In my years in the suburbs of New Jersey, I struggled almost every day with how to be there. I always wanted to be in Brooklyn. I was not healthy in many ways, and my own values were repeatedly upended. When Emma was young, she read so much I almost took her to a therapist so make her more “normal,” that is, to play soccer and go to parties and obsess over clothes. She never did any of those things, she read and read and read.
And the funny thing is that is exactly what I did when I was a kid, and my parents also thought I was disturbed and abnormal. Emma and I are both voracious readers and bookstore rats, we went for a walk in Brooklyn Tuesday with Robin and ended up at the Green Light Bookstore in Fort Greene.
When Emma was very young, I took her to a wonderful neighborhood bookstore in our town, it was called The Open Door. The owner, Jane, adored books and children and she has a special seat for Emma to sit on on Saturday mornings when we showed up, quite faithfully. Jane would have a pile of books out for Emma, and Emma would sit in this wooden rocker and read.
After leading her to books, I became concerned that she was not doing all of the things other kids were doing in the suburbs, which I never wanted to be in in the first place. There is not accounting for the stupidity and hypocrisy of some parents.
The Green Light a wonderful bookstore, much like our own Battenkill Books here in Cambridge. It has the same kind of feel to it.
I got Emma a gift certificate to the bookstore as a Christmas gift, I think it is probably gone already. What ever else is going on in our lives, we always can connect over books. I loved this photograph of her submerged in books, her daughter in the stroller soaking up the same vibe.
If I could go back and do it again, I would heap praise on her for reading and make her feel good about it. Not that my blundering slowed her down in any way, book wise. Some things are so ingrained in the human consciousness that even a parent can’t screw them up.
As a parent, it was difficult for me to stick by my guns in a Boomer child-crazy town, I loved that Emma read, but a part of me thought it would not prepared her for life. My father had the same idea about me. As luck would have it, she paid little attention to me.