List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
Just a few weeks ago, I lamented about the fact that I haven’t read a book in a long time. I used to devour books. In my early twenties, I used to go second-hand book shoppong for fun. I mightily enjoyed that type of shopping way more than clothes shopping. Although, probably not more shoe shopping. Basically, Saturdays were a great day to try on shoes and explore new worlds through the power of words.
Yesterday, I was watching a morning news show where one of the guests (who was on video conference) had one of the biggest home libraries I had seen a commentator showcase. As you know, most political or other-news commentator has a library staged behind them. Or rather, they stage themselves in front of their well-curated library. But, I digress. While I was watching that particular segment, I felt a twinge of sadness. I used to have a vast home library. Then, I slowly started donating my books. This past February, I went through a book purge. But in doing so, I found that there were certain books that I just could not get rid of. These books will stay with me forever. One includes a Spanish-English dictionary my mom went out of her way to get me in elementary school. I keep that right near her urn. A bit maudlin?
There are other books that have personal meaning to me, such as the book “Random Family” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. It captures a place in time in my beloved New York City that was rife with societal problems. Problems that I saw as a young child that helped shape my educational decisions.
There is also the book “Hunger of Memory” by Richard Rodriguez that helped me gain insight into how, at one point, you realize you have surpassed your parents in a particular attribute, i.e. climbing the economic ladder. Then, I was also touched by Robert Sam Anson’s book “Best Intentions: The Education and Killing of Edmund Perry,” “Murder Without Motive” which detailed the journey of a New York City poor, gifted kid who went to boarding school and got accepted into Stanford University to only be killed months before going off to California. What we are given and earned can be easily erased.
This morning, I started off nostalgic about the meaning of books in my life. I know I will rebuild my library as a legacy for my son. Hopefully, he will find the time to travel through these different worlds and fully value the power of words.
Categories: Culture, current events, family, identity, Pop Culture, Psychology





Leg-A-Cy
Leg-End
Interestingly
Dear Miriam
(at Least to me Hehe)
Yes Legs Have Led me
to Providing A Legacy
of Dance to A Whole Metro
Community Doing That Publicly
18,366 Miles in 9 Years and 9 Months
And If Ya Wanna Be A ‘Living Legend’ And HAha
Like me And Forrest Gump Even if the Thought Never
CROSSED Your Mind and it JusT Happens as You are the Only
One Doing an Activity No one Else Seems Brave Enough to Do
Whether That Be Running
Across the United States
Several Instances Or Dancing
Even More Miles in a Moderately
Populated Metro Area of Around 600,00 Folks
In Lower Densities Not Packed On Top of Each
Other Like Lemmings in Skyscraper Tin Can HeART Places
So Lost
From Art
As All LeGaCY
May Come to Be
is Money and Stuff
Passed Down Through
Generations Without A
Soul of Dance And Song Free
To Be New and Originally Creative of Course
Yes Key to me Mix The Focus on One Task Yes
of Forrest Gump Without Thinking too much True
Just Flow in Spontaneity of Joy Like A Ferris Bueller
Day off A BirthDay That Never Ends ThiS WaY NoW
Note: There is No Hand in LeG-A-Cy or Leg-End While
It’s Relatively Easy And So Much Fun to Become a Living Legend
Just For Dancing In Public For The Bliss of Meditating in Flow That Way
Fully From Head to Toe Not So Much Except For Individual Souls one May
Reach By Writing An EPiC Longest Long Form Poem in the HiStory And Or
HeRStory of
Humankind
at 11.7 MiLLioN
Words in 9 Years
And 9 Months too
Yet the Lesson of Both
Forrest Gump and Ferris Bueller
Continues to Ring on Like the Legacy of my
Mother too As She Did it Her own Way Too True Yes
Don’t Wait On Someone Else’s Legacy or Legend True God Yes
Live Your Best Life Now As No One Else Will Ever Do it Yet You
And All The Decades i Didn’t Believe in me my Mother Always Did
i’ve Probably Shared Her Birthday Letter Before We Found After She
Passed Away in Her Apartment in 2017 Unsent From my 33rd Birthday in
1993 30 Years Ago Yet the Words Weren’t Really Necessary to Put in a Letter
As She Lived Her Belief
in me in the Lowest
Parts of Life
She Was
Never Afraid to Lift up
So Again This Was Her
Prophecy For Her Son
And Indeed it took Until
Age 53 Two Decades Later
to Truly Start to Come to Fruition
Yet This Is How Faith Works Not in Time,
Distance, Space, Or Matters of Things Yet Belief That Never Gives
Up Within Beyond All Measure on This Shall Pass And New Mornings
Shall Arise in Colors Never
Experienced
Before
With
SMiLes
Of Course It Is All Your Legend
Your Legacy to Give Free with SMiles
For Without the Different Colors We
Would All Fade Away Into Grey Scales
Life Through DarK Abyss Simply To
Rise Again With Colors Ever new Again…:)
-Hope
~From LoVE iN Peace
https://katiemiafrederick.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/img_9851.jpg
https://katiemiafrederick.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/img_9852.jpg
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Good luck!! I have sometimes culled my books but they have always grown again to fill the shelves!
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Just three books – tough ask!
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Hard to narow it down, but these are 3 of my favories growing up.
Julie of the Wolves
My Side of the Mountain
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Apparently I have a thing for kids surviving on their own.
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