Sunday Snippet: The Audio Books & Memories Edition

I’ve just started listening to audiobooks recently—frankly, since my own book, Forever Cowboy, was released on audio. (Little plug there. Yeah, I’m shameless.) Anyway, I never thought I could listen to an audiobook in the car and keep my focus on driving. Surprisingly, I’m finding that I can, indeed, listen to an audiobook and drive.

I started with Claire Cook’s Must Love Dogs because I’ve read the book, enjoyed the film they made from it, and I know the story. I thought maybe if I knew a story it would be less likely to distract me while I was driving. Last month, I listened as I drove up to a town about an hour north of here to meet Liz for a work day. It was enjoyable and not at all distracting.

I listened to my own book, but not in the car. I listened to it in bed before I went to sleep. The readers were good and it was different and fun and okay, a little weird to hear strangers reading my book aloud. I liked it though. Being read aloud to was kinda soothing and peaceful, even if they were my own words. So I joined Audible and bought the audiobook of The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter.

Now, I’ve talked to you guys before about how much I love Stratton-Porter’s books. About how she was my introduction to real romantic heroes–David Langston (The Harvester), Terence O’More (Freckles), Philip Ammon (A Girl of the Limberlost), James MacFarlane (The Keeper of the Bees) and others. Gentle, gracious, strong men all, whose stories paved the way for my own beta heroes. Mother read every single Gene Stratton-Porter novel to us when we were kids—in the winters as we huddled under blankets together in her bed, summers, while we camped on the shore of Lake Michigan. Instead of spending our evenings watching TV, we spent them listening to Mom read, doing all the voices, bringing those stories to life in front of our very eyes.

So, yesterday, as I was driving home from dropping Grandboy at his house (he’d spent the night with us, always a joy), I turned on Audible on my phone and started The Harvester. The lovely voice of the reader came through my car speakers as  she began telling the story of David Langston asking his dog Belshazzar to help him with their annual ritual of choosing how they would continue their lives—stay in the woods and continue growing herbs or move to the city (Bel chose to stay); and do they or do they not go courting? (For the first time ever, Bel indicated David should go courting.)

When she got to the part where the Harvester gets furious with the dog making the choice to go courting, I got a lump in my throat. When she read about him making his supper and still fuming at the thought of possibly bringing a woman to his isolated farm and hermit life, I was blinking back tears. And by the time she read the part where he’s sitting on the stoop watching the moon make a golden path across the lake, I had to pull over into a flower shop parking lot because I couldn’t see to drive for weeping.

It wasn’t the story—I know this story almost as well as I know my own. It was having it read aloud to me for the first time since Mom read it to us as we sat around a campfire in Muskegon State Park. In that moment, I missed Mom so much that my heart ached. As the memories washed over me, I missed my sister, Kate, too, who could never sit still when Mom read aloud. I was always enraptured, Kate was squirmy, although it only ever took a hard stare from Mom to get her to sit still again. I laid my head on the steering wheel and wept for a life long past, for Mom’s mellow voice bringing The Harvester to life, for my sisters and brother and sharing those times, for Mom encouraging me to write the stories that filled my ten-year-old imagination, and for her faith in me that one day, I would be a real writer.

After a few minutes, I took a couple of deep shaky breaths, found a napkin in the console to wipe my eyes and blow my nose, and got back on the road. But I didn’t turn the audiobook back on just then. I rode in silence, thinking of Mom and hoping that wherever she is, she’s somehow able to read my books.

Hey, Mom, I did it! I’m a writer!

Gratitude for This Week: Words are being written—book 3 in the Juniper Falls Ranch series is coming together. Walks with my neighbors. The Christmas tree is still bringing us joy. I got my new rack cards ordered—yay! An evening with Grandboy.

Stay well, stay safe, speak out when you can—it’s the only way to save our democracy, and most of all mes, amis, stay grateful!