attended that study pretty regularly for months now and have met many ladies on a casual basis.  Then a few months ago, when the Bible teacher took a break, she encouraged me to lead a study of my own while she was gone.  So began a weekly study, on a different day, in my home.  Through that I have met some wonderful women and deeper friendships are forming.  In addition to studying together, we have shared burdens, mutually encouraged one another, and prayed for each other.  What a blessing!  What an amazing God thing, what a gift the Lord has given me personally, and all of us, through that study.

The Bible teacher went away again this month and I am filling for the next 4 weeks.  Yesterday I had the privilege of leading four different women in a different study than the one we do on Tuesday.  By the end of our time, due to our shared faith, and some very transparent sharing, we seemed like instant friends.  What a blessing to meet them and get to know them as well. 

And then there is church.  Helping with Vacation Bible School, where we volunteered for a week of mornings to serve snack to a hoard of excited and energetic kids, we met some lovely people who share our love for Jesus.  And this morning I went to an event for women called, “Mug and Muffin”.  We each brought a mug, had coffee and muffins, and heard some speakers encourage us in our faith.  We also shared at our tables the ways in which the Lord is light and living water in our lives.  

 People whom I met at Vacation Bible School and through teaching 2^nd through 5^th graders once a month, actually know my name, and I know theirs, and they say, “hi”.  Each week I’m feeling more and more at home there – something I thought would not happen for quite some time.  How gracious of God to provide for my need for connection, so quickly and so completely!

Then on Thursday morning, some women from church met in a neighboring town to study a book called, “Women of the Word”.  Before I even went to the study where we would discuss the book, I was rejoicing over some insight the Lord had given me through it that would deepen my own study of the Bible and also make my teaching richer and more meaningful.  Meeting more new women was icing on my spiritual cake!

In just a month we will have lived in Florida for a year, and later this month we will have lived in this community for 6 months.  Before we made this major, life changing move, so many miles from the state in which Jim and I had lived all our lives, we didn’t know what to expect but we hoped it would prove to be a good one!   

 The Lord has taken care of all of those unknowns and then some.  He has helped us adjust to weather that some just might describe as “hellish”.  He led us to settle in a neighborhood where everyone is so friendly and welcoming because He knew we’d need that – even though that wasn’t even on our radar when we made our choice!  He has endlessly gifted me with women who are not just acquaintances, but potentially really good friends, many of them sisters in Christ.  He has led us to a church that feels more and more like home. And He has opened the door to the ministry to which He called me long ago – the teaching of God’s Word – and not just at church where I expected it – but here in our community, where I didn’t!

I’m so grateful to the Lord for all of the ways in which I can see His hand of blessing!  Today, my heart is bursting with joy.  Thank You, Lord!

Psalm 115:1 “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness.”

BLIMEY! THE ADVENTURE WE DID NOT SEE COMING!

We didn't go looking for adventure, but it came looking for us!   

In order to understand how excited we were by what happened just yesterday, you need to know how Jim and I feel about all things British.  We have never actually BEEN to Britain (our daughter Becky is always bugging us about it!).  All we know about the British is what we have learned vicariously, through British mystery novels and PBS.  

We no longer have cable TV, so all we ever watch really, via Netflix, is old BBC mysteries and the occasional sitcom.  We love the customs, the language, and the fact that they actually use older characters for seasoned veteran detectives, not 20 somethings who couldn’t possibly have risen to such lofty ranks at that age, like we see in American mystery and cop shows.  

Since there is a British expat community here in central Florida, we also frequent the local take away food place called The Perfect Pie.  Consequently, our freezer is full of Cornish pasties and cottage pie.  We LOVE all things British! 

Yesterday Jim and I went to a lifestyle meet and greet meeting in our community clubhouse.  At the outset of the meeting our lifestyle director introduced a young woman from Britain visiting us from a production team which is considering filming a documentary about retirement in Florida.  This seemed cool, but it was quickly forgotten because we had another mission and were set on accomplishing it.

At the end of the meeting Jim and I headed right over to the coffee room intent on having our photo taken – finally – for our community directory.  When the photographer who was also at the meeting finally came, the young British woman came with him, for some reason anxious to video whatever little exchange we three would have before he took the photo.  Having learned that we are relative newcomers here, after our photo was taken, she asked if she might interview us.  That request began what was the highlight of our day.

If you've read any of my blogs about our move, then you know, one of the things I found difficult about moving so far from the state where we lived all our lives was not just not knowing anyone here.  It was also not BEING known by anyone here.  So to have someone ask us personal questions about what we did before retirement, why we came to Florida, why to this community. . . was wonderful.  She wasn’t just asking to be polite, for the sake of what she does and why she came, she really wanted to know.  And we were so excited to share it all with her.  We even invited her over to see our house!  At the end of our conversation she asked, if the project goes forward would we be willing to be part of it.  How could we say no? The prospect sounded so fun!  And she said she’d take us up on our invitation to see our home, and bring her producer along!

When she called us later in the evening, asking if they could stop and see us, we readily agreed.  We were beside ourselves with excitement to have two Brits right in our own home, and we told them so as soon as they walked in the door!  

The conversation we had with them gave us more detail on what they were planning.  Although they hadn’t yet decided whether to use our community, the plan was to use a Florida retirement community for a three-part documentary on retirement lifestyles.  Their project was to send a team of celebrities to a foreign country to spend a week living there as retired people might do.  They had already completed and aired the first, filmed in India, and Florida would be the second.  A third, based in Japan, would follow.  Once again we were asked to tell the story of how we came to be here and it was received with great interest and lots of questions.

Interestingly to us, they were also very curious about our church search because it was important to us and a critical decision we took a long time making.  Listening to their questions gave us some insight into life in Britain as well.  We were asked if it was okay to just “show up” on a Sunday to a church we had never been to before.  There was some curiosity about what churches here are like as well. 

They seemed intrigued that we deliberately chose a community with a community service club because serving others is so close to our hearts.  We had an opportunity to share with them all of the wonderful things our club does here to serve a particularly impoverished nearby school – contributing uniforms, warm coats, bags of groceries to carry families through the weekends, and classroom help.

We learned that in Britain, “pensioner”, which is what retirees are called, is not a welcome word.  There is nothing like what we have in our Florida retirement communities in Britain.  Retirement is thought of as the end of a useful life.  That is so unlike our experience here that we were even more eager to share our life and lifestyle with a British audience!

So when we were again asked whether we would be willing to welcome the British celebrities to our home and our lives, should this project go through, we were even more eager to say yes.

When I wrote about adventures in the blog I wrote last week, this one wasn’t even on our radar, not could we EVER have anticipated it!  

Adventures, however, come when we least expect them!  It’s always good to be ready!